Thin-skinned Yessers must learn to take critism
Darren Mcgarvey
Hell froze over last week when pro-indy columnist and blogger Wee Ginger Dug broke a five-year amnesty by cobbling together a public criticism of the SNP.
He claimed the Scottish Government had scored an own goal by reintroducing tail-docking. What the piece showed was that we each have a moral threshold that cannot be crossed. We all have an issue upon which there can be no compromise; an ethical line that mustn’t be breached. His is dogs.
But before setting off on his perilous descent into a twilight zone where the government of a country might warrant criticism, he couldn’t help but take a swipe at those of us who have been consistently critical of the SNP, even implying that’s the reason some of us have been given platforms in the mainstream media – MSM – when he wrote: “It’s not a coincidence that the independence supporters who vocally and frequently make public criticisms of the SNP are the ones most likely to find themselves being offered writing gigs in the Unionist press. The Unionist press isn’t doing that because it’s keen to promote diversity within the wider Yes movement.”
But those of us who have been criticising the SNP also have red lines. Red lines that extend beyond the welfare of household pets. Red lines about things like truth, intellectual honesty and rigour and the small issue of the quality of education the poorest children in our country are receiving.
So, while I commend him for publicly criticising the SNP, for its “act of stupidity”, I must also draw attention to the fact that it’s not the first time the beloved party has fallen short of the lofty moral expectations it created in 2014.
Wee Ginger Dug, a writer of considerable talent, was one of the first to get offered a job in the MSM after the referendum, and rightly so. Let’s not forget, The National, as well as offering political air support to the SNP, was greenlit because it made financial sense to recapture the market share lost when the Yes movement began rejecting ‘Yoon’ publications.
However, I take Wee Ginger Dug’s point that a few of us have enjoyed increased visibility since the referendum. But this has mainly been because there is little room in the pro-indy new media apparatus to be critical of the SNP without hell being unleashed upon you.
Bella Caledonia nearly folded because it featured aspiring writers like myself. I stopped writing for it because I could see the level of personal and professional strain the editor was under, preparing for a backlash each time my work was published. In a movement that was forged on a desire to create a divergent culture, this contempt for criticism and critics from some quarters struck me as odd. As time passed, it began to worry me.
Like many others, I met with the editor of The National in late 2014 and discussed the possibility of doing some stuff for them. I even filed a draft of a piece for publication and received some feedback. But after giving it some more thought I decided this was not something I wanted to pursue because I was anxious about fencing myself off in a corner of culture where my view was not welcome.
Since then, like others, I have pursued my own strategy that consists of carving out a vantage point on the cliff-face of Scottish culture from where I guide heatseeking missiles towards the people who cross my red lines. And I will never apologise for it. Last year it was STV, this year it’s the Scotsman and never once have I been prompted by an editor to write an anti-snp piece. Not ever.
For me, the Yes movement was the promise of a better quality of thought and dialogue. A higher vibration of political and cultural consciousness. I reasoned that should we wish to create a genuinely morally-divergent society then we would have to subject ourselves to a higher standard of thought and conduct.
I still believe in that promise and, in many sections of the movement, I see it fulfilled. But there is still much to be done and we have a lot of growing up to do. We have to recognise that fear of self-criticism is a legacy of the SNP and that suppressing such criticism is a big turn-off for many on the outside looking in.
If tail-docking is the issue that really gets your blood going then more power to you. I respect anyone who uses their platform to swing for the powerbrokers in our society. That’s precisely why many of us have been outspoken about the SNP for so long. We think to ourselves: ‘How can an independent Scotland be morally distinct from the UK if we’re falling for the same cheap parlour tricks as before regarding where power really lies in our society?’ For me, that’s the only question worth asking.
Wee Ginger Dug speaks for a certain kind of Yes voter, who believes we harm the chances of independence by criticising the SNP and the Yes movement. I speak for another, who believes a nation won on such terms is not worth having. Darren Mcgarvey is also known as Loki, a Scottish rapper and social commentator @lokiscottishrap