MOVEMENTS AND PARTIES

This is from Kevin Williamson of Rebel Inc...

"There was never any serious challenge mounted against an oppressive, corrupt and self-perpetuating old order that just dropped from the sky because the people happened to be discontented that week.
Political and social change, like life itself, is a continuum; a process of incremental changes that continually modify and restructure what has gone before. Much of these changes can be virtually imperceptible to the naked eye - especially those belonging to a professional politician or media pundit who tend to move around in exclusive and privileged circles.

Subtle shifts in consciousness will be first heard within local communities and workplaces: at the shops, in the pubs, at the bingo, on street corners, at football matches and music concerts, or in cafes and canteens.

To these traditional meeting places must be added the rainbow spectrum of online communities where political and social discourse can be found in its most wonderfully unstructured, democratic and inclusive forms.

Such shifts in opinions rarely solidify overnight. It is through informal conversations and unplanned dialogue that new ideas are thrashed out and discarded, or take root, grow and multiply.
These dialogues usually take place outwith the formal and often suffocating environments of political parties, although the two environments - the social and the political - inevitably interact upon each other in a multiplicity of ways.

It is why you'll learn more from listening to, and discussing with, the folk round about you in your workplace and community (real or virtual) than you'll ever learn from a formal political meeting.
Being tuned into these shifts in consciousness is mandatory for anyone interested in social change. The more you keep your ear to the ground, the more you learn to anticipate. This is invaluable, and a necessary counterblast to those who would cling to stale dogma whatever the weather.
For anyone who considers themselves part of the emerging anti-globalisation movement, as well part of a resurgent movement for Scottish independence, it is doubly important to stay tuned.
A moment I've referred to in this column before - when local youth, on one of the spontaneous G8 protests this summer, started singing Flower of Scotland at the Manchester police - was indicative of those incremental shifts in consciousness that are slowly but surely taking place here in Scotland and entwining these two great movements of our time.

There are plenty of political signifiers that suggest that these two great anti-imperialist movements are becoming inseparable.

It was no coincidence that the three political parties who support Scottish independence at Holyrood - the SSP, the Scottish Greens and the SNP - all marched together to oppose the Iraq war back in 2003.
Recently, I'd been discussing matters related to campaigning for Scottish independence beyond our respective party structures with a guy called Simon, an activist in the Scottish Greens.
When he heard I was heading across to France, Simon thought I'd need some political stimulation in the French countryside.

Before I left Scotland he gave me an invaluable pile of anti-globalisation documentaries he'd burnt to DVD. (It's his thing: burning political documentaries to DVD and CD and handing them out free to anyone interested. And a damn good service it is too.)

What was interesting, talking to activists within the Scottish Greens and the SNP, was how enthusiastic grassroots members were for cross-party and grassroots campaigning on these two great political causes. There was also no little frustration either about how our respective party structures can become barriers to building these causes into powerful movements.
This is, in effect, politics coming full circle. For years now, if we'd listened more closely to the people round about us, we'd have heard loud and clear how disillusioned people are becoming with party politics. This is a process that continues relentlessly and is one which will inevitably force political parties to re-evaluate the very reasons why they exist: for instance, is it as instrument of change? Or as a facilitator of change?

Many people in the anti-globalisation movement have answered that one already."