I have received a message on Facebook with the details below.
The SRSM Ard Fheis is due to take place on Saturday 8th January 2011 to be held in Glasgow.
http://scottishrepublicans.myfreeforum.org
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
SRSM Ard Fheis
I have received a message on Facebook with the details below.
The SRSM Ard Fheis is due to take place on Saturday 8th January 2011 to be held in Glasgow.
http://scottishrepublicans.myfreeforum.org
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
SRSM Events
Here is a couple of photos from the recently held John MacLean Commemoration. The Scottish Republican Socialist Newsletter pays tribute to the great work of SRSM in helping to keep the spirit alive of John MacLean in Scotland.
I have also included below details of an email I was sent concerning the SRSM Burns Night.
Donald Anderson of SRSM speaking at Social after MacLean commemoration.
SRSM North England branch banner at the MacLean Commemoration.
Scottish Republican Socialist Movement have organised a Burns Night
We are having a Burns Night on Friday January 28 in the Victoria Bar, corner of Brigade/Stockwell St Glasgow.
Music: White Rose group.
Cockaleekie Soup, Haggis, Champit Totties and Neeps.
Tickets £10
Patrick Scott Hogg will be speaking, plus others, incluiding CPS.
I have also included below details of an email I was sent concerning the SRSM Burns Night.
Donald Anderson of SRSM speaking at Social after MacLean commemoration.
SRSM North England branch banner at the MacLean Commemoration.
Scottish Republican Socialist Movement have organised a Burns Night
We are having a Burns Night on Friday January 28 in the Victoria Bar, corner of Brigade/Stockwell St Glasgow.
Music: White Rose group.
Cockaleekie Soup, Haggis, Champit Totties and Neeps.
Tickets £10
Patrick Scott Hogg will be speaking, plus others, incluiding CPS.
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Wallace Sword in Captivity
On 2 May 1972, the Wallace sword was stolen from the National Wallace Monument by members of the Tartan Army or Army for the Provisional Government of Scotland. Shown here are two members of it, wearing balaclavas, holding the sword, and with a Saltire, the flag of Scotland in the background.
This is one of two polaroid photographic images which were sold at different gatherings from the time of the theft of the sword until its return some years afterwards. The immediate reason for the theft of the sword was the poor condition in which the National Wallace Monument was maintained, with restricted opening hours, poor access and winter closure, and a lack of promotion which kept the visitor figures low. Those who took the sword did so in an attempt to draw attention to these factors. The sword was removed from the Monument by forcing open the case, and dropping it through one of the narrow air slots which pierce the Monument's stair tower. The sword fell vertically and plunged into the earth beneath, reverberating from side to side with the impact. There was no damage.
Arrests were made in May 1976 for the theft of the sword, the use of explosive devices, and other illegal military activity, and after a trial in September one man received a five year sentence, others were given probation, and the majority of the accused were released.
http://scottishrepublicans.myfreeforum.org/Wallace_Sword_in_Captivity_about797.html
Also check out other photos on the SRSM website such as John MacLean's grave
http://scottishrepublicans.myfreeforum.org/John_MacLeans_Grave_about773.html
Other photos
http://scottishrepublicans.myfreeforum.org/forum17.php
Monday, 6 December 2010
We are a nation. We decide for ourselves!
Had to post this here a Catalan film for Independence on Bella Caledonia
http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2010/12/06/la-flama-de-tot-un-poble-in-moviment/
Well we must learn from each other and other stateless nations and be cool and imaginative over our progressive propaganda on film and communication and in our writings online, and in journals. We can make most from our own culture and learn to be attractive compared to the ugliness of British nationalism and it's unionists.
Larry
Stunning or what? As it is a campaign film for independence, I am going to have to ask you to put your hand on your heart and compare it with the Scottish National Party campaign film which is currently showing at that party’s website. If you had to say which is more captivating and highly absorbing, which would it be? Be honest. There is no contest, I venture to suggest. Regrettably, the SNP video seems to me to be in comparison a not conspicuously successful attempt to be both cool and inclusive.
Populated by more or less seemingly isolated and stiffly artificial characters affecting to be inspired by a more or less culturally alien sort of pop song which, however popular it may or may not be with a certain age group, certainly lacks trans-generational appeal and seems to represent nothing so much as a peculiarly perverse rejection of native culture. The Catalan film, on the other hand, is boldly authentic, richly symbolic and evocative, full of communal interconnectedness and emphatically and wholly convincingly real people who are tremendously easy to relate to. It is generationally inclusive and contemporary while asserting cultural identity and inherited and indeed cherished cultural tradition. It is a presentation and a demonstration of an inclusive national community working together, whereas the Scottish effort is a relatively feeble representation of not so much a convincing reality as an aspiration which is not shown to be well founded.
What the masterful Catalan demonstration of how the medium can be the message shows, on the other hand, is a popular art form known as a lip dub, which, as you are probably aware, although I was not until recently, is a kind of happening which does not, of course, simply happen. It has to be organized rather carefully, and the more people who are involved in it the more carefully organized it plainly has to be. Yet the end result is meant to give an impression that a degree of spontaneity is involved. A whole bunch of folk are assembled to mime to and in some imaginative manner communally perform a recorded song and have quite a lot of fun while doing so. In the Lip Dub for Catalan Independence shown above no fewer than 5,771 people (a world record) were brought together to mime to and perform a popular Catalan song, La Flama (The Flame), by the group Obrint Pas (Breaking Through), as part of the independentist election campaign for the recent parliamentary general election in the autonomous community of Catalonia in the north-east of the Castilian kingdom of Spain. This historic election took place on November 28th and was duly won by Catalan nationalists. An account of the election result, to which, unsurprisingly, not much attention has been paid by the UK media (out of fear of contagion?) appears at Newsnet here.
The song La Flama was chosen for this campaign event because the flame which is its subject and hence the theme of the lip dub is the flame of national sentiment which somehow did not die out in Catalonia after that country lost its independence when it was defeated at the siege of Barcelona in 1714 during the War of the Spanish Succession. As Catalan is a Romance language and thus relatively approachable, here are the lyrics:
No et limites a contemplar aquestes hores que ara venen
baixa al carrer i participa,
no podran res davant un poble unit alegre i combatiu.
Amb l’espurna de la historia,
i avançant a pas valent,
hem ences dins la memoria,
la flama d’un sentiment.
Viure sempre corrent,
avançant amb la gent,
rellevant contra el vent,
tranportant sentiments.
Viure mantenint viva
la flama a través del temps,
la flama de tot un poble en moviment.(bis)
Amb columnes de paraules,
i travessant la llarga nit,
hem fet de valls, mars i muntanyes,
els escenaris d’un nou crit.
Viure sempre corrent,
avançant amb la gent,
rellevant contra el vent,
tranportant sentiments.
Viure mantenint viva
la flama a través del temps,
la flama de tot un poble en moviment.(bis)
A rough translation into English appears here.
La flama a través del temps, la flama de tot un poble en moviment (the flame kept alive down the ages, the spirit of a nation on the move) is what is represented in the lip dub, which opens at a point in the distant past, from where the flame of national sentiment is snatched by a modern-day Catalan youth and transported through time, through the ancient narrow streets of the town of Vic, past representations of Catalan history and culture, including the traditional building of human castles, which is apparently very popular and is a televised sport, past the giants and the bigheads and the flag-waving and the brandishing of gigantic symbols, a Catalan peccadillo which is noticeably reflected in the Catalan-designed Scottish Parliament building. The flame passes through the generations to the present one, the representative of which ultimately carries it into the present day by bringing it into the main square of Vic, holding the flame aloft before a vast cheering crowd, which is brandishing more Catalan flags than you can wave a stick at and chanting “I-inde-independència!” (a very common chant in Catalonia these days), as a line of people at the back are gradually seen to be holding up large white letters of the alphabet forming the word independència, whereupon the song comes to an end and a rendition of Els Segadors (The Reapers), the Catalan national anthem, erupts. Banners are waved. The people cheer, and giants and bigheads representing Catalonia’s past are discerned in the midst of the throng, which fills the square, which is the heart of the town, just as the flame of national sentiment is the spirit of the people, which is overflowing.
The Lip Dub for Independence is a self-evidently powerful demonstration of national solidarity intended to reach out to the world to let it know that Catalonia has survived as a nation despite Castilian efforts to suppress it and oppress it. Furthermore, it is becoming more assertive. Soon its new government will take over in Barcelona, and demands for greater autonomy will be made by an administration which could hold an independence referendum if they are not met, a referendum the result of which will be foreshadowed by the result of the unofficial locality-by-locality people’s independence referendum which reaches its climax in Barcelona on April 10th, in time to astonish the world and alarm Madrid and possibly even grab the attention of the Scottish electorate as it gets ready to vote in the Scottish general election of May 5th, when the UK government’s AV referendum may, of course, just possibly be hijacked, as recommended by . . . Bella Caledonia, to assert the inalienable right of the people to determine the constitutional future of their country, as the people of Catalonia have done by taking matters into their own hands. As they say there, and keep repeating, in very loud piercing voices, “Som una nació. Nosaltres decidim!” (We are a nation. We decide for ourselves!)
In preparation for the Scottish general election, and the hijacked referendum, Scotland needs a campaign event and a campaign film as powerful as the Lip Dub for Independence, which to date has been viewed about 885,000 times since it was uploaded to YouTube on October 27th. Not as sensational as Susan Boyle perhaps, but not bad. Not bad at all, and the whole of Catalonia is still talking about it (as indeed am I), in between flag waving and building human castles and the like. Maybe Bella’s referendum idea could attract enough support for it to be comparable to the unofficial Catalonian independence referendum? Perhaps a lip dub to publicize both it and the cause of Scottish independence could be organized. Maybe even more than one, as has happened in Catalonia? Cross-fertilization of superbly subversive ideas between sub-state nations is precisely what the Establishment does not want.
That is precisely why we should do it. Visca Catalunya. Visca Catalunya lliure! Saor Alba!’
http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2010/12/06/la-flama-de-tot-un-poble-in-moviment/
Well we must learn from each other and other stateless nations and be cool and imaginative over our progressive propaganda on film and communication and in our writings online, and in journals. We can make most from our own culture and learn to be attractive compared to the ugliness of British nationalism and it's unionists.
Larry
Stunning or what? As it is a campaign film for independence, I am going to have to ask you to put your hand on your heart and compare it with the Scottish National Party campaign film which is currently showing at that party’s website. If you had to say which is more captivating and highly absorbing, which would it be? Be honest. There is no contest, I venture to suggest. Regrettably, the SNP video seems to me to be in comparison a not conspicuously successful attempt to be both cool and inclusive.
Populated by more or less seemingly isolated and stiffly artificial characters affecting to be inspired by a more or less culturally alien sort of pop song which, however popular it may or may not be with a certain age group, certainly lacks trans-generational appeal and seems to represent nothing so much as a peculiarly perverse rejection of native culture. The Catalan film, on the other hand, is boldly authentic, richly symbolic and evocative, full of communal interconnectedness and emphatically and wholly convincingly real people who are tremendously easy to relate to. It is generationally inclusive and contemporary while asserting cultural identity and inherited and indeed cherished cultural tradition. It is a presentation and a demonstration of an inclusive national community working together, whereas the Scottish effort is a relatively feeble representation of not so much a convincing reality as an aspiration which is not shown to be well founded.
What the masterful Catalan demonstration of how the medium can be the message shows, on the other hand, is a popular art form known as a lip dub, which, as you are probably aware, although I was not until recently, is a kind of happening which does not, of course, simply happen. It has to be organized rather carefully, and the more people who are involved in it the more carefully organized it plainly has to be. Yet the end result is meant to give an impression that a degree of spontaneity is involved. A whole bunch of folk are assembled to mime to and in some imaginative manner communally perform a recorded song and have quite a lot of fun while doing so. In the Lip Dub for Catalan Independence shown above no fewer than 5,771 people (a world record) were brought together to mime to and perform a popular Catalan song, La Flama (The Flame), by the group Obrint Pas (Breaking Through), as part of the independentist election campaign for the recent parliamentary general election in the autonomous community of Catalonia in the north-east of the Castilian kingdom of Spain. This historic election took place on November 28th and was duly won by Catalan nationalists. An account of the election result, to which, unsurprisingly, not much attention has been paid by the UK media (out of fear of contagion?) appears at Newsnet here.
The song La Flama was chosen for this campaign event because the flame which is its subject and hence the theme of the lip dub is the flame of national sentiment which somehow did not die out in Catalonia after that country lost its independence when it was defeated at the siege of Barcelona in 1714 during the War of the Spanish Succession. As Catalan is a Romance language and thus relatively approachable, here are the lyrics:
No et limites a contemplar aquestes hores que ara venen
baixa al carrer i participa,
no podran res davant un poble unit alegre i combatiu.
Amb l’espurna de la historia,
i avançant a pas valent,
hem ences dins la memoria,
la flama d’un sentiment.
Viure sempre corrent,
avançant amb la gent,
rellevant contra el vent,
tranportant sentiments.
Viure mantenint viva
la flama a través del temps,
la flama de tot un poble en moviment.(bis)
Amb columnes de paraules,
i travessant la llarga nit,
hem fet de valls, mars i muntanyes,
els escenaris d’un nou crit.
Viure sempre corrent,
avançant amb la gent,
rellevant contra el vent,
tranportant sentiments.
Viure mantenint viva
la flama a través del temps,
la flama de tot un poble en moviment.(bis)
A rough translation into English appears here.
La flama a través del temps, la flama de tot un poble en moviment (the flame kept alive down the ages, the spirit of a nation on the move) is what is represented in the lip dub, which opens at a point in the distant past, from where the flame of national sentiment is snatched by a modern-day Catalan youth and transported through time, through the ancient narrow streets of the town of Vic, past representations of Catalan history and culture, including the traditional building of human castles, which is apparently very popular and is a televised sport, past the giants and the bigheads and the flag-waving and the brandishing of gigantic symbols, a Catalan peccadillo which is noticeably reflected in the Catalan-designed Scottish Parliament building. The flame passes through the generations to the present one, the representative of which ultimately carries it into the present day by bringing it into the main square of Vic, holding the flame aloft before a vast cheering crowd, which is brandishing more Catalan flags than you can wave a stick at and chanting “I-inde-independència!” (a very common chant in Catalonia these days), as a line of people at the back are gradually seen to be holding up large white letters of the alphabet forming the word independència, whereupon the song comes to an end and a rendition of Els Segadors (The Reapers), the Catalan national anthem, erupts. Banners are waved. The people cheer, and giants and bigheads representing Catalonia’s past are discerned in the midst of the throng, which fills the square, which is the heart of the town, just as the flame of national sentiment is the spirit of the people, which is overflowing.
The Lip Dub for Independence is a self-evidently powerful demonstration of national solidarity intended to reach out to the world to let it know that Catalonia has survived as a nation despite Castilian efforts to suppress it and oppress it. Furthermore, it is becoming more assertive. Soon its new government will take over in Barcelona, and demands for greater autonomy will be made by an administration which could hold an independence referendum if they are not met, a referendum the result of which will be foreshadowed by the result of the unofficial locality-by-locality people’s independence referendum which reaches its climax in Barcelona on April 10th, in time to astonish the world and alarm Madrid and possibly even grab the attention of the Scottish electorate as it gets ready to vote in the Scottish general election of May 5th, when the UK government’s AV referendum may, of course, just possibly be hijacked, as recommended by . . . Bella Caledonia, to assert the inalienable right of the people to determine the constitutional future of their country, as the people of Catalonia have done by taking matters into their own hands. As they say there, and keep repeating, in very loud piercing voices, “Som una nació. Nosaltres decidim!” (We are a nation. We decide for ourselves!)
In preparation for the Scottish general election, and the hijacked referendum, Scotland needs a campaign event and a campaign film as powerful as the Lip Dub for Independence, which to date has been viewed about 885,000 times since it was uploaded to YouTube on October 27th. Not as sensational as Susan Boyle perhaps, but not bad. Not bad at all, and the whole of Catalonia is still talking about it (as indeed am I), in between flag waving and building human castles and the like. Maybe Bella’s referendum idea could attract enough support for it to be comparable to the unofficial Catalonian independence referendum? Perhaps a lip dub to publicize both it and the cause of Scottish independence could be organized. Maybe even more than one, as has happened in Catalonia? Cross-fertilization of superbly subversive ideas between sub-state nations is precisely what the Establishment does not want.
That is precisely why we should do it. Visca Catalunya. Visca Catalunya lliure! Saor Alba!’
Saturday, 4 December 2010
The campaign for Artistic Freedom!
The campaign for Scottish Freedom is likely to take many forms in the near future. This requires many of us to operate openly and others more discreetly or even in secret. Why? Because there are many laws in this country that even prohibit handy artwork and unionists that cringe when faced with someones artistic craftsmanship.
This weblog would like to pay tribute to the artistic work and new website of the Scottish Patriots.
Links to other activists who support the campaign for Scottish Freedom:
http://www.scottishpatriotsne.org/21.html
Suas Le Alba! (up with Scotland!)
Larry
This weblog would like to pay tribute to the artistic work and new website of the Scottish Patriots.
Links to other activists who support the campaign for Scottish Freedom:
http://www.scottishpatriotsne.org/21.html
Suas Le Alba! (up with Scotland!)
Larry
Friday, 3 December 2010
Open letter to Scottish Independence Movement
Firstly I hope the lads and lassies in Siol do not mind me displaying one of their photos here.
Secondly would like to make clear in my latest post on Scottish Republic that I urge the people behind Bella Caledonia to lobby the SNP for support.
I see the Bella Caledonia protest as harmless and significant but I think they should also bring the SNP and whole of the Scottish Independence Movement with them and not protest simply in isolation or merely online.
As for new Irish beginnings in Scotland and comrades in IRSP Alba, they are Irish Republican Socialists that deserve support for their efforts. However when and should the Irish or Scots Irish groupings give support to Scottish Republicans, I think they should be open to accept advice from Scots, and work with the good offices of the Scottish Republican Socialist Movement (SRSM).
And let me say only support for the SNP will bring about a vote for change and to move towards freedom and independence, particularly in the first instance. As for the Scottish Independence Movement they will all have to understand the importance of unity against a formidable unionist enemy. This goes for all nationalist groupings and movements in Scotland. We have to avoid splits and divisions that weaken the Spirit of Freedom.
We will break the confidence of the unionist enemy in good time. The phoenix will rise in Scotland and we should prepare for coming battles.
However we must respect our fellow Irish and learn the lessons of struggle by constitutional means or otherwise. The spirit of our national hero John MacLean is as strong as James Connolly was for Ireland.
As for others on the left, the Scottish Socialist Party may claim to be pro-independence but they undermine the efforts of left wing nationalists like myself with their attacks on the SNP and desire for rainbow flags and politics. The message from Republican Socialists such as myself is loud and clear put Scottish independence to the top of your political agenda and entrench such in your constitution. This also applies to my former comrades in Solidarity.
I can write more on my blog about the need to support the SNP and the useful valuable work of Scottish Republicans such as SRSM and how we all need to work together.
From the distinctive band of patriots in nationalist groupings up an down the country we will not weaken in the harder times that face Scotland. I mean the cuts to public services, and a large cut in the so called budget from London, in which we would not be asked to depend on if we were free.
Until Alba gets her independence I echo the SNP in calling for full fiscal autonomy.
As for Scottish Republic it is a weblog that will follow the progress of the inevitable destruction of unionism, and the desire to defeat loyalty to all things described as British in this Scottish Nation.
The Scots behind banners such as "End London Rule" should be respected as they represent the beginning of freedom like a drop of water to a river that runs free.
I wish to say if Scottish patriots want to link up with this weblog and stand up as a force for unity you are very welcome. All nationalists are hereby invited to post their views here. Contact details are redlarry1962@googlemail.com and prepare some questions that you would like to answer here. Names of organisations are welcome as names of individuals are not necessarily important.
All private correspondence will be treated in the strictest of confidence and respect.
Yours For Scotland
Larry
Independent Republican Socialist
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