Democracy and Universal Suffrage

It appears that the small island nation of Iceland led the way

Iceland is generally held to be the oldest Parliament, starting in 930. The oldest continuous Parliament is the Tynwald (Isle of Man), which started in 979, although its roots go further back. In 1188 Spain held one of the first parliament followed by the Netherlands in 1581. 

In the UK the Union of Parliaments 1707, brought about a more modern parliament, which limited the power of the monarch. 

After the Union of the Parliaments in Britain – which dissolved both the Parliament of Scotland the Parliament of England under James Stuart (VI Scotland and I England) to create a parliament of Great Britain, which sat in London. The modern concept of parliamentary government emerged in the Kingdom of Great Britain (1707 - 1800 ) and in Sweden during the Age of Liberty (1718 - 1722). 

**Universal Suffrage

Suffrage – is the right to vote in public, political elections. 

Britain was not one of the first countries to offer votes for all men, and later all women.

France - 1792 suffrage for all men (in 1850 excluded criminals and homeless)

America  - 1856 Voting rights all white males, and suffrage women 1920

New Zealand  1893 – full suffrage and votes for women. First self-governing country.

Finland - 1906 – suffrage all men and women (women could also stand for election) 

UK – 1918 – male suffrage, all men the vote

1928 – all women the vote. 

Voting Injustice

In 1969 UK closed a loophole where 7% got 2 votes!

Also in 1969 Northern Ireland  votes for Catholics after the civil rights movement. (under Harold Wilson)

In the US, some states exercise shared sovereignty to offer citizens the opportunity to write, propose, and vote on referendums. 

Referendums in the UK are rare. In the UK we have a passive, non interactive democracy.

and we have too large, impersonal council areas. 

Having a Voice

I live in a middle class area near Glasgow and have family and friends in Edinburgh. In my experience it is easier for unionists to have a voice and speak their minds. Unionists feel they can say what they like, openly and freely, without fear of any repercussions. 

By contrast, I have supported an independent Scotland all my life, but I often feel I have to keep quiet or am looked on as an oddity. The middle classes are supposed to support the hierarchy establishment, in order of protect their own wealth. It matters not it seems, that Scotland has one of the most unequal land ownership, embarrassing levels of poverty and that tenant farmers have no rights. The tiny rich elite must be protected at all costs and this elite are determinedly against change of any kind. Who owns Scotland and why are they being subsidized?  I don’t want Scotland to be part of a centralized trickle-down economics from a London super state and under American vested interests. The Tories also want to enforce market-driven health care here. Many Indy supporters are threatened. How is this democratic?

One told me recently with regard to Scottish indy, that she didn’t want to get smaller. I have heard this concern before and it strikes me as a completely different way of viewing Scotland’s indy. I want Scotland to get bigger on the world stage and to be able to protect our national interests and resources - why not? Presently Scotland is side-lined, ignored and diminished as part of disunited UK and our resources are being squandered. We are led by arrogant, ignorant and lazy politicians at Westminster. 

I don’t want an indy Scotland building walls with its neighbours or with Europe. Indy is not about borders for me. We must speak with both national and international voices. Change can only happen in small places. Scottish indy is both inclusive and outward looking. At a talk at Edinburgh book festival, Gina Miller spoke of moving pivisions – and I agree – but moving past wealth divisions will not be so easy. The system needs changed through independence.

How are we best governed? What is best practice? Why is making decisions locally ‘being smaller’? In todays internet world we can live on remote islands and still remain connected to the outside world. Europe has moved on and rejected feudalism. America has not moved on, even while it has a Bill of Rights and a written constitution (unlike UK) – it continues to have protected elites and vested interests. I lived for ten years in America and it does have a federal system of government where each state controls its VAT and state taxes. But it also has great divides and inequalities. 

False tribalism and division must end for the sake of our country. But there are differences here. I believe difference and informed different views are essential to reach a realistic consensus. But artificial tribes, around old, ignorant hatreds have no place in a progressive democracy. It is a fallacy that ’Brexit’ is about any kind of independence – its really about leaving the world’s most successful trading block. 

This is not only about land – its about power and privilege – and this inequality affects all areas of Scottish life, the urban lowlands also. It’s a culture of divisiveness, rather than a culture of co-operation and equal life chances. We can’t all be the same, but we can have equal opportunities. 

Self-determination for Scotland, means making our own decisions in Scotland’s best interests and also being good neighbours and in a larger trading block. Self-determination means being connected with the democracies of Europe – rather than in the pocket of American wealthy elites. Scotland has centuries of cultural and trading links with Europe. 

I believe the size of Scotland is ideal in todays world, to be adaptable and progressive for the future. We can have a media that represents Scotland; we can protect our resources, protect our heritage and invest in local infrastructure. Scottish Indy is a fight to protect our civil rights and our stories and culture. Maybe if Scotland does this, other parts of England will follow. Recently I saw a map of who owns Scotland, and I was shocked by the tiny white sections of publicly owned land. Scotland has the most unequal land ownership in the world. This land was stolen from the church after the Reformation in 1560.  

Perhaps its time to give it back. Instead of a culture of false greed, we can have a culture of co-operation? I hope this isn’t all about money and that we can all have an equal voice. We have a choice now. We must act, and act soon to change all that.

Can We Save our Wildlife?

bonny banks of Loch Lomond

 “Saltmarsh in winter grey, falls softly upon the human eye.”

In his book, “Can we Save Britain’s Wildlife’ Mark Cocker argues, “its urgent we protect our natural environment. .”The big corporate landowners have been a disaster. The National Trust too often seems less interested in biodiversity than that it has destroyed swaths of wild upland in Scotland. – Flow country with a loathsomeness of conifers, which have also helped the super-rich avoid paying tax.”

Nature reserve north Uist

On North Uist there is a beautiful nature reserve  to protect endangered birds such as corncrakes. This is part of an important European Conservation Machair project and I wondered, will the UK fund and set up a UK Conservation Machair project, after Brexit? I doubt it! 

In Finland they have school projects to get young people into the natural environment and fresh air. In the 30s when people were given a weeks holiday they worried they might drink, so instead they offered wooden weekend retreats beside their beautiful lakes. Also a project to help children with depression is to get them into the countryside. 

Campsie hills

We all benefit from being in nature. I will always remember a drive in the natural forests of Fall in Massachusetts when I was blown away by the beauty and range of colours. Sadly the contrast in Scotland couldn’t be more stark, after depleting our land of natural forrests to build ships to fight the French or Spanish (in the 18^thcentury). The UK Forestry Commission has built these abhorrent squares of dark green conifers where no undergrowth and biodiversity can survive underneath. Some have burnt and nothing survives here.

fall colours in America

Our countryside is also stuffed with aggressive Rhododendrons which Queen Victoria brought over. Around a tenth of our countryside is effected with this blight and the whole of our landscape will eventually be covered with this plant if nothing is done: no wild life can survive here and it is costing millions to eradicate. 

harvest fields near Stonehaven

II 

I was shocked recently to realise that birthday cake travels from London or Manchester – which made me wonder, why can’t cakes be made here in Glasgow and how much of our super market food is locally sourced? This is not at all green – for our global warming and carbon foot print. Do we really need Alaskan salmon here, when Scottish salmon is better?

Cocker claims, ‘it’s a scientific necessity to revolutionise our approach to food and energy.’

So can we buy Local? On the radio a women spoke of living on local produce. She spoke of farmers markets and how Scottish tomatoes taste excellent, and of how difficult it was to buy local produce. 

Some predict Brexit chaos at Dover, and that within two days there would be no food in Cornwall or Scotland! I thought what is going on, has the UK gone crazy and why is all our food traveling through Dover? Why can’t food come over from Ireland or America or Holland? I thought of all the trucks jammed up in Kent. It’s an unsustainable and ludicrous situation, that we must escape from and how can Scotland be self sustaining otherwise? Both Irvine and Glasgow were once great trading ports, pre union or rather pre occupation. 

evening light south Uist

We need to BE more indy – and consider how can we supply our energy (renewables – we have loads of wind, rain and tides). 
As a result of pesticide use and global warming Britain's butterflies are under serious threat. Recently I was walking in marshland at Mugdock country park where we might expect to see butterflies fluttering and sadly there were none.... The baby boomers have been a generation that has abused our planet - with plastic, air travel and more. We must now ask- what are we leaving the next generation? 

If our natural habitat is lost it will never be regained and we will end with“birdless skies, insect less vegetation, make a soundscape of men-made engines.” 

We will have a world (already happening) bare of flowers, animals, birdsong and butterflies. We can’t flush plastics, chemicals, fertilizers or CO2 down a rubbish flue, it all remains.  . 

Nature is our life support system. 

rocky shores on Harris

And PS On a personal note - we never use week killer on our grass, allow sections of wild flowers, have a bird feeder on a small tree and have several mature trees. I notice some concrete over their gardens or put down stones.

We must all Play Our Part

We live in very challenging times and its not okay to sit on the fence anymore. In her book Left Bank, Agnes Poiries writes of the citizens in Paris who stood by and did nothing during the war. The war taught people that indifference bred only chaos, and that everyone must take sides and engage with the world.

The Tories are fighting to save a failing British elite's empire days. Also as with Theresa May, they say how caring they are, while they refuse to take in abandoned Syrian children; expel the Windrush Generation, bomb Syria and leave people starving. They are experts at putting on this 'I'm so caring' face and trying to fool their Daily Mail readers.

Today we have weak leadership and It should not be about who shouts the loudest on Twitter! Musician and writer Pat Kane wrote in the National, about us all being fully mindful and of the “innovative spirit “ of small nations such as Iceland, Finland, Estonia and how we must all be more aware and alert. ‘ He added there is 'no shortage of inventions and reforms are pursuable under indy … but it all has to be rooted in a fully mindful population. Many of us felt as citizens, fully awake in 2014.’ (March 2018).

How do we get our message across? The UK government may not imprison us, instead they tie our hands with no media or tv outlets. By contrast how does Catalonia manage to have not one, but five tv channels! David Mundell, now with an expanded Scottish office, uses tax payers money to target women without university educations. Unbelievable! 

The Tories are not only cruel and heartless, they are inhumane and I fear there is no decent opposition either. These are life and death issues and we must all play our part: this is not a time for those who want to sit on the sidelines saying, well I am okay. It is time the people spoke up. Who can live on £60 a week job seeker allowance? We have returned to Dickens times it seems, with Amazon the new workhouse and no workers rights, as the tiny super rich defend their right to even more money. This 'them and us' culture perpetuated by the British establishment elites is not constructive, its destructive for our society's well being. Its time now for progressive socialism - capitalism for business along with a more caring, rounded society.  Our best hope is gaining Scotland's freedom, the sooner the better. 

In a free trading block of independent or federal nations, everyone pulls together – from the bottom up and NOT top down directives. ‘Sovereignty’ is with the people. We’ve had great thinkers in Scotland - from the Declaration of Arbroath to philosopher and poet George Buchanan, who taught James VI, and who wrote one of the most important books on democracy for all. Later his work on democracy was suppressed and his memorial is just north of me at the bonny village of Killearn. These are not simple black and white, yes or no issues. Many politicians are in this for power and not the best interests of the people, time for the people to speak up!

The Year of Young People 2018

SCOTTISH YOUTH THEATRE

There will be programs and festivals to celebrate young people's voices this year.

I attend Celtic Connections festival every January in Glasgow and enjoy the diverse mix of cultures and music. One of the most interesting aspects is the platform the festival offers young emerging talent –

*The young musicians who drew attentions this year –  Talisk, Siobhan Miller, Siobhan Wilson, Friel Sisters,  Rura, Alasdair Roberts, Kathryn Joseph, Misha Macpherson. Elephant sessions, Saltfishforty.I have also been reading of the backward looking Brexit nonsense – young people did not vote for these poorer futures – 16 and17 years olds were not allowed to vote in the 2016 referendum.

It’s a tough world for young people these days. Many have no prospects of ever owning their own home or ever having a pension. I worry many are distracted by online game playing too! MEANWHILE many pensioners spend their massive drop downs on holidays and renovating homes. The UK depends on this false London housing bubble that will surely burst.

With Brexit there are very serious issues over the Northern Ireland border and Scottish rights. I read of a British/Irish Convention which sat 10 years ago, which addressed questions such as the Irish language. There is talk of holding another convention over the question of a hard border. Westminster purposes an electronic border but is this really workable?

My first thought was - bring in the teenagers, students, twenty year olds to discuss what kind of future they want. There is far too much emphasis on what the old want, and it is not their futures.

This could most certainly is not be about out dated empire building or 300 year old European religious wars. Many young people are very angry and their futures are being neglected by selfish baby boomers and their large drop downs.   

Our links to Europe – There are the great European literary traditions from Greece to Rome, to the Renaissance through the Reformations. 

The latest Brexit is that May wants to leave the EU customs union and single market – in order to join a new EU customs non -frictionless trade arrangement where the UK can make their own rules on certain things and abide by the EU rules on others? First we’re in Europe with Opt Outs now out of Europe with Opt Ins! What’s really going on. Scotland never voted for this foolish Brexit, it makes me angry and sad. 

 SAVE SCOTTISH YOUTH THEATRE - http://scottishyouththeatre.org/support-us/

Apparently the significant Scottish Youth theatre is to loose its funding., in the Year of Young People. 

‘We need to remind ourselves that,  as Europe is a whole (and still, in it progressive mutilation an disfigurement, the organism out of which any world harmony must develop) so European literature is a whole, the several members of which cannot flourish, if the same blood-stream does not circulate throughout the whole body.

The blood-stream of European literature is Latin and Greek – not as the systems of circulation, but a one, for it is through Rome that our parentage in Greece must be traced.’   TS Eliot lecture to Virgil society 1944