Civil disobedience can be a useful tool, but is it the right time for Scots?

It was a triumph of online organising but even the most enthusiastic participants know that digital alone cannot guarantee success, there is much work to be done ­campaigning out there in the real world.

So far we have seen various shows of ­support, the bridge campaigns that fly Saltires across the motorway system and the set-piece marches which not only ­attract huge numbers to our main cities but bring out Bhangra bands, the Yes Bikers and ­unicorns on wheels.

But one area where the Yes movement have yet to make its mark is in the politics of civil disobedience. Glasgow recently played host to one spectacular moment led by ­local activists and racial justice ­campaigners. The community of ­Kenmure Street in Pollokshields ­resisted a ­deportation order when Home ­Office immigration officers arrived to detain two local men. A crowd eventually trapped the van to prevent the ­deportation of the two long-time local residents and when they were eventually released from the ­stranded van it was seen as a ­setback for the Tory government’s “hostile ­environment” strategy.

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A recent study by Stanford University defines civil disobedience as “a public, non-violent and conscientious breach of law undertaken with the aim of bringing about a change in laws or government policies”.

The Stanford study argues that civil ­disobedience is vital to ­democracy. It charts a veritable history of ­disobedience, from the Boston Tea Party to ­Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt March, and from ­suffragists’ illegally casting their ballots to whites-­only lunch counter sit-ins. Civil ­disobedience has according the study, played a crucial role in “bending the ­proverbial arc of the moral universe ­toward justice”.

At Kenmure Street, no one was hurt, there was no violence and ­passive ­resistance won the day. A few local ­bylaws were bent and technically ­protestors ­obstructed the highway but even the ­police understood it was the actions of a community pursuing a greater good and did not wade in with batons and body ­armour.

Luck was on the side of the protestors. It was during Covid lockdown and many more local residents were at home than would normally be the case; a local man from the No Evictions Network (NEN) was passing when the immigration van appeared and he manged to lodge ­himself and his bike under the van’s axles, and it was during Eid al-Fitr, word spread to local mosques and the numbers swelled trapping the van until legal ­negotiations to free the two men could begin in ­earnest.

Kenmure Street is a reminder to those that demand greater levels of civil ­disobedience in support of ­independence that initiatives need to be ­carefully ­calculated. We know from some of the ­spectacular traffic disruptions led by Extinction Rebellion that alienating ­ordinary people and aggravating potential supporters can be a setback.

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ONE of my favourite moments of civil disobedience is now buried deep in the history of civil rights and racial justice in America. We are all familiar with Dr Martin Luther King’s marches and Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a bus in the racially polarised city of Montgomery, Alabama. What is less well known as the civil-rights wade-ins.

In October, 1955, 100 African-Americans from across Florida organised ­themselves into a flotilla of cars and drove to the segregated Lido Beach in Sarasota to stage a wade-in, in which ­people ­demonstrated by wading in the waters carrying banners and singing gospel songs in defiance of local by-laws. The Florida “wade-ins” reached their emotional high-point in a summer-long campaign to ­desegregate St. Augustine Beach, south of Jacksonville Florida.

At the first demonstration white beachgoers barred the waders from reaching the waters by blockading the shore. The next day, African-American protestors backed by the presence of Martin Luther King Jr entered the Monson Motor Lodge to swim in its segregated pool. The hotel manager poured a bottle of acid into the water and the swimmers were arrested.

In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed and segregation was more severely ­criminalised under the Act. Subsequently the great jazz-soul instrumental Wade In The Water by Ramsey Lewis (1966) and Marlena Shaw’s inspirational vocal Let’s Wade In The Water (1966) were released by Chess Records. Eventually the song – often denuded of its political significance – became a familiar nightclub record among mods and is frequently played in retro-soul clubs across Scotland.

The Yes movement is strong online and highly visible on marches. It is also has a proven track record in more ­­traditional party political campaigning, only last week a million newsletters were ­delivered to homes across Scotland, but as yet there is limited evidence of successful ­campaigns of civil disobedience.

We have seen the early stages of ­consumer boycotts, including the refusal to pay the BBC licence fee and resistance to supermarket brands wrapping themselves in the Union jack. This is not simply “flag-shagging” as the vernacular would have it, but a recognition that ­buying and eating local produce is now an important part of politics of ecology.

History is rich in spectacular protests that defy local laws and oppose the existing systems of government. On August 23 1989, approximately two million inhabitants of the Baltic states joined hands forming a human chain from Tallinn through Riga to Vilnius creating a 600-kilometre human chain.

The historic “Baltic Way” was ­organised by three national movements: the ­Estonian Rahvarinne, the Latvian ­Popular front of Latvia and the ­Lithuanian Sajudis. It marked the 50th anniversary of the Nazi-Soviet pact which had effectively made the Baltic states part of the Soviet Union in 1939.

The “Baltic Way” was about ­leaving that union and enabling the three ­nations to move forward as independent states. What was remarkable was that the ­human chain took place prior to the ­availability of mobile phones and social media and had to energise thousands of rural ­dwellers and connect them to a movement that had been largely city led.

Although the “Baltic Way” broke ­numerous Soviet laws and defied a powerful police state, it was a remarkably ­photogenic event which attracted publicity around the world.

CIVIL disobedience is a time-honoured response to unpopular political situations but they are also much easier to talk about than to enact. Furthermore they usually emerge from disgruntlement in the real world rather than abstract debate, or theorising online.

Scotland’s social history is ­populated with important moments when ­communities have disobeyed unfair laws or intransigent government. The Rent Strikes after the First World War, which were mostly led by women and emboldened by suffrage, are a clear example where a vanguard led communities to resist ­legislation that favoured landlords.

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More recently, the Poll Tax ­resistance stood up to Margaret Thatcher’s ­Conservatives and raged against ­Scotland as a guinea pig for unfair legislation ­designed to disenfranchise ordinary ­people. We forget that in 1990 when ­Glasgow was the European City Of ­Culture a million people refused to pay the tax.

No-one can predict the future but it seems likely that a second referendum is looming. Some want to speed it up, some feel that patience is a friend and that the Conservative government in Westminster is doing such a pitiful job of managing Brexit that disaffection with the Union is titling in the direction of independence.

It is not clear what injustice will push Scotland over the line – possibly a threat to the national health service – or indeed whether civil disobedience will play a part.

But I know I am not alone is asking the inevitable question about Scotland’s ­journey – what next?