What Is A Scotland For?

I knew I would write a post describing the significance of the Scottish independence referendum, but it is a very different one from what I expected to be writing a few weeks ago.  For then I was headed to Scotland, where the Yes campaign for independence was coming from behind with great momentum.  But now you know how it turned out.

There were many mixed emotions the morning after, undoubtedly fueled by elated premature celebratory drinking and a late night at bars watching the poll returns, followed by a while on George Square while the young Tartan Army types went ballistic with their football chants and mosh pit.  I look back at my notebook at what already seems like years ago and am fascinated by the black mood that the announcement produced.  Yet as the rest of September 19 rolled along, as the future shape of things was already becoming apparent, and I exchanged views with Scots on the matter, many of the following thoughts began to take shape.  Now, at home again, I can give them the perspective they deserve, though perhaps a little divorced from the rush and vigor of the time and place that was Scotland on its decision day.

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The Scots have, to appropriate the words of the writer Allen Tate, "a concrete and very unsatisfactory history."  This is their curse and strength as a people.  They know who they are, they know where they come from and how they got to where they are.  They know their shortcomings and their strengths, and they know what they want and what they must do but that the ultimate power in attaining that is not theirs.  This makes them a complex but noble people.  For they have looked at themselves and can say, "Warts and all, this is who we are."  That is a refreshing trait compared to their southern neighbors, who exhibit the baffled, reflexive confusion, followed by outrage and revenge, that characterizes almost every dominant section within a country or union.  The Scots are painfully self-aware; the electors of David Cameron and Nigel Farage are aware only of others.

So now the Scots have a new paradigm in their unsatisfactory history.  For more than half of their country voted to remain subservient to London.  For all the blaring of "Scotland the Brave" and thumping the chest shouting "Whae's like us?" when the chips were down, Scots voted not to be Scotland but to be North Britain.  They basically said, "We're proud to be Scottish, but not if it involves any pain or inconvenience."

Can you say that's Scotland?  If we're using democracy as a yardstick, which we moderns are wont to do, then yes.  55% of Scots said so.  And I think they expected to say to the other 45% who voted Yes, "All right, you lost.  Time to roll up your saltires, go home, and get back to business as usual." 

Maybe the No voters didn't want to define Scotland in such a way; maybe they resented being forced to make the choice.  But they made it all the same and there are consequences for that, like every decision.  They've said, "We were free to go, but we're not sure who 'we' are."

But the Yes voters were sure.  They put their vote where their heart was.  And they've been hurt in the heart by the result, and have responded predictably.   Right now they are out joining the SNP, the Scottish Greens and Scottish Socialist Party.  They are organizing rallies, gathering supplies for food banks, and thinking about the future.  They are planning a new, expanded vision for their groups and platforms like Common Weal, National Collective, Radical Independence Campaign, Wings Over Scotland, or Bella Caledonia.  They are looking to create new, independent media sources to present a more balanced (more Scottish?) view on current events to the Scottish public.  They refuse give up and press on, still in full-on campaign mode.

Who then is taking the more active role in defining Scotland?  Those who voted once and made sure, through their own loyalty, naivete, fear, or complacency the tentacles of the British state remained firmly suctioned to every part of Scottish society?  That majority?  Or is it the minority, who are out trying to make happen what is not within their control?  If it is the former, then we have the case that there is no more Scotland.  The modern world has triumphed, where the relationship that truly matters is the state and the atomized individual, where the state says, "I love you more than anything in the world, but if you ever try to leave me, I'll destroy you and everything you care for."

If it is the latter, though, then there is still a Scotland, but in a new way.  It is a Scotland that is not defined by the historical borders of the country.  It is a Scotland where fewer people than most believe that Scots should do things for themselves, in their own way.  The Yes vote was 45% but only three out of thirty-two councils went for Yes.  The Yes voters are scattered geographically across the land -- they are not concentrated in one region of Scotland, where they can separate themselves from the No-voting rest of the country if they chose.  This is a great disadvantage, on the face of it, but perhaps in the long run, it is a blessing.  For it keeps the angry and disenchanted from breaking away from those who see differently from them.  It prevents there from being, in a geopolitical sense, two Scotlands.  The case of North Korea and South Korea is an example of this: two states, where each has embraced an ideology that they believe is best for the Korean people.  What they hold dearest divides them.

But there are two Scotlands at the moment.  Those for whom the campaign still lives on, and those who are returning to their lives, perhaps uncaring about the result, perhaps slipping back into their old cynicism about politics after the Cameron-Miliband-Clegg "Vow" turned out to be a complete fabrication.  What remains to be seen is whether there will be reconciliation or triumphalism.  If there is reconciliation between Yes and No, then some sort of new iteration of Scottish identity may emerge.  If there is triumphalism, then one of the two narratives will become the dominant one.  And it is entirely possible, despite its minority position, that the Yes campaign will write the history.  It has reason to, because it must convince future generations (even if can't convince No voters now) that it was right.  But even if they are successful in that effort, what fact lurks is that the Yes campaign had to protect an idea of Scotland against the will of most Scots.  It would thus be a minority view foisted on the rest by the will of the more committed.

What then is a Scotland for?  Is it for what the people want, even if they don't want it as its own distinct thing, a separate and independent nation?  Or is it for itself, built upon history and traditions of self-rule and those who would protect and re-articulate those traditions?  How can we call for democracy on the one hand and appeal to the idea of a nation on the other when they are not used in concert?  Is the fact that only a minority of Scots wanted independence an indication that, for most, countries are now merely images bought, sold, and displayed by the rulers?  Is the rage of the Yes minority an indication that the nation does not actually function behind the scenes like it is purported to by every face the state presents to the public?

The fact that we must ask these questions demonstrates that we have come to a strange time in the idea of a nation.  Not the nation-state, not the Westphalian creation that puts an all-encompassing centralization and homogenization at its core.  Rather, it is the nation as a collection of people who have common experience; who have governed and been governed by each other; who influenced and were influenced by each other; who make something which is complex and nuanced, but not relative.  It has a word -- in this case, Scotland or Scots or Scottish -- so it is real, it is a thing, distinct from others.  Going into the Scottish independence referendum, I thought the moment would demonstrate the fact that people have instincts and loyalties to something older and more immediate than the abstractions of the modern state.  But I can see now that I was wrong.  This was no rebellion of the anti-modern.  The relationship of the state, which merely uses the idea of nation or people or identity as a image to cloak itself, to the individuals it rules is the dominant one in our world.  It holds the allegiance, or the fear, of most people, and makes the idea of democracy obsolete because of the codependency it fosters.

So on the one hand the state has trumped any of our attempts at recalling shared experience, memory, and community as a basis for creating (or restoring) polities that better serve the people who live in them.  Yet on the other hand it is plain that large political units in the developed world are increasingly unsustainable.  They centralize not only political power but also economic power and suck dry the hinterlands and the periphery.  What cannot be sustained will not be; empires and mighty unions eventually crumble or disintegrate.  So Scotland will have its chance again at independence, at self-rule.  When it comes, Scotland may want it, or perhaps not.  Whatever the case, Scotland will have to contend with its concrete and unsatisfactory history.  It will have to decide what it is, why it did what it did, make peace with that, and move ahead.  It will have to reconsider what Scotland is, and it will do so, I am sure.  Yet the country cannot ever escape the fact that, given the clear chance after 300 years, it voted against being itself on its own terms.  The Bannockburn glory, the "bought and sold for English gold" myth of Burns' lament, it all must be reconsidered in that light. 

Scotland will one day be a new nation.  But it will not be the same nation, just as it is not now.  That is refreshing for what it can achieve and how it will make itself in its own vision.  And yet it is also sad for what it leaves behind as a consequence of its own decisions, imperfect as they may be.

“I have said: ‘My native land should be to me
As a root to a tree. If a man’s labour fills no want there
His deeds are doomed and his music mute.
This Scotland is not Scotland.’

Like my comrade Mayakovsky
’I want my native country to understand me.
And if it doesn’t, I will bear this too;
I will pass sideways over my country
Like a sidelong rain passes.’

This Scotland is not Scotland
But an outsize football pitch
Filled with nothing
But an insensate animal itch.”

— Hugh MacDiarmid

Reap The Whirlwind

When I wrote before of the Scottish independence movement as it headed toward the referendum, there were signs of positivity on the horizon, though a long way to go.  But all that has changed in the last few weeks, and the global significance of this event is becoming real.

Time ran an article about the possible impending 'exit' of Scotland from the UK should the independence referendum return a 'Yes' vote.  News outlets and blogs outside the UK are beginning to play catch-up and talk about how Alastair Darling, the leader of Better Together (the 'No' campaign), practically melted down during his second debate with First Minister Alex Salmond, even conceding to Salmond the one point -- that an independent Scotland could continue to use the pound sterling -- that he had resisted and ridiculed for months on end.  Palpable panic has been setting in over the past week in the UK establishment.  David Cameron continues pleading with Scots to vote No; Better Together has put out a series of advertisements that range from sexist to asinine; and even Nigel Farage, head of the UK Independence Party, disgruntled Middle England's knight errant against the EU, has said he'll come to Scotland in order to inject positivity into the 'No' campaign.  And all the while, as the important people with the important titles beg and warn and offer veiled threats, the number of Yes voters ticks upwards.  I have seen Tweet after Tweet about people converting to a Yes vote after a long period of casual inclination toward No and equally as many about passionate Yes voters making converts to their side.  People are out there, talking and making decisions for themselves, and that has the establishment terrified.  The rulers have been used to sowing wind for centuries, and now they are about to reap the whirlwind.

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Where else in the world is having a democratic moment like Scotland?  Nowhere.  And has there been anything comparable in the last few decades?  Hardly.  Some might point to the Arab Spring or the Occupy movement as similar instances, but those are instances of protest.  They gathered steam quickly, raged against the status quo, and then faded quickly when the establishment decided it had had enough.  But the democratic spirit of this independence referendum does not come from mere dissatisfaction taking to the streets.  Rather, it is a culmination of long political involvement, competition, and eventual success by a long-established independence movement, one that has taken both party and non-party form over nearly a century.  In particular, the very willingness of the Scottish National Party to persevere in political contest, despite the many setbacks of contending with a very difficult system of political representation in the UK, has legitimized independence not as some sort of temporary emotional outburst, as the No campaign is wont to characterize it, but as a natural extension of politics as usual.  Discounting the divisive figure of Alex Salmond, many of the politicians involved in the Yes campaign are not just running the devolved Scottish Government in Edinburgh but also hold seats in local government as well.  They didn't get there by appointment or nepotism -- they got there because they were elected.  There are enough people out there to want them in charge and now they are responsibly delivering what they said they would.

Then perhaps it should be no surprise to those of us looking from outside the UK, that the independence referendum has awakened, at least on the side of Yes, a sense of positivity and opportunity.  For the Yes movement is led not simply a bunch of cranks spouting narrowly nationalist vitriol, but by competent leaders in politics, the arts, academia, media, and business.  Yet while these leaders frame much of the discussion, they do not offer absolute answers.  Many #indyref campaigners have, seemingly of their own accord, been willing to put foremost the uncertainty of independence and address it without fear.  Indeed, they almost seem to relish in recognizing it, for it compels answers to be given.  But there is no line to toe.  Watch the film Scotland Yet and you will see how open the dialogue is and how everyone seems to know that independence is just the start -- all their heterogeneous ideas may make Scots vote Yes, but only because it is a Yes vote that makes those ideas a practical reality.

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And those ideas will have to contend.  Without a doubt there will be a tension within the politics of an early independent Scotland between the centralizers and the localists.  There are those on the Scottish left who, though wishing to leave the centralized Westminster system, want a redistributive state for Scotland.  Their proposals for what that would look like are as multiform as the groups proposing it, from Radical Independence Campaign to Commonweal to the Scottish Socialist Party, even to Labour and SNP supporters who want a Scottish state based on a Scandinavian model.  This would require a great amount of power set in Edinburgh thanks to the taxation and administration necessary to a welfare state.  But a great many Yes voters, on the left as well as of other political orientation, are more interested in communities.  The writer Andy Wightman, concerned with land issues, has given the following explanation for his qualified Yes vote:

“I want a Scotland with radically greater democratic control of land, economic affairs and politics. But I have no great faith in the state to deliver this. The nation-state is a relatively modern invention and, as I highlighted at the outset, it is increasingly irrelevant to the challenges we face in communities and around the world. Indeed, it could be argued that, given the ease with which it can be captured, it is actively hostile to genuine democracy.

And that is why the choice of yes or no doesn’t adequately addresses the great challenges of our time – peace, environmental degradation, human rights and social justice. The era of the nation state is, in my view over. It is a redundant idea. But it is not going to disappear in a hurry and thus I am interested in any opportunity that provides an opportunity to completely rethinking governance.”

— Andy Wightman

The centralizers may find that their vision for a quasi- (or overtly) socialist Scotland stymied, be it in the creation of the written constitution or in the politics of an early independent Scotland.  This democratic moment may take things in a more confederal direction.  Or the country may, as SNP critics contend, end up friendly to business and industrial interests and find itself an independent but comfortable part of the capitalist Anglosphere.  Nobody really knows.  These are the matters that will divide Yes voters in the future.  And I'm sure that many know that.  But it is their future, and there is only one way to get there.  And so they embrace those different from them, in the classically Jeffersonian model of the people: the many versus the few.

For what politicians rarely understand about those they ostensibly serve is that it is not pure emotion or rationality that drives the decisions of ordinary people.  You can't always scare them with the fear of the unknown, especially when they have a pretty good idea that the known isn't very rosy.  And you can't throw an endless barrage of statistics and reports and experts at them, because who leads their life based on numbers and probability?  Ordinary people operate off of something far deeper, off of intuition or tacit knowledge.  They gather the bits and pieces of their experiences, of their relationships and conversations, and, once that has all composted for a bit, a decision emerges.  And, once again, this is what the politicians and the No camp fail to see.  For if we lived in a perfect world, there would be no need for decision, even to choose No and change nothing.  Decision emerges from a recognition that time has outrun our patient endurance of the imperfections we know.  We choose one or the other, but there is no not choosing.  And if a person sees an unknown but one with potential, one in which they can play a greater role, versus the same old thing that they've always known, requiring that same old exhausting, patient endurance until the end of one's days, then it makes complete sense why people will join with others in an open and adventurous choice.

At a personal level, I am extremely grateful these past few weeks and months for what is happening in Scotland.  The idea of Scottish independence has been something that has long appealed to me, even though for a long time I didn't really know why.  I can remember being in my flat during my brief time living in Edinburgh, trying to start arguments with my roommates about independence and nationalism, standing up for this thing that I knew so little about but felt such an affinity for.  I remember being back in America the next year, sitting alone in my apartment, listening to the Scottish Parliament elections on the BBC and cheering on the SNP as they took twenty seats at Holyrood and formed a minority government.  It mattered to me, for some reason, even though it was not my country, not my fight, and I could contribute almost nothing to it.  But since the referendum date was set in stone and the rhetoric began to build, I began to realize perhaps why I had gravitated toward this implausible thing.  And now, as the groundswell of Yes support becomes greater by the day, I can see it for a fact: that in this sordid age of power and profit, of ideology and repression, of instability and transformation, there is still the possibility of people taking matters into their own hands and working for something better.  Not just on a whim, not as a reaction, but because people take up a movement built by many who came before but did not live to see its fruition.

What will come of Scotland, who knows.  But it is worth watching, and closely.  For in the particular lies a bit of the universal, of the things that are true for all of us wherever we are.  Watch carefully for Scotland yet, whatever yet may be.

P.S.  My fortunes have changed and I've been blessed with the opportunity to go to Glasgow for the week of the independence referendum.  A long-hoped for dream come true.  I will report back with everything I saw and felt in due course.