I
have seen the extreme effects of extreme poverty and I didn’t have
to be a ‘poverty tourist’ to do so. One instance was in
Dingwall, the town where I grew up, during the late sixties/early
seventies. A woman, who to me was old but I was a child, had legs
which bowed right out the way and she bowled along when she walked.
It was shocking, I was shocked. My mother told me she was from
Glasgow where there was a lot of poverty and poor conditions and
she’d had rickets as a child, which was caused by a vitamin
deficiency which affects the bones when they’re growing and
vulnerable so they were damaged for life. She told me that was why
we children got free milk at school as it contained the needed
vitamins to ensure that never happened again. Terribly, it has been for a while
The
sixties and seventies were also the time when Britain had hit its
time of most equality as the ongoing results of the radical 1945
government, as well as plenty of talent, inspiration and creativity.
The upper echelons were complaining to the rest of planet Earth that
in Britain the poor were getting richer and the rich were getting
poorer and they were threatening to leave. The appropriate response
at this juncture would have been “Goodbye”, but someone called
Margaret Thatcher got up and made a speech addressing these people,
saying “Please stay”. They gave her her reward.
The
advances of democratic and social progression were brutally halted
and reversed. The establishment entrenched their position. Avarice
became the philosophy over altruism, selfishness and greed
encouraged. Progressives were co-opted and absorbed, some still
there to be seen.
So
here we are now. At least in the 60s/70s there was a consciousness,
an empathy and sympathy whereas now when people are born into
appalling situations, the right wing media which has the tabloids in
its grasp has even intelligent people believing there will be
something “genetic” wrong with that child. Some things are
genetic – like haemophilia, porphyrias, low IQ, but neither the
unfortunate results of extreme poverty nor extreme wealth are,
despite Andrew Windsor claiming “it is training and genetics”
which mean he can do his “job”. We might ask why he does it so
abysmally badly then. Now there is a culture of blame rather than
sympathy. This leads to some truly disgusting attitudes, to people
attacking those who live in the same place as them, whose lives they
would not swap with in a million years, with comments that they
“should be sent to Belsen”, “should be locked up and made to
fight each other to the death” – these are online comments made
on the Highland News website about named families in Inverness, on a
news item which didn’t even involve anyone from most of them.
Some
businesses which presumably have always accepted they must deal with
market forces but which apparently don’t feel up to dealing with
democratic forces, ‘lords’ and ‘baronesses’ now ingrained in
privilege and others who like what they have and feel complacent or
cynical are threatening to leave Scotland as it sees a chance to
escape the entrenched establishment death grip of the Westminster
political system.
Others
in the rest of Britain are increasingly seeing the potential of
Scottish independence to crack this now seemingly impenetrable
edifice, to undermine and destabilise undemocratic power, thereby
facilitating desperately needed change there too. The claims and
utterances of those desperate to retain their positions are becoming
more extreme and nonsensical along with their desperation. They can
feel the way the wind is blowing. The mediaeval power swilling
around at Westminster is intoxicating and has been corrupting heads and
hearts for centuries. The unelected can still stalk its corridors
and wield it decades after the public have voted them out or they’ve
ceased to bother standing for election. Meanwhile on 5th
April in a speech to London Conservatives, David Cameron has ranked
defeating Labour in 2015 above maintaining the Union –
preparing the ground for defeat in Scotland.
Scotland
becoming politically autonomous will not cataclysmically endanger the
world with forces of darkness. Could anyone retaining their reason
believe this? We now await how the No campaign will couch their
warning that the sky will fall in, as surely that must be next. What
is there truly to fear? Trident is “too dangerous” to be
situated in England, but there it is on the Clyde. But independence?
That is about truly democratic governance by the people for the
first time, at last. Have confidence and trust that the heart of the
people is optimistic, reasonable, fair, talented, creative and kind.
Blind faith in the non existent benevolence of overlords who are
anything but is regression to a time our forebears were always
leaving behind. We’ve been held back for a long time - it’s time
to forge ahead.
