Who is Scottish?

Original post by Bhumbauze

Not too long ago I'd have agreed but, after 6 months living back in Scotland after 2 years in England, I honest to god don't see how it could possibly get any worse here. Small-town Scotland is ****ed. Properly, miserably ****ed. There's still money (and employment prospects) in Glasgow and Edinburgh and, to an extent, in the South West and Borders but other than that... it's a series of Junkie-infested, decaying, jobless hell-holes. Honestly, I moved from a comparable town in northern England to where I am now - ex-industrial, semi-commutable, fairly chavvy - and by comparison, the town I moved from was some sort of paradise. I'm not brushed-up enough on the distribution of wealth throughout the UK to say exactly what is going wrong, but I can state for an absolute fact that something is very wrong in Scotland. In these towns I genuinely can't see it getting much worse.

I agree there is something very wrong with a great deal of Scottish society. I must say at this point that I was privileged to grow up in a very nice village and now live in Edinburgh, but I am certainly aware of the sort of places you are talking about.

The solution the SNP offer, however, seems indistinguishable to the clap-trap Labour has been pushing in Scotland for the last 40 years. I'm not even trying to make a party-political issue out of this - even when the Labour Party were making decent decisions in government, in Scottish local authorities they remained as backward as ever. In fact, even when the Tories made good decisions in government, the Scottish Office and Scottish Conservative politicians often lined up to 'shelter' Scotland from them and maintain a laid-back status quo.

Arguing for the Union certainly isn't arguing for leaving things as they are. I want to see Scotland get considerably better in my lifetime. I do however think that the nationalists not only have none of the answers, but that by holding Scottish independence out as some sort of panacea they're also avoiding making the decisions they could now to change our country.

Reply 22

Curzon

Original post by cl_steele

my dads scottish, my grand dad is scottish, my great grand dad is scottish etc. etc. etc. i was born in England and am therefore British ... enough of this crappy english scottish divide there is no difference ... be proud and be brittish.

I think for there ever to be a comfortable sense of being united in some kind of "Britishness", there has to be a full recognition of the separate countries and identities here and not an attempt (as has been in the past, until recently really) to stamp them out into some kind of homogeneous British entity. That is not what Britain is.

Reply 23

Original post by NR09

Why do you find what the SNP want totally unacceptable? Alex Salmond has said numerous times that if Scotland were to gain independance we would keep the queen as head of state, and would allow people to continue to move around Britain and live where they want. There is nothing divisive about what they say other than that they want full Scottish rule for Scotland.

In comparison to this "full Scottish rule" rubbish, I couldn't give a ha'penny damn about the monarchy or free movement, as much as I support both. I find the very essence of what you are suggesting to be utterly revolting. Why? Don't you see? Whilst I believe people should be working together more closely to build a common future, you're supporting setting up barriers between them.

On what basis? Some nonsense generalisations about cultural commonality which completely fail to represent the diversity and unique combinations which people have within their identity. Instead, nationalists think of nationhood as some line drawn on a map, a cataloguing of people as if they were of different species. Nationalism is a rubbish cultural theory; given a political dimension, it is down-right disturbing.

And I wasn't using "a cheap rhetoric trick" but was simply stating what each government is commonly known as. The UK government is referred to as "Westminster" because that is the area of London in which it is based. I wasn't aware that the Scottish government was called Edinburgh? (I suppose Holyrood is a possibility but it is still not commonly referred to that by people or the media.)

Yes, it is.

Reply 24

NR09

Original post by Snagprophet

You mean the British government has full say on economic, foreign and military matters in Britain? I mean, **** me, god damn a government in Paris having say on matters in Bordeaux. **** them.

I imagine a government in Edinburgh having full say on economic, foreign and military matters in Inverness is fine then?

What the **** are you talking about? Scottish government doesn't have a say in these matters, that is the point, they are controlled by Westminster. The SNP wants Scottish government complete control over everything that happens in scotland.

Again, why are you so enraged by this?

Reply 25

Original post by Curzon

I think for there ever to be a comfortable sense of being united in some kind of "Britishness", there has to be a full recognition of the separate countries and identities here and not an attempt (as has been in the past, until recently really) to stamp them out into some kind of homogeneous British entity. That is not what Britain is.

The irony is that nationalists wouldn't support nationalism had Britain - as, say, Scotland and England did during their national development - endeavoured to stamp out its internal identities. What they must see as a failing in the British state, that it isn't an ostensibly homogenous entity, I see as a great strength. I'm rather glad you seem to be supporting that view.

We will all have differing views of what it means to be British. That doesn't mean one is better than any other.

Reply 26

NR09

Original post by L i b

In comparison to this "full Scottish rule"

This argument/debate will go nowhere because as you said you think full Scottish rule for Scotland is simply "rubbish" whereas I think it is incredibly important.

I can't fathom why you are so offended by this. Alex Salmond does not hate the English or the rest of Britain, he has said that close bonds would be kept with the rest of Britain. I still don't see how it is disgusting and divisive, this is purely a political matter not a social matter that will completely separate everyone.

Reply 27

ch0llima

16

Original post by NR09

This argument/debate will go nowhere because as you said you think full Scottish rule for Scotland is simply "rubbish" whereas I think it is incredibly important.

I can't fathom why you are so offended by this. Alex Salmond does not hate the English or the rest of Britain, he has said that close bonds would be kept with the rest of Britain. I still don't see how it is disgusting and divisive, this is purely a political matter not a social matter that will completely separate everyone.

Are you sure?

Reply 28

NR09

Original post by ch0llima

Are you sure?

Of course he doesn't, what evidence is their for the contrary? In fact he has very cose ties with Plaid Cymru.

Reply 29

Original post by NR09

This argument/debate will go nowhere because as you said you think full Scottish rule for Scotland is simply "rubbish" whereas I think it is incredibly important.

Actually, I've also said it's backward and divisive. Fundamentally based on unacceptable identity politics is something I'll add to that. You can chuck 'illiberal' and 'collectivist' into that heady mix too.

I can't fathom why you are so offended by this. Alex Salmond does not hate the English or the rest of Britain

He's said some very vicious things about British identity, and I'd say his politics have stoked up Anglophobia - an often overstated but still quite real phenomenon - in Scotland.

he has said that close bonds would be kept with the rest of Britain. I still don't see how it is disgusting and divisive, this is purely a political matter not a social matter that will completely separate everyone.

Politics is the area which should be most divided from ideologies like nationalism, which bring things like culture, identity and ethnicity into an unacceptable degree of closeness to government.

I don't want to live on a country created because, apparently, we are somehow different from other people and unable to work alongside them on a basis of equality. I don't think most young people would. Trying to cast Nationalism as somehow just an administrative action isn't going to be believed by anyone here.

Reply 30

Studentus-anonymous

OP

12

Original post by L i b

By historic definition, perhaps. 'Scoti' was a Roman term for Irish raiders who used to attack western Britain. They established a kingdom on the west coast of Scotland, intermingled with the Picts and eventually managed to blunder their way into Brythonic Strathclyde and the Anglic Lothians. But of course, even they were probably a bastard conglomeration of different races.

Indeed.

The Scotii were an Irish tribe of Ulster who extended their territories across to Kintyre and some of the western isles and Scottish mainland. I can't remember exactly but the accepted wisdom is that while the kingdom became known as Scotland, they were at best politically in control, as the Picts out-numbered them quite a bit, which makes it interesting that Scotland adopted the Gaelic from the Scotii.

The interesting fact is that the picts and the Scotii were both Celtic peoples, yet history frames the Picts as somehow foreign to other British peoples.

The history of the British isles is one of consolidation of culture and power, which is why we live in a single country instead of a series of petty kingdoms and chiefdoms.

I dunno the way the SNP talk about it I'd think they had no grasp on reality, aside from the lack of genuinely good reason, other excuses don't fly.

Scotland will keep the pound, the queen, the freedom to move around the UK, the lack of border controls, still have the economic and cultural ties with England, etc etc.

You know what I call that state of affairs?

The United Kingdom of Great Britain.

Reply 31

FrigidSymphony

11

Original post by L i b

In comparison to this "full Scottish rule" rubbish, I couldn't give a ha'penny damn about the monarchy or free movement, as much as I support both. I find the very essence of what you are suggesting to be utterly revolting. Why? Don't you see? Whilst I believe people should be working together more closely to build a common future, you're supporting setting up barriers between them.

On what basis? Some nonsense generalisations about cultural commonality which completely fail to represent the diversity and unique combinations which people have within their identity. Instead, nationalists think of nationhood as some line drawn on a map, a cataloguing of people as if they were of different species. Nationalism is a rubbish cultural theory; given a political dimension, it is down-right disturbing.

Yes, it is.

Ethnic nationalism, you'd have a point- civic nationalism of the type supported by the SNP? No way.

Reply 32

Original post by FrigidSymphony

Ethnic nationalism, you'd have a point- civic nationalism of the type supported by the SNP? No way.

Scottish nationalism isn't civic. Civic nationalism is a term used to refer to liberal nationalism, an attachment between people and the civic structures of the state. I wouldn't even consider that really nationalism as such.

In fact, what the SNP's nationalism is based on - as with most sub-state nationalisms in the Western world - is not ethnicity, but culture and identity. If anything, that's more insipid. Whilst you can't really blame someone for being of a different race, the SNP are happy to blame people for being culturally British or identifying with being British. As far as they're concerned, we essentially choose to be the enemy.

Reply 33

FrigidSymphony

11

Original post by L i b

Scottish nationalism isn't civic. Civic nationalism is a term used to refer to liberal nationalism, an attachment between people and the civic structures of the state. I wouldn't even consider that really nationalism as such.

In fact, what the SNP's nationalism is based on - as with most sub-state nationalisms in the Western world - is not ethnicity, but culture and identity. If anything, that's more insipid. Whilst you can't really blame someone for being of a different race, the SNP are happy to blame people for being culturally British or identifying with being British. As far as they're concerned, we essentially choose to be the enemy.

I really think you're reading too much into the consequences of nationalism as you see it. I like to think that Scottish politics is progressive enough to not deal in absolutes. I also think a bunch of SNP members and politicians are originally English.

Reply 34

Original post by Studentus-anonymous

The Scotii were an Irish tribe of Ulster who extended their territories across to Kintyre and some of the western isles and Scottish mainland. I can't remember exactly but the accepted wisdom is that while the kingdom became known as Scotland, they were at best politically in control, as the Picts out-numbered them quite a bit, which makes it interesting that Scotland adopted the Gaelic from the Scotii.

I seem to recall a story about some princes of the then-joined Gaelic/Pictish kingdom having to bugger off to live with some family in Ireland during their youth and coming back as fully-fledged Gaels. Whether that's true or accurately remembered, I suspect your point about those being politically in control getting to choose is quite correct.

The interesting fact is that the picts and the Scotii were both Celtic peoples, yet history frames the Picts as somehow foreign to other British peoples.

Well, I was under the impression that whilst a common Brythonic language was the main language in the rest of the island, the Picts in the far north spoke a rather different language and were, as such, somewhat foreign.

Reply 35

Notethis