Yesterday various news outlets reported
that there were two hundred or so people on George Square having an
impromptu celebration following the not death of Maggie Thatcher.
People blew up balloons, did conga lines, held up banners, sang songs
and reveled in the shared taboo of it all. You celebrated the death
of a human being, aren't you terribly edgy. The fact that I called
her Maggie shows what I think of her. Mrs Thatcher and Baroness
Thatcher implies a respect I don't want to give her. Her education
and economic policies decimated the part of Britain I was born into.
She showed no concern to those she thrust into poverty and she
abandoned a section of the population. The latter is a sin for any
politician.
In my younger years (and I'm hardly a
elder figure) I leaned closely to communism. I was studying the
history of Russia and I believed there was something of worth there.
I steered clear of the young bearded men and women on campus who
would call each other comrade and I certainly didn't sport t-shirts
with Stalin on them. I saw the follies of the system and the horrors
it produced but capitalism certainly isn't squeaky clean. If
capitalism could move past it's problems and reform why not a
socialist society founded on the principal that all should strive to
be equal? Such is the naivity of youth. I gradually grew more
moderate before eventually settling on broad socialist principals.
That's not to say I don't have my right wing moments but on the whole
I tend to the left. Despite this I've never entered into any of the
socialist groups or joined a socialist protest.
Maggie Thatcher couldn't kill socialism
in Glasgow. It's too engrained in the city. We are after all the city
which had tanks in the streets to fight a feared uprising of the
people. She did something much more destructive though. She became
the icon which socialists defined themselves against. You weren't a
socialist if you didn't despise that woman. They demonstrated against
her rather in their own desire. It was genius from Thatcher, whether
by design or accident. When she left socialists in Scotland had
little to define themselves. The unions were long gone and all that
was left were sporadic groups and the shambles that was the Labour
party. They were so used to acting in reaction to Maggie that growth
was no longer possible, independent thought neutered by the departure
of their muse.
Never was this more apparent than on
Monday. Who were the public figures of the socialist response to
Thatcher's death? Frankie Boyle cracking jokes and George Galloway
stomping his feet for attention. The b-list best of Glasgow were out
in force chuckling and smiling alongside those political kids so
brave that they hide their face behind scarves. Was the public
demonstration a call for change? A show that her time was over and
ours was here? No. It was a shrieking and childish sign that
socialism in Scotland is as stuck in the 1980's as the Conservative
party is. It was filled with those too young to have lived in the era
yet who have been handed down the doctrine that this is how we
behave. Those and people now stealing it for their own political
agendas. I cringed when I saw the pictures.
But what can I expect.
That is what socialism is now in this country. We no longer display
in the parliament because it's so ill-formed and petty that the only
place where it belongs is in displays like that. Thatcher defined an
era and her enemies defined themselves by her. Her death is a
beginning of the end for socialism in Scotland. Because amidst all
the singing and dancing few in George Square would have admitted the
obvious. She won. Socialism is reduced to celebrating the death of a
senile old woman.
Looking in and I wonder if I can call
myself a socialist any more. I used to believe it stood for
something. It meant I saw people around me and that I believed
society to be important enough that the state should take care of it.
I believed it stood for caring for those who need cared for, speaking
for those without a voice and representing all regardless of gender,
colour or creed. Perhaps I'm just as stuck in the 1980's as the rest
of the movement if I believed that. Because Monday was a brutal
display of where we truly are. If being a socialist means standing
along side the kind of people who were in George Square then I no
longer consider myself to be one. I hold the same principals, the
same beliefs and the same views as ever but I stand apart. My only
solace right now is that such small minded people will never show the
ambition or the grand thinking required to actually shape this
country in their image. They will be never look outside of their
comfort zone, created in the 1980's by M.Thatcher.
J
"Let no one weep for me, or celebrate my funeral with mourning; for I still live, as I pass to and fro through the mouths of men." Quintus Ennius
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