Present-day Scottish nationalism is very largely civic and political rather than nationalist in the traditional sense, and in its cultural aspect has been much more a matter of looking to the future with hope rather than to the past with grievance. You can get a vivid picture of how it developed over the past fifty years from James Robertson's 2010 novel And the Land Lay Still. And Stone Voices by Neal Ascherson gives a good non-fiction account of the years between the two Scottish devolution referenda, of 1979 and 1997, drawing on his own influential and informed journalism of those decades.
Yup, I’ve read them both. They give similar accounts, from similarly left-civic nationalist viewpoints. Worth digging out if you want a flavour of left nationalism in Scotland.
Ascherson brought to a wider audience Tom Nairn's argument that Scottish independence was necessary to dislodge the supposed archaic establishment at the core of the British state, and some version of this has become the received wisdom of a large part of Scotland's cultural intelligentsia and a section of the Scottish Left. The big problem with this is that it's not true. The British state is not some living fossil but highly modern, alert, flexible and fast-evolving.
This is where McLeod’s coherence starts to suffer. It does not follow from the fact that the British state is alert and flexible that it is not archaic. Nor does it follow that it is not necessary to dislodge the British establishment. (Although of course it is open to contest that Scottish independence could be a tool towards that).
One might have many criticisms of Scottish and Welsh devolution and the Good Friday Agreement in Ireland, and I do, but they certainly don't demonstrate an incapacity for deep-going political reform, obviously in the interest of conserving what can be conserved of the British state.
Well, the devolution projects weren’t intended to provide real reform, but to stave off the demands for real reform. They do demonstrate the desire of the state to respond and maintain itself, but that doesn’t mean the state and the establishment aren’t reactionary, archaic and needing dislodged.
So the problem then becomes that if the civic and democratic case is without merit,
He hasn’t established this, but merely drawn a conclusion from an assertion that was incorrect.
and the economic case is even less convincing,
Bald assertion. No attempt to provide evidence, argument or even context.
the only real basis for independence is nationalist sentiment,
Similar bald assertion.
and you can see that heating up and you can see the pro-independence left increasingly falling into nationalist language.
You really don’t. In fact, you don’t even hear the mainstream Yes campaign doing that. You do hear the No camp doing it, though. (See the strapline: “
Better Together: The patriotic all-party and non-party campaign for Scotland in the UK”; see the arguments: “a No vote is the
patriotic choice in the referendum”
http://www.bettertogether.net/blog/entry/a-vote-to-stay-in-the-uk-is-the-patriotic-scottish-choice).
It takes a lot to shock me about the left but I admit I'm a little startled to hear professed international socialists say “we” on a public platform in a political context when they mean “Scots”.
Easily shocked, then. That’s a pretty weak accusation.
If Scotland were an oppressed nation that might be excusable. Scotland is not an oppressed nation.
I can only say “we” and mean “Scots” if Scotland were an oppressed nation? Why? (Furthermore, it is not the case of Yes that Scotland is oppressed, merely that the Union is no longer fit for purpose). Does that apply to everyone? Can English, Welsh, French, Italian socialists/leftists not say “we” unless their nations are oppressed?
And for socialists to identify with the nation is not going to stand them in good stead in the future,
So, what, abstain? Because voting No is by the same token “identifying” with the British “nation”. (And overtly; see Better Together website, leaflets etc).
At the cultural level I see no excuse for nationalism, absolutely none.
Nor I.
Scottish culture is flourishing, and it's flourishing inside the Union.
There’s no cultural case being made for a Yes vote, though. None.
And the national culture of Britain is incredibly assimilative.
You’re making a cultural case for the Union right there, though. A cultural nationalist case, which is dangerous territory indeed. “The national culture of Britain”. It’s OK to say that, to make that claim, but the imaginary cultural case for independence gets your disapprobation? Bizarre.
As I said in an essay in the collection Unstated: Writers on Scottish Independence, I dread the prospect of an English national awakening. I like England perfectly well as it is, asleep.
I know; I read that book, too. Your contribution there made little sense, too.
But I have a lot of friends who disagree with me, including my late friend Iain Banks. And like his, their support for independence usually doesn't come from nationalism.
Finally!
It comes from a belief that Scotland's non-Tory majority will always be stymied by Tory victories in England or by Labour only winning by taking the concerns of swing voters in so-called Middle England into account. There's a current slogan from the Yes side: 'No more Tory governments. Ever.' I can see the appeal.
You’re truncating a far more nuanced position, and presenting only the weakest element of it.
There are strong points to be made against it, but it would take more space than there is on this page to make them.
Don’t see why. You spent a lot of it waffling, but the one argument that has merit is the one you avoid. I have, on these boards, made the argument you neglect to make. It only takes a few sentences.
I have a joke that I should do a show on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this summer billed as the last left-wing Unionist novelist in Scotland.
It’s not a very funny joke. So make sure it’s not a stand-up show.
.
. EO told me when I questioned this, is so prosecutor fiscal can narrow down incase of duplicate names... then asked for my address and post code. EO agreed with me when I pointed out that the address would stop duplicates but that had always been their procedure. Seems highly suspect to me assessing my activity criminal or otherwise based on where I was born
harsh but fair- I've read none of the names he drops and the closest I've been to scotland is dreaming about Amy Pond. So it starts convincing
