Here’s the thing, I don’t think I’m a “Scottish nationalist”, whatever that actually is. I’ll seldom be found sipping a dram, a bare thigh raised to the wind upon a tree stump in Argyll & Bute, singing Runrig a capella. My dad is English and my mum’s side of the family are staunchly of an Irish Catholic persuasion. I’m neither a product of, nor a rebel against, those amalgamated forces and influences – I’m simply a person who values a sense of belonging beyond borders, surnames, skin tones and dialects. I’m egalitarian. I know the influence of Unionism, hardboiled and deeply ingrained in the wake of the British Empire, will have ensured several votes were cut and dry No votes long before the real campaigning began. That’s fine, that’s up to you. You have an emotional heritage fused together with the idea of a United Kingdom and you’re choosing not to break it. Beyond that, I have a few friends on here – they’ll know who they are – who are voting No and doing so from a very specific perspective: their own career, their own economic prosperity, and the risks (as they interpret them) that Scottish independence will bring to those personal aspects of life. They’re all entitled to approach it from that point of view. That’s their prerogative. Although, I still hope that they’ll change their minds. I won’t be doing as they do. I’m going to vote Yes, not for myself or my heritage; not for William Wallace or Saltire painted sheep; not for casual xenophobia; not for Irn Bru, bagpipes, Buckfast or fish suppers; not for the chance to show my bare arse on Friday and shout, “Yas!”, projected southward in my spite. Granted, there’s some romance attached to the idea of an independent Scotland, but that’s all it is. It pales in comparison to what it all could really mean and what it could really do. I’m going to vote Yes because a paradigm shift is needed, not just in Hollyrood and Westminster, but in Europe, America and across the world. The political machine which governs the West, and hence governs humanity, is programmed to always keep true equality; real, genuine, idealistic, utopia-like equality as nothing but a pipe dream. It has to. There’ll always be a trade off - Nuclear submarine? Need food banks; Bankers’ bonuses? Need slashed benefits – and we are all complicit in that system when we ignore its existence. But you don’t have to ignore it anymore. The Better Together campaign has been run on the fuel of fear, and scaremongering has been the weapon of choice. Will there be hardships and challenges post-Yes vote? Yes, there absolutely will be. Some of those hardships will be economic, squeezing some pockets of society to relieve the very worst and neglected, but I’ll take it on the chin. The uncertainty, the attempted isolation tactics from superpowers? I’ll take it in my stride. Embassy access, volatile short-term employment, the challenge of building new industries – technology, renewable energy? I’ll take that challenge, we all will, and we’ll do it together. The British Empire was built with the blood of slaves, the gold of pillaged continents and the hands of child workers. Those tools make things a good bit easier. We get the chance to build something with fairness, hope and intelligence. That’s harder. But it’s better. For 15 hours, between 7am and 10pm, we, as residents of Scotland, have absolute sovereignty for the first time in centuries – we have the power to actually change things. Not just for us, as a country, but for society, globally, however far we can reach. You have the tool to actually do that; an amplified voting power, your ballot in a pool of less than 5 million – a power you haven’t known in this life and probably won’t know again. You can vote Yes and the power remains. The power to do something different, to break the status quo, and build a genuinely equal, forward-thinking society in a small, largely liberal nation, a beacon of hope to watchers over the world – social justice, equality, prosperity, education, hope. Or we can say, “No, thanks”, and hand that power straight back - a passing ship in the night. It would be nice while it lasts. We accept our lot, the empire remains, the machine churns onward, the status quo continues unbroken and that equality – that idealistic, hopeful equality – is relegated once again to the ‘pipe dream’ category. That’s not something I want to be responsible for. Vote Yes.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 23:12:01 +0000
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