IMAGINE a burn as it rises in the rain lashed hills looming above a Scottish moor, and in your mind follow its path to the sea. There are waterfalls where it covers the vertical distance almost in an instant. It passes by the ruined cottages of an abandoned village. It pools in the stretches of calm water that appear still and tranquil in a boggy landscape that captures centuries sodden with pain and loss. There are meanderings. There are eddies. There is turbulence as the stream crashes into the rocks and leaps and sprays and gurgles and cries.
As it approaches the end of its journey the tide sometimes creates a back flow as the stream broadens, deepens, becomes mature. But the current goes only one way, always onwards, always flowing. A Scottish burn always reaches the sea where the waters are freed from the confines of their banks to dance their way across the great world ocean. That’s the path to independence. It’s a journey of the imagination.
British nationalists don’t like it when supporters of Scottish independence wax poetic. They don’t like it when we talk of the spirit, the soul, the imagination. That’s because there is no poetry in the Scottish rendition of British nationalism. There is no song: the only music they possess is that of a marching band that beats the drum of pursed lips, of short-sightedness, of meanness of spirit. British nationalism in Scotland is founded in telling us what we can’t do, who we can’t be, what we can’t afford, what we mustn’t aspire to.
It’s not a dream, it’s a fearscape. It’s the chains on an imagination that drag us down and stop us soaring. It’s the spitefulness of caging a wild bird. It is as poetic as a till receipt for a broken plastic flower.
This week the noted Scottish author Andrew O’Hagan delivered a lyrical speech to the Edinburgh Book Festival in which he spoke about his conversion to the cause of independence, his belief in the inevitability that Scotland will one day, one day soon, retake its place amongst the independent states of this world.
He spoke about how the British state has been destroyed by those who claim to love and cherish it. He spoke about the searing betrayal of Scotland’s distinctiveness by a series of British nationalist politicians who put Scotland’s interests behind those of their parties. He spoke about sitting in the Supreme Court as Scotland’s voice was traduced by a British establishment that openly boasted that the Sewel Convention was meaningless cant designed to keep Scotland in its place. He spoke about the poetry of Scotland, and a land that finds itself in its lyrics and its verse.
It didn’t go down well with British nationalists. One wrote in the Guardian to condemn it as beautifully expressed nonsense in a piece which was ugly and sneeringly expressed nonsense that resorted to legalism and lacked the ability to distinguish between what is legal, and what is right. It may be legal for Westminster to claim that the Sewel Convention is meaningless in law, it doesn’t make it right, it doesn’t make it moral.
The British nationalists who don’t have the insight to recognise their own nationalism were upset and angry that Andrew chose to speak about the value and worth of a Scotland that plugs itself directly into the rest of the world and which isn’t mediated by Westminster and is not about the price of oil or taxes or budgets. They were outraged that he chose to speak of the limitless and boundless Scotland of his own imagination and not the poor and helpless Scotland of a British nationalist imagining. They were furious that he spoke about the infinite possibilities of a land that’s free to define itself instead of the bean-counting negativity of a budget deficit of Westminster’s creation. They were contemptuous that he was no longer cooperating in their mission to squash Scotland’s spirit with a spreadsheet, which to be fair to them is the only thing they’ve got that counts as creative writing. But above all they were angry because he refused to speak within the bounds of their narrow vision. How dare a creative writer create a vision of a Scotland that isn’t a British one?
A country discovers itself in the voices of its creative writers. It sees itself in the mirror that literature and poetry hold up to it. The path to independence is a path that is hacked out by poets, made firm by novelists, given foundations by playwrights. The path to independence is a path that is made from dreams, from spirit, from imagination, not from spreadsheets and graphs. That’s why the Union is over and the British nationalists have already lost. If you have no imagination of your own, you can’t speak for the imagination of a nation.
Scotland is swimming in the sweet water of the independence stream. And we can smell the sea.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel