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Life in an Independent Scotland
The question on everyone’s lips is, What would life be like in an independent Scotland? At least, that’s what the political and chattering classes think is on everyone’s lips.
Read more about 'Life in an Independent Scotland'...Door-stepped by the Referendum
First, a word about the national religion, football. Former Cardiff City manager, Malky Mackay, found himself in hot water last week when it was alleged that he had sent racist and homophobic texts to a pal. He’ll shortly be sentenced to be boiled alive; or at least, banned from all football-related activity.
As a Gaidheal I have a vested interest in opposing racism, and I cannot see that a man’s gender orientation has any bearing whatever on his prowess as a footballer. But have we really reached the point where malice can put private correspondence in the public domain and ruin a man in a day?
Hiding Under a Myth: Independence and the Declaration of Arbroath
But then on Monday I was ambushed (sorry for being so abrupt). It’s hard to explain how it happened. The Referendum campaign is driving me nuts, forcing me to adopt a life-style which minimises the risk of bumping into it. It’s turned me into a fugitive, compelled to walk in the shadows and send out advance-parties to make sure it’s not there. These are days when a man’s got to watch what he sees and hears.
And if there’s one place where you’re bound to meet Referendum it’s Reporting Scotland; and on Monday night my guard slipped or, more precisely, I got the timing wrong. I usually manage to switch on just in time for the weather-forecast (it’s important to know whether there’s going to be sunshine and showers in my study tomorrow), but this time, to my horror, Remote put on Referendum; and, paralytic with shock, I froze, unable to switch off.
Independence, Scottishness and Armed Cops
Few issues of principle have taken the foreground in the Referendum debate. Instead it has remained obsessed with one question, ‘Will we or won’t we be better-off?’ and this in turn dissolves into statistics which are no sooner heard than forgotten. Few of us want to clutter our heads with figures about Scotland’s contribution to the UK economy, the funding our universities receive from the UK Research Council or the number of barrels of oil that still remain under the North Sea. Apparently the nett result of such calculations is that Scotland is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and this, claim the partitionists, is clear proof that we can go it alone; to which the clear-headed might surely reply that, on the contrary, it is clear proof that Scotland has done very well under the Union. We ain’t broke, so please don’t fix us.
Read more about 'Independence, Scottishness and Armed Cops'...Is Independence Really a "Vision"?
Even the slightest hint of a possible increase in the Yes! vote in the forthcoming referendum gives me a severe attack of the heebie-jeebies. Why break one nation in two, why partition one small island, and why turn our back on institutions which for generations have served as models for other democracies, and delivered levels of prosperity matched by few other nations on earth?
Yet, there have been hints recently that the Yes! campaign is gathering momentum, and there seem to be two main reasons for this.
Solid Unionists and Proud Scots
Last weekend highlighted one of the major problems facing the No! campaign in the independence referendum. It was the weekend of the SNP’s annual spring conference, and it provided separatists with a platform that unionists simply cannot match. The Scottish National Party exists for the sole purpose of promoting independence. It is organised to deliver that outcome, passionate about it and resourced for it. Its leaders live for it, its foot-soldiers march for it, its Press Office is geared to it.
Inevitably, then, its annual conference is choreographed to ensure that in the full glare of the media all the forces and faces of Nationalism are marshalled to argue that we’ll never be properly grown-up till we stand alone on our own two feet, send the Americans packing, deliver Scotland from the curse of Toryism, and provide free child-care for all working mothers (Santa to pick up the tab).
The tragedy is that the No! campaign has nothing comparable. There is no Scottish party to whom the Union matters as much as independence matters to the SNP. Nor is there any other party as well organised at grass-roots, or able to deploy such a fanatical political infantry. Neither Labour, Tory nor LibDem stand first and foremost for the Union. Nor do they seem able to put their differences aside and stand together to save it. Even in the Western Isles, the parties are reluctant to be seen working together; and where they do work together there is nothing like that critical mass of explosive enthusiasm which the crisis demands.
Christian Patriarchy?
The women of the world have every right to protest against the evils of patriarchy. Men’s brains are no bigger than women’s but their muscles are, and they’ve had little compunction about using them to impose their will on women in home, state and church. Men ruled kingdoms, men dominated their wives and men governed the church.
There’s no reason to think that in Highland culture male tyranny was particularly severe. There was no polygamy, no easy divorce and no female circumcision; and as a rule there were no closed doors behind which a man could secretly batter his wife and abuse his children (though this is certainly not to say it never happened).
Read more about 'Christian Patriarchy?'...Homo Economicus: Measured by the Market
We’re seldom allowed to forget that we live in a multi-racial, multi-faith and multi-cultural world. Yet across all the divides there is one great leveller: the market.
At some levels it’s harmless enough. Everyone enjoys Coca Cola and everyone uses a mobile phone. But at other levels it’s far from harmless. The market delivers cocaine as well as coffee, and great multi-nationals bulldoze their way serenely through ancient habitats and traditional cultures. What Solomon said of the grave is now true of the market. It is never satisfied.
The Kirk Joins the Mockery
I should really be in a complete fankle about writing this column. After all, I am a Calvinist, which means I believe in predestination: a subject on which Free Press readers are clearly fully briefed. From what they say, I cannot write this column unless it was predestined; and equally, I cannot decide what to write about, because that, too, must be predestined. The wisest course, then, would be to sit and wait for predestination either to force me to write something or prevent me from writing something.
Read more about 'The Kirk Joins the Mockery'...Wells of Joy: the Poetry of the Reverend Murdo Campbell, Resolis
The Reverend Murdo Campbell died in 1974. Now, almost forty years later, his son, David has published a collection of his father’s Gaelic religious verse.
It immediately set my mind to working out connections. Writing was in Murdo Campbell’s blood. His brother, Angus (‘Am Puilean’) was a distinguished author, best remembered for his autobiography, ‘A Suathadh ri Iomadh Rubha’ (‘Rubbing Up Against Many a Headland’). His other brother, also named Angus but known as ‘Am Bocsair’, was a gifted bard, and his two sons, Alasdair and Norman, have made notable contributions to recent Gaelic fiction. Mr. Campbell’s own son, David, the editor of this volume, chose a different path, becoming a distinguished Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Glasgow, having previously studied under another eminent Highlander, Donald Mackinnon, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. To complete the connections, the translator, the Reverend Kenneth MacDonald, a native of Applecross, and one of our foremost (if most unassuming) Gaelic scholars, was for many years a colleague of David’s at Glasgow.
Which all goes to show how perceptive was the Puilean’s choice of title. The Gaidheal does indeed rub against many a headland.