It was coincidental with the aftermath of the Scottish Independence vote, but timely nevetheless, that I just picked up a copy of "Poems That Make Grown Men Cry", by Anthony and Ben Holden (Eds.) They didn't make me cry, but one of them does seem very apt given the result of the vote:
Let My Country Awake
Where my mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depths of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action --
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake
Rabindranath Tagore (1930s)
Look at Tagore's exhortations. Look at them!
Fearlessness, truth, tireless striving, and ever-widening thought and action. Not one of those needs a government. Every one can and must be sourced from the real driving force of societies: individuals, families, neighbours, streets and towns; small business, entrepreneurs; church congregations, civil communities. The People. The Scots.
The way is clear. The fecht is in the past, and in the past it can remain. But we can still rise now, and be a people again.