Eden Court is the number one venue in Inverness for the arts: music, theatre, independent cinema all proudly gathered on the banks of the River Ness. Eden Court was noticeably devoid of high culture for three days just over a week ago, however: it was closed to the public while staging a very special event indeed. Though notably lacking in good jokes, the theatre undoubtedly saw plenty of buffoonery, generously provided by a veritable gaggle of court jesters. Experts in the performing arts were there aplenty, intended to deceive the unwary, and with ambition and intrigue fit for a Shakespearian historical drama. The event: the annual conference of the Scottish National Party.
Delegates were treated to a special welcoming party on the Saturday, as folk from various anti-windfarm groups across the length and breadth of Scotland met outside to protest at the Scottish misgovernment's crazy plunder-a-hill policies. I decided to go along. It would, in fact, have been hypocritical not to have done so, given the ferocity of my own objection to these metal-and-plastic monsters that are now bestriding some of the most marvellous wild locations in Europe. The result of my own investigations over the past several years, reported in part on Pale Green Vortex, is that large-scale windfarms possess no redeeming features whatsoever. They are promoted by, and benefit, three groups of people only: as a publicity stunt by politicians wishing to appear 'green' on the world stage; by energy companies and landowners who stand to make a fast and easy buck from government policies; and by those infected with a delusional, abstracted notion of 'environmentalism', as distinct from the real thing.
With their high-fives and victory fist-waving, the leading lights of the Scottish National Party demonstrate a worrying triumphalism. And, because they are driven by ideology - independence at any price and renewables at any cost - they can be blind to the pragmatic concerns of ordinary human beings. Put another way, they are dangerous people. They will be undone by their hubris in the end, I am confident; history seems to teach this lesson. But in the meantime, Scotland is subject to their shrill cries of 'Scotland for the Scots', while simultaneously blighting the lives of many who happen to live within their domain.
The SNP version of independence for Scotland seems firmly bedded in what, following John Lash, I refer to as the victim-perpetrator mindset. And as a grand ideology, independence, like all Big Ideas, transcends the individual. It follows, therefore, that it has its own sacrificial lambs. And foremost among those lined up for slaughter in the name of the Great and Good Cause are those who cherish wild places as a vital source of spiritual nourishment. At the head of the queue, as many of Scotland's upland and rural areas are destroyed, are those who happen to live there in the first place.
People tend to inhabit rural places for two main reasons. Either they are born there, or they move there because they find the rhythms of nature and the countryside more conducive than those of the Big City. Whichever way, to suddenly find your chosen way of life shattered by an army of enormous turbines waving at you from a nearby horizon or right on your doorstep, as a result of a decision made hundreds of miles away and in which you have played no part, is shocking. I am fortunate enough not to gaze at a bunch of turbines from my bedroom window, but many of the people gathered outside Eden Court now suffer this fate. And simply moving away often proves impractical or downright impossible, since nobody wants to buy a house next door to an industrial junkyard.
One of the placards being carried at Eden Court posed the question: 'Does independence mean dictatorship?' In the SNP version of events, most likely 'yes'. Even local democracy stands no chance in the face of the juggernaut of SNP-driven central government. Critical example: many decisions on windfarm applications are initially made by local councils. If turned down by the local bodies, they may be taken to central government by the energy companies. Get this - every single large-scale application refused by Perth and Kinross Council (which includes within its remit some of the most quintessential of Scottish landscapes) has subsequently been given the go-ahead by the powers-that-be in Edinburgh. So the more local form of government, which might just be a little more in touch with the realities of the location concerned, is held in total contempt. We have a situation of complete disempowerment by Central Control. Otherwise known as 'modern democracy'.
The terms of discourse of modern politics are such that everything which endows human life with true value is excluded. Matters of soul, heart, and spirit; of our intimate and intrinsic connectedness with the non-human world. These are strictly off the map, in general, and specifically when decision-makers discuss windfarms. Even the vague and cliched 'quality of life' gets short shrift nowadays, treated as a luxury, when finance and economics are presented as being so pressing. Times of apparent economic difficulty actually suit the political classes very well, since they can concentrate their materialistic minds exclusively on what comes naturally to them: food, water, property, employment, division of resources. They are on home ground.
Delegates strode in and straggled out. Some were courteous, accepting the leaflets offered to them, while others marched brusquely by. One or two stopped to engage in 'heated discussion', and a few more quietly, almost conspiratorially, whispered that they agreed with us. The protest had excellent front-page coverage in the Press and Journal, one of the local newspapers, which hopefully brought the scam to the awareness of more people. Thanks go to the reporter and photographer for this. As I walked home from the demo, I realised that I had been touched quite deeply by a mixture of sadness and inspiration. Sadness at the needless destruction of landscapes, wild nature, and the lives of those living proximate to them. Yet inspired by the tireless efforts and courage of people fighting for what is of real value to their souls, and for the soul of the natural world of which we are part.
Photo: Oast House Archive
