Since 2014, we have grown in confidence and empowerment
When Donald Dewar became First Minister of Scotland, I truly expected the devolutionary step to develop into a giant leap sooner than later.
Over the years I watched the SNP grow in stature as well as membership, so much so that I actually believed that I would see independence in my lifetime.
But life can be nasty. Maggie Thatcher destroyed our industry; income from oil was completely squandered, nothing invested for the future. So, Labour got us our devolution but now seem intent on destroying same, such a disappointment. As for the Tories, words can’t express my utter contempt for all they stand for. What has happened to the LibDems? Charlie Kennedy didn’t represent the party I wanted, but he was the closest to being a decent politician; he actually listened to his electorate and helped them.
The SNP’s fortunes have wavered over the years, some due to their
Surely our children deserve a better life than this?
incompetence but mostly as a result of the nasty biased media. I cannot, and never will, understand just how we Scots can sit back and allow our resources to disappear AGAIN; renewable resources are our future, but we sit back and let all the power go into the National Grid where we have to buy it back at an inflated rate!
I, apparently, am in the generation that didn’t vote for independence in the referendum – if that is the case, then I apologise for those who can’t see past the end of their noses. Surely our children and grandchildren deserve a better life than this?! Poverty ought to have disappeared with Charles Dickens’s reports on life in the 1800s, but it is rife and growing; this is shameful in this day and age.
I will continue to look through my rose-tinted glasses and hope Scotland will one day wake up and smell the coffee.
Rosemarie Hogg Cromarty
READERS of The National will be familiar with the Chinese curse threatening us with the dangers and challenges of “living in interesting times”, but independence campaigners know that such times are the petri dish of opportunity and Scotland is currently a living laboratory of interesting experiments.
Nearly 50 years ago Neil Ascherson said that the Scottish version of history consists of “extolling the virtues of passive suffering and glorifying moments of volcanic violence”. He ascribed this weird oscillation of emotions to a defining contradiction in Scottish society – “the old contradiction between self-assertion and self-distrust”. A national pathology.
This diagnosis has been true for a long time but we’re finally moving on. Transition is a process, not a quick flick of the page. There’s still plenty of evidence of the old Scottish disease (belligerence, contempt, outrage, and all the other symptoms of powerlessness) in the binary Yes/No positions presented in the letters pages of The Herald and The Scotsman.
It’s here too in The National, where assertive independence supporters berate those they perceive to be moving too cautiously towards the common goal. It’s online and on social media particularly, where campaigners pause by the wayside to argue about policy, moral standpoints and personal views on tactics, while the key constitutional issues trundle by.
So some will see us still locked in opposition both to each other and within ourselves, between self-assertion and self-distrust. But the truth is, revolution (which is what we’re after) is messy and its trajectory won’t be visible until the history of it is written. Meanwhile we have, in the years since the failed referendum, expressed our rage and disappointment at that Scottish triumph of self-distrust over self-assertion by doubling down on political campaigning and community activity, organising events, marching, arguing, starting community enterprises, plugging gaps in state provision with charities, opening community shops and generally engaging with new confidence and commitment to taking charge of ourselves. This has (some might say, particularly for women) changed self-assertion into self-confidence and self-distrust into self-empowerment.
We who campaign know this. We know too that we are increasingly coming together and looking for common ground, working across silos, and collaborating. A diverse group of around 50 attending the Independence Forum Scotland last month is one example. Believe in Scotland (with its 142 affiliated grassroots Yes groups) collaborating with Yes for EU, Pensioners for Independence and Salvo in Perth is another. Common Weal’s “Realistic Strategy for Independence” combining and refining the SNP hard yards of leg work and leafleting by suggesting a more strategic and targeted take on who is persuadable. Yes Highlands & Islands having monthly meetings with a range of independence supporters of different political hues and views.
The world is increasingly turbulent. Turbulent times are interesting times. Times of opportunity. No-one is “extolling the virtues of passive suffering” any more or “glorifying past moments of volcanic violence”. We are organising.
Frances Roberts Ardrishaig
JUST to remind all those folk out there who do not appear to know that ageism is illegal. Totally scunnered with remarks about weakness in all sorts of areas, particularly technology, of older women. Time to mature, folks, and consider the intelligence, survival strategies and overall input to families and communities of mature women.
Alice Sharp via email