Inverted

My wife and I had a lovely afternoon tea today at the Colonnades in the Signet Library. This is the building where the Scottish legal establishment meet and research and it is a beautiful Georgian building. I have posted photographs of the upstairs Signet Library in the past but today we were on the ground floor level where afternoon tea is served. This was a present on my retirement but due to Covid we were only now able to enjoy the experience over 2 years later. We were late in the afternoon so the place - see extra – looks a bit empty but it was well occupied earlier.

Our table had a mirror top so you saw the columns and ceiling reflected in it. It provided lots of opportunities to photograph the delicious savouries, sandwiches and tea which we really enjoyed.

It was therefore a downer to get home and hear the awful news of the bombing of the children’s and maternity hospital in Ukraine.

If it were possible, it was even more depressing to hear the Russian authorities’ response denying that they bomb civilian targets.

I fear that this will be the way forward for them over the coming months where the Russian authorities will continue to lie about what is happening. To claim black is white. To maintain the message they are pumping out to their citizens. There are already reports of Russians living in Ukraine telling their parents back in Russia what is happening and not being believed. It shows how persuasive the Orwellian messaging there has become over the years.

Any destruction will be blamed on the Ukrainians themselves; it will be presented as a demonstration of the “evil nature” of the Ukrainians; how they decided to lay waste to the cities and towns so that the Russians living there could not live there in peace; that those who are fleeing are the “guilty”. Any statements by the west will be presented as fake news and all the economic sanctions are part of a western campaign to deny Russia it rights.

I should say that I do think critically about what we are being presented about Ukraine, but the evidence is overwhelming that the aggressor is the Kremlin.

It just highlights to me how important it is to preserve the right to express views and to have a free independent press and media where alternative views (however irrational) can be expressed. Human rights and the ability to preserve human rights through independent courts are fundamental. As freedoms gradually become eroded – in small little steps being presented as for the good of society – it becomes easier for those in power to take hold of the message and to influence control. In the face of contradictory evidence, the “approved line” is spouted repeatedly and consistently and can be believed by those who do not hear an alternative view.

So the independence of the judiciary; the adherence to public service values; to being held accountable are absolutely critical and I worry that the current nibbling away of rights and freedoms “for the greater good” here is potentially paving the way for greater controls by some in the future who may not adhere to those values. So we need to be critical while we can of controls over the right to demonstrate peacefully; to the undermining of the judiciary; to the side-stepping of accountability and honesty and decency; to a (responsibly) intendent media.

I may be seeking something that is too idealistic but if we don’t strive for that we may wake up one day listening to one message that we all believe. The recent TV programme on the rise of the Nazis party in Germany shows how a few can garner the reins of power and take control.

Inverted indeed.