Scottish Histories of Resistance began in 2022 as an ambitious dream to create a year long learning program on a variety of understudied but important topics from Scottish history. A year, many ferries, many many hours of driving, 40 interviews, 12 original pieces of writing, a tonne of art work, a website and a published booklet later…and we have pulled together an amazing amount of materials.
We now have the content for any community hubs, friendship groups, activist and organising communities or history groups to run a year long learning program wherever they are based (and starting whenever you want). Everything is available for free on our website (though donations to help us sustain this voluntary work would be very appreciated from anyone who can afford it).
Many people have named political education as something which is lacking in Scottish organising, and a lack of knowledge of Scottish History as something which deeply impacts our society and our sense of ourselves. How can we address the problems of today without understanding their root causes? How can we dream of solutions for the many crises we currently face, without a fuller sense of what is possible?
In her book ‘The Wee Yellow Butterfly’ Scottish poverty and housing activist Cathy McCormack. talked about the War Without Bullets in reference to the impacts of the class system on the physical and mental health of our communities. She wanted to draw attention to the impact of less visible oppressions; such as bureaucracy, urban planning and social policy as well as the very tangible realities of uninsulated and mouldy housing. A community organiser and activist all her adult life, Cathy struggled not only with poverty, parenting and trying to force Glasgow City Council to listen to tenants, but also with the impact of what the Kurdish Freedom Movement calls 'special warfare'. This refers to attacks on society and resistance that are not physically violent - through the media; spread of drugs and other addictions; isolation and separation; and mentalities that turn us against each other and ourselves to name just a few. In Cathy’s case in the 90’s this was the rhetoric of ‘benefit scroungers’ and ‘single mums’ but everyone is in some way on the frontline of this war, whether we like it or not!
It's easy to look at the world today and feel very hopeless and small. It's also easy to feel like resistance is something distant - either in time or space. This is an impact of this very special, bullet-less warfare, that stops us understanding ourselves and our situation, and so stops us acting before we even start. It is important to recognise this as a war, because the powers waging it — such as states and capital — certainly approach it with all the purposefulness and violence of warfare. It is a war not just to maintain their power but to expand it. One of our weapons to defend ourselves in it is to know our histories: in order to better understand the stakes, and to learn from past resistance.
The reality is that all across the world there is and always has been resistance to oppression of all kinds - for everything we can analyse in our political context that looks bleak, there is a force for an alternative. Our context here in Scotland is no different - and it is also connected to global and international resistance, making both more meaningful. We have a duty to remember this, and to reconnect with it.
To study histories of resistance is an act of struggle in itself. Social movements have suffered (not always accidental) memory loss and become cut from the legacy of what makes us strong. This suits the system very well. We have a responsibility to find the hidden histories, inspiring histories, legacies of resistance, freedom, and love. We can also help to create the world we want to live in by producing the knowledge that serves it and makes it stronger.
We do this as part of our communities and wider society. We are not outside observers, but a part of what we are learning. At its best, this project can transform us, create relationships, and guide us in how to live and act. We look forward to going on this journey together.
I’m sure that at this moment in time we can all relate to feelings of isolation, the loss of community, overwhelm about the climate crisis, exhaustion from being too busy, stress about rising costs, the lack of a clear way through, infighting in our groups and communities, questions of where we belong, what we should do with our time and energy…
We believe that these experiences are a result of; economic systems which see peoples value in terms of their labour not their humanness; of systems of thought which place a higher or lower value on people's life based on gender, race, class, physical ability, sexuality etc; and the belief that we are separate from and superior to, the rest of nature.
When we say resistance we mean resistance to exploitation - e.g. poor working conditions, slavery or overfishing. Reistance to oppressions like racism, rape culture, lack of freedom of movement . And resistance to erasure - propaganda, clearance, language bans.