Hewers of the stone of hope

Scotland's First Minister rarely misses a trick to let the world know that Scotland is pretty good at most things already and that with just a few more years of his being our glorious leader we shall surely reach our very own heather-clad Nirvana.


Curious.

For those of us who wrestle prejudice to the ground, who seek to starve bigotry of its oxygen, and who will always show discrimination a red card, the First Minister's mission should give us the kind of rush so eloquently described by Renton in Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting -

Take the best orgasm you've ever had... multiply it by a thousand, and you're still nowhere near it.

Think what the First Minister is asking us to
snort has been stepped on big time

Hmmm.  Think what the First Minister is asking us to snort here has been stepped on big time.


In his opening remarks at the start of the new parliamentary session on 26th May 2011, the First Minister set out his vision for 'Taking Scotland Forward'  and astonishingly hung out the white flag on the equalities battle before most people had even found their seat.  He said :

"the struggle for fairness, equality, tolerance, rights of free speech and thought - these are struggles which are never won" 

This capitulation comes not long after his government put forward specific equality duties for Scotland at the fag end of the last parliamentary session.  They got voted down by the parliamentary equal opportunities committee who had reservations on how government had consulted and listened to what had been said on the draft specific duties, as well as not being convinced that what had been proposed was best for Scotland's people.


So.  'Taking Scotland Forward', as outlined in the vision of our First Minister, will not involve trying to make any progress on equality, as we can never win the struggle.


Scotland's marginalised, disenfranchised, and demoralised people deserve better.


Those people who have no appetite for the struggle to ensure the human rights of older people in care homes are respected, should make way for people who have an undiminished appetite for making those human rights a reality for the people who are mothers, fathers, brothers or sisters of us all.


Those people who are content to see our government led by white men, with very few women and no people from our black minority ethnic communities, should make way for those who recognise that institutional discrimination is alive and well and at the very heart of government, and who will not rest until that shameful state has been remedied.


Scotland needs people who, still today, are moved to action and deeds by the words first heard by 250,000 people in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, USA, August 1963:

"And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream"

Martin Luther King went on to encourage those who had marched on Washington :

"With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day"

Scotland's marginalised and excluded people need to be served by those who would toil and hew the stones of hope, and not by those who would turn back from the face of the mountains of despair.