That said, there is evidence that the Union is not necessarily harmful to Scottish self-esteem. As nationalists themselves admit, Scotland has enjoyed a significant measure of cultural renaissance in literature and music, especially since the Eighties, but with roots reaching back into the Fifties. The significance of this, of course, is that the renewal of cultural self-confidence, which is so obvious to visitors to contemporary Scotland, has taken place within the Union — just as it did in Ireland before the Easter Rising and the War of Independence. In other words, the British connection has evidently been host, not hostile, to a revival of Scotland's cultural vitality.
What is more, if the English have something to repent of, so do Scottish nationalists. Victims, too, have a responsibility to keep their resentment within the bounds of justice, and not to let it fester and distort and scapegoat. I write from experience. I was born in Kirkcudbrightshire in 1955 and went to a boarding-school near Ayr. There in 1965 I watched the original broadcast of Peter Watkins's classic television docudrama, Culloden, about the military defeat of the last Jacobite rebellion in 1746. Afterwards, I dragged myself up to my dormitory, sobbing, "Why, oh why, do we Scots always lose to the English?" A few years ago I saw Culloden again, and I was shocked to see how very clearly it presents the battle, not at all as a fight between the Scots and the English, but rather as one between, on the one hand, feudal, Catholic, Gaelic-speaking, cattle-rustling Highlanders and, on the other hand, government forces made up of Protestant and English-speaking troops drawn from both sides of the Anglo-Scottish border. At Culloden, my people — the Lowland Scots — had worn redcoats, not kilts. Nevertheless, notwithstanding an English mother, an English-educated father, and a school largely manned by English teachers, ten years of growing up in Scotland had been sufficient to infect me with such an overdose of Scottish victimhood and such a reflexive tendency to scapegoat the English that I just couldn't see what was put before my eyes.
For sure, my experience is almost 50 years old and the leaders of contemporary Scottish nationalism have worked hard, I am told, at making it pro-Scottish rather than anti-English. But only last year a friend of mine, whose cut-glass English accent disguises her Northern Irish parentage, reported the verbal assault of her taxi-driver as they drove past the battlefield of Culloden: "That's where your people slaughtered mine!" These are only anecdotes, of course, but given Alex Salmond's own recent attempt at twisting Irish history to anti-English advantage, it seems that the disease remains widespread, corrupting generals as well as foot-soldiers. Scottish nationalist repentance still has some way to go.
Quite what benefits independence would bring to Scotland remains elusive. There's no certainty that it would make it much wealthier. There's no reason to think that the Scots would use their new-found sovereignty to create a significantly different balance between free enterprise and public provision. They're already enjoying an upsurge in cultural vitality and confidence. And the movement toward a more "Nordic" defence and foreign policy would be a retreat from responsibility in international affairs, where hard power sometimes should be used and someone has to take the risks and bear the costs of using it.
What is more, if the English have something to repent of, so do Scottish nationalists. Victims, too, have a responsibility to keep their resentment within the bounds of justice, and not to let it fester and distort and scapegoat. I write from experience. I was born in Kirkcudbrightshire in 1955 and went to a boarding-school near Ayr. There in 1965 I watched the original broadcast of Peter Watkins's classic television docudrama, Culloden, about the military defeat of the last Jacobite rebellion in 1746. Afterwards, I dragged myself up to my dormitory, sobbing, "Why, oh why, do we Scots always lose to the English?" A few years ago I saw Culloden again, and I was shocked to see how very clearly it presents the battle, not at all as a fight between the Scots and the English, but rather as one between, on the one hand, feudal, Catholic, Gaelic-speaking, cattle-rustling Highlanders and, on the other hand, government forces made up of Protestant and English-speaking troops drawn from both sides of the Anglo-Scottish border. At Culloden, my people — the Lowland Scots — had worn redcoats, not kilts. Nevertheless, notwithstanding an English mother, an English-educated father, and a school largely manned by English teachers, ten years of growing up in Scotland had been sufficient to infect me with such an overdose of Scottish victimhood and such a reflexive tendency to scapegoat the English that I just couldn't see what was put before my eyes.
For sure, my experience is almost 50 years old and the leaders of contemporary Scottish nationalism have worked hard, I am told, at making it pro-Scottish rather than anti-English. But only last year a friend of mine, whose cut-glass English accent disguises her Northern Irish parentage, reported the verbal assault of her taxi-driver as they drove past the battlefield of Culloden: "That's where your people slaughtered mine!" These are only anecdotes, of course, but given Alex Salmond's own recent attempt at twisting Irish history to anti-English advantage, it seems that the disease remains widespread, corrupting generals as well as foot-soldiers. Scottish nationalist repentance still has some way to go.
Quite what benefits independence would bring to Scotland remains elusive. There's no certainty that it would make it much wealthier. There's no reason to think that the Scots would use their new-found sovereignty to create a significantly different balance between free enterprise and public provision. They're already enjoying an upsurge in cultural vitality and confidence. And the movement toward a more "Nordic" defence and foreign policy would be a retreat from responsibility in international affairs, where hard power sometimes should be used and someone has to take the risks and bear the costs of using it.
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