by Jason Michael McCann
Right now it has become obvious that we in the Scottish independence movement have a decision to make. We must decide whether or not we want independence. This, however absurd it may sound, is the most pressing and the most important decision we have to make, and we must make it soon. Each of us must look deep inside ourselves, think long and hard, and decide. At the end of September 2014 those of us who chose to continue knew that from that point on – emerging from the mouth of defeat – it would be a longer, harder road. We were kidding ourselves on if we thought otherwise.
This general election has proven to be the second speedbump, and perhaps more than the 2014 No vote it has slowed us down. It has ground us to a halt. Now is the time, if you are so inclined, to lower your flag and head on away home. I’m not going to blame you. We’re exhausted. I’m exhausted.
Are we willing to get back up and dust ourselves down and get back on the move? If this is what you want, then let’s think it through. The last election cost us some dearly loved MPs. It was a bitter pill and a high price. We’ll lose others. Ask yourself, can you take that happening again – and again after that? Have we got the stomach to go through this a third time and a fourth time? Friends, we’re not getting any younger. Our fight is against an empire with resources and energies we cannot begin to even comprehend. Is your answer still Yes? Then let’s think about this.
Some of us are saying, “Yes, but not yet.” The wisdom here is that we should get Brexit out of the way, give the Westminster government all the rope it needs to hang itself. When the London Conservatives have, as inevitably they will, made this mess as bad as it can possibly get we will be rested enough to lift up our banners again and walk through some fairy tale open door. The tired little boy inside me thinks this a brilliant idea. He, like so many of us, wants to curl up and sleep.
Do you know what the problem with this idea is? It assumes that our foe is a mannequin, a motionless, changeless statue that will wait perfectly still until we are better rested. Can you see how dangerous this idea is? Westminster is not this pathetic Theresa May or even the collective incompetence of her parliamentary party’s privately educated murder of toffs. Westminster is an apparatus of an imperialist police state, the bureaucratic structure of intelligent plotters and schemers whose longer-term strategic view of the future is five, six, seven moves ahead of us; whose plans are tuned and reactive to our every move.
Do we think that wheels are not turning within wheels all the while we wait, continually conspiring against us; plotting our downfall – our destruction? Do we really believe Great Britain became what it is by happy accident? Was this once globe-spanning empire, this vicious nuclear state the product of luck? If we think this then we truly lack the wherewithal to be struggling against it.
As we wait for the storm of Brexit to pass over us those wheels will roll out every conceivable underhand and devious weapon against us. Theresa May or the puppet masters behind her will fight their fictive terrorists by shutting down the internet, and when we finally wake up from our rest the only tool we have at our disposal will already be gone. You think this is paranoia? Did you read her manifesto? By waiting and resting we will do only two things. We will start to lose numbers and shrink, and we will hand the beast the gift of time. Waiting is death.
What we have is a movement that is now sluggish and tired. Our decision is this: Wake it up and fire it with new life or send it to sleep and sit by its side in tearful vigil as it breathes its last.
You want my opinion? Well here it is. Scotland is my home and I am here fighting for it. I am watching as the British state penalises my mother for being disabled. We are watching as it murders infants for being Syrian. We are looking on as it feasts on the suicides of the weak, the sick, the poor, the unemployed who have lost hope and given up. Now we have a front row seat to their rutting session with people in Northern Ireland who’d throw rocks at children for attending a Catholic school. How long can we wait and watch and rest? Can you sleep through any more of this? I can’t.
Britain is injustice. It is unjust that Scotland is unfree. There can be no peace without justice, and we sure can’t sleep without peace. So tired as I am, and I am exhausted, I am here to finish the job I came to do. We have set our hands to the plough. This is my opinion. I am not for giving up. I am not going to give this monster a moment’s rest, a moment’s peace, until this job is done. I can’t do it alone.
If now is the time then now is the time to wake everyone up. This movement will move only when we give it another push. It will succeed only when we keep on pushing, when we don’t give up. It is time for ideas and talking to be turned into action. We become an unstoppable force right now or this is the end of the road. If this is what you want then you had better get your boots on – we’re about to start moving again.
