It’s tempting to navel gaze in the light of by election losses, but let’s not talk about the Tories. The fact is we have wars erupting around the world, and we seem to be sleepwalking into the maelstrom’s tentacles in our own homes.
With nightly updates, media led, we are fed exactly what they think we need to know. What we often forget is the extensive history to these events. Which includes the partitioning of places like India and Pakistan, Palestine and Israel and our own Ireland. So many more to mention, but all resulting in harboured resentment for generations and horrific bloodshed. We should be wary of accepting the views of those who revel in these ongoing conflicts as an excuse for war.
It’s a sad fact, it’s the vulnerable who suffer most. We see it on 24 hour news but we rarely see the horrors in the African states, the devastation in the Middle East like Yemen. We watched Northern Ireland from Bloody Sunday to Enniskillen, H blocks and dead soldiers and civilians. The world has watched Putin rolling into Ukraine, but interest has diminished since Hamas has committed its atrocities on Border Israelis. The historical killing by them equally dumbed down.
So where does that leave Scotland in this volatile world, is this the time to be seeking independence? The fact is, we are probably of more interest to Europe than to Westminster, as they suffered most in World War Two. But for a different reason, they still have people who endured war, deprivation and terror and who desperately wanted to return to normality and independence after subjugation. Years of Nazification, ethnic cleansing and removal of everything which made them of their country through language, song and dance, basic pleasures and pride in who they were.
For decades, all the EU countries have rebuilt and moved to be peaceful and free of fear. In Scotland our war was centuries ago, we fought back to only recently seeing Gaelic language written on public buildings, permission only in living memory to be ourselves. Yet, it is ironic that only when working with Europeans who had chosen to come to Scotland to work, and how much they have come to love this country, generated a new questioning of the past. They have pride in being a product of two countries, but wonder why I am happy to be part of four.
I had to think about that. The truth is, it is outside observers who ask why we allow ourselves to be a region and not a country. Why we feel happy to be ruled by those who possibly have never even visited Scotland. As well as the indignity of mocking from the Green Benches of our accents, our demands and our rights as Scots, as well those who chose to live and work here. For all the wars around the world, our quiet war continues, for wars come in different guises, but for us to achieve independence, without bloodshed, shows all just how it should be done, and how it could be done. Should we be thinking about Independence at this time? Of course. After all, life is short, but life is precious. As we watch the murder of children as part of our TV presentations, we here want our children to thrive in a place we call our own without enforced partitioning, shooting and torture but there is little understanding of civilised divorce. We should have pride – we are leading the way, after all independence is normal, even in these cruel times.