One of the pieces of thinking I brought back from my experience of Buddhism in Nepal is this:
"The purpose of life is to do more good than harm."
This simple statement guides how I seek to act on a daily basis and yet it is a realistic philosophy because it accepts that I may well do harm through what I believe are good intentions, there will always be others who feel threatened or harmed by what I consider good decisions for the betterment of the majority.
Now multiply this by the millions of independence supporters across Scotland and it is self evident no matter how good our intentions are there will always be some one who will disagree, feel threatened or harmed by our view or activity. A sample from the letters pages in the National over a week and you can see this in play where folk think a future referendum rushed into will be a disaster while others want a referendum yesterday. This is just human nature and neither side actually wishes harm on the other but their divergent views are viewed as harmful to the independence movement by the Unionist side who fall on any scraps they can, in their desperation.
The point we all miss in our frustration and anger caused by the "other side" not seeing our point of view is this, fundamentally we all want the same thing: for Scotland to return to being outside of of a failed UK Union as a sovereign nation in its own right, taking its place amongst the nations of the world.
You will have a hard time getting Commonweal and Micheal Fry agreeing on anything to do with the economic pathway for an independent Scotland but they both agree the only future for Scotland is as an independent nation state free from Westminster's poisonous grip.
We hear of the splits in the independence movement, the SNP, AUOB from the usual sources in the UK media. The wheels have been coming off the SNP Government on a weekly basis since 2007 and yet the Unionist bounce back has never been seen. The opposite is true with the vote share of Labour, Tory and Libdem parties dropping to lower than ever levels in Scotland while bye-elections which would normally see the government of the day lose are still being won by SNP candidates, still taking seats from Labour and the Tories across Scotland. The unionists now hold on to seats under threat by encouraging Labour voters to vote Tory and vice versa.
We are seeing the final flailings of the British Establishment. They are destroying themselves at Westminster for their own, perceived, narrow political gain with out any consideration for the people they claim to represent. The British Establishment needs to rig BBC Question Time in Scotland to prevent Scotland's actual voice being heard by the rest of the UK. The BBC and Murdoch's minions at Sky do the same everytime Angus Roberston gets to his feet in their increasingly dysfunctional House of Commons. We think it is to silence Scotland's voice but ponder this:
"Maybe it is the British Establishment who do not want the English voters to hear Scotland's voice, out of the fear of waking up the English voters to the British Establishment's own mendacity."
What the Scottish independence family have to accept is we will never agree with others in the family on many things except for one key issue; Scotland needs to be an independent nation once more, free to decide its own future, using its wealth of resources, its people and their commitment to the betterment of all in Scotland.
All else is moot until we have terminated the Treaty of Union.
"The purpose of life is to do more good than harm."
This simple statement guides how I seek to act on a daily basis and yet it is a realistic philosophy because it accepts that I may well do harm through what I believe are good intentions, there will always be others who feel threatened or harmed by what I consider good decisions for the betterment of the majority.
Now multiply this by the millions of independence supporters across Scotland and it is self evident no matter how good our intentions are there will always be some one who will disagree, feel threatened or harmed by our view or activity. A sample from the letters pages in the National over a week and you can see this in play where folk think a future referendum rushed into will be a disaster while others want a referendum yesterday. This is just human nature and neither side actually wishes harm on the other but their divergent views are viewed as harmful to the independence movement by the Unionist side who fall on any scraps they can, in their desperation.
The point we all miss in our frustration and anger caused by the "other side" not seeing our point of view is this, fundamentally we all want the same thing: for Scotland to return to being outside of of a failed UK Union as a sovereign nation in its own right, taking its place amongst the nations of the world.
You will have a hard time getting Commonweal and Micheal Fry agreeing on anything to do with the economic pathway for an independent Scotland but they both agree the only future for Scotland is as an independent nation state free from Westminster's poisonous grip.
We hear of the splits in the independence movement, the SNP, AUOB from the usual sources in the UK media. The wheels have been coming off the SNP Government on a weekly basis since 2007 and yet the Unionist bounce back has never been seen. The opposite is true with the vote share of Labour, Tory and Libdem parties dropping to lower than ever levels in Scotland while bye-elections which would normally see the government of the day lose are still being won by SNP candidates, still taking seats from Labour and the Tories across Scotland. The unionists now hold on to seats under threat by encouraging Labour voters to vote Tory and vice versa.
We are seeing the final flailings of the British Establishment. They are destroying themselves at Westminster for their own, perceived, narrow political gain with out any consideration for the people they claim to represent. The British Establishment needs to rig BBC Question Time in Scotland to prevent Scotland's actual voice being heard by the rest of the UK. The BBC and Murdoch's minions at Sky do the same everytime Angus Roberston gets to his feet in their increasingly dysfunctional House of Commons. We think it is to silence Scotland's voice but ponder this:
"Maybe it is the British Establishment who do not want the English voters to hear Scotland's voice, out of the fear of waking up the English voters to the British Establishment's own mendacity."
What the Scottish independence family have to accept is we will never agree with others in the family on many things except for one key issue; Scotland needs to be an independent nation once more, free to decide its own future, using its wealth of resources, its people and their commitment to the betterment of all in Scotland.
All else is moot until we have terminated the Treaty of Union.
Splendid article I cannot disagree less. The philosophy of "do more good than harm" is a most excellent one. My children disagree with me on the matter of Scotland's independence but have enough respect for their auld Dad to keep their views to themselves when I am around. To try to force them to change their minds would be the divisive "thing" suggested by certain parties. Meanwhile the door is kept open and I will do all I can to use gentle persuasion to get them to think differently.
ReplyDeleteHi Mike. What arguments do they put forward for disagreeing with you? I have generally found younger family members to be very keen on independence.
ReplyDelete