CommonSpace columnist and Common Weal director Robin McAlpine says that despite grim current events, we have an opportunity to reshape the future of our nation
SCOTLAND is important – or it should be. In fact, Scotland could be the most important place in the world.
Because we are perhaps the one place that has seen a popular uprising against the established political and economic order which did not result in a right-wing demagogue or racist and xenophobic rhetoric.
The world is scrabbling around, trying to find a solution to the crisis which seems now to be everywhere. In the west, you can argue that only Scotland, Iceland, Greece and to some extent Spain really stood as a possible solution. Of those, only Scotland and Iceland seem to me to be still in the running – and Iceland is probably too wee for the world to take proper note.
The world is scrabbling around, trying to find a solution to the crisis which seems now to be everywhere.
Among the wailing and gnashing of teeth that has met the Trump victory, the cry “what do we do?” has been heard everywhere. Mostly answers fell apart even while words were still in the air – the liberal belief that somehow it is 'our values' or 'who we are' or frankly our Facebook profile picture that matters.
Narcissistic nonsense. It's not who we are that counts but what we do. Change comes not from our values but from our actions. Your latest twibbon means nothing.
Every time I read hand-wringing pieces in Scotland about letting the world know that while England (or France or the US or Hungary or Russia or Poland…) may have descended into barbarism, in Scotland we're somehow still civilised, I fear for the future.
It's not who we are that counts but what we do. Change comes not from our values but from our actions.
It's not that Scots ARE better, it’s that we DID better. It’s not that we're genetically nice, it’s that our stars aligned and when we had an independence referendum we had a series of circumstances which enabled us to be optimistic, positive and clear-sighted. We had a positive vision for our future.
Right now, by the day, we are squandering that legacy. People who live in a triangle which stretches from Glasgow to Edinburgh to London seem to think that if we can just save the Erasmus programme then we can pretend like nothing is happening.
When we had an independence referendum we had a series of circumstances which enabled us to be optimistic, positive and clear-sighted.
It may be a function of where I live, but I am bemused by this. I live in Biggar. My world goes west through Rigside to Larkhall to Hamilton. North to Carnwath and then either Forth, Wilsontown, Longridge, Whitburn and on to the Falkirk direction, or to West Calder and Livingston.
Lanark, Carluke, Wishaw, Motherwell. Douglas, Glespin, Muirkirk, Cumnock. Peebles, Innerleithen, Walkerburn, Galashiels. Penicuik, Auchendinny, Bilston, Loanhead. These are the places which an hour’s drive in any direction takes me.
For many of the people who live there, a right to work freely in Berlin or Vienna isn't tangential to their lives but delusionally irrelevant.
Some of these places have been getting 'regenerated' since I was born. For many of the people who live there, a right to work freely in Berlin or Vienna isn't tangential to their lives but delusionally irrelevant. Protecting international free market capitalism isn't high on their agenda.
In the US, Hillary Clinton's team did a kind of photo-op of their candidate taking the subway. When she got there, her staff had to intervene because she didn't know how the ticketing system worked. She was a senator in New York for eight years.
Half of the population of Scotland lives on an annual income of about £20,000 or less. It's been a pretty tough depression for them.
Right now, I hear people telling me that there are complex work-arounds which might keep Scotland in the 'free market'. I wonder how comfortable they would be buying a roll and square sausage from a portacabin in Bathgate.
Half of the population of Scotland lives on an annual income of about £20,000 or less. It's been a pretty tough depression for them. (And yes, it has been a depression.) Lots of middle class public sector workers are going to lose their jobs soon.
No one I know from my 'civilian' life is crying out for a 'moderate, realistic, business-focused' vision of Scotland's future.
Even in comparatively affluent Biggar, we're potentially going to see our Youth Project shut down because the council is slashing everyone's grants. (Declaration of interest – I'm on the Board). No one I know from my 'civilian' life is crying out for a 'moderate, realistic, business-focused' vision of Scotland's future.
And yet, for reasons that are beyond me, that's what they're apparently going to get. The Brexit gang may believe we can turn back the clock to the 1950s. Parts of the left may occasionally believe it is still the 1970s.
If that is the bubble in which they insist in living, ignoring the real conditions of people's lives in Scotland, they will be devoured by angry people who are losing the ability to live a good life.
But Scotland's EU-rophile liberals are utterly convinced that it's still 1992. If that is the bubble in which they insist in living, ignoring the real conditions of people's lives in Scotland, they will be devoured by angry people who are losing the ability to live a good life. It may take longer than it has in England or France or the US, but a political class which thinks you can 'test the poverty out of primary school kids' is on borrowed time.
That version of Scotland will be irrelevant, a footnote in the history books when they document the rise of conflict in the early years of the 21st century.
But there is another role Scotland could play in history. If we recognise that we have an opportunity few others have and we live up to that opportunity, we can be the alternative story people tell their children at night.
If we recognise that we have an opportunity few others have and we live up to that opportunity, we can be the alternative story people tell their children at night.
“There's a small country in the north. It was part of an empire of greed which made the people poor and the powerful rich. All around them, other parts of that kingdom fell into anger and nastiness as they blamed others for their plight.
“But that one small country decided there was a better way. It stopped pretending that reorganising quangos meant anything. Instead it reorganised its economy so that people benefited, not multinational corporations, not criminal banks, not a fat, self-service ruling class.
Instead it reorganised its economy so that people benefited, not multinational corporations, not criminal banks, not a fat, self-service ruling class.
“It created a new kind of democracy in which people shaped their own lives, communities and nation. It reclaimed houses as a place to live, trains and busses as ways to travel, the post, the phones and the internet as ways to let citizens communicate. These things had become ways for the rich to take money from the people.
“It united the poor and the struggling middle classes. It united the dispossessed young and old. It united productive domestic businesses with them all.
“It united a nation not in anger at someone else, not in despair that things were unfixable, not in resignation that this is as good as it gets, but in the inalienable belief that every one of us has the right to believe in a future better than the present.
“It united the poor and the struggling middle classes. It united the dispossessed young and old. It united productive domestic businesses with them all.
“It was a belief which had nothing to do with someone talking (and talking) about their values. It was a belief rooted deeply in a long tradition of that little country – that it is what you do that matters, not what you say.
“That little country was Scotland. We looked to it in our darkest moments because it helped us, too, to believe that the future could be better than the present.”
It was one of the fundamental rules of unionism that Scotland was insignificant, that it would never be important. I fear that our political class is working to prove them right – reorganising quangos is back.
It was a belief rooted deeply in a long tradition of that little country – that it is what you do that matters, not what you say.
To read much of what has been written about Scotland in the era of Trump, it seems that we must all now congregate in a kind of centre ground stasis. If we can get a deal that keeps Scotland as much as possible like it is right now (perhaps with a few extra powers by way of compromise), we should be grateful.
I'm begging people to wake up from this awful torpor, this wrong-headed defeatism. A moderate, 'middle ground' offers us nothing but our own decline. If you don't get it yet, read this.
We, as a nation, are better than that – or at least we've shown that we can be. It is more than possible to respond to this world by designing a better kind of nation, more fit for this century, more fit for the people who live in this, real, hurting Scotland.
It is more than possible to respond to this world by designing a better kind of nation, more fit for this century, more fit for the people who live in this, real, hurting Scotland.
We have the chance to redesign our institutions, our infrastructure, our economy, our democracy. In fact, if we chose to be an independent nation, we will have to.
If the political will over the last six months had gone into building a future, not desperately trying to shore up the past, we'd be so much closer to somewhere worth being.
Please, please, if for one moment – just a moment – during the last independence referendum, irrespective of how you voted, if for just for a moment you wondered if possibly this could be the chance to build the kind of country you want to live in, search deep for that memory. Optimism may soon be more precious than you can currently imagine.
We have the chance to redesign our institutions, our infrastructure, our economy, our democracy. In fact, if we chose to be an independent nation, we will have to.
There isn't much time left. I fear that the window of opportunity to build a new Scotland is closing. It will finally slam shut when Scotland's governed class finally loses patience and trust in its governing class. Take a little trip outside Holyrood-world and you'll discover that patience is already wearing thin and trust is in decline.
I believe our generation will be remembered in Scottish history as either heroes or cowards, five million men, women and children who either shaped the world or gave into it. Which do you think we are right now?
I believe our generation will be remembered in Scottish history as either heroes or cowards, five million men, women and children who either shaped the world or gave into it. Which do you think we are right now?
Scotland can be important. Scotland can be the most important place in the world. It is not impossible for us to change history. But we're going to have to change our own history first.
And if by any chance, my outpourings here have left you wondering which other person that isn't you is responsible for changing our history, you have missed my point completely.
Picture courtesy of Alf Melin
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