Some years in the past whereas working within the NHS I investigated a state of affairs the place a bunch of very senior workers colluded in an try to cowl up the misdeeds of a colleague, within the full data of the devastating impact their dishonesty would have.
But in amongst that betrayal {of professional} moral values one individual’s integrity couldn’t be swayed they usually spoke the candid fact. I don’t know the way it affected them in the long term, however it was clear that integrity mattered to them and doing the incorrect factor was a burden they had been unwilling to hold.
Anyway, their braveness to carry agency to those rules impressed me and chimed with the values I consider are completely crucial if you find yourself charged with duty over the lives of others: honesty, integrity and a robust sense of justice.
Within the days following the 2014 referendum the emergence of a strengthened and united motion stunned us all. It appeared assured we might not be defeated in any subsequent vote. I recall Alex Salmond appropriating the phrases of WB Yeats’ poem “Easter 1916”, saying Scotland had “modified, and adjusted completely”.
However what nobody might have anticipated was how prophetic the conclusion of that stanza can be: “A horrible magnificence is born.”
That “horrible magnificence” is now being slowly revealed; the betrayal of a motion, the misuse of hope, the abuse of energy and the vanity of greed and ego.
Each time we enthusiastically marched to the highest of the hill, the generals at all times knew they had been going to march us again down. All through eight years of nice expectation, hope was progressively eroded to a meaningless slogan on a convention lectern.
All of the whereas too many comrades who’d given their lives to campaigning handed on earlier than their dream was realised.
And whereas the spoils had been good for the favoured few, the obscenity of poverty in Scotland’s wealthy land as soon as once more turned a useful gizmo to leverage votes for election, and never the central drive for motion on independence. Pontificating that Scotland gained’t stand for this or that could be a meaningless gesture when these selfsame voices are all too snug reclining with the trimmings of energy.
With all that mentioned, I do have to present credit score the place it’s due and thank Ian Blackford and Pete Wishart for clarifying my ideas. On 3 March 2021 the now irreparably-tarnished Sturgeon appeared earlier than the Fabiani charade. At that night’s SNP group assembly the 2 males first proclaimed a shaky reminiscence as unquestionable vindication, and proceeded to launch a vindictive private assault on Kenny MacAskill MP.
As per common the SNP group sat mute in defence of Kenny. I requested him if he was okay, and he quietly advised me concerning the formation of Alba; I used to be there. It was clear to me our struggle would by no means be the SNP’s struggle, and I needed no a part of the dishonest rhetoric that had gripped the social gathering I as soon as treasured.
And that’s the rub proper there. I take no pleasure in what’s unfolding and what could come, however I do take some consolation that Alba was shaped and has supplied an lively house for these decided to advance the reason for independence.
To be sincere, it doesn’t matter to me what the social gathering known as, certainly I see nice worth in contesting elections as One Scotland with expertise from all independence events and none. I might stick in a line that we mustn’t surrender hope, however that’s not sufficient; hope is passive and we have to act with urgency. We have to rediscover our dedication, embrace the broad church upon which our motion was constructed, and be ever vigilant for the wreckers of our trigger.
Independence is just not about left versus proper, it’s a easy precept of what’s proper and what’s incorrect. Westminster’s denial of the internationally recognised proper of Scotland’s folks to selected our personal future is one thing we must not ever once more lose sight of.
