Internationalism in One Small Island

I attended the launch of Coalition of Resistance in Glasgow last week, a fantastic event with a participative format, which was a refreshing change – a few short speeches were followed by lots of practical group discussions among a wide range of activists. It was a great launch, and to help us on our way the already established CoR in England had sent up a speaker to tell us about the work that they had been doing there and give us some pointers in how most effectively pinpoint pressure. The speaker was very welcome,spoke very well and informatively, however insisted on referring to the need to target the “national” government, the “national” conference of CoR and the need for a “national” strategy of resistance. None of which I disagree with, however it was transparently clear that his nation and mine are not one and the same – and moreover he seems to think that his includes mine. This certainly isn’t a new development on the part of the English Left. Most of them don’t even acknowledge that they are the English Left, claiming that their scattered supporters in North Britain qualifies them for “national” status, but it is becoming more and more jarring as time goes on.

On listening to the Straight White Males

Difficulties in addressing issues of gender, race and sexuality are notoriously fraught with difficulty. Sometimes, an issue is so common and accepted that you don’t actually see it. Sometimes there are real cries of anguish masked in attention seeking behaviour, and sometimes there is genuine confusion behind crass attempts to overcome the issue. This week, I’ve seen some of those cries. Two things in particular stood out for me – firstly the unmasking of gay, female Black bloggers living in dangerous situations as straight white Western men sipping Chardonnay as they typed and secondly attending a straight white male dominated meeting on Scottish Independence and the coming cuts to public sector spending.