Marching to a Scottish republic
Opinion
Eddie McGinty takes issue with an English view of Scottish
history
Nick Martin-Clark's article, `Unpicking the Kingdom' (An
Phoblacht 5 June), which warns that Irish Republicans should not
link ``the destiny of Ireland to that of Scotland'' is to be
welcomed. However it is a pretty unlikely piece of advice on
which to base a whole article given that it would be well-nigh
impossible to find any Republican who would favour such linkage.
Celtic solidarity is one thing but welding the cause of Irish
freedom to the possibility of Scottish independence is another.
Apart from sharing a common enemy, and thus having a natural
solidarity with one another, the two independence movements are
completely separate, qualitatively different, and rest unallied
on their respective national, historical and cultural
foundations.
It is deeply offensive then when Nick Martin-Clark states that
the ``English imperialist presence in Scotland'' has ``legitimacy''.
An imperialist presence can never have any legitimacy no matter
where it is located. Scotland is no exception.
Scottish patriots have consistently been prepared to challenge
English rule in Scotland by taking up arms against it. Take the
ill-fated Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1745. After the rising
of 1820 three rebels were executed and nineteen were transported
to Australia. In the mid to late nineteenth century during the
infamous Highland Clearances there were several brave acts of
sporadic resistance.
As the twentieth century matured the supposedly subjugated Scots
nation became emboldened. English tanks were sent into Glasgow
city centre in 1919. In the 1950s post-boxes bearing English
insignia were blown up. Clearly, despite many forms of
oppression, Scottish national identity has endured. Eighty per
cent of Scots now demand a national Parliament in Edinburgh
whilst between a quarter and a third favour complete liberation
from England. Scotland unquestionably has a right to freedom
also, and the people of the world, bar England, happily support
Scottish freedom.
Despite the strength of Scottish patriotism, Scottish culture has
been devastated by almost three centuries of English rule. After
the nineteenth century potato Famine struck the Highlands the
Poor Law Board issued a chilling statement that they saw ``the
mass removal of a surplus population as providing the only
answer.'' Scottish historian James Halliday chronicles the
sufferings of the proud but dispossessed Gaelic people and
describes how the country from which they were evicted suffered
too: `Scotland lost half her heritage, and the desolation which
then began has never found a remedy.''
One of the greatest, if not the greatest, of the barriers to a
nation's freedom is the devaluation and oppression of its
culture. When a nation's language, or culture, has been
sufficiently weakened a slave alternative will invariably be
imposed by the imperial power.
The next imperial target is to rewrite or ``revise'' the history of
this oppression. Indeed as far back as 1902 Morrison Davidson,
speaking on the Scots education system, stated: ``In the schools
so far as I could make out, the History of Scotland is no longer
taught, and in its place have been substituted sundry manuals of
English History, liberally leavened with Jingo Imperialism.''
Three generations later Scots Republican Gerard J. Cairns asked
Scots to think about why, and how, Scots history has come to be
rewritten. He argues that the answer lies in British control of
the Scots education system, media and culture.
In this respect the very style and tone of Nick Martin-Clark's
article was an unwelcome echo of the ragbag of assorted English
politicos and academics who argue that Scotland isn't really a
nation. Some of these arrogant racists even argue that indigenous
Scots culture was ``invented'' by the novelist `Sir' Walter Scott
some 78 years after a Proscription Act in 1746 had banned the
kilt, tartan, the Gaelic language, and even the harp and the
bagpipes. The question of how the English could have banned or
prohibited a culture that some of them now claim hadn't yet been
``invented'' is one that only the Anglo-centric dogmatics of the
Brit Left can answer.
Returning to the slightly less surreal question of Nick
Martin-Clark's article it is doubly unfortunate that he attempts
to make a case for Scottish Unionists by suggesting that although
Ireland was ``raped'' Scotland consented to voluntarily enter ``a
marriage'' with England in the Act of Union of 1707. The unhappy
corollary of his flawed position is that Ireland deserves freedom
because there was no Act of Union between Ireland and England.
Yet the central truth is that imperialism should be opposed not
because of any convoluted constitutional arguments, but because
imperialism, English or otherwise, is inherently wrong. Nick
Martin-Clark may well be sympathetic to Ireland's cause but an
examination of history leaves his unhelpful argument in tatters.
In 1707 after centuries of bitterly fought conflict the
independent but unrepresentative Scots Parliament gave in to an
English ``offer'' of a Union of the Scots and English Parliaments.
A large English army was `coincidentally' camped on the border
whilst the Edinburgh Parliament made its deliberations. Members
of the Scots Parliament, which represented only a financially
privileged small minority of the population received substantial
bribes to pass the Act of Union. The majority of Scots opposed
the Union and English rule. Indeed riots erupted in Edinburgh,
Glasgow and Dumfries upon the passing of the Act.
In 1801 after over six centuries of brutal occupation and ongoing
rebellion the totally unrepresentative Irish Parliament, which
had done England's bidding for five hundred years, passed an Act
of Union with Westminster. The English Parliament had demanded
the Union after the 1798 Rising and the Ascendancy clique of the
Dublin assembly (which denied Catholics the right, among other
things, to vote) duly took the opportunity to exact massive
bribes for their complicity. The majority of Irish people opposed
the Union and English rule. Only two years later another
attempted rebellion took place.
It is clear then that the right of Ireland, and indeed any other
nation, to freedom, does not depend on the existence or otherwise
of a legislative union. This would be to apply the rotten
standards of imperialism to international freedom struggles. All
nations have an inalienable right to freedom. Sham parliaments,
fake Unions, and centuries of national and cultural subjugation,
allied to subtle and often not so subtle repression, cannot
manufacture even a shred of validity for one country abusing,
manipulating and controlling another country. If Nick
Martin-Clark has any doubts on this I would refer him to the 1916
Proclamation which on the core issue of Ireland's right to
freedom declares that ``the long usurpation of that right by a
foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor
can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the
Irish people.''
It is necessary to underline to Nick Martin-Clark that the cause
of Irish freedom is not advanced in any way by his insidious and
historically ignorant attack on the cause of Scotland. He is,
though, to be highly commended for his previous well-stated
support of Irish re-unification and as a constructive suggestion
it might be fruitful for Nick Martin-Clark to spend a month or
two studying republican theory and the history of both Scotland
and Ireland. Indeed one historical quote springs immediately to
mind, uttered not by a Republican, but by a constitutional
nationalist. Fine words all the same: ``No man has a right to fix
the boundary to the march of a nation.''
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