The Rebel Ink Columns

JUNE 9TH: BOYCOTT YAHOO!

2006-06-09T09:00:00.000Z

Up until a few weeks ago, few people would have known the story of Shi Tau. But since 30th April this year –when a draconian sentence of ten years imprisonment was meted out to him by the Chinese authorities - Shi Tau is rapidly becoming an international cause celebre who could help bring one of the biggest new media companies in the world either to its senses, or to it knees.

Until his incarceration Shi Tau was a 37 year old journalist working for a Chinese daily newspaper (Dangdai Shang Bao). Like many other journalists in China Shi Tau received an internal message from the Chinese government warning about the potential “social destabilisation” that would result if Chinese dissidents returned on the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Shi Tau decided to make this odious warning public knowledge and he (anonymously) emailed it to a number of foreign websites. The Chinese government were furious and wanted revenge.

Enter the corporate dragon - in the guise of Yahoo! Yahoo! Holdings (Hong Kong) complied fully with the Chinese government and managed to link the anonymous emails to the personal IP address of Shi Tau, knowing full well what this meant for the journalist involved.

For many years now Yahoo! – like Google and other search engines – have censored the free flow on information in China. But Shi Tau’s case was something of a different nature and much more sinister. This was a US-based multinational media corporation acting as police informants, collaborating with a totalitarian regime in order to incarcerate political dissidents.

Shi Tau isn’t the only victim of Yahoo!’s despicable actions in China. Since Shi Tau’s imprisonment it has come to light that in 2003, Wang Xiaoning, another Chinese dissident, was sentenced to ten years imprisonment for “incitement to subvert state power”. He had used the internet to advocate a multi-party system. Like Shi Tau, his identity was systematically tracked down by Yahoo! Holdings. Many other such cases are being uncovered.

Yahoo! has answered that they have no alternative but to comply with the Chinese government. What they don’t mention is that in Aug 2005 Yahoo! bought a 40% stake – investing $1billon in cash – in alibaba.com, which is China’s largest e-commerce company. This follows a $120m purchase of Chinese search engine 3721.com.

The ugly truth is that Yahoo! are motivated by profit, and profit alone, playing the role of police informant in order to get lucrative contracts with the Chinese authorities.

Thankfully this Nazi-esque behaviour by Yahoo! is being challenged internationally. The NUJ – joining forces with Privacy International and Reporters Without Borders – have now called for a total users boycott of all Yahoo! services, including email accounts, e-groups, search engines, etc.

Yahoo! is vulnerable, make no mistake about it. If this boycott spreads across the internet – as is already happening – then they can be hurt badly, or even brought to their knees. But it means putting the lofty ideals of internationalism into practical action. Not in a tokenistic way, but by taking solidarity action, publicising them, and spreading the boycott like a computer virus.

In the light of Yahoo!’s actions I’ve decided to withdraw from all e-groups hosted on Yahoo! and am closing down my Yahoo! email address. The SSP has many e-groups hosted on Yahoo! – including our National Council list and SSP Discuss list. To continue to operate or contribute to them in light of what’s happening would totally unacceptable, against our stated principle of internationalism, and would be the equivalent of crossing a virtual picket line.

Yes, it is inconvenient, but not nearly as inconvenient as it is to the Chinese dissidents rotting in jail for the next ten years.

Yahoo! is the ugly face of the new electronic media. It is complicit in human rights abuses and is investing (and profiting) in oppression. Do the decent thing: Boycott Yahoo! and spread the virus. And let’s show the other new media corporations what lies in store if they go down this road.

JUNE 2ND: UNDERDOG FEVER

2006-06-02T09:00:00.000Z

WORLD CUP FEVER

Thank goodness for football. Party politicking in the SSP aint exactly putting smiles on many faces these days and while we wait to find the outcome of a certain court case (I can hardly not mention it) for those inclined towards kicking balls there’s the World Cup in Germany to get excited about.

I realise that some of my mates think I’m a closet England fan and will automatically be supporting Sven’s boys (just because I like to drink ma coffee out of an England Three Lions coffee mug) but my customary allegiance to our nearest and dearest neighbours is not automatic.

For instance during the European Championships two years ago I took a neutral role when an English friend of mine asked if Scots automatically supported anyone England played. I shrugged and said Edinburgh’s no really like that. It’s quite an English-friendly city in many ways.

En route to meeting me in a pub in Canonmills she phoned and asked if people in the pub were supporting France against England. She said she’d leave if Scots were being racist. I reassured her that it was cool, England were winning anyway, and there was only five minutes left to play.

Two late French goals and I tried in vain to explain that the reason the whole pub was jumping up and down and standing on tables singing the Marseillaise was in solidarity with the revolutionary traditions of the French proletariat. Some ya win.

Anyway, this year I‘ve decided to break with tradition and support one of the smaller teams. My gut instinct was to go for Scotland in the guise of Jason of that name - via Trinidad & Tobago - but Jack McConnell’s blessing for Jason Scotland and Co. was enough to make me look further afield. This is a tough call since former Hibs favourite Russell Latapy plays for the T&Ts.

Any team from Eastern Europe is ruled out because they’re bound to be full of Jambos – either real or closet. (At this point I was about to mention how well Heart of Midlothian did last season, what with qualifying for the Champions League ahead of the Sons of William and even beating a second division team on penalties for Scottish Cup glory. But nobody wants to hear about last season. Its old news and not particularly interesting either).

I’m zoning in on the ultimate underdogs in Ghana – who’ve been drawn against Germany, Italy and the USA in (wait for the cliché) “the group of death”. Ghana may be outsiders but they’re coming onto their game at the right time.

The Ghana coach, Ratomir Dujkovic, got cocky last week after beating the reggae boys of Jamaica: "We are getting better each game and by the time of the World Cup we will be ready to beat any team." I’m liking the cut of this bloke’s jib. With players like Chelsea’s Essien and Roma’s Kuffour running the show in midfield and in defence the days when African nations were also-rans are well and truly over.

The chances of Ghana beating the Germany and Italy are maybe on a par with the SSP taking over the reins of government in 2007 but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion they might rise to the occasion.

While I’d be excited about seeing Brazil and France meet in the final – the final we’d all secretly like to see - I’d love even more to see an African team win the World Cup.

But the final’s still a few weeks down the road. Until then we’ve got plenty of opportunity to marvel at the skills of Paraguay, Sweden and all the other great teams who will be out to win over the affections of the neutrals.

So roll on Germany v Costa Rica on June 9th. And once again, thank goodness for the beautiful game.

MAY 26TH: CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING

2006-05-26T10:30:00.000Z

It would be inappropriate for me to make any comment on it here but there’s no doubt that the court case between Tommy Sheridan and the News of the World is going to be high profile and will provoke strong and even conflicting feelings among many SSP members.

I’ve always taken the position that when anyone sues the Murdoch Empire I hope they screw them for every penny they can get since News International are lying anti-working class scabs whose actions during the Wapping dispute, and after the Hillsborough disaster, marked them out as lower on the social ladder than pimps and high court judges.

However, in the difficult situation that both Tommy Sheridan and the SSP currently find themselves in, it is necessary to step back and try and make political sense of what has happened. These are difficult times, but, for the sake of a better understanding, it helps to try and put the events of 2004 into their proper political context.

My own passionate support for Scottish Independence has been reiterated enough on these pages without having to restate it here. However, if we step aside from the current legal situation, and look objectively at the chronology of events – from a political perspective – then there is much food for thought.

Here are some of the key political developments, in a rough chronological order - except told from the perspective of the British state with regards to the national question:

1997-MAY 2003: Despite fears over Devolution, the situation is under relative control. Neither the SSP nor any of the other pro-Independence parties have tried to rouse and publicly mobilise the huge dormant support that exists for Scottish Independence and for the break of the British state.

LATE 2002-EARLY 2003: Opposition to the British state’s involvement in Iraq is escalating. An unprecedented anti-war movement develops in Scotland which is supported by the three pro-Independence parties. Possible political ramifications of this need to be monitored.

MAY 2003: Every warning sign is flashing red. Six socialists have been elected to Holyrood representing a party that champions the break up of the British state, with all the ensuing dangers that would mean for control of both North Sea Oil and the UK’s nuclear arsenal. There are now a total of 42 MSPs out of 129 elected to a Scottish parliament who support Scottish Independence.

MAY 2003-OCT 2004: The three main pro-Independence parties begin preliminary discussions for the establishment of a cross-party Independence Convention. Support for the SSP climbs to over 10% in some opinion polls. A potential crisis situation is developing in Scotland around the question of Independence.

9th OCT 2004: The SSP, in conjunction with some of the most influential thinkers and writers in Scotland issue a Calton Hill Declaration at an event attended by over 1000 people. This is the first public mobilisation for Scottish Independence since Devolution. Championing the cause of Scottish Independence is the charismatic and popular SSP leader, Tommy Sheridan, who at the Calton Hill rally even gets the crowd to chant that they are Not British. A potentially serious situation is now developing. It must be contained by any means necessary

NOV 2004: The News of the World prints a series of salacious articles centred around Tommy Sheridan’s private life designed to do as much damage as possible to the public’s support for Tommy Sheridan and the SSP.

9th NOV 2004: Tommy Sheridan resigns as SSP National Convenor.

NOV 2004-PRESENT: Public support for the SSP drops back to below 5%. The SSP back’s away from further cross-party public mobilisations for the cause of Scottish Independence. Mission accomplished. Situation to be continually monitored.

This column should not be read as any sort of comment on the current discussions around an ongoing court case. But it is an attempt to put current events in their political context and should be read as such.

MAY 19TH: UNDERSTANDING POWER

2006-05-19T10:37:00.000Z

I was asked recently what book would I recommend as an introduction to socialism. That’s quite a tough question and I’m a bit wary of promoting alternative bibles. But just one book?

In centuries gone by socialists might have dug out a copy of The Communist Manifesto, - and maybe paired it up with Robert Tressell’s fictional masterpiece, The Ragged Trouser Philanthropists - and said, “there ye go, that should cover all yer theoretical needs, now away oot and sell some newspapers.”

In more recent years I’ve recommended Imagine (by Alan McCombes and Tommy Sheridan). In many ways it’s a much needed update of The Communist Manifesto, but made relevant to the 21st century.

All of these books are well worth checking out, with plenty of food for thought. But are any of them an introduction to “socialism”?

These three books are good expositions of what is wrong in our society, and how it could be so much better were it not for things like poverty, exploitation, war and social injustice. But what do they say about “socialism”?

The practical realities of socialism are left to the future. What are being presented in such books are a defence of struggle as well as a vague vision of the future based on ideals and possibilities.

Take Karl Marx for instance. Marx wrote copious indictments of capitalism as an economic or social system, plus many philosophical polemics against old men nobody has ever heard of anymore. But what did he write about socialism? Or even a post-capitalist society?

Not much, if the truth be told. Noam Chomsky claimed, “there’s nothing about socialism in Marx, he wasn’t a socialist philosopher – there are about five sentences in Marx’s whole work that refer to socialism. He was a theorist of capitalism.”

Maybe Marx was smart enough to avoid crystal ball gazing. Many of those who have attempted to describe what socialism would be like have ended up floundering about in pseudo-religious fortune telling. Or worse, have ended up trying to justify the existence of tyrannical authoritarian regimes that have attached the label socialist to their actions to con the very people they have oppressed.

But this isn’t to say that a post-capitalist society cannot be imagined, because it can. But such a leap of the imagination needs, above all else, an understanding not just of the economics of exploitation but an understanding of power.

There are first principles involved related to how power operates, and how it sustains its dominant position the world over. For instance, the power structures in Soviet Russia, Maoist China and even Castro’s Cuba were constructed on the same organising principles as the hierarchical elitist power structures in Bush’s America or Hitler’s Germany.

Until socialists grasp what these power structures are, and how they operate and maintain themselves, we are left ideologically disarmed, doomed to repeat similar mistakes as everyone from the Bolsheviks to New Labour.

Which takes me back full circle to the one book I’d recommend, before all others, for anyone interested in participating in the struggle for social change.

Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky is a 400 page collection of taped interviews conducted over many years, broken down into ten useful sections.

The first five sections seek to explain power, exploring concepts of democracy, propaganda and the media, state power, government secrecy, the American Empire, genocide, militarisation and the permanent war economy.

In the second five sections Chomsky concerns himself with challenging the structures of power. These sections include his thoughts on community activism, dissidence and resistance, revolutionary education, Marxist and liberationist theory, working class culture, movement organising, political parties and building internationalism.

Because the book is presented as jargon-free Q&A sessions it is incredibly easy to follow and very accessible. Without wanting to overstate the case (I couldn’t) I’d recommend ordering Understanding Power (£10.99, Vintage) from your local library, or online via wordpower.co.uk. Chomsky probably wouldn’t agree with me saying it, but this book really does have no equal. It is that invaluable.

MAY 12TH: RESISTANCE IS FUTILE?

2006-05-12T10:40:00.000Z

When George Bush recently declared that the greatest achievement of his Presidency was catching a 7.5lb fish you’d be hard pushed to hear a murmur of dissent. It certainly took a lot more co-ordination than falling of his wee trike at Gleneagles or getting beat up by a drunken pretzel.

President Bush’s shadowy puppet-masters may have taken a more global perspective. Things haven’t all gone to plan but on the surface, some of the objectives of achieving what they call “US full spectrum dominance” have been significantly advanced.

By full spectrum dominance – as explicitly stated by the Bush-endorsed Project For A New American Century - the strategists of US power are working 24/7 towards their objective of global domination in all political, military, economic and cultural domains.

The networks of powerful vested interests behind the Bush administration – the real power-brokers - are intent on creating nothing more and nothing less than a new empire for the 21st century, an American Fourth Reich by any other name. Through a complex interlocking jigsaw of compliant states, puppet governments, economic free trade zones, military terror, intelligence-led subversion, complaint media conglomerates, and economic blackmail the US empire aims to dominate, control and exploit both the world’s population and the planet’s natural resources.

The ongoing march towards “full spectrum dominance” was the primary underlying reason for the US invasions and occupations of both Afghanistan and Iraq. Securing oil supplies through the installation of compliant regimes was secondary. Control and domination of the region was primary.

The strategists of the US regime are quite open about the need to invade Iran and thereby create a three country land bloc in the region, rich in oil and gas reserves, which when allied to other compliant regimes in the middle east - such as Israel, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia – is able to meet the US criteria of total political, military and economic domination.

Any country, no matter how small, which challenges this US global hegemony will be met with resistance. The CIA website makes it clear that every corner of the planet is politically monitored. Military intervention is a last resort. Prevention is better than cure is the modus operandi.

It would be a mistake, for instance, to think that when US conglomerates like Gannet buy up Scottish media concerns like The Herald it is purely a business proposition. The US regime – through outfits like the CIA working in cahoots with their British counterparts – monitor, influence and intervene in Scottish politics as much as they do in any other country. Probably more so here because of the strategic nature of North Sea oil reserves and “our” nuclear arsenal.

The last thing the American empire wants is a compliant ally like the Anglo-British state undermined from within by popular independence movements that seek to break such a state apart, with all the ensuing political instability that would follow. The way that Cuba lurched so fast from an anti-imperialist independence movement to a “communist” state hasn’t been forgotten.

However, like the previous Reichs – whether Roman or Nazi – the base on which the Yanks have built their arrogant plans for global domination look like becoming unstuck. Whilst ferocious resistance continues in occupied Iraq, and a massive internal strike of migrant labour devastates the US government, Latin America has increasingly positioned itself as the global epicentre of resistance to the plans of the American Empire.

This ongoing Bolivarian revolution - with its symbolic figurehead of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela – is gathering momentum, mapping out an alternative political road map for the people of Latin and South America, and in doing so helping a process of realignment and reconfiguration to take place in world politics.

Our task is not just to cheer them on, nor offer mere verbal solidarity, but is to learn as much as we can from their political, economic and cultural methodologies. They are doing the business. The mighty American empire is rattled. There are serious grounds for optimism.

MAY 5TH: MAY DAY AWAY

2006-05-05T10:38:00.000Z

For more years than I care to remember I’ve taken part in the May Day March in Edinburgh. It is one of those annual events that helps unite workers all over the world in the common cause of humanity.

Which is why missing Edinburgh’s annual May Day event this year was a bit of a disappointment. However, as chance would have it, that same weekend, I ended up taking part in a march that was pretty unique.

I’d flown over with my partner for a short break to the city of Vitoria, which is home to the Basque Autonomous Parliament. The centre of Vitoria is a beautiful old medieval town, full of spectacular churches and renaissance period buildings, whose narrow cobbled streets are arranged Roman-style in a pattern not unlike the centre of Amsterdam.

The evening we arrived was the beginning of the All Saints Day holiday. One of many things that Basques and Scots have in common is they love any excuse to have a party. The eve of All Saints Day is marked by lots of brass bands and drummers weaving their way through the cobbled streets followed by their “supporters”.

Rather than one long continuous march there seemed to be dozens of smaller marches all zigzagging in and out of each other. The bands at the front of each march were all dressed as chefs for reasons I didn’t quite find out. “We like our food!” These various marches would abruptly come to a halt outside certain pubs and the marchers would have a drink or two until the bands decided to move on. As the pub stops became more frequent, unsurprisingly, the zigzagging routes got more zigzaggy.

The streets were packed with thousands of revellers who seemed to be overwhelmingly under the age of 25, and mainly female, again for reasons I didn’t quiet understand. The whole thing was a bit like our own Hogmanay, except minus the drunken fighting. There were hardly any tourists about. This was the locals doing it for themselves. (Vitoria is virtually unspoiled by tourism).

Watching the various processions go by I noticed a group of around 4-500 marchers begin a new procession. It was headed by around thirty chefs playing Basque tunes, which were accompanied by chants of “Indepentzia! Socialismo!” This I didn’t expect!

This particular manifestation was organised to start at midnight – I’m not joking! - by supporters of Batasuna and was explicitly calling for an amnesty for all Basque political prisoners. Naturally we joined in with this one and got chatting to some of the marchers.

The next few hours were spent wandering around Vitoria’s old town, drinking in some of the most politicised and friendly taverns imaginable, experiencing first hand what happens when a political party of the left, like Batasuna, blurs its organisational edges into the wider movement, and into the population as a whole.

This is something very special that has to be experienced to be properly understood. What existed here was the polar opposite of a “them and us” political culture. The genuine warmth that existed towards Batasuna was tangible.

There seemed to be little separation between members and supporters. People don’t even call themselves Batasuna “voters” because Batasuna is currently banned and not able to stand under its own name at elections. The association goes much deeper than mere electoral support.

There doesn’t seem to be a culture of “look at us for we are Batasuna” nor Salvation Army style “recruitment drives” going on either, which must surely help accentuate the differences between building a party and building a movement. Batasuna is a genuine movement which people associate with, and work with, whether or not they are formal members.

What struck me hard was that if the SSP, especially our youth and women’s organisations, want to see for themselves the way that deep roots can be sunk into communities then we should be sending over delegations, and organising exchange visits, to the Basque Country on a regular basis.

APR 28th: RE-IMAGINING SCOTLAND

2006-04-29T10:42:00.000Z

Politics, in its highest form, goes far beyond elections, party manifestos and economic programmes. At its highest level politics is about unleashing the potential of human creativity. Politics becomes about participation rather than delegation, about individual initiatives, and about seeing beyond what already is.

For too long the nature of politics in this country has been dominated by a conservative nineteenth century interpretation of democracy – where the passive masses troop along to put a cross on a bit of paper every five years, leaving a bunch of ne’er-do-wells to fill their boots with the bribes and wages that comes with being a parliamentarian.

This form of democracy was specifically designed to prevent any real form of change and was nothing like the form of democracy that the early Chartists fought for: such as annual elections.

In the struggle to break up the medieval British state, we have a chance in Scotland to rethink our political space. The fight for an independent Scotland means a chance to create something new, not just ape the partial democracy that we intend to emerge from. To do that means re-imagining ourselves.

For instance, where is the potential for the imagination and creativity if all the thinking is done by those inside political parties who then present detailed manifestos of demands to an electorate? Such an archaic approach to politics is rooted firmly in the continuation of the accepted passivity of the mass of the people.

This isn’t to dismiss the important role that political parties and elections still play. But for those who want to break free from the political straight jacket of passive representational democracy it means re-imagining more than just economics and manifestos, but re-imagining the participatory nature of democracy and political parties themselves.

Already in Scotland the process has begun. For instance, the Independence Convention at this stage means many things to many people. All of them valid at this stage. Yet, to percieve the democratic nature of a newly independent country like Scotland as little more than a mini-me version of the UK would be nothing short of criminal and step back in time as much as a move forward.

This isn’t just about economics. It is about re-imagining how people self-govern themselves – nationally, yes, but also, and much more importantly, locally. There is very little anything an individual can change nationally or internationally, but locally is a whole different ballgame. As individuals we can only physically interact and change what is around us locally, in our day to day lives, in our communities and workplaces.

The same is true in the fight for an independent Scotland. The key is to think nationally, act locally. We’ve got less than 370 days left to create at an unstoppable, visible and self-confident movement that will deliver a democratic mandate for Scottish Independence on 1st May 2007. Sitting down in nationally organised initiatives (usually in the central belt) isn’t going to achieve this.

On the surface this may seem an impossibly difficult task in such a relatively short space of time. But politics is like that. When the winds of change come they can sweep down hard and fast. If the mood for change is there.

And right now Scotland is a country ripe for unleashing the creative potential of the people against an archaic and anti-democratic British political and imperial system that holds us back from utilising our imaginations.

What has the potential to be a potential catalyst for change? The spark that could light a fire? The answer has to be the youth. It is Scotland’s youth who hold the key to change. The youth of Scotland seem to have little time for such effluence as an irrelevant British monarchy nor a British identity.

To harness the revolutionary potential of our youth means understanding where young people are at, and how they express their individuality, and where they come together collectively to express themselves. This last one is of crucial importance. Culturally – through music and sport, in particular, football – are the areas where youth come together in their thousands.

There is no blueprint for where Scotland is now headed. Nothing is fixed. But tapping into the areas where the youth physically congregate and express themselves should be of primary importance over the next twelve months. Once the youth are onboard the Scottish Independence movement will be up and running. The next twelve months should be interesting.

APR 21ST: TAKING THE PLEDGE

2006-04-21T10:44:00.000Z

In the last Rebel Ink column I posed the question that hangs over the head of all Scottish politics: How do we turn majority support for Scottish Independence into a democratic political mandate for independence?

It cannot be stressed enough that everything else in Scottish politics is subordinate to achieving this, since without the democratic tools of government, power remains inaccessibly enthroned in London.

In the spirit of cross-party co-operation in the fight for Independence – which was so eloquently stated by the leaders of the SSP, SNP and Greens at the launch of the Independence Convention last year - Independence First passed the following call to action unopposed at its AGM:

“In the 299 years that has passed since the Act of Union was imposed upon Scotland in 1707, the people of Scotland have never once been consulted directly on the democratic legitimacy of the Union, nor on the alternative of full Independence.

For this reason above all else, the IF campaign for a democratic consultation of all the people who live or work here in Scotland - on the two options of Independence or Union - should be welcomed and encouraged by everyone who supports the principle of democracy.

There are times, however, when a window of opportunity will open that could lead directly to such a consultation on Independence. Such a window of opportunity presents itself on 1st May 2007, the date of the Scottish Parliamentary elections, and the very day of the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union itself.

Currently, 42 of the 129 MSPs at Holyrood have stated they are pro-Independence and would support a referendum on Scottish Independence. In order to push through a referendum on Scottish Independence such a move would need to be supported by a minimum of 65 MSPs.

In order to help elect a minimum of 65 Independence-supporting MSPs on 1st May 2007 this motion proposes that IF initiates a broad, non party aligned campaign which targets the 2007 Scottish Parliamentary elections.

The nature of this campaign would be to actively campaign in public to get a minimum of ONE MILLION SCOTS to pledge BOTH of their votes – for FPTP Seats and for List Seats – to candidates who support a referendum on Scottish Independence.

The target figure of One Million Pledges represents over half the total number of voters who participated in the 2003 Scottish Parliamentary election. Given that it is unlikely the number of voters will increase this time around, this would be enough to secure a democratic mandate for an Independence referendum. It also has a straightforward campaigning clarity to it.

In the spirit of IF’s aims and objectives, this campaign should not instruct anyone which party to vote for. We should trust the intelligence of the people of Scotland that they are more than capable of deciding for themselves which pro-Independence candidate to vote for.

If this strategy is agreed upon, IF should approach other pro-Independence organisations, such as the Independence Convention, about working together to build momentum behind such a campaign. Culture and politics can combine imaginatively on how best to achieve the One Million Pledges For Scottish Independence that could help secure the 65+ seats necessary to achieve a majority for an Independence referendum.

Such a campaign, by its clarity of purpose, and its very specific nature, has the potential to transform the Scottish political landscape, and would help focus IF and other pro-Independence forces into a cohesive, active and highly visible movement for Scottish Independence. Such a campaign could also help raise the consciousness of the people of Scotland that Scottish Independence is both realistic and is now very much within their grasp.”

In next week’s Voice the third part of this article will look at some of the imaginative campaigning ideas that have been put forward to turn the passive majority for Scottish Independence into a visible and organised movement, between now and 1st May 2007.

APR 14TH: RISE TO THE CHALLENGE?

2006-04-14T10:46:00.000Z

to be a time when opinion polls filled the gaps in newspapers where the news was supposed to go. Until, that is, the first Scottish parliament got underway in 1999. Then the constant flow of political opinion polls north of the border seemed to dry up.

Different factors may explain this. British-wide opinion polls may be less in demand simply because most Scots no longer pay much attention to the machinations of the British political system. This is also reflected in a substantial reduction in coverage of Westminster in the Scottish media.

There may be another factors. Recently, I saw someone ask (on a football website) when the last opinion poll on support for Scottish Independence was published. Nobody had a clue. Such opinion polls are as rare these days as a football trophy in Leith. I suspect that the Scottish-based media – imbued as it is with a jaundiced Anglo-American outlook – are afraid of what they will find.

Last week, however, an extensive YouGov opinion poll on Scottish Independence was finally published. This was no thanks to the corporate media; who only reported on it after the SNP forked out for the cost of the survey.

The YouGov poll found that 46% of Scots were in favour of Scottish Independence with just 39% against. Furthermore it found that 82% of Scots supported a referendum on Independence.

This was no rogue poll either. In April 2005 a TNS System 3 poll found similar results: 46% for Scottish Independence and 39% against.

Despite all the years of unionist propaganda, despite a dominant culture which continually reinforces the false ideas that Scotland is too poor, too small, too backward to govern itself, these polls underline a stubborn, defiant resistance to British rule among ordinary Scots that is both unbreakable and inspiring.

All of which means that, with just twelve months to go before the Scottish parliamentary elections in 2007, there is one question that looms large above all others: how can this majority support for Scottish Independence be translated into a political mandate at the ballot box? (Every other political question is subordinate to this for the simple reason that without the democratic tools of self-government we can’t make our own decisions on anything of national importance.)

This question of turning majority support for independence into a political mandate is not a simple one. The SNP have found to their cost that their party alone has never been capable of capturing (electorally) the bulk of this persistent and now growing support for Scottish Independence. In 2003 42 Independence-supporting MSPs were elected to Holyrood but only 27 of them were SNP. The days of achieving Scottish Independence solely through a vote for the SNP are effectively over. The 2003 votes for the SSP, the Scottish Greens and other independentistas marked a new stage in the struggle for Scottish freedom.

It is now widely recognised by most ordinary Scots that it will need cross party co-operation if we are to achieve a democratic mandate for a referendum on Independence. This was the spirit of the meeting on St Andrew’s Day last year when the Independence Convention was launched.

With just 12 months to go to the Holyrood elections a massive democratic majority for a referendum on Scottish Independence has already been delivered into the hands of the three parties who support Scottish Independence.

The biggest challenge in Scottish politics now is to translate that Independence-supporting majority into a visible, vocal and organised movement that will deliver the 65 MSPs necessary to push a bill through on a referendum in the first six months after the elections.

But will the parties who support Scottish Independence rise to the challenge? Or will they go down the defeatist route of naked self-interest and postpone cross party co-operation until the elections of 2011? Or 2015? Or the 12th of Never?

Over the next twelve months it’ll be interesting to see who has the political courage, willpower and self-confidence to seize the time.

MAY 13th: ROBIN HOOD & THE THIEVING BASTARDS

2005-05-13T09:00:00.000Z

One of the few colourful moments in an otherwise bleak and pointless Westminster election for the SSP was the stunt where our own National Convenor dressed up as Robin Hood, resplendent in Sherwood green, with an arrow aimed at where the heart of the capitalist system should have been - if only such a system had a heart.

It was a fine visual picture and proved yet again that the legendary figure of Robin Hood - forever taking from the rich in order to benefit the poor - is as enduring a popular hero as ever.

But did Robin Hood really exist? Who was he? And did he really live near Nottingham?

It is generally accepted that the legendary tales of Robin Hood are located in the late 13th century. This was a period when Norman-controlled England had Royal Forests, money-grabbing Churches, and nasty Sheriffs who were in charge of taxing the ordinary people and bleeding them dry. Most of the ballads of Robin Hood make reference to life in the 13th century.

The earliest recorded mention of Robin (by name) comes in William Langlands Piers Ploughman - a collection of ballads written in the 1370s. These ballads would have been passed on orally for a good number of years before then.

But who was the real Robin Hood?

It would seem to me, from the medieval evidence left behind, and from a process of historical deduction, that the mythical figure of Robin Hood was not an Englishman at all but was a composite legend based on the real life of none other than Scotlands greatest ever historical hero: William Wallace.

A bit far-fetched? Check the evidence and make up your own mind:

In the early months of 1297 William Wallace was living as a common outlaw in the Royal Forest of Ettrick with a band of followers. Scotland had been subjugated and occupied by Edward 1st the previous year. In April of that year Wallace struck a blow for freedom that would resonate down the centuries. He audaciously attacked and killed the much-despised, tax-collecting Sheriff of Lanark - a high-ranking English stooge - and in doing so lit the flame of what would become known as the Scottish Wars of Independence.

According to Blind Harrys Wallace - written around 1470 - Wallace was avenging the murder of his wife whose name was Marion Braidfute. Thats right, Wallaces wifes name was Marion. Sound familiar yet?

One of the few written artefacts proven to have been connected to Wallace was the famous Lubeck Letter which was re-discovered in 1998. This letter has the actual seal of Wallace upon it from 1297 - when it was sent from Haddington to the Mayor of Lubeck. It was to let foreign traders know that Scotland was open again for business freed from English domination and control. The seal of Wallace was that of a bow and quiver of arrows - which historians now agree was indicative of Wallaces skill with such a weapon.

The Robin Hood myth makes much of an illegal king usurping a good mans throne. Historically, the good King Richard/evil King John of popular fiction was way before the generally accepted time of Robin Hood. Wallace on the other hand fought to rid Scotland off an evil tyrant - Edward 1st - and restore King John Balliol to the throne: who he felt was the rightful King of Scots.

Even the story of Robin Hoods meeting with Little John on a narrow bridge comes straight out of Blind Harry - except it happened near Ayr.

I could go on because theres much more.

In a nutshell, not only did the English rulers murder the Scottish hero, but the popular balladeers of the day stole the life and times of Wallace, stripped him off his plaid, dressed him effeminate tights and cap, relocated him across the border, and made him English! Cheeky bastards.

August 23rd is the 700th anniversary of the barbaric execution of William Wallace. Expect to read more on William Wallace in this paper nearer the time.

Published Friday 13th May 2005
In Issue 219, Scottish Socialist Voice

MAY 6th: THE WEGGEEFICATION OF SCOTTISH FOOTBALL

2005-05-06T09:00:00.000Z

With the Scottish football season rapidly approaching a tremendous climax this month the old Oscar Wilde saying about rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated comes to mind.

Scottish football is an easy target for taking a sarcy swipe at, and god knows theres enough reason to get hacked off with the way the game is run here, but this season has been a bit special.

The usual two-horse battle for the Premier League Championship hasnt changed but as both halves of the Old Firm fight neck and neck with each other in a race that looks likely to go down to the wire (no cliché spared here) our own Premier division is a lot more exciting than some of the one horse races in Europe weve seen in places like England and Spain where Chelsea and Barcelona have romped away with titles.

But what has added to the rollercoaster ride at the top is that its now open season on the two Glasgow millionaire giants. Aberdeen, Hearts, Dundee United and just last week, Hibs, have all given them a thorough going over to reflect the growth of home grown talent that is emerging which I year or two threatens to take Scottish football out of the dark Bertie Vogts era. The battle for the third Euro spot between Hibs and Aberdeen is hotting up and Dundee Utd still hope to stage an upset in the Scottish Cup Final against Celtic.

Sadly the progress on the park hasnt been reflected off it. The feeble half-arsed attempts by the Old Firm clubs to tackle sectarianism have coincided with Rangers FC officially selling orange-coloured charity wrist bands. Orange, as the club well knows, is not a colour that is associated in the certain parts of Scotland with peace, love and religious tolerance. The launch of anti-sectarian wristbands by the Old Firm was a belated attempt to counter the earlier cock up.

The fuelling of crude religious sectarianism, sadly, isnt just confined to the terraces. Lat week the Scottish media jumped on the bandwagon to take a good kick at the anti-sectarianism. Most non Old Firm fans have got used to the west coast bias in the football media. But the Scotland on Sunday plumped new depths of football reporting in their 1st May edition.

Heres the scenario: Hibs have just travelled to Celtic Park and won their first game there for thirteen years. Theyve thrashed the league leaders 3-1. No small feat for a team of young kids whose entire first team wage bill is less than that paid to Celtics Craig Bellamy. The reporter, Tom English, waffles on about how you could hear the roars across the city when Brown raced away to celebrate with his now delirious supporters. The city in question, typically, being Glasgow. The fact that half of Edinburgh were going mental besides their radios didnt warrant a mention.

But thats by the by. No more than weve come to expect from a media that views everything in terms of how it affects the Old Firm. The preceding paragraph took the biscuit though. (Hibs) had served notice of intent when Dean Shiels, yet another Ulsterman in what was a fine day for the Red Hand, had a shot blocked by Balde. This makes you stop and wonder what planet these reporters are living on.

Weve got a real problem with sectarianism in Scotland. It is reflected on the football terraces. And while there is a real desire at community level to tackle these problems those in charge of the media and the sport in general have a duty to set the tone or be accused of hypocrisy

For those reasons alone the SOS shouldnt get away with printing garbage like that. Letters of complaints should be raining down on their editors calling for a full public apology for such idiotic and inflammatory reporting.

(Send letters of complaint to: letters_sos@scotlandonsunday.com)

Published Friday 6th May 2005
In Issue 218, Scottish Socialist Voice

APR 29th: REVIEW OF 'SANDIE CRAIGIE TRIBUTE NIGHT'

2005-04-29T09:00:00.000Z

In last weeks Voice I wrote a piece about Edinburgh writer, Sandie Craigie, who died recently. A special tribute night was held in Edinburgh on Sat 23rd April - arranged to commemorate her life and work.

There havent been any reviews of this night in any of the mainstream press. Which is a real shame as it was such a special night - and one that will otherwise go totally unreported - that I hope Voice readers dont mind me reviewing the event here.

When someone has recently died, at the young age of just 41, a commemorative event could have resembled a wake, which in a way, it was. And yet this event wasnt even remotely depressing. It was the exact opposite in fact. This was a celebration of everything that was lively, creative, challenging and life-affirming in both Scottish literature and in Sandies own life and work.

The venue was packed out, standing room only, with people having travelled from all over Scotland and England. Author Shug Hanlan, a mainstay of so many Rebel Inc and Yellow Café events in the past, set the tone with a piece I hadnt heard for years - Square go With The Stiltman - a piece that Sandie had helped select for the second issue of Rebel Inc Magazine back in 1992. If youre gonna have a wake then you might as well start it off by getting everyone laughing. Its the Scottish way.

Poets like Rodney Relax - who bust a gut to help get this event of the ground - Jim Ferguson, Nick Melville, Jenny Lindsay, Ray Miles, Big Word impresario, Jem Rolls, and a rare live appearance of Paul Reekie, all contributed to what turned into a quite an anarchic and sometimes surreal event. Like all good wakes a few drunken hecklers punctured any attempts at funereal reverence.

Angus Calder read a tribute to Sandie he had written specially for the night; a beautiful poem I look forward to seeing in print. Actor Tam Dean Burn performed in his own inimitable way a selection of Sandies poems found in the Scottish Poetry Library.

One of the highlights of the evening was a reading from Tom Leonard, a poet whose work inspired Sandie - and probably most of those who read from their work on the night. Tom rounded off an engaging reading with a long extract from Robert Fergussons 18th century poem, Auld Reekie.

If Sandie was occasionally compared to Robert Fergusson in the past the comparisons are likely to continue now. Tom Leonard spoke of how both lived in relative poverty most of their lives, how both championed the spoken Scots language, how both lived just a few hundred yards apart in Edinburghs Old Town, and how both chronicled the lives of the areas ordinary people in their work. And, sadly, how mental health problems contributed to both of their premature deaths.

Sandies close friend, Margaret, spoke movingly of how people had got it wrong about the nature of Sandies death. Although Sandie had cut her own wrists Margaret tried to explain that it had occurred as part of a long-term cycle of self-abuse and was a cry for help and an accident rather than suicide. This was/is quite difficult to take in, especially for folk, like me, who dont fully understand the nature of the illness.

The highlight of the evening was a fifteen minute film of Sandie reading at the Edinburgh Dockers Club in 2003. You couldve heard a pin drop. It was a poignant reminder of just how talented a writer Sandie Craigie was.

Sandie's friends and admirers intend to make sure she isnt forgotten. A film is being planned, as well as a collection of her poetry. And over £400 was raised at the door towards a permanent memorial plaque in Edinburghs Cowgate.

Published Friday 29th April 2005
In Issue 217, Scottish Socialist Voice

APR 22nd: SANDIE CRAIGIE, 1963-2005

2005-04-22T09:00:00.000Z

You would think that in the current age of high tech communications, and in a place where writers all tend to know each other, that it would be almost impossible for one of the most talented writers this country has ever produced to slip through the net and die tragically, unnoticed, and in relative obscurity. Yet it happened in Edinburgh less than two months ago.

Sandie Craigie was known to so many of the writers currently working in Scotland. Writers like Edwin Morgan, James Kelman, Janice Galloway, Tom Leonard and Irvine Welsh have all shared the stage with Sandie over the last ten years or so. Such was her talent, and the power or her performances, that she stood in none of their shadows. Very few writers wanted to go on to a stage after Sandie had read. She was a tough act to follow.

Few who heard Sandie read were likely to forget the experience either. Sandie was utterly captivating when she performed in front of an audience. Her poetry was a complex mix of imagery and emotions: scathingly satirical at times but with dark melodramatic and even menacing undertones.

Sandie was a natural who wrote the way she spoke: in a soft, lilting, old Edinburgh accent - an accent rooted in the citys Old Town where she lived all her life. She loved language and really understood its possibilities. Many years ago, while having a chat round at her flat, she gently stopped me when I started talking about the Scottish dialect and passed me a copy of a Scottish Dictionary. Look at the size of that book? How could a dialect have so many words? Scots is a language not a dialect.

Sandie helped me set up, and then co-edit, Rebel Inc Magazine. The three years we worked together on the magazine were instructive ones for me. She was a pleasure to be around.

Sandies championing of Scottish language and culture, her radical feminism, her support for an Independent Scotland, and her opposition to all forms of political domination and control were way ahead of so many of us back then. In 2003, during the mass anti-war protests, Sandie was interviewed on the BBC evening news and articulated the anger and despair of millions.

Sandie had it hard in many ways. She was a single mother, struggling financially to bring up her teenage son, Gordon, himself a precociously talented writer, and was very proud of her working class roots. Despite the lucrative incentives she refused on principle to buy her council owned flat, situated just off the Royal Mile.

You would find it almost impossible to find anyone who had a bad word to say about Sandie. She was like a ray of sunshine and would often work for little (financial) reward in deprived Edinburgh housing estates: taking writers workshops and helping working class people express themselves.

The violent way in which Sandie took her own life has left everyone who knew her shocked and heartbroken. Sandie suffered from bipolar disorder. She was such a good laugh, and so lively, youd never have guessed it though.

Sandie is right up there with Liz Lochhead as one of the greatest female poets Scotland has ever produced. Her work, when eventually collected together and published, will stand the test of time. Yet when she died there were no obituaries in any of the national newspapers. She didnt even get a mention. Which is unbelievable considering the talent that Scotland has now lost.

A number of us who knew Sandie want to change that. Starting with a joint Yellow Café/Rebel Inc tribute night featuring Tom Leonard, Tam Dean Burn and others on Saturday the 23rd Apr at the Left Bank Club in Edinburghs Guthrie Street. Some of her poems will be performed as a tribute and well be showing a film of her reading at the Leith Dockers Club in 2003. All welcome.

Published Friday 22nd April 2005
In Issue 216, Scottish Socialist Voice

APR 15th: THE POPE AND A MINUTE'S SILENCE?

2005-04-15T09:00:00.000Z

So its Farewell and Adieu to the man known variously as the Bishop of Rome, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the Successor of the Chief of the Apostles, the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, the Patriarch of the West, the Primate of Italy, the Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, the Sovereign of Vatican City State and the Servant of Servants. Or to the rest of us mere mortals: Pope John Paul the Second.

Despite a concerted attempt by the mainstream media to inflict on us a dubious mixture of both genuine sadness and manufactured grief I cant say I was moved one way or the other by The Popes death. He waved at me once, in 1982, when I was standing on the corner of Princes Street and The Mound, but apart from that we were never really that close.

Like almost all of the vast crowd who were at Hampden Park for the match between Hibs and Dundee United I observed the minutes silence before the kick off. Not because of any great love for The Pope himself but more out of respect for those around me for whom he meant something.

There will be other times and places to take up the question of the Catholic Churchs attitude to abortion, gay rights, and some of the other social and political issues where the conservative Vatican hierarchy are totally out of order. But during a minutes silence was neither the time nor the place. (In his defence The Pope did take a stand against Americans illegal attack on Iraq so fair play to him in his twilight years).

However it was the events that took place prior to the other Hampden semi-final - between Hearts and Celtic - that have caused a bit of a furore. A section of the Hearts fans showed contempt for other folks deeply-held faith by booing and jeering during the minutes silence. There followed the inevitable headlines of Jambo Cup Shame. (Or words to that effect). As a result were promised a crackdown against the sectarian bigots who shamed Scottish football, etcetera.

Theres no way anyone can condone the actions of sectarian bigots of any religious denomination. But theres more to these minute silences than first meets the eye. A few years ago, like thousands of others, I observed a minutes silence at Easter Road for Donald Dewar - a person I had no great respect for when he was alive. And someone Ive got even less respect for since he died, especially after we found out in his will that he had a portfolio which included shares in companies whose privatisation he had supposedly opposed.

But Ive yet to see a minutes silence held at any Scottish football match for the Iraqi victims of American military aggression? Nor for the millions of avoidable deaths caused by African countries crippling debt repayments to the World Bank? These are genuine tragedies that are much more deserving of our silent contemplation than the death of a politician or an aging religious leader in Rome.

But this is what happens when rich businessmen run our football clubs. They never miss an opportunity to inflict their conservative views on the working class hordes that they privately despise.

This manufacturing of grief has a political purpose too: the reinforcement of emotional attachments to the existing power structures and the people who represent the status quo.

Football matches are one of the last remaining places where thousands of predominantly working class people regularly come together en masse. Football grounds can often be volatile and unpredictable political forums in their own right - rarely embracing support for police, queen and country. This is why it is no coincidence that the laws supposedly enacted against sectarianism are being used to suppress political dissent, the distribution of political literature, and overtly political flags.

Tackle religious sectarianism by all means. But give us a break from the political hypocrisy and the manufacturing of insincere grief.

Published Friday 15th April 2005
In Issue 215, Scottish Socialist Voice

APR 8th: VIVE LA REPUBLIC

2005-04-06T00:01:00.000Z

With the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles all set to spoil the nations weekend tele viewing (they better not cancel Doctor Who) you get the vivid impression that the whole country can hardly contain its indifference.

I feel sorry for the bunting manufacturers. Normally this would be their boom time - Charles being heir to the throne and all - but these days only the jellied-eels-and-knees-up-mavva-braan set will be decking out the local boozers in red, white and blue. (I know, we shouldnt mock, cos its a shame for them, but what the heck).

I'm sure this Saturday will be a pleasant and memorable day for the happy prince and his horsey faced mistress as they canter down the aisle... at our expense. However, there's something that doesn't seem quite right about their rush to get hitched.

It's a safe bet it isn't a shotgun wedding. Not unless the wedding carriage is being pulled by a team of wild foxes. The chances of Camilla being up the duff are about on a par with the new Pope sitting down with Germaine Greer and discussing abortion on demand over a couple of holy waters. Mind you, if Camilla WAS up the duff then maybe even the new Pope might be receptive to such an idea.

The more you try and figure out why a Royal Wedding would be called with such haste - just days before a general election is announced - the more it doesnt make any sense. The timing is all wrong. Then add that the mother and father of the groom arent showing up for the civil ceremony... which doesnt seem very civil to me... I'm beginning to wonder if something unreported is going on behind the scenes.

For those who take an interest in these sort of things, all sorts of constitutional issues are being raised. (I love the way the Brits pretend that they have a constitution). Experts are poring over foosty old manuscripts to work out whether we've got a Queen Camilla in the offing or not.

And well they might. One logical reason for the haste with which this wedding has been arranged is that the current incumbent to the throne is on the verge of resigning her post. I could be wrong - and often am - but if my hunch is right then such an abdication may only be months or even weeks away.

There is another factor which may come into the equation. Among the London-based newsrooms and editorial boards there is a rumour doing the rounds - which a tight lid is being kept on - that The Queen is facing a fight against a serious or even life-threatening illness.

This could explain a lot - including why she's scaling down her public appearances and has been virtually invisible for months now. Between 23rd Mar and 23rd April The Queen has no public engagements in her diary. She has no overseas trips planned in the near future. For someone who likes her jaunts abroad - where her ignorant husband gets to insult the locals and patronise bare-breasted natives - this is unusual in itself.

If we look at the bigger picture its clear that the House of Windsor dont have many aces left up their sleeve. The popularity of the monarchy is in terminal decline. Their active gene pool is in state of stagnation. Prince William is their last roll of the dice. Worryingly, for them, next in line to the throne after William is the illegitimate son of James Hewitt and Diana Spencer. It is possible that these parasitical medieval throwbacks may have their ermine robes hanging on shooglier nail than most of us would dare to hope.

If, as I suspect, Buck House are planning a surprise 2005 abdication, then all of us republicans had better get ourselves prepared for the biggest debate on the future of the monarchy in our life time. I hope so. Vive La Republic.

Published Friday 8th April 2005
In Issue 214, Scottish Socialist Voice

APR 1st: THE SSP AND SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE

2005-04-01T00:01:00.000Z

For those who are new to the party, or for those who have forgotten, for this week only, heres a quick cut-out-and-keep reference guide to the key documents and resolutions supported by the SSP with regards to our unequivocal support for Scottish Independence. It should help clarify any misunderstandings and give a timeline to how this key strategic objective has developed in the last six years.

FROM THE 16 POINT PROGRAMME AGREED AT SSPs FIRST NATIONAL CONFERENCE (FEB 1999)

The Scottish Socialist Party stands for an independent socialist Scotland free from poverty, privilege, corruption, homelessness, unemployment and greed. We believe that the future of Scotland should be decided by the people of Scotland - and support the principle of a referendum on independence.

FROM SSP NATIONAL CONFERENCE, (PASSED OVERWHELMINGLY) (FEB 2003):

Conference reaffirms that Scottish Independence is a key strategic objective of the Scottish Socialist Party and should be at the centre of our campaigning work

Independence will provide the basis for taking the fight for a socialist Scotland to a more advanced stage, as argued by pioneers of the movement such as John McLean.

Specifically it will: (a) Provide the Scottish people with the democratic machinery to support their struggle for Socialism. (b) seriously weaken British Imperialism, the most pro-US and most dangerous Imperialist power in Europe and junior partner in Bush's war plans.

In the tradition of striking at Imperialism at its weakest link outlined by McLean, Connolly and Lenin among others we believe that Scottish Socialists not only need to support Scotland's right to self-determination and independence but have an international duty to do so and thus weaken British Imperialism.

FROM CONSULTATION DOCUMENT, WRITTEN BY ALAN MCCOMBES AND SUPPORTED BY SSP NATIONAL COUNCIL (2003):

We make it clear we are fighting for a socialist republic, but that does not mean we place any conditions on our support for independence. Even on a non-socialist basis, we should support independence as a progressive democratic advance and as a major defeat for capitalism and imperialism on a world scale.

FROM THE DECLARATION OF CALTON HILL, SUPPORTED BY SSP NATIONAL COUNCIL (2004):

We the undersigned call for an independent Scottish republic built on the principles of liberty, equality, diversity and solidarity.

These principles can never be put into practice while Scotland remains subordinate to the hierarchical and anti-democratic institutions of the British state.

We believe these principles can be brought about by a freely elected Scottish Government with full control of Scotlands revenues.

We believe that the right to self-determination is an inherent right, and not a favour to be granted to us whether by the Crown or the British State.

We believe the sovereignty rests in the people and vow to fight for the right to govern ourselves for the benefit of all those living in Scotland today, tomorrow and in future times.

In recent weeks a campaign for a referendum on Scottish Independence was launched by the Independence First group. In offering the campaign his support, Tommy Sheridan MSP, succinctly and eloquently summarised the position of the SSP.

TOMMY SHERIDAN MSP (Mar 2005):

"As a socialist I believe passionately in genuine democracy and the right of nations to self-determination. My party's vision is of an independent socialist Scotland but we absolutely endorse and promote the right of citizens in Scotland to democratically decide now via a referendum if they wish an independent country. I see the British imperial union as a reactionary barrier to social progress and want that British union dismantled to encourage progressive and democratic ideas to flourish in the individual entities of Scotland, England and Wales. The campaign for an independence referendum deserves support from all socialists and democrats alike.

With the Independence Election of 2007 fast approaching it is now up to every single one of us to discuss ways to take all of these fine words and put them centre stage in all of our campaigning, education and organisation.

MAR 25th: 20 YEARS ON: WHO KILLED WILLIE McRAE?

2005-03-25T00:01:00.000Z

WORD OF WARNING: PLEASE READ THIS FIRST:

A few words of caution before reading the article below (which first appeared in the Scottish Socialist Voice): This article contains a number of factual errors and unsubstantiated claims. I wrote it far too quickly, just the day before it was went to press, had poor source material to work from, and with the benefit of hindsight, this is the only newspaper column I've written in the last ten years or so that I would like to completely disown. In short it is a bit of a dog's breafast and is more fiction that fact. However, it would be a bit dishonest of me to just delete the article and pretend it didnt happen. For my part, the kind of sloppy rushed approach to writing about a complex subject such as the events surrounding the death of Willie MacRae is an approach to writing that is one mistake too many. I'll leave the "disowned" original here, as it appeared in print, and one day I hope to write something 100% accurate and in-depth on this subject, which stands up to even the most critical of examinations. Apologies to anyone who stumbled across this article the first time round and took the details as verbatim).

Kevin Williamson, 28 July 2007.

* * *

On 5th April 1985 solicitor Willie McRae, left his home in Glasgow for the last time. He was heading north for a nuclear dumping inquiry that was due to begin in Thurso the next day. McRae had campaigned long, hard and effectively against nuclear dumping for a number of years and was working on putting together a powerful legal case against it.

On the long drive north up the A87, later that evening McRae stopped to change a burst tyre. Then, about one and a half miles later, at a bend overlooking Loch Loyne, McRae's car left the road. At around 10am the next day McRae was found slumped over the wheel of his car, and presumed dead (he wasn't). He died from his injuries in an Aberdeen hospital the following day, on Easter Sunday.

On the day of his recorded death, 7th April, BBC Radio Scotland announced that a prominent SNP activist, Willie McRae, had died in a car accident and that no other vehicle was involved.

Two days later, on 9th April, the Procurator Fiscal of Inverness, Mr Thomas Aitchison, (who knew McRae personally) announced to an agitated media: "This death has been fully investigated. There are no suspicious circumstances".

Then three weeks later, and completely out the blue, both the Scotsman and Herald newspapers announced in their obituary columns that Willie McRae had died through a gun shot wound to the head. It was a straight-forward case of suicide they now concluded.

Eh?? This was news to most people. McRae had no reason to commit suicide and before hed left Glasgow he had apparently told friends ""I've got them this time."

McRae's old 1948 army gun - which he took everywhere with him - was found two days after his death, not in his car, but OVER FORTY FEET away. It had been fired twice.

This is where things get murkier. McRae had been suspected, although never proved, of being involved with the SNLA (Scottish National Liberation Army) a group of extreme Scottish nationalists who in the 1980s had been involved in a number of explosions and letter bombings against various British targets and politicians. He was on 24-hour a day surveillance from Strathclyde Special Branch. A car that had followed McRae into the Highlands was traced to the British Security Services.

The first person to discover McRaes body had given his name and occupation to police. He said he was an Australian pilot. He has since disappeared and it turned out that there was no pilot of that name.

The second car load of people to appear at the accident scene were, against all the odds, SNP members who actually knew McRae. There is an ongoing dispute between these individuals and local residents as to the actual locality of the accident. Two different sites are argued over. Police photos of the crash scene have never been released despite high level requests.

Contradictions and inconsistencies have piled up like something out of Inspector Rebus. Many of McRae's papers relating to nuclear dumping disappeared without trace. Another pile of his papers were found in a neat pile up the road from his car.

A nurse at Aberdeen who examined McRae's head wounds stated emphatically that she saw two bullet wounds to McRae's head. She was then ridiculed by senior colleagues and later left the area.

Peter Fraser, a Tory MP at the time, approached senior SNP figures who knew McRae - such as William Wolfe - and "advised" them not to pursue an Inquiry. Fraser then officially rejected such an Inquiry. He claimed it was suicide. And that was the end of the matter. (More recently, as Lord Fraser, he would preside over another whitewash of an Inquiry - that into the costs of the Scottish Parliament.)

Yet all the evidence - and there are mountains of it - clearly shows that this could never have been suicide, not in a million years. Any way you want to look at this case skulduggery was involved. If it wasnt suicide then it must have been murder. But by whom?

The murkier elements working for the British state seem to be up to their eyes in trying to cover this up AND to deny an official Inquiry. What have they got to hide? The whole thing stinks to high heaven.

As the 20th anniversary of Willie McRae's death approaches, every self-respecting Scot who cares about justice should join the growing chorus for the Scottish Parliament to instigate a full Public Inquiry into Willie McRae's death. Nothing less will suffice.

Published Friday 25th March 2005
In Issue 212, Scottish Socialist Voice

MAR 11th: WE DON'T NEED THAT KIND OF EDUCATION

2005-03-11T21:00:00.000Z

Education, Education, Education. It was the mantra upon which the Blair government was first elected in 1997 but now even the sheer vacuous inanity of the phrase is beginning to really stick in my craw.

Education is proffered as the great panacea to all of societys ills: from anti-social behaviour to drug abuse. If only people had access to the information necessary to make informed choices then those choices would be the right ones. So seems to run the subtext.

Is that so? For most of us education is something we experience in childhood and far from being a life-affirming experience it often leaves a pretty nasty taste in the mouth. Whenever I think of any educational experiences Ive taken in part in run by the state - at school or college - I automatically feel my eyelids start growing heavy, accompanied by an overwhelming desire to put my head on a hard wooden desk and fall asleep.

From day one it just seemed to be an unbroken line of teachers and lecturers droning on and on about this and that while students desperately tried to keep up and take notes. This is the states preferred method of education: pouring as much information and knowledge into compliant students. The state educators treated students like they were supermarket trolleys - and their job was to fill them up until they were ready to be pushed towards the checkout.

Nowadays the principle is much the same although some of the methods are a bit less reactionary thanks to individuals within the education stystem, especially among adult education projects, who are fighting back against such a stultifying system.

But the educational scars remain. Those backward educational methods have sunk into many of our psyches, they have festered away unchallenged, and, unfortunately, many of us (myself included) have carried them into the socialist movement and into everyday life.

But its never too late to teach old dogs new tricks.

In the last few years the work of Brazilian educationalist, Paolo Freire, has begun to be discussed and disseminated among the Scottish left. And not before time. (There is an excellent introduction to Paulo Freires educational work in a recent issue of Frontline magazine).

In our own movement the old depositing methods of education can be seen alive and well in the typical meeting where "experts" are asked to give "lead-offs" - which are then followed by "discussions" where other "experts" pipe in first and put anyone else off from contributing - after which the original "experts" are then asked "to sum up" i.e. reinforce their own position of authority on the subject.

Lets be straight about this: this is not an empowering, liberating form of education. It is self-deluding elitist bullshit that merely apes the same reactionary methods of the ruling class who use education as a method of social control not self-empowerment.

Maybe we should introduce a culture of slow handclapping whenever some self-appointed expert tries to speak uninterrupted for more than say five minutes on any subject at any meeting. With no exceptions. No matter who they are.

At this point, those who havent yet questioned the banking method of education (as Paolo Freire called it) will probably be scratching their heads wondering what the hell Im on about. These will probably be the same people who feel confident when they stand up to speak (usually at length); who take elected positions within the movement; and who feel they have earned the right to pour their version of the truth into the heads of the nodding masses.

When doing literacy work among the poor of Brazil, Paulo Freire set about challenging the ruling classs educational methods rather than aping them. Genuinely revolutionary educational methods and principles reject banking education in its entirety.

It is up to us to try and understand why the old system doesnt work. And in doing so, develop genuinely revolutionary educational principles for use among ourselves, and among our communities.

Published Friday 11rd March 2005
In Issue 211, Scottish Socialist Voice

MAR 4th: WHAT ARE WE ALL ABOUT?

2005-03-04T09:00:00.000Z

Now that the SSP is well into its sixth year of existence I wonder if the time is now ripe for us to open up an informed and far-reaching debate within our own ranks as to what we counter pose to the system of capitalism.

Up until now weve mainly defined ourselves as a party that stands against capitalism, against private ownership of the economy, and have a put forward a wide number of egalitarian measures that, if enacted, could positively transform the lives of every man, woman and child in Scotland.

In every manifesto, meeting, and conference this party proudly proclaims that it is against the private ownership of industry. Which begs the natural follow-up question: if industry is to be taken out of the hands of wealthy individuals and corporations, into whose hands are we proposing that such enterprises should be entrusted?

The people we are trying to enter a dialogue with dont want to hear vague slogans about workers control and ownership. People who reject in principle the limitations and inequalities of the current system genuinely want to hear specific and viable economic proposals. With sums that add up.

The bona-fide worry of many people who would consider themselves socialist, or of the left, is that the SSP would seek to bring privately-owned capitalist concerns into state ownership and Scotland would go down the tried-and-failed road of the corrupt, inefficient, bureaucratic monsters that epitomised the public sector in both the Soviet Union and in the UKs post-war nationalised industries.

For many people working in nationalised, or former nationalised industries, such as the railways or the post office, the state sector may seem like a more advantageous environment in which to operate than the private sector. But we shouldnt kid ourselves, or our fellow workers, that this is socialism or even an extension of participatory democracy. It is mostly a temporary defensive measure to try and protect wages, jobs, and conditions. The state-owned industries are still run by well-paid executives and managers - in much the same way as the bosses run any other capitalist enterprise.

Should 21st century socialists advocate a move towards an economy that is mainly owned, planned and controlled by the state? The scale of these enterprises is so physically huge, covering such vast geographical distances, that any management - whether appointed or elected - inevitably becomes centralised, specialised, bureaucratic, and as a result remote from the actual workforce.

It is interesting that another old socialist idea - much derided by the centralist left who like to embrace large-scale social engineering projects run by the state - is being given a new lease of life as an alternative to both private and state ownership of industry; namely, the question of workers co-operatives or collectives.

For example, in Hugo Chavezs ongoing socialist revolution in Venezeula, in workplace after workplace, workers have discussed taking over and running their enterprises as cooperatives. The Venezeulan co-operative movement is expanding and is actively encouraged by the Chavez government. There is even at least one petrochemical firm currently being run as a workers cooperative.

According to Euskadi.net, in the Basque country 53,852 Basques work as co-owners of their businesses and participate in the management of more than 2,150 cooperatives and worker cooperatives. Cooperatives are now the predominant model for new business enterprises in some areas.

The thing is, neither workers co-operatives nor nationalised industries are in and of themselves what most of us would call socialism. Both pay wages and both produce commodities and services to be sold on the market. And as any Marxist will correctly tell you those are two of the defining features of the capitalist system.

Since the SSP does not propose the abolition of the wages system, nor the abolition of money, then it follows that we accept, for the foreseeable future, the continuation of the market as the primary method of distribution of goods and services. Which returns me to the question I started with: what then is meant by the term socialism?

Published Friday 4th March 2005
In Issue 210, Scottish Socialist Voice

FEB 25th: HUNTER S THOMPSON, RIP

2005-02-25T09:00:00.000Z

The death of Hunter S. Thompson came as a bit of a shock, not least because he never struck me as someone who would take his own life. He was such an over the top character, passionate about people, and about his vocation as a writer, that he seemed too much in love with life to commit suicide. I guess you can never truly know whats going on in other peoples heads.

Hunter Thompson ripped up the rulebook when it came to writing and journalism. By abandoning any pretence at objectivity Thompson blurred the barrier between fiction and journalism which, in its own way, made his writing more truthful than any mere reportage could ever hope to be.

Thompson came to prominence at a time in the late 1960s when the world seemed to be turning upside down. America was fighting the Vietnam war abroad whilst at home civil rights and peace protestors joined forces with workers in struggle, Black Panthers, militant feminists, gay rights activists, hippies and the counter-culture to create a fascinating period in American history where both collective values and rampant individualism flourished.

Thompson was immersed in his times. The subject matter he embraced in his writing was a mixture of politics, sport, violence, drugs, sex and the counter-culture. His trade mark was not po-faced preaching but biting acerbic wit spliced through with genuine insights into the people he wrote about.

In Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas Thompson wrote a cult classic which does that unique Thompson thing: it starts out with an idea and then flies off at absurd tangents that may or may not be a record of actual events. There is a beautiful defiant freedom in this style of writing - which came to be known as gonzo journalism - which is all about self-expression rather than being a hired hack.

When you read an essay or article by Thompson you rarely know where it will end up. He takes his readers for a pacy walk with all sorts of detours en route. It is a style of writing that many people arent used to reading but when they do come across it find it liberating and inspiring. In gonzo journalism the prose flows fast and is easy to read which is why Thompson has spawned a whole school of followers and imitators. In Thompsons case the result is both insightful and stomach-clutching hilarious. (Try reading Fear and Loathing and not laugh out loud.)

Mainstream editors make it clear they dont like articles influenced by the likes of Thompson - they would rather publish stuff that is tightly-structured and self-consciously controlled. Unfortunately, the pressure to conform to what editors want can dissolve journalistic creativity into a thin soup of dull-witted objectivity (as if such a thing could exist.) The result is the sort of boring dross that passes itself off as political and cultural commentary in the Scottish press.

The opinionated Thompson makes the newspaper columnists we read in Scotland look like the safe bunch of gutless neutered wimps that they are; too scared to upset the genteel sensibilities of their precious readers. Fuck the lot of them would be Thompsons attitude.

It would be pointless to categorise Hunter Thompson as some sort of left winger. He was too much of a nonconformist to fit into any political or social label. He defied categorisation as a writer, a thinker and as a human being. But he was overtly political, angry at so many things, and he would launch into scathing diatribes against those in power. Nixon felt the full force of his ire, and right up until recently Thompson was writing essays and books with titles like Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream.

In many ways Hunter S Thompson embodied and embraced all the passions and contradictions of modern American society. And for my money he was one of its greatest chroniclers. His legacy and inspiration live on.

Published Friday 25th February 2005
In Issue 209, Scottish Socialist Voice

FEB 18th: THERE'S MORE THAN ONE KIND OF POVERTY IN SCOTLAND

2005-02-18T09:00:00.000Z

In Scotland theres a great old tradition of what used to be called flytin. This is where poets would use their verse to wind up other poets, who would then respond accordingly. Hugh McDairmid was one of the most formidable and enthusiastic of the exponents of flytin. These writers would take no prisoners then afterwards there would much downing of whisky together.

Its a tradition that survives today. It is in the Scottish flytin tradition that whenever someone wants to give a public talk, or publish a book, to do with Scottish culture, Scottish history or Scottish identity, the person precedes it with a savage attack on some aspect of the aforementioned subjects. Then the fun begins.

Broadcaster Stuart Cosgrove is doing it just now, winding up those in Scotland who are said to celebrate failure or wallow in misery and poverty - singling out James Kelman, painter Ken Currie and filmmaker Peter Mullan as examples. Stuart even has a wee dig at the SSP for promoting the culture of poverty.

I knew fine that Stuarts pre-lecture comments were being taken out of context for promotional purposes but I couldnt resist jumping in when asked to respond.

Its daft to say that the SSP wallows in the culture of poverty. Fighting against poverty remains the number one priority of anyone who cares their fellow human beings. Poverty is public enemy number one. Poverty is the primary economic cause of so many of Scotlands social problems. It is a corrosive influence on the very fabric of our social and family life.

Yet it isnt the whole story. A section of the Scottish population suffers from another kind of poverty. It is a different form of poverty from that that found, say, in London or Manchester. We have here the low self-esteem, defeatism, and lack of self-confidence that is a legacy of being a colonised country. This compounds the economic effects of poverty, magnifies it in the minds eye, and acts as a drag on the will to resist and fight.

This debilitating aspect of our culture is rarely examined or even commented upon. The pro-British establishment live in an intellectual environment where psychology has yet to be invented or developed. These economists only consider colonisation in terms of industrialisation, economic indexes and growth rates.

Yet the mental condition of so many people among our most-poverty stricken areas has so much in common with that of aboriginal peoples and the poor of former colonised nations in the third world. Higher than average rates of alcoholism, addiction, suicide, depression, domestic abuse, poor-on-poor violence are all symptoms of the post-colonial mindset. As are a widespread lack of self esteem and self confidence.

Resistance to poverty, oppression and injustice is one important component in the process of building up the self-confidence of any people towards self-government and self-emancipation.

But history and personal experience has taught us that the politics of resistance alone will never bring down the system. Issues and concerns are moving all the time, and continually plunging from one struggle to the next, and from one issue to the next, can serve only to burn out a layer of dedicated activists who end up trying to spread themselves too thin on the ground.

Community building and cultural engagement are two other necessary components of the process of liberation. These activities are where creative talents can be encouraged to flourish; where a sense of empowerment and self-confidence can be developed; and where the post-colonial mentality can be overcome.

These are activities that need commitment, passion, consistency and going in for the long haul. They mean giving to as well as taking from local communities. These activities arent just about wining votes.

But if we are going to move to the next level as a movement, and break out of any alleged ghetto siege-mentality, then these are areas of activity that surely deserve an equal status in our week-to-week work, alongside all the other political acts of resistance.

Published Friday 18th February 2005
In Issue 208, Scottish Socialist Voice

FEB 11th: WESTMINSTER NO MORE

2005-02-11T09:00:00.000Z

I have to say Im looking forward to the Westminster elections this year. Okay, the outcome is a foregone conclusion. Labour will steamroller home and form a government in London with a massive 100+ majority.

But its not the predictable nature of the outcome that excites me. Its the very real possibility that for the first time ever the majority of Scots - over 50 per cent of the electorate - could boycott these elections in what will be a resounding thumbs down to Westminster rule.

These non-voters are not the apathetic Scots the media will portray them as. These are people who have decided, absolutely correctly, that voting in the Westminster parliament is a complete waste of time and will do nothing to change their lives.

In four of the last six Westminster elections - 1979, 1983, 1987, and 1992 - Scottish people had a government imposed on them that the majority neither wanted nor voted for. It is entirely up to the people of England who they want to elect, and we should respect their decision. But for them to decide on who governs Scotland is an insult to the democratic wishes of the Scottish people.

Its a whole new ball game now. Scotland has its own Parliament and the desire for greater self-government or full Independence grows daily - not least because of the war-mongering of the British government and the way it piles up racist, intrusive legislation that favours the rich and penalises the poor.

The Independence Election of 2007 looms large on the horizon, just over two years down the line. Every political sinew will need to be flexed to make Scottish Independence a genuine possibility. We need to increase the number of MSPs who support independence from 43 to 65. It can be done if Scots are inspired to what a brand new democratic space of our own could mean for everyone here. But we need to build a visible movement for Independence and this will necessitate revolutionary new methods of working and campaigning at grassroots level in our communities.

Scotland will never sleep walk into Independence. Nor is any single political party capable of achieving Independence on their own. Independence wont be achieved unless a positive progressive Scottish identity is counterposed to the British identity promoted by reactionary British state, its establishment and its media. But most of all, it wont be achieved unless we challenge the legitimacy of the British parliament itself.

The Westminster elections present us with a number of choices and challenges. Do we explain the truth about these elections? And how they are a democratic fraud being played on the Scottish people? Do we try and politicise the mass boycott that will take place and orientate it towards the elections of 2007? Or do we timidly use these elections to try and further our own party interests - using them to put out a national leaflet and getting some mainstream media coverage in the sort of newspapers and late night TV programmes that few people read or watch?

Make no mistake about it. The mass boycott will take place whether the SSP stands or not. It will take boldness, audacity and courage to actively co-ordinate the boycott of the British elections, and to tell people the truth about the Westminster Parliament.

The Brit media will spew derision at us, just as the unionist politicians will howl with outrage at anyone who refuses to play ball with Westminster. If there are two institutions the British establishment cant stand anyone attacking its their beloved Armed Forces and their beloved Westminster parliament. But the majority of the punters are already way ahead of the political parties on this one.

In 2001 the SSP stood a number of candidates to help establish our name and ideas. Now the stakes are much higher. Are we going to help organise and encourage a politicised mass boycott of Westminster? Or play ball with the British establishment? Opportunities like this dont come around very often.

Published Friday 11th February 2005
In Issue 207, Scottish Socialist Voice

FEB 4th: "LEADERSHIP" ELECTIONS

2005-02-04T09:00:00.000Z

With the Westminster elections a foregone conclusion it is little wonder that political commentators south of the border prefer focussing on the internal contest between Brown and Blair.

You have to laugh as the two candidates jockey for position. These are two establishment politicians who vote down the line with each other on everything from warmongering to union bashing to privatisation. What we have is essentially an apolitical beauty contest between Tweedledee and Tweedledum fuelled by gossip, personality clashes, and above all the need to dress up the same old rotten tripe as something new and tasty.

Its easy to mock our opponents but it is much more important to ensure that our own party doesnt follow suit and participate in a beauty contest to fill the vacant National Convenors position. Every SSP party member has a duty to speak out and demand that this contest is made a battle of political ideas not about who is best at performing on the pro-British and anti-socialist media. (In general, the mass media should NOT be the primary tool a socialist party uses to communicate with its supporters. Communications should primarily be through ongoing involvement and dialogue within our local communities.)

While most party members will agree that Alan McCombes and Colin Fox are two individuals who have worked tirelessly to build the SSP to date, it is imperative that this contest is not about personalities, nor about gossip, nor about who comes over best in the media. Because if we go down that road then we may as well give up. Wed be aping the very political methods of those who want to extract the politics from politics.

It is important for the future of this party that every party member is aware that there is a real choice on offer here. There is a gaping political chasm between the two candidates on one of the two fundamental pillars on which this party was founded: namely on the question of Scottish independence.

We have one candidate who has driven forward the agenda for Scottish independence, who has rejected the old sectarian way of not working and discussing with other parties and groups who support Scottish independence; and who understands the potential for breaking up the British state as early as 2007 - in an election which will be dominated by the opportunity for returning a majority for Independence.

On the other hand we have another candidate who, for the last five years, has never raised the need for Scottish Independence in Parliament, in the media, in any letters or speeches, and who has shown little interest in one of the twin pillars of this partys very existence; claiming he is lukewarm on this issue.

It is one of those quirks of politics that within a party committed to both socialism and Scottish Independence a leadership candidate has emerged who doesnt have any interest in pushing the Independence agenda forward. But thats what genuine democracy is all about and therefore we should congratulate Colin Fox for giving us a chance to debate the direction this party is going in for the next two crucial years.

For the last six years the SSP has had a National Convenor in Tommy Sheridan who led from the front fearlessly, and with total commitment, on both the social issues AND crucially on the fight for Scottish Independence. The next Convenor must do likewise. And then some.

The next two years - in the run up to the Independence Election of 2007 - will be the two most important years of our short existence. The prize is there within the grasp of the Scottish people: a chance to break with the archaic, war-mongering, racist British state and a chance to create our own democratic space within which we can put fresh radical ideas on the political agenda.

Dont allow this Convenors election to be made about personalities and media presentation. Do that and we all lose.

NB
This was supposed to be published Friday 4th February 2005
In Issue 206, Scottish Socialist Voice
It is the only Rebel Ink Column since 1997 the Editors have spiked for politcal reasons.

JAN 28th: VILLAGATE IDIOTS

2005-01-28T09:00:00.000Z

Over the last few weeks the Villagate saga has rumbled on much to the annoyance of Kirsty Wark, Jack McConnell, the BBC, the Scottish Executive, most of the Scottish media, and assorted political pundits. And all because Jack wanted to have a family get together with his old pal Kirsty. Who just happened to be a high-profile political presenter for the BBC and joint-owner of a TV production company.

Personally, I couldnt give a toss who Jack McConnell goes on holiday with. In fact the sooner he goes on a permanent holiday the better. But the whole affair says more about the media than the media themselves would like.

The Scottish Executive, like the BBC and the rest of the Scottish media dont like this story one little bit. With the exception of the most right wing papers - like The Telegraph and The Scotsman - media commentators are falling over themselves to defend Kirsty and Jacks friendship.

Iain Macwhirter led the charge in the Sunday Herald where a page two commentary finishes pompously: Enough of all this parochialism. Villagate has run its course. Time to get back to politics.

And in case we missed this opinion piece getting sneaked into the news section of the newspaper in the same edition Macwhirters colleague, Alan Taylor, rattles his wee sabre at Scottish parochialism finishing his piece with much the same refrain: While abroad we forge ahead, at home we fight like ferrets in a sack. Like Villagate, it sucks.

So thats what Villagate was all about: Scots running down oor ain folk because thats what we do best? And this is supposed to be heavyweight journalism?

Villagate was embarrassing for these people because it shed unwelcome light on the close working relationship between mainstream politicians and the media. An unhealthy relationship has developed where the boundaries between the two have become so blurred that its becoming difficult to work out which lot make government policy and which lot do the PR job on it.

The BBC in particular is well established as the British governments in-house propaganda machine on all matters regarding war, defence, terrorism, strikes and civil disobedience. But that doesnt mean that they should be allowed to get away with it unchallenged.

The Villagate affair got coverage but who in the national media is going to challenge the routine government propaganda served up by the BBC as supposedly objective news?

For instance, the BBCs One OClock News Bulletin on Jan 20th had reporter James Robbins stating that US relations with Iran were looking very murky because of the nuclear threat.

Eh? Say that again.

He did. On the Six OClock News that same night Robbins spelled it out again and spoke of an Iran where the President is confronting the nuclear threat.

Is this déjà vu or what? Are we now going to have to listen to months of media lies and propaganda about Irans supposed nuclear threat in the build up to a third US instigated war in the middle east?

Taking a leaf out of the excellent Media Lens project there are things we can do. One is to let the BBC know that they wont get away this unchallenged.

Write to James Robbins at james.robbins@bbc.co.uk

Write to Helen Boaden, director of BBC News at helen.boaden@bbc.co.uk

Write to Roger Mosey, head of BBC TV news at roger.mosey@bbc.co.uk

Ask them (politely might get a reply!) to explain why they feel it necessary to make unsubstantiated claims about an Iranian nuclear threat. Ask them why was such emotive language used after the recent propaganda offensive about Iraqi WMD turned out to be total lies. Ask them how many times they will be reiterating these unfounded claims in the coming months.

The cosy relationship between politicians, the state, and the mass media undermines what little democracy we have at present and needs to be challenged and shown up for what it is. Villagate was just one small part of that.

Published Friday 28th Januray 2005
In Issue 205, Scottish Socialist Voice

JAN 21st: SCOTLAND ROCKS BIG STYLE

2005-01-21T09:00:00.000Z

Given the commercial and critical success of Scottish bands like Franz Ferdinand, Snow Patrol and Travis it was inevitable that our illustrious neighbours in the south would do everything in their cultural power to wrap them all up in tartan ribbon and do what the London cultural mafia are so good at: a) creating a temporary regional fad out of anything originating in the sticks or b) claiming them all as their own i.e. as good ole Brits.

A bit unfair on the London meeja? Not really. Franz Ferdinand and Snow Patrol (who qualify as adopted Scots in an inclusive Lloyd Cole sort of way) have just landed a bagful of nominations for the London music presss annual cocaine fest which goes under the name of The Brit Awards. (Pass the sick bucket).

The Brit Awards - like the MTV Awards, the Booker Prize, and every other cultural backslap - has little to do with creative brilliance, pushing the boundaries of innovation, or hitting a raw popular nerve, but has everything to do with filthy lucre: namely services to the industry in terms of sales and sponsorship.

However bastardised the reasoning behind The Brit Awards championing bands like Franz Ferdinand and Snow Patrol there is a much deeper and genuine acknowledgement among real music fans that Scotland is going through an incredible musical renaissance at present (similar to the one that occurred in Scottish literature in advance of devolution - and you can draw your own conclusions regarding how far cultural self-confidence can take us down the road of self-determination).

Here in Scotland we KNOW that the quality of music being produced here is expanding at what seems to be an exponential rate. When the List magazine asked readers to vote for their Top 50 Bands it was pandering to this understanding, but no less interesting for all that.

Instead of the London meeja patronising the provinces for their commercial successes, this was ordinary Scottish music fans voting for the music. How else can you explain the utterly brilliant Belle and Sebastian being voted The Best Scottish Band Of All Time with the even better Idlewild coming third? (Okay, I suspect a fan lobby regarding Idlewild but its about time that great band were more widely acclaimed. Their last two albums 100 Broken Windows and The Remote Part should be in every music lovers collection.)

When Scottish music fans include in their Top 10 Bands Of All Time outfits like the above plus Travis, SAHB, Simple Minds, Teenage Fanclub, Primal Scream, The Proclaimers, and those majestic working class radges from Edinburgh who were The Bay City Rollers, then you know that this a country that celebrates diversity in musical taste rather than conformity. (Okay, thats only nine of the top ten as I reckon that the inclusion of Wet Wet Wet before the likes of Mylo, the Ferdinands, Arab Strap, Nectarine No. 9 and Mull Historical Society was a total misprint).

Lists are just a bit of fun although Im not convinced that Best Of lists appeal to everyone (even though the supposedly cerebral Channel Four seems to think it can fill three hours every week with a list of 100 Greatest Movies/ Soap Moments/ Nosepicks/etc).

Mind you, when I was a kid, like most boys, I used to make up lists of my favourite bands/films/footballers/etc. Its a real trainspotter thing to do and you (try to) grow out of it. The funny thing was I noticed my sister used to make up lists as well. Except hers tended to be lists of things she had to do. Hmm.

Maybe the Voice will get in the spirit of this and run a readers poll where we can vote for our Top Ten Political Theorists of All Time. Would Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin stand a chance against Noam Chomsky and Paolo Freire? Id like to think they would get hammered off the park. Competition, eh. Where does it end?

Published Friday 21st January 2005
In Issue 204, Scottish Socialist Voice

DEC 3rd: QUESTION EVERYTHING, ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO WOULD LEAD

2004-12-03T13:00:00.000Z

When John Lydon spat out the lyrics to the Sex Pistols song EMI he hit the nail right on the head, especially with regards to received information: "blind acceptance is a sign... of stupid fools who fall in line..."

That goes for anything you hear, see or read. In order to develop as a free-thinking individual you need to jettison the bad habits they teach at school and learn to question everything. No matter it's source. (And that includes anything you might read in this column.) Background research, cross-checking of facts, and further reading is crucial. Especially if you are going to use such given facts as political ammunition.

It is one of the reactionary characteristics of all authoritarian centralist political organisations - left, right, and centre variations - that wisdom is handed down from the centre and is poured like hogswill into willing and compliant foot soldiers. The same process goes on in the armed forces and the police - which are also organised on a centralised and authoritarian basis. Critical questioning is never encouraged.

If you watch a politically-loaded play like Jim Allens Perdition then such is the incendiary nature of the material it is unforgivable if you leave your critical faculties at the door and accept anything you see or hear without doing the graft to check out the facts and counter-arguments.

The initial problem with Perdition, however, is one of access rather than of propaganda. Because of the hostile reaction from a section of the Jewish community few people have had the chance to see it. In 1987, when Ken Loach attempted to direct Perdition for the Royal Court Theatre, it caused a storm of protest.

A letter to the Guardian at the time denounced Perdition as a "reactionary and poisonous work" and in effect called for censorship. The signatories of the letter included Steven Berkoff, Andre Deutsch, Clive Sinclair and Bernice Rubens. The words "anti-Semitism" were howled from the rooftops by the usual suspects and the Royal Court Theatre pulled the Ken Loach version two days before its first performance. This cacophony of vitriol and abuse successfully drowned out any serious discussion on the merits of the play as a piece of theatre or as a historically accurate piece of agitprop.

It does great credit to the fledgling Dialogue Theatre Company and the Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign that Perdition was not only performed in Scotland for the first time last month but with a great cast that included Tam Dean Burn as the lawyer defending the author of a controversial pamphlet on Zionist-Nazi collaboration; and Bill Murdoch as the complex character of Yaron (based on the real life Hungarian Zionist leader, Rudolf Kastner, who in 1955 was accused in an Israeli court by a Hungarian Jew of collaborating with the Nazis).

Jim Allen's script claims the Zionist leaders of the Jewish community betrayed their people. Accusations of betrayal by the so-called leaders of working people are often simplistic or misleading. Such accusations generally look to leaders at the top for sources of inspiration/betrayal rather than towards the degree of self-organisation at the base.

But sometimes such claims are justified and in Perdition the evidence is presented dramatically and powerfully. The play points out that Hitler's deputy, Adolf Eichmann (who oversaw the extermination of the Jews) was an expert in Hebrew, the Jewish religion, and Zionism. Eichmann understood that most Jews will normally follow their community leaders' instructions. He didn't want another Warsaw uprising. So he cynically used false promises and false hopes to get compliant Jewish leaders to disarm and pacify the great mass of their people and march them onto the death trains.

A column like this cannot do justice to the complex politics, claims and counter-claims surrounding Perdition. There is so much in it to reflect upon, especially concerning the ideology that led to the creation of the Israeli state in 1948. It is undoubtedly a shocking and thought-provoking play which deserves a much wider audience. Catch it anywhere you can.

Published Friday 3rd December 2004
In Issue 200, Scottish Socialist Voice

NOV 26th: STICKING THE BOOT INTO RACISM

2004-11-26T12:00:00.000Z

A few weeks ago I succumbed to daughter-pressure and had cable TV installed. By the time it arrived Id convinced myself that MTV was a small price to pay for more football and the latest episodes of The Simpsons. If theres one constant in life its that The Simpsons will never let you down. Pity the same cant be said about the football.

Last Wednesday I didnt bother making the half mile trip along the road to watch Scotland get humped by (insert name of whoever they were playing) and opted instead to watch the Spain versus England match.

I wish I hadnt. In a time when war atrocities in the Middle East and a famine in Africa are needlessly devouring human lives before our very eyes you would think it would be near impossible anymore to be truly shocked to the point of disbelief. A large and audible section of the Spanish football fans proved otherwise.

Every time a black England player got the ball the fans in Madrid howled a chorus of monkey chants. It got so bad the football was being largely forgotten as even the commentators cringed in embarrassment at the shame that was being brought upon Spanish football. It was the most disgusting display of racism at a football match Ive seen since I stood in the old Jungle at Celtic Park on January 2nd 1988 and watched hundreds of bananas being thrown at Mark Walters in an Old Firm derby.

There is no place for racism in sport. Nor anywhere else. Unless racism is challenged head on it will create division and hostility among the poorest and most desperate of people, and spread like a cancer.

Four day after that horror show in Madrid the eyes of the footballing world were on La Ligas table-topping clash of the titans. It was the swashbuckling Barcelona side versus the galacticos of Real Madrid. The match at Barcelonas Nou Camp turned out to be a cracker. 3-0 to the Catalans.

What we saw before the kick off was something else. Well aware of the criticism of Spanish (ie Madrid) fans, Barcelona FC distributed coloured squares of paper on the seats prior to the game. When they were held up- by an entire stand of one of the biggest stadia in the world - the A4 sheets created a giant message seen live in 81 different countries which stated simply: CATALONIA IS NOT SPAIN.

After the night of shame in Madrid, the political consciousness of those Barca fans was a joy to behold. The Barca fans wanted to publicly disassociate themselves from the racism heard in Madrid and in doing so re-state their unique and progressive identity.

Barcelona FC is the pride of Catalonia. Unlike Real Madrid, who are owned and run by rich capitalist concerns, Barcelona is the peoples club. It is owned collectively by 125,000 ordinary Catalans. The gulf between Francos team and the peoples club was never more starkly illustrated. And it showed clearly that ordinary fans have the power in their own hands to stand up and oppose racism.

As a postscript, a couple of weeks ago at Easter Road a big buffoon sitting near us in the East Stand was making monkey noises at a black opposition player. It was pathetic. But one brave season ticket holder in front of us had enough. He climbed over the seats and sorted it out, with help from police officers who had initially ignored the abusive behaviour.

After the game a few of us spotted the guy in Robbies Bar and thanked him for having the guts to intervene. Like he said: "If you dont nip it in the bud some of the impressionable young laddies will think its okay or funny and next you know it theyre all at it."

It can take courage, but by refusing to be silent the decent football fans who find racism offensive can make a difference.

Published Friday 26th November 2004
In Issue 199, Scottish Socialist Voice

NOV 19th: A TIME FOR HONESTY

2004-11-19T10:00:00.000Z

Sometimes, when things go wrong, you have to look at a situation square in the face and deal with it head on, no bullshit, no excuses, no sidestepping the issues, and be brutally honest.

The situation that has developed around Tommys resignation is one case in point. Whatever is said publicly, this sure feels like a punch in the guts to me. Its not something you can just shrug off and say business as usual. It will mean a set back for a period of time as we regroup and learn from what has happened. But we have to take it on the chin and come out of it stronger and wiser.

Maybe I blinked and missed it, but I didnt notice war, poverty, poor health, drug addiction, nuclear weapons, surveillance, censorship, violence nor pollution disappear overnight to make our socialist ideas redundant. But you'd think so by the way elements in the media are gleefully rubbing their hands and superficially predicting the end of the SSP.

The situation we have is that Tommy is no longer the SSP's National Convenor. He's getting crucified in the media and nobody deserves that. (You can count me out if there's any sticking of the boot into Tommy. This is someone who has done so much for this party and for the movement over more than two decades.) Compassion for those who must be hurting inside is a strength not a weakness.

Recriminations and blame would be a mistake too. They would also reflect a serious lack of political understanding of what this party's objectives are all about, and how we intend to achieve them.

Our so-called leadership contest is worth considering further. Speculation on who will be the next leader of this party is an example of how the media's agenda can subconsciously infect our own thinking.

The position of National Convenor was in essence a tokenistic one anyway, a mere label to help out a lazy media. Unlike the other party leaders, the SSP's National Convenor couldn't appoint people or change policy. These things are done democratically and collectively.

Tommy's larger than life personality has been an asset to the SSP. There's no doubt about that. When you have an asset it's important to use it. But it doesn't necessarily follow that this is the best or only way of operating. Just because the media demand a personality as leader is not a valid reason why we should have to work that way.

To use a footballing analogy, the French, the Portuguese, and the Spanish had personalities and so-called leaders by the bucket loads during the Euro 2004 championships. But it was the unfancied Greece team - who had a clear game plan, who played as a team, who fought for each other, and who were effectively organised - that won the tournament.

Instead of going down the route of fetishising leaders, it may be much more constructive if we took the time to study important social movements such as the World and European Social Forums, the Zapatistas, or the movement in the Basque Country. These are movements that have consciously rejected charismatic individual leaders in favour of a decentralised collective approach.

The key to our success will be found at local level not at national level. The relationship between individual members and their local communities and workplaces will determine our further progress.

This may be a good time for considering a more decentralised approach within our own party: with no more reliance on national leaders or MSPs to come up with initiatives and presentation of policies; to discuss and develop independent strategies in our local Branches; to develop eight strong and fully autonomous Regions; and in doing so streamline the national bodies of the party into a mere co-ordinating role between the Regions. That kind of combat party would be virtually impregnable to the situation we currently find ourselves in.

NOV 12th: ON WRITING FICTION

2004-11-12T10:00:00.000Z

Now and again I get pieces of writing to have a look at. This is a recent email I sent to an aspiring writer in the SSP. I've included it here, just in case its of use to anyone else reading the Voice:

Hi. Got your email and attached piece of writing. Cheers.

I usually try to avoid saying to anyone who asks me to look at their writing, yeah, that's great, you're a good writer, or don't give up the day job. No point. That implies that a person's creativity has become fixed, permanent, and isn't developing. Skills will always improve with practice. And with occasional helpful feedback. Like in every other walk of life.

The thing with writing fiction is that it rarely falls into place until you discover what doesn't work. Most mates will just say, yeah, that was okay, or, I liked that, or, I like that bit, or whatever. And you learn very little as a result.

So here's a few of my thoughts, for what they're worth:

In your piece of writing the area that needs worked on most is characterisation. No two ways about it. There is a an old maxim when it comes to characterisation that says "you gotta show not tell" and it still holds good.

For example, on page 3, you introduce a character, Ray the taxi driver, with the sentence: "Ray the taxi driver was a miserable bastard." That is called telling. Naebody likes getting told anything! If you want the guy to be read as a miserable git then show him being miserable. Simple as that. Otherwise a reader will just think ... yeah, so what.

And why "was miserable" - in the past tense? Has he cheered up or what? Using past tense can fail to ping a reader's bell ... it makes it all seem done and dusted. A good way to develop your writing skills, and your story, would be to change everything to the present tense. Seriously.

This is good practice and a good exercise. Once you're comfortable with writing in the present tense you'll be much better equipped to use past tense. I tend to think that past tense can have a school essay sniff about it - if it isn't done right - and that it's much harder to write well using past tense than present.

Basically, I'm just saying: liven it up a bit, put a bit more depth or layers into the characters, show more, and tell less. This can be done through all sorts of tried and tested techniques: e.g. through dialogue or actions, through physical mannerisms, idiosyncrasies, arguments, conflicts, etc. Let their inner character shine through.

If you're serious about writing and getting published make time to try to write a bare minimum of say 3000 words of fiction a week. And keep it coming. Short fiction, longer fiction, whatever. Finish off whole episodes and short stories.

None, or very little, of it will be very publishable at first but don't worry about that too much. Just keep writing. Cos that's what writers do.

Once you've got, say, another 50-100,000 words of fiction under your belt then you'll have plenty of material to work on, your writing skills will be more polished, and if you concentrate on characterisation then you'll have plenty of good characters to work with. Good characters are worth their weight in gold. It's usually the characters you tend to remember best from any work of fiction, rather than the plot or storyline.

And study authors you like. Pick up any book, at page one, and with a marker pen highlight the exact words which give you an insight into a character. Or highlight anything that makes you want to read more. Try and work out why particular combination of words work for you, as the reader.

Everything that you write must make the reader want to read on, know more, or find out more ... otherwise you've lost them. That's the key to good writing.

There endeth my writing tutorial! Up to you now mate.

All the best. Kev.

Published Friday 12th November 2004
In Issue 197, Scottish Socialist Voice

NOV 5th: CORPORATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS

2004-11-04T17:40:00.000Z

There is a school of thought that believes that social change is something that begins outwith the individual, externally, through an all-cleansing, all-transforming revolution in economic property forms, which is almost biblical in the way that it marks the dividing line between heaven (socialism) and hell (capitalism).

These thoughts, among others, sprung to mind after watching the excellent must-see documentary film, The Corporation (reviewed elsewhere in this paper).

In The Corporation there is a report on an investigation into the sharp practices of Nike. Agents from the National Labour Committee were sifting through the garbage and waste outside a Nike factory in the Dominican Republic when they chanced upon a pile of unshredded Nike internal pricing documents.

These internal documents showed how the Nike corporate mindset works. Their operation was broken down into time frames which measured productivity not in hours or days but in ten thousands of a second! The workers had 6.6141 minutes to make each shirt.

The pay in this particular factory was 70 cents per hour (in US currency). This meant that the workers were being paid 8 cents per Nike shirt. The NLC calculated that wages in the Nike factory came to 0.3% of the total price of the manufactured garment. Almost nothing in other words.

Other brands were just as exploitative. Workers in El Salvador were paid 74 cents for making a Liz Claiborne jacket that retailed in New York for $178. Women who made 9Y9 shirts that retailed for $14.00 were paid 3 cents per shirt.

These days I choose not to buy Nike for either myself or anyone else. Same goes for brands such as Reebok, Gap, and Adidas. I dont want to line the pockets of corporations who exploit slave labour and then use my money to further the destructive interests of economic globalisation and the New American Empire. To put my money in the Nike coffers would mean feeling like a hypocrite when you are totally opposed to their corporate agenda.

Most socialists wouldnt be seen dead wearing the Nike or Reebok brand name for just those reasons. Although, too my knowledge, there is no official trade union campaign of global boycott against these corporations because of the slave wages they pay.

Those of us who have chosen not to buy such products do so because we have decided, as individuals, that to buy Nike or Reebok is ethically and ideologically incompatible with our own personal or political beliefs.

A number of questions spring to mind when you explore this issue further. Such as: How important are the choices we make as consumers? Should such boycotts be organised collectively? Or should they come from an individuals social conscience?

Should we boycott all products that are unethically produced? Unethical in this instance could mean what Coca Cola do in Colombia; what Bacardi do with regards to Cuba; what McDonalds do with regards to trade union recognition; what Bernard Matthews does to animals; what Shell are doing to the environment; or the slave wages that are being paid by the likes of Nike.

It isnt as straightforward either as standing on a podium and launching a Boycott Nike campaign or a Boycott McDonalds campaign. Nike and McDonalds have global advertising budgets and skilful corporate marketing strategies that will effectively stop any boycott from hurting them hard financially.

Examining our actions as consumers is about educating, empowering and transforming ourselves as individuals, through making as many ethical choices on the way we live as possible. And it is about how we operate as conscious individuals as part of a progressive movement for social change.

When individuals take politicised ethical decisions about how they live, in the here and now, an internalised revolution is taking place. This is arguably much more important than listening passively to speeches or merely reading about political theory. This is about participation and transformation. And best of all it can take whatever form an individual chooses.

Published Friday 5th November 2004
In Issue 196, Scottish Socialist Voice

OCT 22: SONIC ADVERTISING IN GOVANHILL

2004-10-22T01:00:00.000Z

You would think that Tom Cruise in the film, Minority Report, is about as for removed from deepest Glasgow as you could ever possibly get. Minority Report is a film where murders are predicted in advance of them happening in order to prevent them from taking place. Glasgow is a place … well you get the drift.

However, in one small respect, Glasgow is catching up with Minority Report’s sci-fi world of carefully-targeted, hi-tech street advertising. Govanhill now has its very own talking bus stop.

The Initiative – a back to work project – has inserted a microchip into the number 66 bus stop advertising the opening of an advice centre. This “sonic advertising” is read out by “Kirsty” every three minutes between 8am and 6pm.

It is a fair bet to say that the good people of Govanhill - weighed down as usual with message bags full of square sausage and boatels of ginger – will be going off their chumps at this unsolicited waffle bombarding their lug holes every three minutes.

On the surface this might seem like a good idea to help advertise a service that gets people back to work. But that would be to miss the real point.

This is Scotland first ever talking bus shelter. You can be certain that behind the scenes, lurking in the shadows, bus stop advertising companies like Adshel, as well as all the major advertising agencies representing big corporations, will be keeping a beady eye on developments.

I detest corporate advertising and everything it represents. No one is every consulted about such advertising: i.e. whether we want it in our communities or not. Billboards are forever appearing overnight like rashes on Bill Clinton’s syphilitic dick. A cash cow for the corporate Monicas, Bills and Hilarys perhaps – all out to pimp their latest goods - but nauseating for the rest of us.

I’m pretty much in agreement with David Ogilvy, the man who founded Ogilvy and Mather Advertising Agency, who wrote in Confessions of an Advertising Man:

“As a private person, I have a passion for landscape, and I have never seen one improved by a billboard. Where prospect pleases, man is at his vilest when he erects a billboard. When I retire from Madison Avenue, I am going to start a secret society of masked vigilantes who will travel around the world on silent motorcycles, chopping down posters at the dark of moon. How many juries will convict us when we are caught in these acts of beneficent citizenship?”

The principle of direct action – as constructive destruction - is a sane and democratic one. These are our communities and corporate advertising should have no place within them… if we decide so.

Billboards are big business, and so the companies who erect them have to grease plenty of grasping civic paws in order to obtain space to tout their wares. Yet they are vulnerable to many things. Paint hurled over them a la Jackson Pollock is one colourful way of letting them know their advertising is unwanted. Ramming a pole between the triangular columns of revolving ones jiggers them up too I’m told.

Alternatively, billboard modification, or adbusting, is a creative way of getting an alternative message across. Activists in Scotland have utilised this form of direct action to promote anti-war or anti-sexist sentiments.

There are those who will always be sniffy at this form of direct action. Saying it changes nothing. But doing nothing is what changes nothing. Taking part in conscious acts of dissent transforms the persons taking part. This could be more enervating than, say, sitting at a hundred political meetings, listening to others speak.

And, by the way, if you’re in the neighbourhood of Govanhill check to see if anyone has had the good sense to knock the shit out of that annoying bus stop yet.

Published: Fri 22nd October 2004
In Issue 194, Scottish Socialist Voice

OCT 15: CONSIDER THE LILIES

2004-10-15T08:00:00.000Z

“Her name was Mrs Scott and she was an old woman of about seventy. She was sitting on an old chair in front of her cottage when she saw the rider.”

As opening sentences to novels go, at first glance these words don’t quite pull you in with the compulsive bait of say, Albert Camus’ existential classic, The Outsider. You don’t get much more intriguing opening lines to a novel than “Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure.” Those are the thoughts of a seriously dislocated individual. You want to find out more.

In comparison, the introduction in the lines above seem a bit ordinary, a bit functional even. And who wants to read a book that starts with an old woman sitting in a chair in front of her cottage? All of which shows that first impressions can often be deceiving.

For those are the opening lines to Ian Crichton Smith’s Consider The Lilies, and its a genuine classic I’ve been compelled to read not just once, but over and over and over again.

Consider The Lilies was first published in 1968. It is not a long novel, not more than 140 pages, and is set in the far north of Scotland, sometime in the first half of the nineteenth century. It is the story of a frail and essentially lonely old woman who has worked hard all her life for little material gain.

This woman has little education, nor any knowledge of life beyond her own small and geographically isolated community in rural Sutherland. What sustains her in her old age is her Calvinist beliefs that she will get her reward in an afterlife. Death, she feels, can’t be that far away.

Ian Crichton Smith is one of greatest poets Scotland has ever produced. In this novel it is through the poet’s eye that we see and feel the great and dramatic change that is about to sweep through the Scottish Highlands.

The author was careful though on how he described his most well-known book of prose. He often stated that it wasn’t a novel about the Highland Clearances. In the preface he writes “This is not an historical novel. It is a fictional study of one person, an old woman who is being evicted.” Well… yes and no.

It is significant that the central character is an old woman rather than the atheist neighbour, Donald Macleod, who could so easily have been made into the hero of the piece. The author once commented that “I do deeply think that women are stronger, more enduring than men.” No reasonable person could argue with that.

In his effortless prose, a deceptively simple prose, Ian Crichton Smith skilfully draws the reader into the mind of a bewildered old woman who simply can’t understand why she should have to leave the only home she has ever lived in, the home she brought up her son in. For what? In order to drag her meagre worldly possessions miles away to live on a piece of barren land, god knows where? She doesn’t believe that the church elders will ever permit such a thing to happen.

Slowly Mrs Scott has her lifetime’s beliefs challenged. The reader follows spellbound until, even in the teeth of coercion and bribery, a frail old woman comes to commit an act of such breathtaking yet simple defiance that it is truly inspiring. She learns to says no.

As the author comments, “Mrs Scott was to be broken out of her ideology to see how she could cope as a human being.” It is in her stubborn refusal to betray her friends, and in her own quiet resistance to the horrors of eviction, that her humanity burns more fiercely than all the flaming torches of her evictors.

This book is an invaluable fragment of our cultural heritage. Consider The Lilies is a constant source of inspiration, righteous anger against injustice, and an affirmation of basic human decency against all odds. And you know what? It’s just £4.99 in all good bookshops.

Published: Fri 15th October 2004
In Issue 193, Scottish Socialist Voice

OCT 8: A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

2004-10-08T08:00:00.000Z

With the launch of “The Declaration of Calton Hill” on October 9^th, a serious marker is being laid down in the fight for an independent Scottish republic. This is the first serious public gathering for an independent Scottish republic in over a generation.

Between now and 2007 – which marks both the 300^th anniversary of the much-loathed Act of Union, and a very real chance to end that Union via the Scottish Parliamentary elections of that year – a lot of imaginative thought and co-operative action is going to be necessary to challenge the existence of the reactionary British state and its forelock-tugging offspring: the idea of a British identity.

The resurgence and reclamation of a Scottish identity has nothing to do with narrow-minded nationalism - as the dull-witted British establishment would like to have us believe. It comes fundamentally from the legacy of the last 700 years of Scottish history, but also from a growing maturity among the Scottish working classes that being part of the so-called United Kingdom is a liability to our interests.

People in Scotland are waking up to the fact that the British state has no future and a blood-stained past. It is a state grown bloated upon the exploitation and plunder of a quarter of the planet’s population at the height of its militaristic Empire. From India to Africa, from the far East to the Middle East, and even within the borders of the current British state, in the north of Ireland, the history of the British Empire has been one of oppression, war, conflict, massacres, the destruction of indigenous cultures, and the theft of natural resources.

The British establishment pat themselves on the back as being home to the “Mother of all Parliaments”. These deluded old buffers actually believe that not only did they invent democracy, but they nurtured and developed it, and are its greatest guardians. You gotta laugh. The history records show that the British establishment fought violently, often at gunpoint, to resist extending the vote to working class people, and for women. Chartists, trade unionists, and dissenting voices were often deported or jailed for trying to extract democratic rights from the British state.

The British state especially suppressed, jailed and executed those who fought for national sovereignty within its Four Countries. In 1916, James Connolly was tied wounded to a chair and then shot by the British government for trying to establish an independent Ireland. In 1820, two of Scotland’s greatest radical heroes, Andrew Hardie and John Baird, were both taken to Stirling Castle, given a rigged trial under English Law - which even contravened the terms of the Act of Union - and were hanged and beheaded by axe for their part in the Radical Scottish Insurrection of that year which rose up to try and establish an Independent Scottish Republic.

Here in the 21^st Century, 35 years after men walked on the moon, two centuries after even the Americans established themselves a Constitution and a Bill of Rights, and some 350 years after a republic was established in England, these useless articles still haven’t dumped an archaic feudal relic like the British monarchy, nor have they got rid off their second UNELECTED parliament, the House of Lords, which can actually overrule the elected one! A lesson in democracy for the rest of the world? A lesson in anti-democratic buffoonery more like.

Today the British state has become the war-mongering lieutenant to the interests of the New American Empire. The representatives of the British state, representing no one but their rich and powerful imperial masters, seem to think that there is nothing wrong with having its citizens despised across the middle east; being a target for desperate terrorists; and being the subject of the most intrusive internal surveillance operation of any people in the so-called free world. They’re so wrong.

Being part of the so-called United Kingdom is both a disgrace and an embarrassment to all freedom and democracy loving Scots. It’s time to get out and stand on our own ten million feet.

Published: Fri 8th Oct 2004
In Issue 192, Scottish Socialist Voice

OCT 1: A NEW BREED OF SCREEN SAVERS

2004-10-01T13:00:00.000Z

The rise of the political documentary - once Michael Moore had battered down the multiplex defences with Bowling For Columbine - has been one of the best things that has happened to the cinema since they invented that wee chocolate bit at the end of a Cornetto.

In Edinburgh, over the weekend just passed, the Cameo Cinema screened some great documentaries such as Fahrenheit 911, Supersize Me, McLibel and Jeremy Hardy versus the Israeli Army.

On September 30^thThe Corporation, yet another welcome docu-movie, starring Noam Chomsky and friends, is released, which questions the uncontrollable and destructive influence of corporate power.

Bring em on, I say. And the more the better. The collective experience of watching a good political documentary in a packed cinema, and then going for a chat about it in the bar afterwards, is as good an introduction to a political discussion as any meeting could ever achieve. And it kicks the ass of sitting at home, grumping at the tele on your own.

Not to be outdone by its neighbour, the Edinburgh Filmhouse has screened a few documentaires including one recently called The Basque Ball; which was one of those films that you wish could made more widely available than the few arthouses cinemas in Scotland where such films are nearly always destined to run, and then only for a few days, or a week at best.

The premise of The Basque Ball was simple enough. Director Julio Medem - best known for directing the erotically charged Sex and Lucia - filmed around 100 interviews with Basque and Spanish people from all walks of life, then, through what he probably thought was judicious editing, put them all together to tell the story of Western Europe’s most oppressed people.

Inevitably, I suppose, given the current political climate in Spain, the editing of the film was loaded towards portraying the armed struggle of ETA, and the human consequences for ETA’s victims, as being central to what they call the “Basque problem”. Even though a founder of ETA and a couple of Batasuna activists are interviewed the film ends up being a bit unbalanced.

There is little discussion about the nature of the ongoing state-sponsored violence against the Basques, and how that is central to the very existence of ETA. Although to be fair to Medem the banning of Batasuna, the random five-day detentions and torture of alleged Basque activists, and the dispersal of Basque political prisoners out of the Basque country, are not ignored.

Nevertheless, The Basque Ball has a relevance that should reach way beyond trying to understand the situation in Euskal Herria. Medem champions the idea of genuine dialogue as a way forward, particularly when a political impasse has been reached.

Crucially, Medem doesn’t present dialogue as a game of tennis, where one person bats their fixed and inflexible opinions over a net, then waits for the other side to do likewise with the return. The director allows a wide range of ideas and responses to be brought out into the open and gives them the space so that as many voices as possible can be heard.

No human being with a brain that still works would want to live in a world where one political camp can impose their ideology wholesale onto an entire population. That kind of ideological fascism should be left rotting in the sump of twentieth century dogma where it belongs. That sort of nonsense ends up with dangerous zealots simplistically divvying people up into camps of “those who are with us” and “an enemy” who is “against us”. Aye, right.

The Basque Ball may not be the most balanced of documentaries but a great deal can be learned from it, not least regarding that most difficult of political tasks: merging inclusivity with principles. The Basque Ball may be difficult to track down but it’s well worth the effort

Published: Fri Oct 1st 2004

In Issue 191, Scottish Socialist Voice

SEPT 24: POETRY IS HISTORY

2004-09-24T00:00:00.000Z

With so many mediums of communication and culture on offer it can appear on the surface that poetry is just another one of them. And a pretty minor art form at that. Film, novels, television, music, radio, theatre, print journalism and the visual arts all seem way ahead in terms of exposure and public popularity. Poetry can be perceived as the lame alternative, an acquired taste, or even an elitist indulgence, not really for the working people.

Culture, evolving like any other organism, can only move forward, taking on new forms and new shifts of emphasis. Which is the way it should be. But chucking out the cultural baby with the elitist bathwater can deprive us not only of an art form that can enrich our understanding of the world, and of human experiences, but actually pull down a wall between our own time and the history that has made us.

Historical novels, prose epics, psychological thrillers and suchlike were pretty much a creation of the nineteenth century. Scottish writers such as James Hogg and Walter Scott (for all his other sins) played a pretty major in this on a world stage.

But if you go further back than that you soon realise that it was poetry in particular that played a central role in the shaping of, and in the understanding of, earlier times. Poetry - like its sister in verse, the folk song - was the primary tool of the best historians who lived among the ordinary people.

Just as Homer wrote his legendary epics in verse here in Scotland some of the earliest works of recorded history were written in verse. For example, when Mel Gibson made the movie ‘Braveheart’ in 1995 he didn’t invent all of the historical inaccuracies. Most of them he cribbed directly from Blind Harry’s “The Wallace” which was written around 1470. (The factual inaccuracies in Blind Harry’s brilliant epic were a product of the political period he lived in, and invaluably, through decoding, tell us as much about his Scotland of the 1470s as they do about Wallace’s time some 170-180 years earlier.)

The poetry of Robert Burns does likewise, in so much as it was set very much in the political and social context of the late 18^th and early 19^th century. In “Parcel o’ Rogues” and “Scots Wha Hae” he was not only writing great classics of Scottish verse but he was also recording the political history and machinations of the day.

Such traditions are alive and well in modern Scotland. Hugh McDairmid, Liz Lochhead, Tom Leonard and Edwin Morgan are among the great contemporary chroniclers of Scottish life and politics, as invaluable in their honest insights as any academic or “historian.” Probably much more so, since they deal with human emotions and aspirations and not just dry impersonal interpretations of fact or myth.

“Whit Lassyz Ur Inty”, a new book of poetry by Orkney based writer, Alison Flett, is worthy of including in that tradition. Flett (who previously wrote under the name of Alison Kermack) writes in a natural phonetic Scots that will have you pissing yourself laughing whilst applauding her subtle barbed swipes at patriarchy, male bullshit, Westminster rule, and the use of linguistic indoctrination to subjugate children.

A former teacher, Flett is none too impressed with some aspects of her profession, and she hits the target every time. Poems like “Political Pish”, “Saltire”, “An Education” and “askin furrit” are classics that should be on billboards and no just in a poetry book.

But for now you’ll find them in “Whit Lassyz Ur Inty” priced £6.99 from Thirsty Books. (Order online from radical bookshop Word Power rather than Amazon, Waterstones, etc.)

Published: Fri 24th September 2004
In Issue 191, Scottish Socialist Voice

SEPT 17: WHAT IS THE POINT OF THE SSP?

2004-09-17T00:00:00.000Z

Regular readers of the Voice may have noticed that this column has been posted missing for the last three months. Some readers, I’m led to believe, might even feel that three months wasn’t nearly long enough. Ah well, it would be a tedious newspaper if everyone agreed with each other.

Why the break? After seven years of writing this column I thought it might be a good idea to take a lengthy break in order to recharge the old batteries. As it turned out I ended up taking a complete break from all organised political activity.

Sometimes it can be useful to step outside the party structures and take a look at what’s happening from the outside. To try, in the words of Robert Burns, to see ourselves as others see us.

It was interesting to sit back, listening rather than arguing, and hearing what folk thought about the SSP. (Definitely something to be recommended.) Especially those who had no particular allegiance to any political party.

No matter what the opinion polls or party membership figures might indicate in hard numbers there’s no doubt about the vast reservoir of goodwill towards the SSP that exists out there. Time and time again if the subject of the SSP comes up in the pub, or at the football, or at social get-togethers, the respect that Tommy in particular has generated for this party is phenomenal. And that’s with no disrespect to the work done by our other MSPs and everyone else but it’s how a lot of punters still see us.

However, there’s another side to that. When almost everyone you hear talking about the SSP seems to basing their opinions of the party on what Tommy has achieved in the last five years, or in many cases now, among women in particular, on what Rosie has been saying or doing, alarms bells should be ringing, albeit gently.

While it does makes you proud to be in the same organisation as elected MSPs who represent working people effectively and honestly – and our MSPs are perceived in a very positive light by most folk you speak to - there is another side to this that worries me a bit.

Hardly anybody I’ve spoken to (in Leith) seems to relate to the SSP primarily as people they work alongside in their local community trying to make it a better place to live in.

In the last few months, and this is just my own personal experience, having stepped outside the party for a while, the SSP has seemed, I’m almost afraid to say, pretty much invisible at local level. The only trace of the party’s existence I’ve noticed has been the occasional quote or interview from one of our MSPs in the national media. And the Voice coming through my letter box.

As I’ve been without an internet connection for the last three months this has made me more appreciative of the role of the Voice in keeping up to date with campaigns and reports etc. The Voice is an invaluable resource to party members and supporters. Sure, it could be improved, what newspaper couldn’t. But without it, when without direct contact with the party, the SSP would have disappeared off my radar screen completely.

I suppose if anything can be drawn from this, and these are just one individual’s inconclusive impressions, then it’s that the branches of the SSP – and therefore the party as a whole - could benefit immensely from reconsidering the relationship between our branches and the local communities.

I don’t just mean raising national or international issues at local level, nor even the necessary defence of local communities under attack– such as with school and hospital closures etc - but also looking at more long term and practical ways of community building. As the Yellow Pages advert doesn’t quite say, the SSP shouldn’t just be here for the nasty things in life.

Published: Fri 17th Sept 2004
In Issue 189, Scottish Socialist Voice