[…] There has already
been a regression in what was the independence movement, as everyone rushes to rebrand,
rebuild, reinvigorate. We’re now the #the45, forever locked as an elite minority
who “got it” in contrast to the servile masses of sheeple. Not surprisingly, pulling
up the draw bridge has already been a recipe for pointless paranoia about voting
rigging, conspiracies about Third Estates, the NWO, unilateral independence being
magically possible if the SNP win a majority of Scottish seats in the UK parliament
and a whole other array of nonsense. […]
To make matters decidedly
worse, we’ve had all this chat about a new left party. I saw some boaking about
rushing into that again, without a clear understanding of how we can avoid repeating
the same mistakes we always make. The concerns are never addressed and the familiar
“there is no alternative” card is played. […]
The rush to box up the
independence movement appears very keen to take it in a traditional direction –
we all join a party, pay our subs and do as we’re told. We’ve had two years of hearing
the oldest argument in the book, “there will be plenty of time for that afterwards,
eyes on the prize” and now we’re here, only to find that as well as being painfully
prizeless, we also have to hurry the fuck up and stop making a scene. […] We’re
not in the short term anymore; community organising, union work, environmentalism,
feminising, queer hawking, the chance to develop an internationalism that extends
beyond these isles, rabble rousing, anti-racism, the book group, riot practice –
now’s the chance to start doing the stuff you’ve never had time for and to begin
to rebuild the kind of ground up networks which help build confidence and power.
[…]
There mostly likely will
be a new party or electoral alliance as a least worst option, so we do need to think
about what that will look like and that’s something those who’d be generally cynical
about such a project should be able to make a constructive contribution to. My primary
concern is whether the left is willing to create something which doesn’t treat it’s
members as an expendable resource and which aims to be a safe and happy space for
actual humans to develop, regardless of whether they are acolytes for the precise
intellectual(ised) ideas of the leadership. There is a chance the energy and education
that’s currently underway could sweep the old ways aside and give a glimmer of hope
to the oldies, we could all be wrong for a change. There are certainly many great
ideas out there, better ideas than I have but we all need time and space to think
them over.
Independence doesn’t feel
like it’s a tactic anymore, it’s being developed into a core political principle.
[…]
'Independence. For Now.', Juan Mac, A Thousand Flowers, 25 September 2014
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