The Economist, Scotland and how to alienate an entire country

Anyone that doesn't agree that the Economist has a chip on it's shoulder regarding Scotland should read this weeks issue. In my humble opinion there have been numerous articles portraying Scotland in a negative light, which, were at times both incredibly ignorant and unbelievably predictable. Nevertheless, I had always put this down to a particular editorial stance regarding the current Scottish government, which unfortunately, is less than unusual in the British press at the moment. See Al-Megrahi et al. However an article in this weeks paper really goes beyond the pale by defaming the entire population of Scotland.

My attention was garnered immediately through the use of the title "Scotland and Sir Walter Scott: Sham country, but not sham bard" although one could say that this was for all the wrong reasons. The majority of the article is fairly well written and reviews a book which I have not read, so neither am I in position to consider it's contents, nor am I particularly interested. For me Sir Walter Scott has always seemed somewhat overated, and the author of this particular article doesn't seem to have heard of quality over quantity since he spends almost an entire paragraph detailing how many books Scott wrote in his lifetime. However it is the last paragraph with which I shall concern myself here, as it, beyond all reasonable doubt, exhibits the anti-Scottish sentiment expressed within this particular newspaper. That's right I said beyond all reasonable doubt, we can leave any not proven verdicts for the High Court to deliver.

The writer begins this paragraph by lambasting Scott's critics who said that his Ivanhoe-esque-romanticised-tartan-picture-postcard of Scott-land may be fake, but continues "so is the new-nationalist, Burns-burnished alternative, a nation forged of feel-hard-done-by Braveheart movies, Celtic lettering on tawdry signs and synthetic rage at ancient clearances." It begins predictably by slogging the current Scottish government and anyone who voted for them. Then advances on anyone who might appreciate Burns, over a whisky, on Hogmanay even. For Auld Lang Syne indeed. Nonetheless, don't ask me to defend the Braveheart comment. Mel Gibson probably deserves everything he gets for that.

However the author then moves to suggest that Gaelic is some kind of lesser language. That to have dual language signage is some kind of weakness and that the signs make us look cheap. Unfortunately the idea that Gaelic was something to be ashamed of was all to common a view, as a result of which there were less than 60,000 speakers of the language at the turn of this century. As an article from the Scottish American Journal in 1868 suggested "the preliminary indispensables for acquiring Gaelic are... catching a chronic bronchitis, having one nostril hermetically sealed up, and submitting to a dislocation of the jaw." I did think that such views were in the past, sadly they are not.

That is not to say that I support the idea of Gaelic road signs everywhere, such road signs in Edinburgh are, in my opinion, ironic to say the least. This is not a place to argue whether Edinburgh takes it name from Dun Eidyn, gaelic for fort on the slope, or Edwin's Burgh, named for King Edwin of Northumbria, a speaker of Old English. Nevertheless there do remain siginificant areas within the Borders and, and also the Northern Isles, where dual language signs are not appropriate since the etymology of the place names is not Gaelic in origin or history. Indeed, the status of Norn, the Norse dialect spoken at one time in both the Orkney and Shetland Islands, as an extinct language provides a lesson to temper the ignorance of those who see Gaelic as unimportant. For a large proportion of both the country and the population, Gaelic is a part of our history.

Indeed it is for this exact reason, remembering our history, why we continue to learn and speak of the Highland clearances which drove millions of Scots from our shores or into forced poverty in the Glasgow slums. An event which I think, still bears a causal link to some of the societal problems we face today, granted there is no-one left to blame. To say that continuing to speak of what was an incredibly dark passage in Scottish history is fake is therefore incredulous. The truth is we all need to remember our history and thus learn from our mistakes. Indeed forgetting ones history is not a mark of wisdom for precisely this reason. The author finishes his article with a quote from Edwin Muir, who apparently "called Scott a genius." That is now beyond the point, the fact is, the editorial stance of the Economist in alienating an entire country, isn't.