Palestine solidarity is part of the fabric of Scotland. Soon after Saltires and Loyalist flags were draped on lampposts this summer, Saltires and Palestine flags decked the streets in defiance. Resistance to Palestinian genocide and to growing xenophobia are deeply interwoven, and an anti-imperial spirit is facing down the anti-migrant standard bearers.
That said, reading flags as fascism and royalism as racism is a superficial way to parse the political conditions of our time. “I went to Niddrie, I saw the flags”, one comrade told me this week. He is a migrant who in recent months has found swastikas in the stairwell and ‘heil Hitler’ written in the hallway of his central Edinburgh flat, so he knows as well as anyone that racism is rising. “It felt a bit like in Freedom Corner in Belfast, a bunch of royal flags changed in ways I didn’t understand.” Loyalism is often threatening, yet my friend’s feelings about the danger of these flags receded slightly when he talked to other migrants about the threats they feel most keenly. Flags are not a top source of fear.
This comrade of mine is involved in an initiative called Migrant Justice Edinburgh (MJE) that is building capacity for a ten-year plan to create spaces for migrants to shape conditions of work, life and culture in the capital. The project is one of a cluster of new projects supported by the Regenerative Futures Fund, a ‘community fund for Edinburgh that puts decision-making power into the hands of those who are most often excluded’, which is funded by charities and the council. MJE recently invited residents who have migrated from Afghanistan, Poland, Gambia, Nigeria, Kurdistan, Malawi and a range of other countries, to discuss what they care about, fear, and envision for the future.
On the whole, folk were not nearly as troubled about flags as with material concerns like housing, transport, and whether social security will start to discriminate on the basis of migration status. Folk care especially about a lack of space where teenagers can hang out in the evening, a lack of space to plan and shape the local environment, and a lack of space to articulate and advance political aims beyond the neighbourhood. At the end of the day, the demand they decided to press for was to get a central community hall.
Social centres seem like a simple ask, and spaces can be simple in their operation, as the Aberdeen Social Centre Organisers attest in their article on autonomous centres, and as the success of the Trade Unions in Communities centre in Craigmillar is proving beautifully. In social centres local affinity can form. Creative initiatives can happen that will never be anticipated. People can plan, produce, and print things, controlling means of producing politics from below. Meeting places can also start to de-radicalise some of the racism that festers without face-to-face relationships. Community hubs enable folk to form both political and personal relationships.
Moreover, in these places, the politics that people learned or practiced in countries beyond Scotland can become part of the practice of politics here too. This means not just modes and methods of local resistance, but networks and perspectives that deepen internationalism and are a witness to the damage wrought by Western powers. Cats Cradle, a pedagogy organisation which supports MJE’s work, have developed and delivered workshops which allow everyone to learn from the radical political experiences and cultures brought to Scotland by migrants. In almost every case, Palestine solidarity surfaces as a shared affinity among people from all over the world who call Scotland home. The Palestine movement is woven of these threads.
This issue is a testament to this tapestry of solidarity and resistance to the racism that enables xenophobia and genocide. Sofia Macleod of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign underlines the importance of practical solidarity, such as the programme enabling Palestinian cancer nurses to train in Glasgow which Gerry O’Hare describes. Lubnah Shomali reminds us that the genocide continues due to western hypocrisy, while Dave Black exposes Scottish companies complicit in ongoing energy apartheid. We publish the Jimmy Reid Memorial Lecture by Ghassan Abu-Sittah which describes how Scottish universities contribute to the defence industry that extracts value from the death of Palestinians. His message amidst the barbarism is never to stop dreaming and working for the world where all people hold equal value, within and across nations.
Our second section explores the policies that lead to such barbarism, and priorities to heal the damage of war. Mustafa Fetouri’s essay on the moral calculus of sanctions reminds us of the many nations subject to the criminal hypocrisy of Western economic warfare against civilians. Daire Ní Chnáimh dissects the British government’s new defence strategy, particularly its plans for enlisting young generations in fighting or developing the weapons that will kill in future wars. Stephen Smellie’s report on a recent UNISON delegation to Ukraine draws out the tensions between demands for more weapons and the desire to plan for future peace and repair Ukrainian society. And two poems from Dove Tales describe the pains and hopes of those escaping war, seeking refuge, enduring hostility, but pressing on to reach a place that can be home.
The rise of the far-right is not unique to here and now, nor is the work to resist it in our neighbourhoods, parties, and unions. Ljupka Apostolovska writes from Macedonia on how the unions there are confronting right-wing efforts to create ‘yellow unions’ and smother democratic worker representation. Carl Lewis and Henry Maitles draw lessons from the year just past, and from a century ago, about what has and has not worked to contain and counteract the spread of fascism in Scotland.
Our final section explores and critiques some ongoing efforts to build power in cities, communities and workplaces. The Aberdeen Centre Organising Group explains how social centres can vitalise activist groups. Coll McCail raises questions about the wisdom of both Your Party’s left-wing parliamentary aspirations and civic Scotland’s gentle pressure to turn parliament towards an anti poverty agenda. A review of Nicola Sturgeon’s autobiography reminds us that politicians’ values and commitments to social transformation seem to mean little to those stuck at the top of the parliamentary pile. We end with a call from Variant’s editors to confront the political and economic world that shapes the culture of the nation.
From the meaning of our flag to the material condition our social fabric, our nation is being warped and rewoven in ways that can appear to be beyond our power to control. But the machine need not be obeyed. The Left has its own means to produce politics of peace, generosity and global solidarity.
Contact the editor, Cailean Gallagher, at editor [at] scottishleftreview [dot] scot.