Scotland and 2015

Well today is the day. Will there be a Union tomorrow when we wake up, or will Scotland be truly independent for the first time in 300 years. An extraordinary time, and when you think of the Ukraine, or of Syria, or any number of fractured war torn countries, it is with some pride that you look at the debates on Independence and marvel at the restraint and deep reasoned political argument that has raged within this mature democracy. 

However. I worry for the future of the UK whether this is a yes or  no. A genie has been released.. of that there is no doubt. And whether Scotland votes Yes or No tomorrow, or in 5 years or 10 years, we are all on a road to a changed UK, and a concrete reflection of a different public attitude to politics and a hardening of opinion against the democracy we have enjoyed in this island for centuries. 

The genie of 'nationalism' of federalism even, has been released, and in it's wake will always come harsher voices, more violent voices who will not feel they need to abide by a central government (whether it is an 'elite' or not) in London. 

The Conservative party (and to a slightly lesser degree Labour) are to blame for this mess. And especially the toxic, 'Eton / Bullingdon' brand of toryism, which has concentrated power not just in themselves and their market friendly allies, but also succeeded in making large parts of society, a demonised 'other' - to be shouted down, despised and generally shat upon from a great height. And at the heart of this strategy has been the central Mantra of David Cameron and George Osborne: Market Good. Public Bad. 

We are heading into a General Election Year which will further divide us, and make the 'dividers' shout ever more loudly about 'them and us'.

Sadly and this the genius of their arguments, the 'us' is a very, very small group indeed. Their victory is to make you want to be a part of them too. 

Unreal City, unreal times - The Kilburn Manifesto and T.S Elliot

.....we stopped in the colonnade,

10And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,

And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.

The Waste Land.

I am sitting in a coffee shop, just off Trafalgar Square, the sun streams in through the skylights, as i look around me i imagine i am in some continental capital having just arrived, enjoying the sun, not a care in the world, sitting with other carefree denizens of the city. Snapping away, comparing images...

I have been reading and re-reading The Waste Land by T. S. Elliot. And as i read it and listen to it spoken, it strikes me with a shock that we are in the same place that Elliot found himself reflecting on, in the years after 1918.

A bomb has detonated, and we are in that split second before everything is blasted apart. Like scenes from the film Inception, the fabric around us is suspended in mid air between one state and another. it all looks the same but it isn't. Capitalism, is frozen in free-fall. And we stand looking at the damage, taking pictures. 

... Son of Man you cannot say or guess,

for you know only a heap of Broken Images"

More than ever, we don't know, we cannot guess, but we see and feel the break, and we don't know what images to believe in anymore... scrabbling around for answers...

I recently read a superb analysis of how we got here, how we got to this point. it is called After Neo Liberalism: Analysing the Present' and is part of something called The Kilburn Manifesto: It is something we all should read and reflect on.. You can find it here: 

And if you want to read one man's cultural response to crisis read The Wasteland, and reflect on the many and varied refrences to an 'Unreal City'.. That Square Mile in London which is stuck in mid air, exploded apart, and yet frozen in that moment.. yet to fall to the ground. 

 After all Elliot should know. He was once a Bank Clerk.... 

St Peters's Rome.. Marble, Marble everywhere, but no redemption?

St Peters Basilica, Rome. Feeling pulverised into submission by Aesthetic excess. Marble made to look like skin, bronze, wood, folds of cloth... So much Gilt..

As I type, my back has had enough and my brain cannot take anymore. I have been here before, and there is only so much glory one can imbibe at one sitting, and that is before you start contemplating all the recent traumas of the Roman Catholic church. All that Guilt...

I stopped believing a long time ago, so i am detached, but only Semi-detached, like having one little toe still dipped in the Holy Water (once a Catholic..why does the thought of Chester Swimming baths come to mind?; diseases passed around?? urgh..)..

Looking again at all this carved pomposity, all this 'stuff'.. i am overwhelmed a) by the sheer bombast and unshakable hard-as-marble faith on display; b) by the thousands of people who still come here simply to pray, and not just gawp in awed silence, and c) by the energy, passion and devotion dedicated to an idea. God.

What an idea - All this, a beautiful testament to a power beyond us.. these astonishing feats of aesthetic wonderment. But much of this it seems to me is designed to cow you into submission.. to cow us into genuflection before the idea of something beyond our own humanity, beyond ourselves, greater than ourselves... ultimately sitting in judgement over ourselves. All that imposed Guilt.. From the moment you walk into Confession at the age of 6 or 7 years old.

Don't get me wrong, Catholicism has taught me much about the world, about what is good about the world, about how good we can be. (I will never forget those Priests, who have shaped me in good ways, or the faith that bore me through my younger days).

But it seems to me that like many of our institutions we have been used to live by / with, the Church has been found wanting, exposed as weak, corrupt, self serving - too eager to cover up it's own behaviour, than behave in truly Christian ways. An institution, to borrow a horrible phrase from a recent convert Tony Blair: Not fit for Purpose.

and that is immense in it's implications. Where do we go now?

Because looking at all this Carved Marble, we have not come very far, since we looked out at the lightning and thunderstorms from our dank caves and decided we didn't like being alone and had better invent something bigger we could blame / placate, worship. And lets be honest, it is an invention, something WE thought up. God was dead the moment we had to make him/her up.

but we are still looking... everywhere perhaps but the one place we should be looking. Redemption inside, not out here amongst all this marble. And Guilt.