"Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation."

scottishvision@yahoo.co.uk
@ScottishVision
Get in touch if you want to contribute to the blog.

Monday 11 March 2013

George Galloway Doesn't Believe In 'Countries'

....Even though he would quite like Palestine to be recognised as one.

If ever there was a man who you'd think would support Scottish independence, it would be George Galloway. He supports self-determination for nations across the globe, is deeply dissatisfied with the current political order and opposes Britain's excessive spending on WMDs and illegal wars. But for some reason, Galloway just doesn't seem to 'get it' as is shown in one of his latest tweets:

"To Scottish nationalists: I don't think "countries". I am an internationalist and socialist. Nationality means nothing to me. Get over it."

The first thing that strikes me is the way Galloway describes every person who supports independence as a "nationalist". I find it difficult to believe that an educated man like Galloway could actually see a constitutional issue like independence in such black and white terms. Supporting independence does not make you a nationalist. Yes, it is true that Scottish nationalists do exist and identify themselves as such, but it is also true that there is a significant movement that supports independence and abhors nationalism. I see myself as belonging to the latter. I don't care about flag-waving or William Wallace. I care about Scottish people getting the Government that they voted for. As a Green, I see independence as a direct means of achieving localism; putting power back into local communities and reinvigorating our failing democracy. I don't care about any nationality any more than any other. I care about my family in England, my socialist comrades in Spain, the Zapatista movement in Mexico and Kurdish self-determination movement just as much as I care about the 20% of Scottish children who live in poverty.

This brings me on to my next point. Galloway has no problem backing the 'independence' and 'self-determination' of nations like Cuba or Venezuela but seems to despise the idea of Scots running their own affairs. George says that the "world is my country" and yet, somehow, I don't think he'd be particularly happy with the suggestion that the Palestinians give up on statehood and become citizens of the world. Now, of course, I am not comparing the plight of the Palestinians to the Scottish people's dialogue on independence. Palestinians face drone attacks, political repression and apartheid in their own land. What I'm trying to do is show that George's black and white rhetoric can be used against him. If Galloway wants to give his two cents on the independence debate then he'll need to learn to do a lot more than isolate and divide the Scottish people along 'nationalist' and 'progressive internationalist who's happy to stay within the union' lines.

The quote shown above also seems to suggest that socialism and independence are incompatible. This, of course, is utter nonsense. Scotland's socialist movement has been intertwined with the independence movement for over a century now. Keir Hardie supported home rule, John Maclean supported independence and, most recently, the late Jimmy Reid stated his support for an independent worker's Scotland. Both the Scottish Socialist Party and the breakaway Solidarity party have identified the British path to socialism as a failure and independence as a means of tackling capitalism. Socialism can't be achieved with one large swipe across the world. Scotland has the opportunity to turn it's back on the neo-liberal consensus and become a beacon for social justice, sustainability, peace and democracy. Neither side of the independence debate owns socialism and it would be ridiculous to pretend that is the case. 

-Scott Lumsden, Scottish Green Party member.  




No comments:

Post a Comment