The SSP on the demonization of our youth (2003)

I unashamedly reproduce this article from the Scottish Socialist Voice about Rosie's Scottish Parliamentary battle against the demonization of our youth:

No votes no rights

by Jo Harvie

After months of election propaganda, veiled threats and open slander, the Scottish Executive launched their crack down on "anti-social behaviour", predominantly aimed at young people labelled by the Executive as neds.Their bill could hand extensive new powers to police and the courts, including the use of electronic tags and fixed penalty fines for children.

Heavy emphasis was also placed on new police powers to "disperse" groups of three or more people gathered in the streets, touted as a way of dealing with young people in gangs.

But the Scottish Human Rights Centre have compared this to the stop-under-suspicion (sus) laws introduced in England and Wales in the 1980s, which caused a huge increase in tension between young people and the police.John Scott told press:

"It created a generation of people who were as suspicious of the police as the police were of them.

"As a matter of principle, I do not think that if there are three young people in the street doing nothing at all the police should have the power to interfere with them.

"This is a radical departure from current police powers. The European Convention on Human Rights guarantees the right of free association, the exception being if you are breaking another law.

"Giving the police such wide-ranging powers that could be easily abused is not the answer.

"We have gone too far on the intolerance current in society towards young people."

SSP MSP Rosie Kane agrees:"Young people are being demonised to promote a really oppressive piece of legislation.

"I don't think a few young people hanging about on the street is a problem - I'm all in favour of pedestrianising our communities.

"Obviously if any person is behaving in a way that is hurting or threatening other people, then we have to deal with that. But the Executive are saying that young people in general are a problem we need to deal with."They are refusing to say if they'll be tagging eight year olds or not.

"Imagine a wee eight year old child who can't go out in shorts in the summer because he's got the bad boy label on. What kind of message is that for young people?

"In the absence of any real, progressive legislation on poverty, they're using a few words that appeal to people's fears and I think will have a really negative effect, not just on young people but on all of our communities."

The Scottish Socialist Party was the only political party to speak out against the proposals, but anti-poverty groups were also critical.

As the Executive launched their crusade, the Scottish Human Services Trust released a report, Staying Human by Gerry Hassan and Sue Rawcliffe, saying that the Executive have failed to address real poverty and inequality.The report says Scotland has become more unequal since the founding of the Scottish Parliament.Hassan also criticised the Scottish Executive's increasing tendency to talk in "morally authoritarian" terms of blame and punishment, especially where young people are concerned:

"The Scottish debate never used to have that punitive language. These young people who are getting tagged better hurry and grow up and vote."

On Saturday, Rosie was in Edinburgh to unveil a mural painted by a group of young people under the guidance of a youth project called Citizen Y.

Angered by the way that young people have been scapegoated by the Scottish Executive, a couple of weeks ago they decided to rename their mural Who are you calling a ned?

Rosie told the Voice:

"The mural has been created by the young people who are viewed, labelled and dismissed by the politicians as 'neds'."The project has given them something to do, and they've made something beautiful out of it."Treating young people positively means you get positive attitudes back from them, just like anybody else."


Further article HERE from the magazine Frontline

The Students in London started the fightback for our democracy...

this is a transcript of a piece made for this TORY podcast - the piece in isolation can be heard here:

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Personally speaking, I am a believer of non-violent confrontation. Having said that, I am no pacifist nor am I Gandhi. Even he understood when under great duress, peoples frustration boiled over into violence. And I totally understand the frustrations vented by young people on the streets of London yesterday. In fact, what I would say is that what happened yesterday was about frustrations over the recent tory coup and undemocratic take over of this country and their insistence on foisting an ideology onto us - one that the majority of voters did not vote for.

This tory minority Government, without the help of the liberal democrats , could not enact this anti-poor, anti-woman, anti young people and anti working people cuts agenda.

People voted for the Lib dems as a vote against the tories - to stop them from carrying out their butchery of our social system and now, in order for the likes of Danny Alexander and Nick clegg to have a bigger salary – and – lets be honest – in order to pay off and protect their parties rich backers, they have done a back flip and are helping the Tories push through their un-necessary cuts.

The students, in my opinion, have actually began the fight back to retake our democracy from this unwanted minority and their failed ideology that saw the original big society quite rightly dismantled after the depression and after the second world war. People are seeing rights and needs their grand parents and parents fight for disappear. People in the past lost weeks and months of pay – and in many cases – their lives, in order to secure for future generations rights such as pension provision, child provision,homes and free education.

To vote for a party who said they stood in the way of the education cuts the Tories proposed, and then to have the same party open the flood gates of tory ideology must be gut wrenching for many voters.

I was glad to see that there were Scottish young people in that crowd. If anything, the Scottish people should be more angry than the rest as 85% of the electorate here voted against the tories. Scottish society is far to the left of the rest of the UK, yet because of the union, our government have no power to raise their own taxes or indeed save our services. The call is going out up here for the Scottish Government to refuse to pass on Westminster’s cuts. Rather, community organisations and activists are calling on the Scottiush Government to set No-Cuts Budgets, Defiance Budgets, and rally masses of workers and communities round a fight for the funds to retain every job, every penny in pay, and every single local service. There are other ways to raise the funds to pay off the richmans debts. The Scottish socialist Party have costed a Scottish service tax which not only would ensure no cuts in services or jobs, but would also raise extra money to invest in these.

Remember the lessons of the past. Remember the un democratic “saviour of Romania” ceaucescu or the people rising up against the right wing cuop in Venezuela. This undemocratically installed Government will have its ceaucescu moment. No-one voted for their ideology and no one voted for their cuts.

It was precisely mass civil disobedience, a refusal to obey Thatcher’s laws and the collection of her government’s hated poll tax, which tossed it (and her) in the dustbin of history.
I say well done to the students who have led the way in retaking our democracy.