ONE year ago we had a vision of a future that we were building for ourselves, which shimmered above our heads, so close it could almost be touched. We could feel a new Scotland coming into being, sweeping away the old “cringe” with a new confidence. It was a beautiful time to be alive, as we laughed and danced our way through the independence campaign. I felt connected to that beauty, and part of that hope, even as I mourned the death of my beloved partner Andy, who had died of vascular dementia just a few days before that momentous vote.
It was because of Andy that I started to write. Trapped indoors as a carer, the events of the referendum were passing me by, the world was passing me by, as it does for so many carers trapped by responsibility. I sought refuge in words that allowed me to feel connected and so began to write a blog – as a real ordinary carer, not a part of any party or political organisation, like a wee ginger dug barking from the sidelines. And I discovered I was not alone: thousands of dugs barked that summer.
Over the past year, Scotland has been on an incredible journey, a journey that is still not over. I learned a lot from the wonderful people I met along the way but, most of all, I learned to love my country because it is small and harmless and it needs people to look after it. I promised Andy I’d look after it just as I’d looked after him. As I watched Andy die I watched a new Scotland come into being. I fell in love with Andy all those many years ago because he was strong, he was confident, he was self-assured. Those are the qualities I see in the new Scotland that has been born. That’s why I never lost hope, and never will.
The referendum campaign was like no other political event this country has ever seen. It was not divisive and frightening: those were the words of a political class which saw its grip on us weaken. The campaign was joyous and giving and unifying. It brought people together who would otherwise never have met. We forged friendships, we created comradeship. We made friends with a whole country.
Scotland beat to the pulse of life as we reached for change. The hills and the lochs and the streets of the towns and cities sang with hope. We were connected to one another and to the land. We learned to define ourselves and refused to be defined by others. We knew this country could be a place we created for ourselves, that this country could be just, it could be fair, it could be open and tolerant and inclusive, it could be what we made of it, it could be a force for good in the world.
Things didn’t have to be the way we’d always been told they had to be. And we were doing all this by ourselves, bringing a new nation into being in an act of will while the media screamed “naw”. We felt their fear and did it anyway.
The euphoria of the independence referendum campaign taught a nation of cynics that it was still possible to aspire to something better. We learned that hope was real, that dreams could dance even under the dreich skies of Scotland. We learned that it was possible to have greater aspirations than the grey managerialism of the Labour Party and we said no to the negativity of the dour pursed lips of those who said we must listen to our betters and obey. We learned that change was only possible if we made it happen ourselves, and we discovered the power of a people in motion.
We saw the establishment demonise a nation which dared to imagine the radical notion that a country is best governed by those who live in it.
And their hysteria taught us that they were afraid of us, which meant the real power lay with us. We could feel it coursing through our hands and our songs and our words as we chapped on doors and filled the streets.
But as the votes were counted the hopes of a nation came crashing down, overthrown by threats, squandered in scares, snatched out of reach by the joyless. We wept for the loss of the cherished dream that we had built up so carefully in love and joy. We stood by the shores of the sea loch and we watched the tide go out, while we braced ourselves for the storms and gales that were about to come. You haven’t changed the world, scoffed the nay-sayers.
WE grieved for its loss when hope was snatched away by the forces of fear. But hope didn’t die. It paused for breath, it stopped to weep and mourn and heal. And then we stood up. We looked around and said: “No. This is not over.” We could not forget the lessons of the referendum campaign. Once a country has learned how to hope it is not going to unlearn it. Once a country has learned how to connect to itself, it’s not going to unplug just because the establishment says so. So the dream danced on. It dances yet, whirling, turning, groups and individuals united in Scotland’s birl collection.
The storm did come, but it was the storm of righteous indignation. It was the storm of anger that swept away the corrupt and useless Labour Party which had sucked the lifeblood from our dreams and sapped our strength to resist.
It was the howling gale of derision that wrecked the LibDems and tossed them broken and beached. When the crunch came the Labour and LibDem parties stood shoulder to shoulder with the Conservatives. They were asked to put people before power but they chose power, so the people took power away from them.
We changed the world after all.
The world turns, the leaves fall, the grass grows on the grave of the Unionist parties in Scotland, unmourned, unlamented. And here we are, one year on, standing by the shore of the sea loch, unbowed and unafraid, waiting for the tide to return. And the tide is rising.
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