Poverty Safari, page 23
And then he cried. His baby skin turned from purple to pink, his eyes slowly opened and out of a tiny mouth rang the top of his little lungs. I never knew I’d be so relieved to hear a baby screaming. The novelty wore off pretty quickly. One year later, and everything in my life has changed. Not necessarily because I wanted it to, but because it had to. The old way didn’t work. Today, I realise that the best contribution I can make to society is to raise a healthy, happy and secure child. Today, I realise that the most practical way of transforming my community is to first transform myself and, having done so, find a way to express how I did that to as many people as possible.
Some will argue that this introspection is merely another form of structural oppression; an extension of neo-liberal economics that encourages individuals to avert their eyes from the injustice of the world and, instead, focus on self-improvement. Others will argue that it’s a cop-out because it doesn’t challenge power. To them I say this: you are no use to any family, community, cause or movement unless you are first able to manage, maintain and operate the machinery of your own life. These are the means of production that one must first seize before meaningful change can occur. This doesn’t mean resistance has to stop. Nor does it mean power, corruptions and injustice shouldn’t be challenged, it simply means that running parallel to all of that necessary action must be a willingness to subject one’s own thinking and behaviour to a similar quality of scrutiny. That’s not a cop out; that’s radicalism in the 21st century.
I made every excuse, blamed every scapegoat and denied every truth. But as it happens, the great theme of my life was not poverty, as I had always imagined, but the false beliefs I unconsciously adopted to survive it; the myths I internalised to conceal the true nature of many of my problems. It hadn’t occurred to me that a root-and-branch analysis of poverty might involve asking some searching and difficult questions of myself too. For some reason, despite my apparent concern that this issue be scrutinised forensically, I conveniently exempted myself from the analysis while placing everything else under a microscope. I had to learn a new way of thinking, feeling and living; a way of seeing through the mirage of my stress, resentment and assumption to a politics that was less about blame and more about finding common ground. And I had to do this even if it meant becoming an outcast from my own community.
All my life a sense of powerlessness had followed me around. I was powerless to read a book, powerless to enjoy poetry and powerless to get a job. I was powerless to leave unhealthy toxic relationships, powerless over junk food and powerless to stop drinking and taking drugs. My answer to every instance in which I lacked power was to demand that someone else intervene on my behalf: junk food should be curtailed, advertising should be restricted and alcohol and drugs should be banned. I dreamed of society imploding, naively believing demise would make life easier. Everything was immoral, unjust and tinged with corruption. Worse still, I believed those things so vehemently that it would emotionally disturb and offend me to hear someone argue to the contrary. Turns out that was a very foolish way to burn energy. But it’s often much easier to see the holes in another person’s story than it is to get honest about the yarns you’ve been spinning.
As I sit here in Starbucks, on the burial ground of my teenage ideals, I am struck by a comforting sense that life may not be so bad. The Pollok Free State, rather than becoming a distant memory, lives on in the GalGael Trust, run by Colin Macleod’s widow and fellow environmentalist Gehan Macleod. The GalGael is a successful local community project that ‘serves as something of a safe harbour for those whose lives have been battered by storms such as worklessness, depression or addiction.’
Based in Govan, they offer a workplace that challenges, inspires and creates the conditions conducive to learning; a space where mistakes are not only made but owned as our best teachers, where old issues are left at the door and new identities forged. Their whole ethos is about encouraging people to take responsibility for their lives and move beyond adversity.
The young socialists who were demoralised by the collapse of their movement in the mid-’90s are now influential activists, trade unionists, journalists and community leaders who subtly direct the national debate on a variety of issues – human rights, equality and, of course, poverty. Over in Castlemilk, Cathy didn’t get elected but the experience of running a campaign proved invaluable and CAA continues to grow, based on its ethos of political participation and self-determination.
And last week, my sister, despite all of the difficulties she has faced so far in life, got accepted to Glasgow University to study politics – the first person in our family to do so.
Today, as I try to get these last few hundred words down before my son wakes up from his nap, I’m forced to confront the once unthinkable notion that society, while riddled with internal contradiction, may not be so cruel, callous or beyond my control as I once believed. Acknowledging this is not a slight on those who struggle. I am overwhelmed by gratitude that the society in which I just happened to be born, despite all its glaring injustices and vast room for improvement, has retained enough of its basic integrity that I was able to overcome my personal difficulties and lead a more honest and useful life. Now with a child to raise, the thought of a revolution frightens me. Young activists seem self-righteous and unreasonable. Social movements appear far too keen to placate any and all forms of anger in order to grow their support, with little thought given to the usefulness of much of the anger beyond its function as a political battering ram. When I look at the left, I see a worrying lack of self-awareness and a pathological belief in the legitimacy of our own resentment which is beginning to undermine the broader objective of social justice. I see working class people who don’t suit the agenda being written off by the activists, artists and politicians that are supposed to defend and inspire them. And worst of all, I get the sense that views like mine are increasingly unwelcome. Sometimes I feel the left is no longer a safe place for someone like me. But I’ve been wrong before. Either way, this arouses instincts in me I never knew I had, which are about protecting my own family and preserving my son’s quality of life. This next phase, as I approach middle age, will be about reconciling the new reality of my life as a responsible parent with the idealism of my past. No doubt these words may horrify many of you. Especially those who thought this book would be calling for a revolution or assumed I would use it to pin the blame for poverty on one political party. If this is the case, then I am sorry to disappoint.
That was the old me. I’m different now. Who knows, maybe allowing myself to evolve is a betrayal of my class or a renunciation of my heritage. Perhaps it’s blasphemous to imply that we, as individuals and communities, must accept a level of responsibility for the way we think, feel and live and that a society built along any other lines is not worth having. Perhaps that’s giving in and submitting. Perhaps that’s selling out. It’s really not for me to say, is it? What I can say is that it would be a far greater betrayal of myself and my community to deny or conceal the fact that, despite my best efforts, I have changed. Which is the most radical thing a person can do.
Darren McGarvey, Poverty Safari
