National Pride

The hated Union with England has lasted less than 300 years. The Scots have fought the English for far longer and have an independent history which goes back to the Stone Age. This Union, which is seen by the English as permanent and sacrosanct, is still a relatively new thing and should be treated with the contempt it deserves. A body of Scots opinion was critical of Union before the ink on the treaties was dry and in recent times was strong enough to frighten England's major political parties into considering radical changes in the constitution that could have created the federated Britain that some in Scotland hoped for in the eighteenth century. Scottish nationalism may now be a resurgent force, but all that has been so far achieved is a talking shop in Edinburgh, allowed to rubber-stamp London's major decisions and with little or no real power of its own, except to push through extremely unpopular but politically correct legislation on the teaching of homosexuality in schools.

The Scots find it all too easy to pat themselves on the back in some circumstances. The "Here's tae us, wha's like us" syndrome is alive in the land, and after the recent victory over England at Wembley (another pyrrhic one...) can manifest itself in ludicrous form, such as the "Remember Prestonpans" banner at one match. This commemorated a futile victory by Charles Edward Stuart over the Hanoverian army in 1745. Pity that it didn't inspire more Scots to vote for a Scottish political party.... but then the '90 minute patriot' syndrome is all too familiar to us, whether at Hampden or Murrayfield.

There is, however, some truth in the Scottish boast. A poor and inhospitable land has consistently bred a people of remarkable talent. The world would have been a manifestly poorer place without Alexander Graham Bell, James Watt, Archibald Pitcairne, Robert Sibbald, Alexander Monro, John MacAdam, John Rennie, Thomas Telford, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns, Adam Smith, Andrew Carnegie, James Simpson, James Chalmers, Sir Alexander Fleming and David Hume, and the Scots also played a disproportionate part in the creation of the "British Empire". The English are regarded by the world as imperialists, yet the Scots founded and ran the colonies without incurring the wrath of too many of those they ruled over, perhaps because they too knew what it was like to be dominated by English interests. This domination extended to the "War to end all wars", during which the Scots regiments suffered 27% casualties as a whole, balanced agains the 'national' percentage of 12% - a wholly disproportionate amount from a country one-tenth the size of its neighbour.

Throughout the "Empire", Scots gave the world some remarkable men. In Australia, it was a Scot, John McDouall Stuart, who first crossed the continent, and another, John Macarthur, who had a vision of Australian agriculture which helps Australia prosper today. Had it not been for Lachlan MacQuarie, the once penal colony of Botany Bay might never have become the beautiful city of Sydney. The same could be said of the Scots who went to Canada and New Zealand. In Canada the Scots are the third largest ethnic group, and the list of important names in Canadian history reads like the Jacobite roll-call at Culloden. Add to this the preservation of the Gaelic culture, particularly in the region of Nova Scotia. In New Zealand the Scots have equally contributed in the fields of politics, science and education.

In 1979 the United States Census Bureau looked at the characteristics of Americans of Scottish, Irish, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish and English origin. The Scots emerged superior. Of all European immigrants they were the best educated and the best paid. Twenty-five of seventy-three Americans honoured in the nation's Hall of Fame claimed some Scots ancestry. So too have eleven US Presidents, a half of all Secretaries of the US Treasury, and a third of the country's Secretaries of State.

To the Scots at home, much of their national pride rests in the land itself - a country more beautiful than bountiful. Geography conspired to make the creation of a nation difficult, and hence the struggle to overcome the natural barriers made Scottish unity and nationhood, once achieved, the more precious. Throughout Scottish history there is one word constantly on the lips of her people - freedom. A rugged land moulds a rugged people. Scotland consists of some 20 million acres of land, but less than a quarter of it is fit to support people. A million acres are occupied by fresh water and foreshore, a further million covered by forest. On 11 million acres nothing can grow.

Everything in Scotland conspires to deny communication. The spine of Scotland, the mountain range watersheds between East and West, force people apart. Communities from earliest times were forced to hug the fertile coastal areas and for centuries the only methods of contact was by sea, except during the brief summer when mountain passes were open. As a result of this, Scotland is still a patchwork of dialects and customs. An Aberdonian has difficulty in understanding and conversing with someone from Ayrshire. Ditto Fifers with those from Sutherland. The citizens of our ancient capital, Edinburgh, regard themselves as different from those of the second city, Glasgow, a mere forty-five miles away, and in many important ways they are. What has united people in the past was a common cause, the desire to be independent, and the history of that desire is proudly upheld by many Scots today - except, sadly, at the ballot box. Now that communication is generally much easier (though still often difficult and time-consuming in the outer areas), we need to re-forge that desire and temper it to the white heat of nationhood, and in the words of the awful song which has become our unofficial anthem, "Become a Nation again!"

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