WHOSE COUNTRY?

Yesterday I posted this article from Bellacaledonia, The SNP's Great Moving Right Show, https://tinyurl.com/y596ecor

Expecting the usual chorus of abuse and yoon-calling I decided to post it to just a few pages. No sooner had I done that I was told by one self-righteous cybernat, “if that’s the way you feel Rory, away to England and help JC. Your attitudes and posts are not helping the independence movement you claim to support.”

The BC article, if you read it, is about the right-moving tendencies of certain senior SNP figures such as Andrew Wilson and Angus Robertson and how this is reflecting on the conduct of the Party. My purpose, as always, was to inform others and to let them decide. But apparently this is no longer allowed. And as a 'New Scot' of 33 years' standing I am told to 'away to England'!

That did it. I can sympathize with feelings of resentment against migrants from the south coming to live in Scotland and treating it like a colony of Little Britain. But I have never been one of those and anyone who checks out my track record in local government politics will know my commitment to the Highlands as a former regional councillor and my preparedness to risk arrest and losing that post in order to put my body in front of the British state as I once did together with a small group of protesters at the Kessock Bridge in 1991, https://tinyurl.com/yxhekfm9

That protest was entirely spontaneous; no one planned it, it just happened. Afterwards the Scottish media was full of it and I believe that it helped the cause of Independence greatly. From being treated like a fool or a 'token coloured' by many Highland councillors I suddenly gained their respect. I also received racist abuse, including a vile note left in my councillor's pigeon hole. My reaction to that was to report it to the Highland Constabulary who sent several polis into the Council, effectively putting the fear of god into the guilty parties!

So when people make puerile comments on FB such as the one quoted above, forgive me if sometimes I reply in anger. With them the slightest criticism of the SNP's leadership and it's all-out nuclear war. For having the effrontery to do so I get called a Yoon, a Tory, a snake in the grass and a whole lot else. Such is party politics in 2019AD: everyone is expected to toe the line and remain very PC. The message is quite clear: If you say anything awkward about the SNP you can get the fuck out of 'our' country.

Our country? Since when did any political party confiscate the keys to our nation? When did we become a fledgeling one-party state? Just who are these people making these threats and what kind of a political agenda are they working for? I dread to think.

Nationalism is something that, for many years, I wouldn't go anywhere near. I was born in a country that tore itself apart in a 50-year civil war caused by ethno-religious nationalism. But after living in Scotland and serving her in public office my eyes were opened to the true extent of imperialist occupation in this country. And worse than that the ABUSE that came with that occupation. So when I heard Scottish nationalism described as 'civic' I was only too happy to join up to it.

But what's so civic about the name-calling and 'away to England' taunts? What have I done to earn such abuse other than to call out some right-wing opportunists who would like to inflict their own neoliberal dystopia on us all post independence? Sorry, but I've seen it all before in another time and another place and I ain't ready to be suckered into it this time. Politicians are there to serve us and not the other way round. If certain cybernats can't see that then they do no one any favours. If they remain naïve about how politicians operate that's one thing; but when they start being abusive and telling people to get back to their own country then the alarm bells start to go off. If these people are allowed to prevail then god help us all.

Politics appear to be moving evermore to the Right. And the SNP is not immune from this unpleasant phenomenon. If we are to be constantly silenced today pre-independence than what are we to expect once it has arrived? I no longer feel comfortable in the presence of this kind of intolerance which effectively says either believe unquestioningly what you are told or get the fuck out of our country.

During my 33 years in Scotland I have always voted SNP and in 2014 I was proud to be able to vote for Independence. When Alex Salmond was my MP and after the SNP victory in 2010 I wrote to him saying that I looked forward to the day when he was our first President.

Now I feel hurt and disillusioned by the thoughtless comments being made by certain cybernats on these pages. But being no spring chicken and having developed a tough skin in earlier political days I'm happy to give back as good as I get from these idiots.

But god help the New Scotland if their kind ever have anything to do with our collective futures

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