The two key reasons why we were marching for independence

“ACTIVISM is the rent I pay for being alive” so, at the age of 80, I may be forgiven a certain amount of pride at having completed the not-so-long March to Glasgow Green on Saturday. This sense of achievement is in no way diminished by Mark Smith’s piece today (“Four ways the independence marchers have got it wrong”, The Herald, May 7), where he lists four ways to support his claim that we “got it wrong”. I will not respond to these in sequence, but offer two ways in which we indubitably got it right.

First, I marched because not to march means that you are satisfied – more or less – with the status quo. “Qui tacet vult consentire” as the old legal maxim runs; silence is consent. While I hope that others are moved to respond to my witness, its justification does not depend on their reaction. I marched because it is the right thing to do, just as it was when Martin Luther King led the marches in the 1960s for civil rights in the United States, and against the American war on Vietnam, or the many forgotten heroines who marched for women’s suffrage 100 years ago.

Independence is a normal and desirable state for modern European nations. Estonia has a smaller population than the old Strathclyde region but is an independent state, as are Denmark, Ireland and others, and so on. It is, per se, a desirable thing.

The second reason overrides all other considerations. The Doomsday Clock is closer to midnight than it has ever been in the past – even at the height of the Cuban Missile crisis, which Robert Mcnamara described as “the most dangerous moment in history”. But nobody in the UK cares. We live in denial. The British nationalist response to this crisis is to replace Trident with a newer more effective weapon for the mass killing of civilians. Meanwhile in the real world 122 states in the UN voted last year to support a Treaty banning the production, stockpiling or threatened use of nuclear weapons. We, and the other eight rogue nuclear sates, boycotted this – naturally.

Andrei Sakharov, the Nobel prizewinning physicist and “father” of the Soviet H bomb, said “the struggle against nuclear war must take precedence over every other human activity and interest”. He was right then and even more right today.

Scottish independence means an end to Trident and a unique blessing to our cousins in England, and to the world. Our children may yet live to see their grandchildren.

This is what independence means to me and the many other lovely people who marched together to Glasgow Green on Saturday. The future – if we are going to have one – belongs to us.

Brian M Quail,

2 Hyndland Avenue,

Glasgow.

WITH the All Under One Banner march through Glasgow on Saturday and the campaigners stating that they will march at “regular intervals until Scotland is free”, I can’t help but feel that the cause of Scottish nationalism is starting to reach its decadent, terminal phase now.

Rather than debating, formulating original ideas or treating Unionists as opponents rather than enemies, the stunts seem to be getting larger, angrier and more ludicrously exuberant now.

We’ve had Bridges for Indy, a plan to form a human chain to the top of Ben Nevis (Hint: you’ll need a lot more than 9,000 people), the now evicted Indycamp group outside the Scottish Parliament, the boycotting of food products with the “butcher’s apron” and the constant presence of All Under One Banner who romp through Glasgow a few times a year.

Being able to mobilise tens of thousands of already engaged people (some zealously so) might look good for a modicum of publicity, but it doesn’t necessarily conflate with political clout or persuasion.

Ultimately, they are hollow gestures for the vast majority of Scots. But with the nationalist cause being bereft of ideas and those that they do have being unpalatable to an electorate, they will continue on autopilot, marching while dreaming the next scheme of distraction.

David Bone,

1 Ailsa Street West, Girvan.

THE flaw in Martin Redfern’s political treatise (Letters, May 7) is that he sets out to “set the record straight” on nationalism and patriotism, while ending up demolishing his case that he is merely expressing a political opinion.

His judgment about the SNP’S raison d’etre being to split the UK is absurd. What they and their supporters, and others, want is for Scotland to govern itself, full stop. Why shouldn’t we? How many English does he consider are patriotic towards Scotland, or does Scotland as a nation preclude that?

He seems to be throwing in the towel regarding the prospects for a Unionist party governing Scotland with his denigration of the SNP. With independence, any party could form the government. Why do they fear it so much?

Douglas R Mayer,

76 Thomson Crescent, Currie, Midlothian.

ROSEMARY Goring writes a good back-patting piece on the Scots’ ability to invent and provide much of what has made the modern world (“The Scots who won’t take ‘don’t know’ for an answer”, The Herald, May 4). She makes reference to the American historian Arthur Herman’s book on the Scottish Enlightenment regarding this as a possible genesis for this phenomenon. Around pages 109/110 of the book in question, Herman states that the Scottish Enlightenment leaders who came to the fore after the Union with England took to referring to themselves as North Britons. He then observes that no English similar intellectual referred to themselves as South Britons.

I am now an almost mid-70s Remainer and look back on the past 60 years of education and work and recall in my early working life noticing a letter from a customer in Aberdeen. His address gave a postcode (if that is what they were called then) of NB. On asking elder colleagues what this meant, was informed “North Britain”.

I also have recollections of signing hotel registers as being British, being brought up as that and being part of the then Scottish province. The naive me of then was put down by colleagues from Manchester signing their nationality as English. When I mentioned this I remember being put well and truly in my place.

Even today I suggest that this is still the case and not much has changed from the time of Union. I have no problems with national identities but it would be good if Ruth Davidson could persuade her pals in Westminster to really make Britain great, being the sum of its parts and not being England with some other bits that are often identified as being bits of England, and rather than all the bits being Britain. This might help her Unionist cause but I don’t think she will be able to do it.

Until then, when I sign hotel registers I will be Scottish.

Ian Gray,

Low Cottage, Croftamie.