I
haven't written a blog in ages. I don't know why really. It's not
like there hasn't been much going on in the world to write about.
Maybe finishing my latest novel, 'The Last Valley', has left me feeling
a bit washed out. I guess it was kind of a hard write: fiction yes,
but based on delving into facts from a very dark place.
The
summer days have drifted by. I have been a red van man, driving
through the exploding greenscape of Dumfries and Galloway delivering
ridiculous numbers of food parcels. My writing time has been
restricted to wading through endless application forms. More money to
buy more food to fill more food parcels to feed more hungry people
who are getting more screwed over with every passing day. Thirty
years ago, people were screwed over by massed ranks of cops in full riot
gear smacking truncheons against sheilds and yelling
'ZooooLooooo!!!'. Now people are screwed by the small print. The dry
as bones Catch 22 of a benefits system meticulously designed to herd
people into godforsaken jobs.
Sometimes
the news stumps up smart people from think tanks to lay out the
statistics of spreading poverty. On the ground it means more and more
emergency food. It's not like the Toxteth riots or the battle of
Orgreave. No smashed windows. No burnt out cars. No skies filled with
drifting smoke. It is a crisis played out behind closed doors. A lid
kept on with prescriptions for tens of millions of anti depressants.
Every day.
And
everywhere I go, I have the same brief conversation. Hi Mark, how are
you? Fine. And you're still busy? Yeah. We're always busy. Always
busy. Because there is absolutely no end in sight.
And
my days driving from small town to small town are nothing remotely
unusual. The whole of the western world is trying to come to terms
with our new reality. Ageing populations which don't make anything
any more. Ageing populations angrily demanding to be granted the life
we they have become accustomed to. It's the Walt Disney version
of the 1950's when we still had an Empire and you could go for days
at a time without seeing a brown face.
All
of which means the preferred answer to all the hard questions is
buffoon like, so called hard men who promise a return to the good old
days. Only a few short years ago, these were mildly amusing fringe
figures. Fodder for the cartoonists. Yapping with false ferocity like
chained up poodles, safe behind the garden fence.
Suddenly
they don't seem so funny any more. Suddenly they have got a hold of
the reins of power and now they have the chance to do their worst.
Countries have gone down like dominos. One by one. Faster and faster.
Russia and Hungary and Poland and Turkey and Italy and the
Philippines and Brazil. And America.
And
now us.
The wolves are no longer howling from deep inside the forest.
They have come out through the tree line. They're in the garden.
Snarling. Throwing themselves at the back door.
And
suddenly the news brought us pictures from a conference centre in
North Carolina. Ranks of hate filled faces. White faces. Old faces.
Sweating faces.
“Send
her back! Send her back! Send her back!”
You
could almost feel the twitching of their right arms. A hair's breadth
from going the full 'Seig Heil'.
As
a father to mixed race sons, this kind of thing chills the blood. And
no matter how many bland faced Tory MP's from safe Surrey seats take
to the airwaves to assure me it can't happen here, my blood stays
chilled. I look at all the hate filled old white faces from a Farage
rally and I see the same faces as the ones in North Carolina.
Once
upon a time I spent three years of my life being a historian. Fat lot
of use that proved to be! But it makes it hard not to compare and
contrast. Then and now. Undercurrants and trends. Like a ranting
idiot who everyone wrote off as a joke figure. A useful idiot for the
great corporations who craved lower taxes and less workers rights.
And who cared if he went a bit over the top when he went off on one
about the Jewish thing. All hot air. Nothing to worry about. So long
as it kept workers out of Unions, then all was deemed fair in love
and war so far as the men in the boardrooms were concerned. So long as it sat well on the bottom line.
So long as the share price kept going in the right direction. The top brass at Mercedes and Krupps and IG Farben were sure they
would always retain complete control of their ranting Austrian
puppet. Their corporal. And the Prussian generals were similarly
confident. They could keep their useful idiot on a short leash. Who
the hell was he anyway? A nobody. A laughing stock. The idiot's
idiot.
And
they were all equally unconcerned by the Italian idiot who liked to fly
into Tempelhof airport like a strutting peacock to get himself onto
the newsreels.
And
then it all changed. The corporations and the the generals were happy
enough when their useful idiot decided to roll over Czechoslovakia.
Of course they were. It was good for the bottom line. Good for the
share price. And they were more than happy to accept his invitation
to attend a celebratory victory banquet in the Hradcany Castle in
Prague. Picture them in their fine uniforms and black tie. Faces red
with too much drink taken. Masters of the universe. Swapping tales
about their favourite discreet banks in Zurich.
Until
their useful idiot got to his feet and stood in the huge window which
gave a panoramic view of the captured city below. Until their useful
idiot suddenly started started to beat his chest like a gorilla. Like
a lunatic. Like a psychopath. And for the first time they must have
realised they had created a monster.
What
goes around comes around. Now the great corporations have served up
their own 21st century useful idiots. And once again they
are all utterly certain they have a firm grip on the strings of their
chosen puppets. And over the next weeks, we will all be subjected to
the nauseating pictures of our useful idiot flying into Dulles International to pay
homage to the useful idiot in chief.
Just
like Mussolini once upon a time flew in to Berlin Tempelhof. Back in
the day when the corporal had invited the press to take a look at his
shiny new cutting edge camps in Dachau and Buchenwald. Will Trump
take Johnson down to the border to check out the kids in cages? And
will Johnson purr his appreciation and make some moronic joke about a
pet hamster he once had?
But
of course such comparisons are ridiculous. The world has moved on.
These things can never happen again because bland faced Tory MP's
from safe seats in Surrey tell us they can never happen again. Just
like it could never be possible for thousands of white people in
North Carolina to raise the roof with chants of 'Send her back' while
the President of the United States of America stood there for
fifteen long seconds drinking it in.
Thank God my family made the decision 25 years ago to up sticks and come to
Scotland. And thank God for Scotland. When all the lights went out in
the late 1930's, there were only a couple of countries who managed to
steer clear of the killing madness which spread through Europe like a
an unstoppable plague.
Sweden
and Switzerland.
Sanctuaries.
Places of sanity amidst the madness which left 50 million corpses in
its wake.
Such
is Scotland today. Right now. Thankfully we have found a way to head
in a different direction. We have found a way to see the likes of
Farage and Johnson for what they are. And Trump. And Le Pen and
Silvini and Erdogan and Urban. And when our people take to the
streets in their tens of thousands, it is to dream of a country where
hope overrides hate.
Over
the coming years I have no doubt there will be thousands and
thousands who make the same decision as Carol and I made twenty five
years ago. To get out of Dodge. To leave places of simmering hatred
where the streets are no longer safe for anyone with the strong skin
colour. Our London masters can crack the whip and laughingly dismiss
our requests for our own immigration rules. They will slap us down
with a public school smirk and their cheerleaders in the Telegraph
and the Daily Mail will roar them on. Just like the right wing press
once hailed the grand opening of Dachau and Buchenwald as a great
triumph.
And
for a while they will get the chance to bask in their control. Not
for long, but for a while. But they will be powerless to stop
internal migration. The Indian businessman with a thriving factory on
the outskirts of Leicester who finally gets sick of his kids being
called 'Paki' as they make their way to school. And when he chooses
to up sticks and move his operation to an industrial park on the
outskirts of Paisley, there won't be a thing our lords and masters in
Westminster can do about it.
Things
are falling apart in England. Hospitals and roads and prisons and
schools. And as things fall apart, the cancer of strutting English
nationalism will continue to spread. And as things fall
apart, thousands and thousands of people will start to vote with their
feet and come north to the sanctuary of Scotland. They will be
doctors and teachers and business people. They will be young and old.
They will be people with the energy and drive to make a life changing
move and leave the hate and racism behind. And my God, we'll benefit
just like America and Britain and eventually Israel benefited from
the thousands of Jewish professionals and scientists who fled from
Hitler before he slammed the door in their faces.
When the madness finally ground to a halt in 1945, Sweden and
Switzerland emerged as two of the richest countries in the world and
they have remained so ever since.
Just
like Scotland will. Already we are in a uniquely blessed position
with our climate and our huge resources and our limitless supply of clean
water. We lack only two things to cement our place as the best place
to be in a darkening world – Independence and people.
Well,
as the useful idiots in Westminster do their worst, it seems pretty
nailed on that both of these final jigsaw pieces will be coming our
way soon.
So
as the lights go out one by one south of the border, I thank god our
mixed race family came to Scotland. Of course I do.
