My
readers know that I like a good dissection – I like to see a country stripped
of its pretensions.
A
book called "Caledonian Dreaming" about the various myths with which the country
sustains itself is as good as it gets in that respect…The author, one Gerry
Hassan, is one of the few Scots who doesn’t seem to mind being called an
intellectual. In fact, just as Bulgaria only seems to have one intellectual
(Ivan Krastev) so Scotland has Gerry. The book doesn’t really seem to take a
position on the burning issue – although I understand he is a “for” rather than
“agin”. He
certainly doesn’t mince his words -
‘Scotland
is not a fully-fledged political democracy. It has never had a democratic
moment which has brought its elites to account, defined public institutions and
seen the people as a historic collective agency of change.’
For
many in the Yes campaign, it is the dysfunctional nature of British democracy
and politics, and in particular the democratic deficit (whereby Scotland, more
definitely on the left, is currently, and seems likely to be increasingly
governed by parties it did not elect) which is the driver for independence.
In
my 20s, I was angry about that power structure which, of course, was evident in
the shipbuilding town I grew up in. I read avidly the early New Left Books –
such as “Conviction” and critical material about “exclusion” which was coming
from the Community Development Programme of the 1970s. I did my own bit about
encouraging community activism – and actually wrote a small book in the late
1970s with a title “The Search for Democracy” which has echoes with Hassan’s
sub-title - “the quest for a different Scotland”.
Although
I voted (ultimately) in 1979 “for” a Scottish Parliament, I did write (in my
contribution to the famous Red Paper on Scotland) that the discussion of the
time was a “distraction” from more important issues. The caution of my Labour
colleagues on the local and then Regional Councils I served for 22 years until
1990 was evident – their subservience, with honourable exceptions, to the power
of their professional advisers transparent….
Hassan
is ruthless in his critique….
‘despite all its radical and outsider roots,
Labour was never a party of democratisation of British institutions but rather
of using them for progressive ends.The central instrument of
change in this was the British state, which was seen as neutral and benign.’
But
only one pillar of state is elected, the House of Commons. The unelected House
of Lords (the largest upper house anywhere in the world), the monarchy, the
proliferation of quangos and public bodies, the outsourced state and its
“myriad contractors”, the City of London, the Crown Dependencies and Overseas
Territories - many of them major tax havens - the security state of NATO,
Trident and the military-industrial UK/US alliance, engaging in mass citizen
surveillance, “all unelected, all
democratically unaccountable, have served to entrench a version of the UK
centred on power, privilege and money’
Hassan
is keen on the stories we tell about ourselves – and warns about falling into
the trap of believing all of our own stories or myths- and he identifies
several such myths which Scots propogate–
·
of
egalitarianism
·
of
educational opportunity
·
of
holding power to account
·
of
social democracy
·
of
open Scotland.
Much
of "Caledonian Dreaming" is a deconstruction of these myths.
- We
are only slightly less unequal than England in wealth and have the worst health
inequalities than Europe, and though egalitarianism is a deeply embedded ideal,
this has never been translated into any programme or political will for the
redistribution of power and wealth.
- Educational
inequalities similarly abound, with huge social exclusion of the poorest at
every level, even in some of our most cherished institutions.
- And
though change may have begun with the advent of the Scottish Parliament, we are
still largely deferential to those in power in the public sector, the
professions, in business and in land ownership, there has been a marked lack of
political will to challenge these vested interests and powerful voices.
- As
for our social democratic credentials, they have primarily been exercised by
the middle classes for the middle classes, in a country ‘distorted by seismic inequalities, poverty and exclusion’, in areas
for which the blame cannot be simply laid at Westminster’s door. Hassan
suggests that Scotland’s social democracy “has
offered a legitimising political story of the middle classes to validate their
position in the system, and that Labour, the SNP and ‘civic Scotland’ have all
played a contributory role in maintaining this”.
At
the moment, I would fault only one thing – that he does not sufficiently
recognize the efforts of those who struggled in the 1970s to develop, in his
words, “a different Scotland”. He is (probably justly) caustic in his dismissal
of the fashion in the 1970s for “community education” – but might have
mentioned those like Ken Alexander and Geoff Shaw who dared to speak (and act)
for a different Scotland.
Or perhaps he dismisses them as “the great and good”?
I met a lot of leftists who took such a dismissive view – and took exception to
it. The usual divisive story – “if you’re not with us, you’re against us”. Even
Lesley Riddoch, in her celebration of community activism, fails to mention the
pioneers of community business in Strathclyde in the 1980s…. talk about being
whitewashed out of history……
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