Prof Alf Baird: “On the matter of colonial racism, the dilemma for the colonizer and associated pathology (also affecting the colonized, but in a different way) is the real issue in a colonial society, according to Albert Memmi. Having habitually described the colony and its native people in mostly negative form, as in there being “no merits in the colonial community, recognizing neither its traditions, nor its laws, nor its ways, he (the colonizer) cannot acknowledge belonging to it himself”. And, no longer living in his native land, the result is that “the colonialist is unsure of his true nationality (because) he navigates between a faraway society… and a present society which he rejects and keeps in the abstract.” Thus, the characteristic which completes Memmi’s ‘portrait of the colonizer’, is that “the colonialist resorts to racism…. (as) racism sums up and symbolizes the fundamental relation which unites colonialist and colonized.” And colonial racism is essentially what we see in repeated anti-Scottish and anti-independence discourse, for “racism is a con-substantial part of colonialism.”

From Prof Alf Baird: Recent articles in The National questioning “Why are SNP figures not making a compelling case for independence?” It seems as if intellectuals on the left, including Shafi, Riddoch etc, still ignore postcolonial theory, which tells us the answer, as Fanon explained: – the dominant national party ‘makes an accommodation with colonialism’; – the party becomes ‘infiltrated’ by colonial actors; – the party elite ‘feathers its nest’ and ‘builds up its pensions’; – it ‘takes the movement up a blind alley’; – the party elite refuse to act on the most urgent matter of ‘freeing the people’ because they ‘fear the colonizers tanks and planes’; – it ‘attacks the radicals in the party’ also ‘using colonial forces’ to punish them; – it ‘behaves like a gang’ and appoints its friends to key positions; – the party ‘depends on slogans’ and leaves the matter of independence’ to future events’; – the party ‘becomes calcified’, immobile, unable to move forward; – it lacks any ‘innovation’ on the cause; – it ‘delays independence’ which is what leads ‘to conflict’; – it ‘ruptures the movement’; – it works ‘to keep the racket going; – the elite become ‘colonial watchdogs’; – and, finally, once the people figure out they have been duped, ‘the national party disintegrates’, which is what we are seeing now.