The Clash of Civilisations

Recent terrorist incidents have shocked and appalled us.

In some quarters these terrible events have revived the idea in our political discourse, no matter how spuriously, that "The West" and "Islam" are somehow locked into conflict. People look for answers as they try to understand unimaginable events.

Meanwhile unprincipled, opportunistic demagogues, explicitly or implicitly, exploit the notion of a fundamental incompatibility between these two societies. They define this conflict in relatively arbitrary and expedient terms, and alarm and bewitch the electorate to mobilise political support. This can take the form of Donald Trump's highly specific Islamophobia, or the deliberately more vague and less well defined references to "immigration" and "foreigners" used by advocates of Brexit in the UK, for example.

The idea that we are embroiled in a "Clash of Civilisations," whether articulated in precisely these terms or not, is used as a rallying call in both cases.

But the "Clash of Civilisations" is entirely a figment of the imagination of those who find it convenient to describe things in these terms.

There is no "Clash of Civilisations." Otherwise why define "The West" in terms of all the most positive things associated with North America and Europe - ignoring all the genocides and slavery for example - while defining "Islam" in terms of all the most negative things associated with the Middle East and North Africa - ignoring the mathematics and poetry and philosophy and astronomy? Or vice versa, for the opposite agenda. A pattern of arbitrary selection of evidence, often out of any context, and over-generalisation to draw the necessary conclusions, is repeated over and over.

The Indian economist Amartya Sen has pointed out that "diversity is a feature of most cultures in the world. Western civilization is no exception. The practice of democracy that has won out in the modern West is largely a result of a consensus that has emerged since the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, and particularly in the last century or so. To read in this a historical commitment of the West, over the millennia, to democracy, and then to contrast it with non-Western traditions (treating each as monolithic) would be a great mistake." Random incomplete snapshots of fluid, complex, highly interactive dynamic historical processes are cherry-picked to fabricate a monstrous jigsaw with which to scare us.

The current idea of a "Clash of Civilisations" was articulated by the political scientist Samuel P. Huntingdon from 1992 to 1996 in lectures, an article in the journal Foreign Affairs, and eventually a book, but the concept itself stretches back through Spengler's angst about the "Decline of the West" in the 1920s to discussions of the "clash of cultures" during the Belle Époque. These occurred when colonising and colonized societies were thrown together and confronted each other in the kasbahs and teterias of the North African cities of European empires, like a latter day Outremer.

Huntingdon's dubious achievement is to take this idea and strip it of all context, then impose a new context on it in order to make it serve a different purpose: to revive and sustain obsolete Cold War approaches to geopolitical analysis. Noam Chomsky has criticized the concept of the "Clash of Civilizations" as being nothing more than a new justification "for any atrocities that [the United States] wanted to carry out", which was required after the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union was no longer a viable threat. This is why the way civilisations interpenetrate and influence each other is replaced by the static, sterile standoff of the Cold War in the way they are described.

Civilisations, in so far as they are distinguishable from each other, mingle. In "the West" we owe an enormous debt to Arab scholarship. Many intellectual achievements of antiquity were only preserved in Arab libraries during the Dark Ages. We all look up at the same stars and we refer to them using Arabic names. The Arabs themselves conveyed to "The West" developments that originated in India, such as our number system.

But to read Huntingdon's thesis is to experience a view of a divided world that is as artificial and immutable as a map of Westeros or Middle Earth. Huntingdon's work reads like a commentary on a long, elaborate game of Dungeons and Dragons. Reality eludes his rigid categorisations and rules. Conflict is as built in to his representation of the world as it is to a game of Risk.  

The problem is this can be taken seriously. It can be used to legitimise equally artificial and erroneous attitudes towards other societies today.

One reason populist politicians exploit the idea of a "Clash of Civilisations" at the moment is that it remains a powerful idea even after you have stripped out the interests of the entrenched elites of the civilisations in question, the elites the demagogue rejects. It encompasses the interests of the very people to whom the demagogues are directly making their appeal. It raises the prospect of threats to their way of life which confirms their prejudices. Edward Said argues that the "Clash of Civilizations" thesis is an example of "the purest invidious racism, a sort of parody of Hitlerian science directed today against Arabs and Muslims."

The phrase "Clash of Civilisations" was used by the French novelist and intellectual, Albert Camus. In 1946, while discussing "the Algerian problem", he observed "the Russian-American problem will soon be replaced by a greater problem (and here we return to Algeria). We will not witness a clash of empires, but the clash of civilizations. Gradually, the colonized civilizations around the world will rise and stand up to the colonisers."

We should note here that the "clash" Camus predicts is contingent upon an historic injustice in which one civilisation was subordinated by another. He does not propose anything intrinsic to the civilisations themselves that makes this clash inevitable. A logicical sequence of actions and consequences is suggested. The civilisations themselves are not identified as being fundamentally violent. Conflict is avoidable, not inevitable.

And there is no ranking of societies in terms of their degree of civilisation. That ranking is provided subsequently by those wishing to initiate and actively, enthusiastically participate in a clash, those who point out who the "barbarians" are. The context and conditionality of Camus' statement is discarded in favour of a blunter message, but one which is these days electorally more effective, a story of "them and us." Camus' anti-hero, the outsider, an enigma that is deplored and condemned, would be celebrated for killing an arab by the crowds attracted by the likes of Donald Trump. Indeed, Camus' "Étranger" is "the only Christ that we deserve."

The arbitrariness of the "Clash of Civilisations" thesis is revealed by its inconsistencies.

The bogey man currently implicated by this thesis is Islam. But consider the most populous Islamic country in the world: Indonesia. It is not in the Middle East. Despite the horrific crimes committed by its government in the 20th century - the CIA endorsed massacres of hundreds of thousands of "communist" peasants by Suharto for example - somehow it retains an exempt status. This is due to its alliances with "The West."

Or consider the Islamic country in which fundamentalism flourishes the most. Not Afghanistan, not Iraq, not Syria, not Iran, but Saudi Arabia. Again its political relationship grants it exemption. So short term political expediencies allow the "Clash of Civilisations" to be suspended? In that case the thesis that this clash represents some basic heuristic with which to understand history is pretty flimsy.

Indeed most violence attibutable to "Islam" is sectarian violence of which muslims are victims. That's no way to run a "Clash of Civilisations."

I will close with Chomsky again, illustrating the use of the "Clash of Civilisations" as misdirection for what is really happening.

"Just where is the 'Clash of Civilizations?' I mean, there is a clash alright. There is a clash with those who are adopting the preferential option for the poor no matter who they are. They can be Catholics, they can be Communists, they can be anything else. They can be white, black, green, anything. Western terror is totally ecumenical. It’s not really racist: they’ll kill anybody who takes the wrong stand on the major issues.

"But if you’re an intellectual, you can’t say that. Because it’s too obviously true. And you can’t let people understand what is obviously true. You have to create deep theories, that can be understood only if you have a PhD from Harvard or something. So we have a 'Clash of Civilizations,' and we’re supposed to worship that. But it makes absolutely no sense."

Yoon doublethink

The UK Supreme Court has ruled on the Scottish Government's Named Person scheme. This scheme is supported by the police, social workers, health and education professionals, and children's charities. The court has ruled that its policy aims are "legitimate and benign." However one part of the legislation needs to be tightened up and "clarified" to ensure compatibility with human rights legislation, since sufficiently clear safeguards regarding data protection are not currently described. Once this concern is dealt with the legislation can proceed.

In particular, the Scottish Government needs to clarify the provisions in the legislation to ensure data protection measures are in compliance with Article 8 of the ECHR "Right to respect for private and family life" which reads:
"1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
"2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."

However, the court ruled that the principle of providing a named person for every child does not breach human rights law and is compatible with EU law. It rejected the petitioners' argument that the legislation relates to reserved matters.

Seems straightforward enough. It is difficult to see how this could be spun as a crushing defeat for the Scottish Government.

But this is Scotland.

If you believe the "mainstream media" - the Daily Express, the Press and Journal (P&J), the BBC, and so on - it has been "blocked", Sturgeon and the SNP have been "kicked in the teeth" and their "totalitarian" proposals have been rejected.

The P&J's use of the word "totalitarian" was particularly tendentious. The ruling describes the policies of totalitarian regimes as a contrast. It's as if the ruling had read "Policy A would be ludicrous. However, the Scottish Government advocates Policy B, which is legitimate and benign," and the P&J reported this as "judge blocks Scottish Government's 'ludicrous' policy."

Scotland currently leads the world in textbook cases of politically motivated misreporting. This leads to curious examples of doublethink, where the same thing can have directly opposed significance depending on whether a Scottish Independence agenda is involved or not. For example, consider the following:

ECHR: a nuisance that unecessarily restrict the UK government's freedom to act, or
ECHR: an indispensible basis for challenging Named Person legislation.

Cybernat: an abusive troll who persecutes opponents of Scottish Independence, or
Cybernat: an online activist who exposes unionist misinformation and propaganda.

A trade deal between rUK and the EU: easy, or
A trade deal between rUK and Scotland (even if it's in the EU): impossible.

Enforcement of border controls between rUK and Ireland: unlikely, or
Enforcement of border controls between rUK and Scotland: a certainty.

Job security in the ship yards: essential but undeliverable in an Independent Scotland, or
Job security in the ship yards: an indefinite delay of frigate orders is not a cancellation.

Triple A credit rating: indispensable but unachievable for an Independent Scotland, or
Triple A credit rating: a reasonable sacrifice for the UK in the event of Brexit.

The problem with doublethink is that it is really zerothink: honest reflection on the issues is prevented by contradictory messages. This is what doublethink is for. It is supposed to confuse and paralyse the democratic intellect and limit our capacity to evaluate competing arguments, leaving us attentive to only the most crude kneejerks and dogwhistles.

Which all constitutes a terrible betrayal of the people this legislation is supposed to serve. Because, after all, what is at issue here is not how one party or another can gain or maintain some political ascendancy at Holyrood. What is at stake is child safety.

The casual disingenuousness with which this policy is attacked by opportunistic politicians, and with which those attacks are uncritically amplified in the compliant unionist media, is sickening.

The arena and the agora

Commentators have expressed dismay at recent forms of insurrection against global elites. The unexpected success of Donald Trump in the US and the equally unexpected vote for Brexit in the UK are understood in this context. They are interpreted as responses of the alienated, ignored and disenfranchised to remote, inaccessible authorities. In the USA, psephologists are tracking whether the Resistible Rise of Donald Trump will be assisted by the UK's unexpected vote for Brexit, which is seen as popular endorsement of anti-establishment reaction and rejection of elites.

Predictions are worthless. Rule books are rewritten and re-rewritten. The politics of rejection prevail. There is a rending of hair and a gnashing of teeth. But amid all this consternation, two things of enduring, almost axiomatic obviousness seem to have been overlooked:

• It is perfectly reasonable, indeed necessary, to challenge global elites.
• It is also entirely possible to challenge elites in a way that is positive and constructive rather than reactionary and damaging.  

And when the USA looks to Britain as an example, they must remember that the UK offers the world two examples, rather than just one, of how to rebel against distant, unaccountable, uncaring elites

• A reactionary model exemplified by Brexit and 
• A progressive model exemplified by the Yes Movement in Scotland. 

I would implore those in the USA and elsewhere who are feeling ignored and alienated not to find inspiration in the negativity of Trump and Farage, but to follow the positive example of the Yes Movement in Scotland instead.  

The reactionary model of insurrection submits people to manipulation by a political campaign, abetted by a compliant media, which spuriously aligns their legitimate frustrations with prejudice and bigotry to energise support for ill-defined, often undefined, aims. Achievement of these vague, arbitrary objectives then merely serves to entrench the existing establishment, enabled by a nebulous mandate to present themselves as champions of the people.

Power does not change hands. Someone like Trump is not an alternative, he is the absence of an alternative. There are no promises and no policies, only lies and insults. Politifact tracked Donald Trump's statements and found that nearly three quarters were rated "Mostly False", "False," or "Pants on Fire," making him the most dishonest politician they have ever tracked. In the UK, the advocates of Brexit fled as soon as they were required by victory to deliver on their false promises. Meanwhile the establishment's grip on power is more secure than ever before in the capable hands of Theresa May.

In fact elites prefer reactionary insurrection to no insurrection at all. Challenge can be presented as disruptive, a cause of instability that damages everyone. Where elites benefit from trickledown economics, inevitably we find its political counterpart, crackdown politics. Security and peace for everyone is only possible once it has been re-established on behalf of the elite. The police are militarised in the interests of an order that begins with the protection of private property and the control of public space. And if they stop you for a traffic violation and the colour of your skin suggests you belong to a community that has historically been a victim of exploitation and injustice, about which you might have an opinion, rather than being a member of a privileged elite, they get nervous.

The real threat to elites is the second category of insurrection: positive, inclusive, peaceful and progressive. They would prefer to coral a reactionary insurrection in the arena and offer it a cast of villains to howl at and heroes to cheer for than leave a progressive movement to its own devices in the agora, where unmonitored and unmoderated discussions of real meaningful change may occur in which all are welcome to participate.

So when a progressive movement emerges we see certain things happen. Unsubstantiated accusations of bullying and misconduct are repeated by the media to ensure discussion is concerned only with alleged misbehaviour rather than real issues. Glaring abuses on the part of the establishment, such as election fraud, can be ignored while a divided opposition is made to publically self-destruct for our entertainment. There is nothing the establishment will not sacrifice to preserve the privileges of the elite.

The Yes Movement has been there already and proven resilient. It looks like Corbyn will survive the coup underway against him. Let's keep fighting the good fight. Let's make sure that the people are offered more than just the counterfeit, corporate, reactionary revolution of Brexit and Trump, that will leave them more indebted and more ignored than ever before.

Caliban

There was a precipice to the right of me

and on the left, paths, followed by men,

then goats, then no-one,

led up to a summit lost in cloud.

I mulled it over.

Annihilation or transformation?

I chose a middle way, and lived my life.

I had opted to survive, or so I thought.

But slowly I found myself defined by my defects,

by damage I gradually accumulated,

by deviance I discovered and kept hidden,

and secret disappointments, buried in shame, 

where a sense of thwarted entitlement

corroded and hollowed out my morality,

until I became everything I wasn't.

I noticed music, once a joy and refuge,

became its own peculiar kind of masochism:

it was my soul's complaint, singing in captivity,

within the unruly gaol I had made of myself,

singing over the riot for want of silence

where it might find freedom,

and it ceased to delight me.

I understood freedom just well enough

to let me choose what to give up freedom for,

and the infinite thoughts that intersect

and tangle and bind our limited hours on earth

became a house of clouds that I was lost in

even as I stood proudly by my own hearth and mantel,

and a swarm of bees that persecuted me

even as I hid cowering behind the waterfall.

We spend time in unspoken knowledge of each other,

escaping to worlds created when our eyes meet,

where we embrace, and in our embrace is gathered

countless lost scintillations culled from every star,

and we are found there by a happy chance

and thank that good fortune

that sweeps our dying embers into this embrace,

giving us just one chance to revive them

and define ourselves as something else,

one last chance to find in another

what we have lost,

because it transpires there is no middle way.

There is no peak.

There is no precipice.

There is no destination

to which to plot a course or find a path on this island.

All our beacons lie toppled by the wind.

All their ashes spill upon the ground.

All that remains on the island is that wind,

and a slow withering exposure,

undergrowth coiling around your ankles,

endless mist,

and in your thinning, cloudy blood,

the merciless countdown of the years,

their depletion leading to decrepitude and death.

So what is to be done? How are we rescued

from the pale moonlit ruins of this shattered Pharos

which our false promise to ourselves made us seek

and has now become just one more hazard to avoid

with no light to lead the way,

now our betrayal of ourselves is complete?

The crutch needs the cripple as much

as the cripple needs the crutch.

Misfortune's legacy is a life without lies.

We must rely now on an illiterate, feral kind of love,

and borrow its appetites to sustain and nourish us,

because we have intruded on its habitat with our lives

in our futile quest to win some other salvation.

Here the false dichotomies of success and failure

are a foreign tongue, noise and gibberish to be ignored

while leaf and tree and rock and stream speak clearly

and we survive our passing and obliteration without blinking,

in every intrepid, opportunistic root that presses through our flesh

where our blood once coursed, and every birdsong

that is carried on the air that we once breathed.

California poppy

The hinge of my tongue swings softly
with the gentlest alarm of love
whispered in your ear,
an unfolded word-flower
to press in the book of your memory,
and my hands open to show you a blossom
brought to you from ten thousand miles away:
a California Poppy.

Whence this yellow? The bright high pass
of Tehachapi, whose rim and spout
spill wind out upon the wind-dry desert,
was where the eye sought and paused and found,
where the hand caught from the ground, the bloom
that finally testified to my thoughts of you
so far away in grey rain-stricken Glasgow. But

the distance this yellow has travelled to see you
is greater than my meagre effort, that rips the air apart
in flight, wrenches the marrow from the bones of the earth,
drinks the sap stored in its ancient strata in heaving gulps
to propel me to you in some disposable contrivance of travel,
and merely destroys the world, to deliver my love. Beyond

the time to refine and distil this allele, the onslaught
and carnage of generations in which the ranks and rows
advanced and strove and all that grew then died
so that this yellow stain might prevail to be the dye
which my plea of love to you wears tonight, beneath
my hand which took the flower, there lies a larger gift.

The world is lop-sided. Symmetry would inject omniscience
that would obliterate us. Better to wonder if the blemish
is ours or the mirror's, and survive, than perish
in the finality of instant and complete knowledge.
The ultimate scrutiny reveals this primordial deceit
that made Sakharov smile: to remain, the vacuum splits
in a fission of finitude that borrows from the future
but doesn't give it all back, and in the imbalance
there exist the atoms that throb with every colour,
and when I give this yellow flower to you I give
my world entire, and in the unwitting witness of your smile
I see the world behold its own beauty.

Channel 4's "Eden"

Channel 4 started broadcasting a new reality TV series last night call "Eden". In it 23 individuals spend one year in a remote location in Moidart, living off the land and forming a community without any contact with the outside world.

The impression is given of a hauntingly beautiful but uninhabited wilderness where people can "start again" (to quote the promotional material for the programme). The landscape is presented by the programme makers as a clean slate, uncontaminated by human presence, in which the 23 intrepid volunteers can start from scratch, so that we can observe the outcome.

Of course the place is not uncontaminated by human presence. The people who preceded them were forcibly evicted nearly 200 years ago during the clearances.

There is no apparent awareness on the part of the programme makers of the fact that the place has a long, rich history, and that families hunted, fished, and raised crops and children where they stand, all while speaking a Lochaber dialect of Gaelic now only known to a few descendants in the maritime provinces of Canada whence some of them they were shipped.

The very premise of the show, that this location represents some sort of pristine "Eden", is offensive. The location is a crime scene where acts of ethnic cleansing were committed.

Giving evidence before the Deer Forest Commission of 1892, R. Macdonell of Camusdarroch, Arisaig, stated

"[...] The whole tract of country [Moidart, Arisaig, Ardnamurchan, etc.] seemed to be populated and to have numerous houses on all parts of it [...] Although I am only seventy-two years of age, I am able to speak of thirty years beyond that, from 1794 [...] I am able to speak concerning that period from an old account-book belonging to my grandfather [...] in connection with a very melancholy occasion in which I was unfortunately implicated [...] an emigration from the estate of Loch Sheil in Moidart. In that account-book I found 37 names of individuals [in part of Arisaig] [from] the various families who were paying rent, as sub-tenants [i.e. 37 households]

"[...] These people occupied [an area of Arisaig] as cottars, and they had land for which apparently they paid no rent, but worked the land, of which [the tenant] cropped a portion. They paid rent for grazing, a small nominal sum, and he himself paid a very small rent also to the then proprietor, Macdonald of Clanranald. The rents were paid to the tenants [...] at a very small rate, because they themselves were not highly charged.

"[...] In Lord Cranston's time [the tenant] had to give a large increase of rent, or be quit of it. Well, he could not under the old system on which he held it afford to give more rent [...] The farm was taken over him [...] He was obliged to remove all the sub-tenants upon it who had been there generations before him or his ancestors. The only thing that he could do was to get his brother Macdonald of Loch Sheil to take the people over to Loch Sheil in Moidart. Times grew black, and the potato famine occurred, and the consequence was that there was a redundant population, for Moidart [was already] well inhabitated, and the addition of so many [new] families [...] quite overwhelmed them when the potato famine occurred.

"[...] I was then a young man. I had just passed at the Bar, and I and the late respected James Macgregor of Fort William were appointed trustees to do what was best [...] to assist them to emigrate [...] So many of them went to Australia and a few of them to America. But never shall I forget [it] until my dying day. It is a source of grief to me that I had anything whatsoever to do with that emigration, although, at the same time, God knows I cannot understand how it could have been averted."

Love's Labour Lost

I took my love out for a treat,
a fancy place where we could eat,
and when we had to choose our seats
she said "I must abstain."

There was a very good menu
and when the time had come to choose
the waiter looked a tad bemused:
she said "I must abstain,"

and then I got down on one knee
to ask my love to marry me
she listened to my earnest plea
then said "I must abstain"

If it's a case of life or death
even unto her dying breath
she will repeat this shibboleth
"I really must abstain"


(Inspired by the Labour Party's voting record and possible voting outcome in the forthcoming vote on Trident this week at Westminster)

Now we need Indyref 2 as soon as possible for everyone's sake

Previously I proposed 2020 as a suitable date for another Scottish Independence referendum (see Indyref 2020). But recent events have altered circumstances and we now require this to be radically accelerated. Brexit has changed everything. I used to think we had four or five years leeway with respect to the timing of Indyref 2. Now the UK people voted to stay in no longer exists and time is a luxury we no longer have.

There are lots of reasons to hasten Indyref 2. I want to focus on just one for the moment.

One outcome of the EU referendum has been a rise in the number of hate crimes. The papers are full of examples. Two Muslim women in Bethnal Green had eggs thrown at them on the street. A halal butchers in Walsall was firebombed. A Polish community centre in London was vandalised. Laminated cards reading “No more Polish vermin” have been posted through letterboxes in Huntingdon. The list goes on. True Vision, a police-funded hate-crime reporting website, saw a 57% increase over the four days immediately after the referendum. Police in England and Wales reported a 42% increase during the week before and after the referendum. It is likely that the next set of figures will be even more depressing. It has been described as the worst increase on record. The incidence of verbal and online abuse, vandalism, assault and fire-bombing of property has risen alarmingly. It should be stressed that hate crime is not new, and this sudden increase is superimposed on what was already an upward trend.

Irrespective of whether people who voted for Brexit were motivated by intolerance or not, there is a now a section of society which feels its prejudices, previously regarded as anti-social and subject to some degree of inhibition as a result, have been endorsed by the result of the referendum, and that they have now been granted permission to indulge these attitudes without restraint or threat of censure. Mark Hamilton, head of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said “some people took [the result] as a licence to behave in a racist or other discriminatory way. We can not divorce the country’s reaction to the referendum and the increase in hate crime reporting." Paul Bagguley, a sociologist from the University of Leeds, has observed “there is a kind of celebration going on; it’s a celebratory racism.”

Although the issues being debated during the EU referendum were complex, and there were many arguments other than bigotry to persuade people to vote Leave, and although many people will therefore have voted Leave for progressive reasons related to, for example, EU reform, this doesn't matter when it comes to curbing hate crime.

I understand the anguish of those who will feel they are being tarred unfairly with the same brush as people whose behaviour they would normally abhor. But it is not enough to state one is not a racist if one's actions have emboldened racists. We are confronted by the reality of re-invigorated right wing extremism regardless of our intentions, and we must deal with it first instead of trying to exculpate ourselves. Fascism is not interested in the reasons and arguments of those with whom it may temporarily have found common cause. It will manipulate any shared platform to claim wider legitimacy and then leave its erstwhile allies behind in the wreckage if it must.  

We are fortunate in Scotland not to have witnessed the same surge in hate crime as in England, although there is absolutely no room for complacency. Incidents of Brexit related hate crime have also been reported in Scotland and we must not allow explicit or implicit racism to go unchallenged. But the EU referendum campaign was conducted in Scotland on an entirely different basis partly because the anti-immigration rhetoric used by the Leave campaign was intended to provoke and cultivate an English nationalist response south of the border and would not have been persuasive here in the same way. The reliance of the Leave campaign on this rhetoric, and the response to it, to carry it over the finishing line once the economic argument was defunct, defines the outcome as an English nationalist success, and from now on post-EU Britain is an English nationalist project.

Nevertheless we still have friends, neighbours, family, and colleagues here in Scotland who are EU citizens all of whom are impacted by this outcome. It is acutely embarassing to think of the insecurity and anxiety they may be experiencing now as a consequence of the referendum result.

It is fortunate therefore that we have within our power in Scotland at least a partial remedy.

The toxic sentiment that has been unleashed, and has resulted in the assassination of an MP (see The Hinge) and the deluge of hate crimes mentioned above, was first tolerated during the Scottish Independence referendum campaign. Everyone was exempt from criticism by the Unionist media and the No campaign as long as they subscribed to and promoted the British nationalist objective of a No vote, and so the extremist elements thriving on their new found legitimacy today enjoyed their first shared platform with mainstream politicians back then, and Labour MPs rubbed shoulders with members of the National Front on the high street as they handed out Better Together leaflets.

This culminated in the George Square riots of 19th September 2014, which was a triumphant and aggressive British nationalist show of strength, despite how some sections of the British media chose to characterise it at the time. The premises of a newspaper sympathetic to Scottish Independence were set on fire and Independence supporters were attacked. It was a "celebration" of the sort Bagguley describes. The perpetrators escaped the appropriate degree of official condemnation because it would tarnish the UK government's victory in the Independence referendum. They couldn't rain on that parade, because it was their own.

The genie of British nationalist extremism was let out of the bottle in Scotland by the No campaign and the first Project Fear during the Scottish Independence referendum. During the EU referendum, with no positive campaign to curb it (see Project Fear Squared), it prospered.

But just as the current cycle commenced with the irresponsible negativity of Project Fear during the First Scottish Independence Referendum, Indyref 2 will give us an opportunity to bring it to a conclusion.

Just as the Yes campaign made positive, progressive, inclusive, outward-looking, future-focussed arguments during the First Scottish Independence Referendum, a successful Indyref 2 will allow us to articulate a powerful rejection of the negative, corrosive ideologies encouraged by the first Project Fear and released by Brexit. In Scotland we have a unique opportunity to make a start, at least, to putting the lid on this. Indeed we have responsibility to do it, not just for ourselves, but for the whole of Britain. Indyref 2 let's us once again present a positive inclusive prospectus and gives us a chance to deliver a formal verdict at the ballot box that delegitimises once more the prejudice and bigotry that is flourishing in the wake of Brexit.

The 45

In the aftermath of the EU referendum, I see some people in England who voted to remain are identifying themselves as one of "The 48%."

This is presumably to make a statement affiliating themselves with what they regard are positive, progressive, outward looking, internationalist attitudes and values and to disassociate themselves from what they consider to be the negative attitudes that resulted in the referendum outcome.

This reminded me of the way some of us in Scotland identified ourselves as one of "The 45," following the First Scottish Independence referendum (2014) in which 45% of us voted for Independence on positive, progressive, inclusive, outward looking and internationalist grounds.

So here is a short poem I wrote in 2014 during that period of crushing disappointment following the outcome on that occasion. There are so many similarities between the two occasions, and Scots are already very familiar with the utter corruption and degradation of our media and politics by the establishment as a consequence of their experience in 2014.

How can you tell if someone is one of the 45?
Do they know the difference between the wrong and the losing side? 
Does defeat only serve to fortify their hopes with determination
to persevere and take back power from complacent politicians?
Is their voice one of ten thousand joined to amplify a whisper 
if its words need to be heard? Do they ask how can one prosper
if others are left impoverished? Do they refuse to cower?
Do they disregard the thunderous irrelevance of power
that usurps every news source, hijacks every television?
Do they carry on regardless with their perfect revolution?

45 is more than a number. 45 is a line in the sand. 
45 means this far and no further with fear and lies in this land.
45 is a number that will increase to 100 percent
and if you can answer these questions, 
maybe you're already one of them.

(The rhymes don't work if you substitute 48 for 45 unfortunately)

The game

At first it resembled chess. I took my turns,

replying to each move, exchanging material,

but slowly the game extended, the intensity attenuated:

pieces were mysteriously being replaced to prevent

the onset of endgame, and gradually I realised

the rules were changing. There was a lack of urgency

and a proliferation of distraction. I was not paying attention

when I lost the advantage. Refocussing, I realised

the rules were changing faster than I had thought.

It was becoming difficult to keep up, and so

I started introducing my own changes, to take control.

It worked for a while, but eventually the rules changed

at every turn, and then faster, and the game moved beyond

simple procedures, to an emotional joust,

the contest governed now only by how the move made us feel,

and still it accelerated, until at last I was undone,

unable to keep up, incapable of the necessary invention,

finally in check mate because of the poverty of my own imagination.