Posted on 08/10/2003 10:07:21 PM PDT by Keyes2000mt
Staffordshire University research fellow, Dr. Euan Hague, spent four years in America researching the marketing of "Scottishness" by organisations such as the Scottish National Party and the Scottish Tourist Board. In a lecture delivered to the Royal Geographical Society, "The Production and Consumption of Scotland and Scottishness in the USA", he paid special attention to the celebration of "Scottish culture" and support for Scottish independence amongst America's right wing and fascist movements.
Hague noted the dramatic increase in cultural organisations such as St. Andrews Societies and Caledonian Groups, which celebrate Highland Games, Burns Nights, bagpipes, clan genealogy and tartan. In 1969, 20 groups across the US organised Highland Games. Now there are 200 such groups.
In part, these activities are harmless, if not to everyone's taste. At the same time Dr. Hague brought out the distinct militarism, the celebration of a muscular backwardness--drinking and throwing trees--and the distinctly all-white character of most of the proceedings.
They also reflect the search for an identity that apparently has nothing to do with contemporary, socially polarised America. One man interviewed at a Caledonian event told Dr. Hague, "I think the clans have nothing to do with how people usually sort themselves, e.g., by class, race, sexuality, or whatever."
Of the promotion of a wider "Celtic identity", Hague says, "An added level of this spectacle is that much of it perceives a wider Celtic relationship between Scotland, Ireland and Wales, all conjoined in an anti-English bloc. Thus, in the construction of Scottishness understood in the United States, Celtic imagery and cultural commodities are to the fore. This is seen in the associations made between Scotland and Ireland in 'Celtic festivals' across the United States and in the Hollywood film, Braveheart.
"What is appealing about asserting a strong Celtic Scottishness within this imagination of Scotland? They [the Celts] are the original primordial folk and it is their culture and community that are embedded in Scotland. Deeply and spiritually immersed in, and at one with, the physical territory of Scotland, the purity of the Celts is understood by many in the Scottish American community to have been corrupted by Anglicisation."
This interest is not confined to the traditionally right-wing Caledonian Societies. Southern secessionists and outright fascist groups have both adopted a version of Scottish history as their own, and celebrate Celtic culture.
Contemporary Southern secessionist Dr. Michael Hill, leader of the racist League of the South, said in 1997, "Our Anglo-Celtic Southern culture and its history, heroes, songs, symbols, and banners are under attack and their defence could serve as an immediate rallying point. But we should go beyond that to the task of educating our people about their ties ... the names and deeds of William Wallace, Andrew de Moray, Robert Bruce.... Sir James (the Black) Douglas, James Graham of Montrose among scores of others should become commonplace." All these are from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries of the feudal era in Scotland.
The connection between the Southern right and Scotland has a historic progeny. The Ku Klux Klan is said to have been formed by emigrant Scots cavalry officers within the Confederate Army in 1860. Its oaths were imported from the Society of the Horseman's Word in North East Scotland, and the burning cross was used as a call to arms by Scottish clans in the fourteenth century. The Confederate flag bears a distinct resemblance to the Scots Saltire.
The sinister and openly fascistic Christian Identity is viewed as one of the more influential fascist networks in America. It has circulated 50,000 copies of the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath championing Scottish independence. Christian Identity view all "Celtic" races including Scots, Irish, Welsh, regional English, as descendants of the 10 tribes of Israel, with the Scots being the "purest". Jewish people by contrast are described as descendants of the devil.
The Scotsman newspaper interviewed Thomas Leyden, a former white supremacist, who told of a visit to an Aryan Nation's compound in Oregon where haggis and bagpipes were as praised as Hitler's brownshirts and the Ku Klux Klan. Leyden told the Scotsman, "There is an image they like to cultivate of tough, hardy people in the Highlands who fight a London government which cares nothing for its culture or its people."
On March 20 last year, the US Senate passed a resolution inaugurating an annual Tartan Day every April 6. This is to "recognize the outstanding achievements and contributions made by Scottish Americans to the United States". Tartan Day emerged after several years of campaigning by the Scottish Coalition of business and heritage groups. Though it won Democratic backing, the Republican right, most notably party leaders Trent Lott and Newt Gingrich, heavily promoted the Tartan Day resolution. Lott had moved the resolution for three years running before it was finally passed.
The resolution bizarrely claims the Declaration of Arbroath as the inspiration of the US Declaration of Independence. It goes on, "This resolution honors the major role that Scottish Americans played in the founding of this Nation, such as the fact that almost half the signers of the Declaration of Independence were of Scottish descent, the Governors in 9 of the original 13 states were of Scottish ancestry, Scottish Americans successfully shaped this country in its formative years and guided this Nation through its most troubled times."
Linking the Arbroath declaration of the late Middle Ages with the Declaration of Independence--a document inspired by the progressive ideas of the Enlightenment--is at best highly dubious. But it encapsulates the right wing's preoccupation with Scotland. As Hague explains, "Scottish identity in the USA is substantially more than just romantic nonsense. Scottishness in the USA is constructed within a specific political rhetoric.... Tartan Day reasserts the authentic, original America, using as a route to this an assertion of Scottish ethnicity and Scottish tradition.... Today's society, by contrast, is perceived to be amoral and superficial, whereas the 'ancient' Scottish and especially Celtic traditions are understood as authentic and spiritual.
"This Scotland is strongly imagined in terms of being white, militaristic and family oriented. Such opinions tally with the US political right, and hence it is no surprise when Republican and right-wing conservative leaders sponsor Tartan Day."
The Scottish National Party raises support and maintains an office in the US, and its recruiting leaflets are circulated at Celtic fairs and events. Hague warned them: "Scottishness in the USA is tied up in a politics much further to the right than the SNP advocate for Scotland. Perhaps this could come back to haunt Scotland, especially as the feeling is that American Scots should have more say in Scottish affairs."
It is apparent that sections of the US far right, including those presently assailing Clinton, find a mythical version of Scottish history useful for their present political purposes. This fabricated Scotland closely echoes contemporary rhetoric. This nation of "Bravehearts" has no social classes, only Scots. It devotes itself to defending "ancient freedoms"--that are thankfully bound up with land, property and religion--against a foreign threat, both external and internal.
This is not a recent invention. In addition to portraying Scotland as classless, Scottish nationalism has always had a pronounced right-wing element. The origins of the SNP itself lie partly in the National Party, one of whose 1930s pamphlet declared, "Class antagonism is a thing quite foreign to the Scottish spirit. It was unknown here until it was imported from England.... In Scotland there is no such inherent feeling of a separation between classes."
In 1937, at a time of considerable anti-Catholic hysteria directed against Irish workers in Scotland, the SNP warned of a "Green Terror" caused by Irish immigration, and called for the Scottish people to be given the "key to the racial destiny of their country" or face a race war.
Today, the SNP present themselves as a left-wing party of "civic nationalism". They dismissed Hague's warning, albeit rather nervously, and attacked him in the Scottish press. Both the SNP and the Labour government welcomed Tartan Day as a means to win more US investment in Scotland. Nevertheless, the ease with which the extreme right in America has assimilated Scottish nationalism and its historical icons contradicts the view advanced by the SNP and others such as the Scottish Socialist Party that Scottish nationalism is inherently progressive. It should, as Hague cautions, give pause for thought regarding the true political character of the current resurgence of nationalism.
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What's wrong with that? I was going to enter the caber (tree) toss in the Scottish National Games in Arlington during the '80s.
Declaration of Arbroath To the most Holy Father and Lord in Christ, the Lord John, by divine providence Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Roman and Universal Church, his humble and devout sons Duncan, Earl of Fife, Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, Lord of Man and of Annandale, Patrick Dunbar, Earl of March, Malise, Earl of Strathearn, Malcolm, Earl of Lennox, William, Earl of Ross, Magnus, Earl of Caithness and Orkney, and William, Earl of Sutherland; Walter, Steward of Scotland, William Soules, Butler of Scotland, James, Lord of Douglas, Roger Mowbray, David, Lord of Brechin, David Graham, Ingram Umfraville, John Menteith, guardian of the earldom of Menteith, Alexander Fraser, Gilbert Hay, Constable of Scotland, Robert Keith, Marischal of Scotland, Henry St Clair, John Graham, David Lindsay, William Oliphant, Patrick Graham, John Fenton, William Abernethy, David Wemyss, William Mushet, Fergus of Ardrossan, Eustace Maxwell, William Ramsay, William Mowat, Alan Murray, Donald Campbell, John Cameron, Reginald Cheyne, Alexander Seton, Andrew Leslie, and Alexander Straiton, and the other barons and freeholders and the whole community of the realm of Scotland send all manner of filial reverence, with devout kisses of his blessed feet.
Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since. In their kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, the line unbroken a single foreigner.
The high qualities and deserts of these people, were they not otherwise manifest, gain glory enough from this: that the King of kings and Lord of lords, our Lord Jesus Christ, after His Passion and Resurrection, called them, even though settled in the uttermost parts of the earth, almost the first to His most holy faith. Nor would He have them confirmed in that faith by merely anyone but by the first of His Apostles -- by calling, though second or third in rank -- the most gentle Saint Andrew, the Blessed Peter's brother, and desired him to keep them under his protection as their patron forever.
The Most Holy Fathers your predecessors gave careful heed to these things and bestowed many favours and numerous privileges on this same kingdom and people, as being the special charge of the Blessed Peter's brother. Thus our nation under their protection did indeed live in freedom and peace up to the time when that mighty prince the King of the English, Edward, the father of the one who reigns today, when our kingdom had no head and our people harboured no malice or treachery and were then unused to wars or invasions, came in the guise of a friend and ally to harass them as an enemy. The deeds of cruelty, massacre, violence, pillage, arson, imprisoning prelates, burning down monasteries, robbing and killing monks and nuns, and yet other outrages without number which he committed against our people, sparing neither age nor sex, religion nor rank, no one could describe nor fully imagine unless he had seen them with his own eyes.
But from these countless evils we have been set free, by the help of Him Who though He afflicts yet heals and restores, by our most tireless Prince, King and Lord, the Lord Robert. He, that his people and his heritage might be delivered out of the hands of our enemies, met toil and fatigue, hunger and peril, like another Macabaeus or Joshua and bore them cheerfully. Him, too, divine providence, his right of succession according to or laws and customs which we shall maintain to the death, and the due consent and assent of us all have made our Prince and King. To him, as to the man by whom salvation has been wrought unto our people, we are bound both by law and by his merits that our freedom may be still maintained, and by him, come what may, we mean to stand.
Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King; for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom -- for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.
Therefore it is, Reverend Father and Lord, that we beseech your Holiness with our most earnest prayers and suppliant hearts, inasmuch as you will in your sincerity and goodness consider all this, that, since with Him Whose Vice-Regent on earth you are there is neither weighing nor distinction of Jew and Greek, Scotsman or Englishman, you will look with the eyes of a father on the troubles and privation brought by the English upon us and upon the Church of God. May it please you to admonish and exhort the King of the English, who ought to be satisfied with what belongs to him since England used once to be enough for seven kings or more, to leave us Scots in peace, who live in this poor little Scotland, beyond which there is no dwelling-place at all, and covet nothing but our own. We are sincerely willing to do anything for him, having regard to our condition, that we can, to win peace for ourselves.
This truly concerns you, Holy Father, since you see the savagery of the heathen raging against the Christians, as the sins of Christians have indeed deserved, and the frontiers of Christendom being pressed inward every day; and how much it will tarnish your Holiness's memory if (which God forbid) the Church suffers eclipse or scandal in any branch of it during your time, you must perceive. Then rouse the Christian princes who for false reasons pretend that they cannot go to help of the Holy Land because of wars they have on hand with their neighbours. The real reason that prevents them is that in making war on their smaller neighbours they find quicker profit and weaker resistance. But how cheerfully our Lord the King and we too would go there if the King of the English would leave us in peace, He from Whom nothing is hidden well knows; and we profess and declare it to you as the Vicar of Christ and to all Christendom.
But if your Holiness puts too much faith in the tales the English tell and will not give sincere belief to all this, nor refrain from favouring them to our prejudice, then the slaughter of bodies, the perdition of souls, and all the other misfortunes that will follow, inflicted by them on us and by us on them, will, we believe, be surely laid by the Most High to your charge.
To conclude, we are and shall ever be, as far as duty calls us, ready to do your will in all things, as obedient sons to you as His Vicar; and to Him as the Supreme King and Judge we commit the maintenance of our cause, csating our cares upon Him and firmly trusting that He will inspire us with courage and bring our enemies to nought.
May the Most High preserve you to his Holy Church in holiness and health and grant you length of days.
America called the bravest and most adventuresome of Scotsmen to its breast, and also those who suffered and chafed most under the English aristocracy. It is only natural that their heirs in America should now celebrate a rough, robust version of Scottish identity that is foreign to the heirs of those timid souls and bought men who remained behind.
I have more English blood than Scottish, but I am proud of both, and quite in sympathy with my Scotch Covenanter ancestors. They decided that unknown dangers in the howling Ohio wilderness of 1820 were preferable to a life of servitude and poverty on the manor of an English (or at least Anglicized) laird.
-ccm
S'rioghail Mo Dreahm.
I know they're not thinking about calling it a skirt. :)
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