A SHOW OF SOLIDARITY
IT was a tumultuous week for Scottish politics, but the All Under One Banner (AUOB) march in Glasgow served up an important reminder of how strong the Yes movement remains.
Glasgow was adorned with saltires and Palestinian flags on Saturday as thousands of people took to the streets to show their support for Scottish independence.
The AUOB rally marched from Kelvingrove Park to Glasgow Green, where stalls, speakers and around 60 Yes Bikers were all waiting at the finish line.
Although the Saor Alba pipe band had to drop out at the last minute due to illness, this didn’t stop others from making their own music.
As I wandered up and down the procession, I heard everything from bagpipes and drums to speakers blasting The Proclaimers’ 500 Miles on repeat.
The energy was truly infectious. Even though there were people of all ages here, dressed in all kinds of tartan-esque outfits and yelling a whole variety of chants, they were all marching for the same cause. And independence is catching on.
Is independence “frustratingly close”? Anyone who goes to marches like this will know it feels well within reach. Whilst we may have our differences as Yessers, we all strive for the same goal.
I got chatting with Eric Paul, one of the lead stewards organising the rally, having been involved with these marches from the very beginning.
“Scotland is basically a cash cow, everything that we have, all our resources, goes down south,” Paul said.
“It’s wrong – look at the likes of Norway, we could be in that world. But we’re struggling because everything was taken away from us.
“It’s not that we don’t like the English, I’ve got a lot of good English friends and I know a lot of English folks who want Scotland to be free.
“But we must get rid of that government. If we don’t, that’s us ruined.”
When I asked people attending the rally what Scottish independence meant to them, pretty much everyone told me the same thing: Freedom.
Freedom from Westminster, freedom in Europe and freedom for all oppressed nations across the world.
The last point in particular couldn’t have been made clearer. The sea of flags in the crowd were made up of equal parts Scotland and Palestine.
Many of the speeches were dedicated to the crisis in Gaza, with particular tribute paid to the newly elected rector of Glasgow University, Palestinian surgeon Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah.
A huge focus was also placed on the closure of Grangemouth, Scotland’s only oil refinery, which looks set to cost around 100 jobs.
I spoke to some key political figures within the independence movement. Former first minister and Alba party leader Alex Salmond told me it was nice to see “so many different aspects of independence brought together, represented in one march”.
Meanwhile, SNP MP Alison Thewliss said the only way to gather support for independence is by “having those important conversations”, whether it be friends or “people at the bus stop”.
With that being said, the independence movement isn’t defined by the voices of those in charge. It’s defined by the people.
As we turned onto George Street, I heard one of the stewards exclaim: “Grassroots is back, baby!”
And they were right – judging from the turnout (one of the organisers told me they estimated around 5000 people had rocked up), the grassroots movement isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Previous marches I’ve attended have been led by some weel-kent faces – take Humza Yousaf and Martin Compston at the Believe in Scotland rally only a few weeks ago.
This time around, it was volunteers plucked from the crowd. Many of them hadn’t even met each other before.
And this is what is at the heart of the independence movement; it’s about bringing people together; it’s about acknowledging the passionate voices of real people across Scotland and uniting them.
Let’s keep listening, and let’s keep marching forward.