Crowd-funding is nothing new. The Martyrs’ monument was funded by public subscriptions to redress the events of 50 years previously when five Scots were transported for sedition. Their speaking up for the common people was judged by those in authority to be “wicked and felonious”.
The Foundation stone for the Martyrs’ Monument was laid on the 21st August 1844:
400 people attended the laying of the foundation stone. 183 years to the day later it happened to be five of us who gathered for a peaceful protest recognising the ongoing imbalance in power between those in high office and those in the general population.
Walter Humes, writing in Scottish Review, 21st September 2015:
President Obama put this in a slightly different way:
Our protest also happened to coincide with a solar eclipse. My particular experience with high office has related to my petition for a Sunshine Act for Scotland:
Surely one of the reasons that we commemorate the past is so that we can learn from it. The voices of the people really do matter.
