WELL-WRITTEN, Jonathon Shafi (The Yes movement is back at square one and needs a complete renewal, Apr 16). You nailed the problem, but not the solution. The solution for an independent Scotland can only be achieved through unity of purpose, not factionalism, division, sabotage, back-stabbing, entryism, depression and defeatism.
Of course, all movements throughout history suffer such processes. Nothing new here, whether it be Scotland, Ireland or ancient Rome or international socialism. Nor is there anything new in imperialism, or state intervention.
Not all splitters are in the pay of the British state. Some are doing it for nothing. Some are being used and some are acting from sheer egotism. Some cannot survive in any organisation of more than two people and many such characters come to mind. I am sure we all know them.
READ MORE: What is behind the dip in Humza Yousaf’s popularity?
The first thing that many left organisations have on the agenda is a split. Labour is famous for splits and there is no doubt that they have moved further to the right. If the far left agreed to use ice picks, or firing squads, on the other factions, they would first form a circle.
George Orwell described mixed metaphors with his famous line about plunging the fascist jackboot into the melting pot. So why is the independence movement mixing its metaphors and acting like lemmings over a cliff, in sacks, attacking each other with ice picks?
Why does every revolution have a counter revolution? Why is the sky blue, occasionally? Why has man(woman)kind achieved so much in technical and intellectual terms, yet can be so backward, brutal and bloody war-minded? Why do we have poverty and famine amid such super wealth?
The answer? Could it be that man is still not so far removed from the beast and we actually like it that way?
WATCH: Listen to Humza Yousaf's speech from Scottish independence march in Glasgow
I would say to all the Jonathons that if we wish to remedy all that, the answer is simple, at least in Scotland. Closer to home, the Brit Nats say Ireland is “complicated”. It is not. It is only complicated because they are lying and caught up in their own endless machinations to protect their own positions.
Ireland fought bloody civil wars, to England’s delight, and are still being used. Bruce fought a civil war, before and after independence. The National movement in Scotland today is fighting an unholy civil war. We have our lumpen loyalists. The Tsarist state had their Black Hundreds, a mass lumpen mob, to be released on reformist organisations.
When Lenin was asked what to do about Tsarist agents, he replied, “make sure they keep paying their dues”. He also defined the difference between the Nationalism of the Oppressed and the Nationalism of the Oppressors.
No matter who said it. It is quite simple for us, as long as we do not theorise in blood as easily as he did in ink. All we have to do is, at least, unite for electoral reasons with the single largest party and win the next election, where we will have to unite to achieve simple independence and then naturally form opposition parties after a basic framework is achieved.
Can we be trusted to do that? Can we ever allow “Labour Friends of Imperialism” to unite with their official Tories, back into Scotland to rob and divide us again? They know how to unite to achieve and maintain imperialism in Scotland, despite their pretendy theological minor differences.
Unite to win the independence elections and divide the brutish state from its oppressed victims.
Donald Anderson
Glasgow
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