Privilege

I was twelve when I first learned about salmon returning to the place of their birth to spawn. On holiday with the school, we were taken to view the fish ladder at Pitlochry - built so that the salmon can still make their way back up the river Tummel, after the construction of a hydroelectric dam rendered their journey impossible.  I don't remember being particularly inspired by the series of chambers, tunnels, mirky water and possible sighting of a fish, but how can anyone not marvel the fact that these fish, born in a river in Scotland, travel downstream out into the ocean, swim across the Atlantic (sometimes as far as Greenland) and then several years later make the journey back to the exact river where they were born so they can release their eggs and the cycle can begin all over again? And when it is nature, and not man, that puts an obstacle in their way in the shape of a waterfall, then nature also provides the answer by giving the fish the ability to leap up to 3 metres out of the water to jump over it.  

I didn't know at the time, but the A9 north from Perth would become one of my all time favourite roads travelled, and am thus delighted when my ongoing journey with Kathleen Jamie in her book 'Findings' takes me to Dunkeld, (the land of Shakespeare's Great Birnam Wood) and then somewhat distraught to find myself abruptly uprooted to twenty-first century Islington, in a leap that outstrips even the mightiest salmon.

I cannot even begin to do justice to the way in which Jamie transports the reader to the banks of the river Braan to watch the salmon attempt the most arduous of ascents, her musing over whether it is technique, sheer bloody mindedness or a mixture of both that ensures survival of the fittest, and the shared moments of one-ness between photographers, gentlemen day trippers and tweed skirted ladies alike all exclaiming 'Ho!' when one of these magnificent fish decides to go for it - only to hang momentarily in the air before dropping back into the foaming waters below.

Discussing these acts of heroism later with a fisherman friend, she discovers the disappointing truth,  that on the Braan, none of them make it.  Born into hatcheries the location has been chosen specifically so the fish cannot return to spawn and, in doing so, mess up the studies taking place upstream.  Instead they eventually give up trying and lay their eggs downstream.

"Not the survival of the fittest, as the photographer had thought, but the survival of the ones who give it up as a bad job and settle someplace quiet."

And that's it.  I am no longer on the bonnie banks of the Braan the spray from the peat-tinged water turning my hair to frizz, I am instead in Islington on the street outside the house of a certain Government adviser, whose behaviour is being defended by the man in charge of our country, for whom honesty and integrity appear to hold no meaning.  They have reached the upper echelons of power, not because they were the best, most exemplary versions of who they could be, but because somehow we are living in a time when lying is no longer punished - I can only hope that one day this sentence will end - at least in the short term.  And that, in contradiction to their 'we're all in it together' message, they have been shown to consider themselves above those who, for the greater good, followed the rules they themselves had written, or put another way - privileged.

The injustice I feel at being governed by those men is palpable, yet that I don't feel qualified or educated enough to write about the murder of George Floyd is the epitome of my privilege, and something that I am, rightly, having to take ownership of.

The events of the past week have awoken me (and many others) to the fact that I am living upstream of the dam, the existence of which I have had the privilege to ignore.  No longer can I plead ignorance and unwitting participation in a system that is at its very core racist.  I don't know what to say, but saying nothing is not an option.  Black Lives Matter.  I have to accept that despite believing in equality I am part of the establishment that built the dam, and that reinforces it day in day out, and I need to educate myself on how I am doing this.  Yet amidst the tragedy, understandable anger and unwelcome violence there is hope, that enough is finally going to be enough and that things will change for the better.  It will take time before we all reach the waterfall with the same opportunity to leap, but in the meantime it's time to start building some ladders.

I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change.  I am changing the things I cannot accept. 

Angela Y Davis.