Flowering of Scotland?

Like every other nation, Scotland faces some tough challenges in the years ahead. The decline of global industrial civilisation is gathering pace, spurred on by an inexorable reduction in resource availability and quality. The economic hardships that will bring, compounded by the costs we will face due to worsening environmental degradation and failures in our built infrastructure are bound to accelerate over the coming years. The initial tremors of these global seismic events are even now being felt in the form of the market crashes, banking and corporate failures of the past few years. This is only the beginning of a landmark phase-shift into a new way of human living, and no amount of government funny-money shenanigans and massaging of statistics will be able to prologue the phoney “recovery” for long. Sooner or sooner still the dam will burst again and we'll begin another slide down the slope of reducing living standards until we reset at a new normal.

As ordinary life comes apart the need to re-configure and glue it back together in new and unexpected ways will become apparent. For most likely the majority of the population – those caught blinking in the headlights of an onrushing, possibly frightening new paradigm for daily living – the experience may be traumatic. The frame of mind and attitudes we adopt in the face of this demanding future will therefore be important. Does Scotland have the cultural fortitude to keep its head above water? It's a question we need to address, given the injuries our country has been exposed to during its long history.

Carol Craig's book “The Scots' Crisis of Confidence” makes for fascinating reading in this regard with respect to Scotland's cultural traits. For anyone who grew up in or has lived here for any length of time, the descriptions of our national idiosyncrasies are bound to be recognisable – certainly for me personally there was much within the book that I could identify with. The insights I've gained from that recognition has led me to question my own attitudes and driven me to try to change them, and with the kind of difficult and demanding future we're facing, understanding our character as a people could be a valuable exercise if we're to live successfully in it.

 
We Scots were at one time an outgoing people that traded and traveled extensively in Europe, and while we of course have many positive characteristics, Craig's book focuses on the less commendable aspects of our cultural behaviour. Our capacity for negativity and pessimism and our lack of confidence as a nation are major topics for exploration. The causes of these traits are varied: the Calvinist period of religious austerity; the difficult, marginal life of most of Scotland's early inhabitants; the Highland clearances and mass emigration of large parts of our population; our higher than average war losses compared with other allied nations, particularly in the first world war; the Darien disaster and the consequent loss of our sovereignty in 1707's Act of Union. There are many more historical events that have contributed to making us what we are than just the few I have listed here, but the result has been a people practically conditioned to expect the worst. Craig draws attention to our ability to be pessimistic even in the event of good news, citing as an example a bet between a former Scotland rugby captain and an ex-England internationalist at a pre-match event in 2008. The match and the bet went to Scotland, but the former Scottish player, upon receiving his winnings said, “No doubt I'll be giving it back to you next year.” That's the kind of classic self-effacing, more-or-less defeatist attitude so common in Scotland - I've used these kind of lines myself on more than one occasion!

We're going to have to try to address our issues of national self-confidence if we are to deal positively with a harder future. It can be done – in my case, I've confronted two of the traits raised in the book, fear of criticism and of knowing my place (or "getting above myself”) by starting this blog. I've aspired to write for many years without finding the confidence or the motivation to start, but I can thank the independence referendum and my small part in the grassroots Yes campaign for inspiring me to action. It's a movement that's having the same effect on thousands of others throughout Scotland, demonstrating that despite our issues we're not a write-off yet.

The levels of optimism and hope for the future evident in the Yes movement belie the insecure, negative and fatalistic attributes portrayed in “The Scots' Crisis of Confidence”. We're showing that we can change and grow out of our cultural shells, and it's a trend that shows no sign of slowing or stopping on the way to September 18^th. Undecideds and former No voters are swelling the ranks of Scots who see change coming and are eager to be part of it. Contrarily, the No campaign would have us lower our voices and sink back into sullen acceptance of Westminster's grip, surrendered to that other old Scottish cultural debilitation of knowing our place as the UK careens towards its unavoidable appointment with destiny as a failed state.

The real test then of our potential return to the type of outgoing nation we once were will come in September. A Yes vote will be an indication of a re-awakened confidence and self-respect, something we're going to need to build rapidly if we want to meet the challenges of a world in decline. Continuing along the same path is simply not an option – a No vote will bring nothing but regret and disappointment at the opportunity we will have squandered, further reinforcing the foolish opinion held by many - and dishonourably purported by a shameful few - that we are a nation of not-quite-good-enoughs.

That's something we simply can't afford at this critical point in history. Forward Scotland.

Contained within “The Scots' Crisis of Confidence” is a reference to the Afternow website, an excellent university of Glasgow resource addressing many of the global issues we're facing. Highly recommended viewing.

I'm off to visit with friends near London for two weeks - my first visit in quite a few years. My thoughts on the City at the Centre of the Universe in my next post on the 10th of July.

   

 

Forward to the Past

For anyone who lived through the austere decade of the 1970s, the experience might chime closely with the immediate years ahead – if not already. That particular ten-year stretch was my first decade, yet although somewhat faded and patchy now with the passage of time, I retain a few memories of the difficulties many of us shared back then. These were difficulties which barely registered on a young boy more concerned with action man and lego, but are fascinating to study now as an adult as we stumble into a modern-day version of that briar patch.

The seventies were notable for two major oil shocks – two rehearsals for the kind of energy problems we're likely to see again before much longer. The first, in 1973, was caused by an embargo on oil sales to various western countries by Arab oil producers in response to US involvement in the Yom Kippur war. Then again in 1979 the Iranian revolution brought a second bout of chaos when motorists' panicked memories of the '73 fuel shortages drove the oil price higher than it needed to be, despite only a 4% fall in global production due to Iran's temporary time-out. On top of that, the UK's own troubles included the 3-day week, industrial unrest punctuated by continual strikes, and exceptional inflation levels leading ultimately to a 1976 bail-out by the International Monetary Fund. All of this, questionable fashions, fondue parties and Jimmy Savile did not make for an easy decade.

Queuing for petrol in 1973.

Amongst the many hazy but happy memories I have of that decade are a few that are relevant to the woes of the seventies. The power cuts of the three-day week and dinners in a kitchen lit by candles and the little flickering blue ring of our paraffin heater; my parents' angst over stretched finances, delayed wage payments and the need for assistance from their own parents; the kindness and friendship of a neighbour when emptying larders needed to be shared to provide a simple meal of scrambled eggs and toast for two households' children. To me then it seemed like normality, and I remember it with fond nostalgia, but to my parents and others – primarily those who had dependents – I'm sure their recollections of those times will be harder.

We're going forward into a time where seventies reminiscences are going to be brought to the fore for many who experienced that decade. For those of an even older generation who can remember post-war rationing and thought those days were gone for good, they're likely to be shocked by its eventual re-introduction in one form and another. Coming energy shortages and price hikes will impact food production as much as power generation, so it's not unreasonable to expect rationing in the supermarkets and forecourts of the near future, not to mention of gas and electricity and many other consumer items as an early response to the predicaments ahead. What other unexpected surprises an uncertain future has in store for us remains to be seen.

What we'll need to navigate the challenging times ahead is plenty of the type of sharing and cooperation that I spoke of above – the kind that took place between my family and our neighbour forty or so years ago. That is the kind of sharing of resources that will matter in future years; the kind that will occur in communities and households facing increasingly tough times together, not the one-way “sharing” (ie appropriation) of one nation's resources for the benefit of another that those arguing for the continuation of the unfair UK like to espouse. We'll have work to do to re-build some of the community spirit that's been eroded by a culture of selfishness in more recent times, starting with the toxic me-first ideology of Thatcherism in the 1980s and extending to today where we find it more rapacious and callous than ever. Hope lies in Scotland's more egalitarian nature, which has always resisted the worst of Tory dogma, placing us in a better position to deal with a future that will measure success in the ability to put all of us first. Scottish socialistic tendencies, expressed in such projects as the Jimmy Reid Foundation's Common Weal shows that we have a natural, national sense of community. That's going to prove to be invaluable to us.

And it will be important to put all of us first in the years to come. Post-referendum, whether the result is yes or no, the winning and losing sides are going to have to put past divisions quickly aside. Next on the agenda could be a de-stabilising UK and the economic shock-waves that will set off, likely to be equally as intense whether Scotland is still part of it or not. Cool heads and hard work will be required across the board if we want a country that's re-organised well for the different way of living we'll soon have to adapt to.

There's an impressive grassroots movement in Scotland that proves we can work for a worthy cause. As a follower and participant in the Yes campaign, I'm continually amazed and delighted at the transformation in Scotland – of the awakening of people up and down our country. The air of optimism and hope is palpable on social media. There's a camaraderie there that's delightful to see in our generally apathetic land.

Here then is a suggestion: let's use this energy that's been gathered. If we win, let's not disband in the belief that the job is done. There's a country to re-build, and it will have to be pieced together in ways we aren't yet fully anticipating. If we lose, don't retreat into a sullen gloom – the kind of mood we've discovered is rare in Scotland, counter-culture to our often pessimistic nature. It has arrived at a crucial and expedient time to be put to use for what could be the challenge of the century. Whichever way September goes, let's use it.

Too Big Will Fail

Irrespective of the referendum result in September, one thing is certain: Scotland is going to change markedly over the years and decades ahead. Independent or not, the future we're about to participate in is a daunting, mostly unanticipated journey wreathed in uncertainty.

Right now Scotland is being carried, along with all the other nations of the world, on a roller-coaster train of globalisation that reached its summit a few years ago with the advent of the all-time maximum in global conventional oil production. Where we are now is the long, surreal pause before the steep dive – what feels like a moment out of time while politicians and bankers mash on a brake pedal of “creative” finance in a bid to hold us at our precarious position in perpetuity. They will not succeed. Like gravity, history can not be opposed as it takes us where it will.

Globalisation, a term that saw its introduction in the 1980s to describe our increasingly complex international systems of trade and finance, is a feature of the modern world that now finds itself with a surprisingly close sell-by date. With a plentiful, growing supply of cheap oil to fuel it, the twentieth century saw a massive increase in global interconnectedness. The world's shipping lanes were transformed into a mammoth and dizzying network of conveyor belts for the transport of raw materials and finished goods. Only the economics of growth made it possible for seafood caught in Scotland to be sent to China for processing, then be sent to supermarket shelves right back where it came from.

Expensive oil causes that convenient but ludicrous system to break down. The 2008 financial crash, coming as it did suspiciously hot on the heels of the 2005/6 peak in conventional oil production, brought with it a steep drop in the volume of global trade. Fleets of cargo ships found themselves with nowhere to go and no freight to carry.

Ghost fleet of idle cargo ships near Singapore, 2008/9.

Since then, the financial contortionists in exchanges, banks and governments around the world have managed to keep the wheels on the system via injections of pretend money. Simultaneously, unconventional oil sources have filled in the growing gap in energy availability. The result has been a slow, patchy recovery at the top of the energy arc – the last few metres of gently sloping track before the plunge. The next oil shock of shortages and soaring prices will be the tipping point that heralds in that fall. When it happens it's 2008 to the nth power, and this time there may be precious little recovery, if any, as the banks find themselves with nothing left in their armoury of monetary wizardry to attempt to patch things up. We'll find ourselves in a rapidly de-globalised world – a world that no longer does big.

A breakdown of this magnitude is not one in which large, complex enterprises will be able to survive. Economic paralysis on a global scale kills small companies first - supply chains fail, and the larger entities at the top of the food chain will struggle to find replacements to fill the gaps. Ultimately, the house of cards comes down. Cumbersome, bureaucratic governments, reliant on the private sector for many of their services, will likely disintegrate with it.

The UK government is just such an a lumbering dinosaur. Westminster reveals itself everyday as a pompous anachronism of tedious tradition, stale ideas and cruel policies. Riddled with cronyism and corruption, it is unfit to lead any part of the British isles, let alone Scotland. There is little evidence that they are willing in any way to prepare the country for the kind of future we're entering – a future the likely nature of which they themselves must be all too aware of. They ignore it for any number of possible reasons (a subject for a future post), but the net result will be a population shocked by the accelerating rate of failure of institutions, services and infrastructure as the years progress. As the government grows more inept and sinks deeper into irrelevancy by the day, it will be up to us to take responsibility for ourselves and our well-being.

Freed from Westminster, an independent Scotland could arrive in the nick of time to address the issues of a de-globalising world. With a clean slate and a chance to re-imagine itself, a smaller, nimbler country unburdened by big-state delusions of grandeur will fare better on the road leading to re-localisation of everyday life. We need to start changing everything we do to a local, sustainable level; from food production to transport, health care and employment, energy production, finance and commerce. It would be infinitely preferable to have access to all the levers of statehood to do so, while also having the advantage of a relatively small geographical area to administer in an increasingly expensive age of constraints on fuel and energy.

Not ideal will be a No vote, leaving the oppressive weight of Westminster still on our backs. Although in time it may implode, or slowly become more remote and unimportant to us as everyday living gets harder and new local systems of government try to fill the voids it leaves, it will serve only as a hindrance in the early years of global decline. We can't afford to waste time with it or share the noose it has placed around its neck with its refusal to realistically prepare for the years to come.