Scotland has far to go to achieve the status of a welcoming society it so often claims for itself - Joyce McMillan

Back in 2017, in what now seems like a different world, one of the most acclaimed shows on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe was a solo piece by young black writer, singer and actress Apphia Campbell.
Scotland and England rugby teams line up at Twickenham Stadium - some players 'taking the knee' against racism. Picture: David Rogers/Getty ImagesScotland and England rugby teams line up at Twickenham Stadium - some players 'taking the knee' against racism. Picture: David Rogers/Getty Images
Scotland and England rugby teams line up at Twickenham Stadium - some players 'taking the knee' against racism. Picture: David Rogers/Getty Images

Originally from Florida, Campbell now lives and works in Scotland; and in this show, called Woke, she used all of her writing and performing skills to tell the story of a young, naive middle-class black girl called Candice, who arrives to study at the University of St Louis, Missouri, in the autumn of 2014, just as the protests against the police shooting of young black man Michael Brown are reaching their height in the town of Ferguson, a few miles away.

Through song, Campbell traces Candice’s gradual evolution from an apolitical teenager singing bubble-gum love songs, to a young woman enraged by the injustice and brutality she has seen in Ferguson; and - by the end - ever more powerfully connected to the black activists of the 1960s, and to the rich inheritance of soul and gospel music that inspired and sustained them.

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The story is fictional, of course; but for me, it offered a memorably powerful introduction to the strong positive meaning, in African-American culture, of the word “woke”, which according to its dictionary definition means “alert to injustice in society, especially racism”.

It was therefore with some sadness that I realised, a year or so later, that “woke” was gradually becoming a term of abuse, used by the political right to taunt those who campaign against social injustice; and with a real sense of doom that I recently noticed this pejorative use of the same word spreading widely into Scotland’s political conversation, with many independence supporters using it against the more socially liberal wing of their own movement.

It was not the first word or phrase to undergo this transition, of course; right-wing commentators, perhaps tired of bemoaning “political correctness gone mad”, had for some years been weaponising the phrase “social justice warrior” as an insult, and had also coined the most insidious phrase of all, “virtue signalling”, to describe people who declare their opposition to some perceived injustice, particularly on social media.

There are some people, no doubt, who adopt broadly left-wing and pro-human-rights attitudes for shallow reasons; and there are a few for whom denouncing people on those grounds has become a serious form of bullying, which can have appalling consequences for its victims.

For the most part, though, these phrases are simply used by the right to characterise all struggles for social justice as mere game-playing, and those who engage in those struggles as hypocrites. To make matters worse, the present UK government has now latched on to these culture wars, not least for their value as distraction from other issues; this week, it announced that it is considering appointing a “free speech champion” for Britain’s university sector, to protect the victims of “woke” culture - although we can bet our bottom dollars that that champion will not, if he or she ever appears, be doing much for the free speech of young Marxists or climate activists, campaigning for the overthrow of the present economic system.

And for us in Scotland, all of this seemed to come to a head with the failure of most members of Scotland’s triumphant rugby team at Twickenham to “take the knee” alongside most of their English fellow-players, in what is now a widespread gesture of support for the movement against racism in sport and elsewhere. Why some players joined in that gesture, while others did not, is not clear; in the absence of a collective team decision about how to respond, some may simply have felt confused.

What was alarming, though, was the outpouring of support for their decision not to kneel - as all players in Scottish football matches routinely do - from Scottish rugby supporters of various political stripes.

There it all was, all that insidious right-wing language from people who deny to a man and woman that they are racists, but yet seem to feel that a brief recognised gesture of support for the victims of racism is somehow too much to ask. It was a meaningless gesture, it was political correctness gone mad, it was woke culture at its worst, it was a humiliating sign of submission.

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And the fact that it is actually none of those things - but rather a simple sign of solidarity and respect strongly appreciated by victims of racism - apparently mattered not a jot, to these ‘non-racist’ Scots.

All of which only shows how far Scotland really has to go to achieve the status of a liberal, egalitarian and welcoming society that it so often claims for itself. This is not to suggest, of course, that all proposed change is for the better; there are issues with the Scottish Government’s current anti-hate-speech legislation that should concern any friend of freedom of expression, and there are those who genuinely believe that the proposed gender recognition legislation might damage the position of women.

To conduct these serious arguments in the sneering and dismissive language of the far right though - to talk as if vice-signalling is better than virtue-signalling, and to be asleep better than to be woke - is to do them a huge injustice.

Scotland is supposed to be a country which cares about the enlightenment virtues of liberty, equality and fraternity; and although striking a balance among these values is not easy, and applying them in wealthy western countries with an imperial past a difficult and rightly disturbing process, there is no excuse for conducting that debate in the language of those who have never cared for any of those principles, and whose only aim, now and throughout history, has been to mock them into oblivion.

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