The Auld Country

Alex Massie ponders the unusual sympathy among American conservatives for the cause, past and present, of Scottish independence; Larison weighs in here. Between them, I think they cover most of the reasons for this phenonemon. There's the “Cousins' War” dynamic, which both ethnically and ideologically connected the warring sides in Great Britain's 17th and early 18th century intra-island struggles to the combatants in the American Civil War, and thus created a natural affinity between the American Old Right and the Jacobite cause. There's the broader conservative preference for local self-government and traditional ways of life, which militates against the Protestant-liberal ideological project that unified Great Britain and brought the Highlanders to heel. More broadly still, there's the American tendency to romanticize our revolutionary period and look with disfavor on bossy Englishmen (a tendency that's particularly pronounced among conservatives), which breeds an affinity for anti-English revolts of all sorts.

It's the middle explanation, I think, that best tracks with my own philo-Caledonian sentiments. Despite some Southern roots in the family tree I have a Yankee's distaste for the Confederate cause, and I'm actually fairly partial to bossy Englishmen in many (though not all) historical contexts; my Jacobite sympathies, meanwhile, ultimately have more to do with regret over the eclipse of Catholicism in Great Britain than with Scottish liberties as such. To the extent that I find the Scottish National Party interesting, then, it's out of a combination of boyish Bonny Prince Charlie romanticism, instinctive small-is-beautifulism, and affection for, well, Scotland: I find the country intensely attractive in a variety of ways, and when you find a place attractive you naturally sympathize with people who say it ought to be free as well.

This is about as far as a serious weighting of the costs and benefits of disunion as you can get, and of course the SNP's historic commitment to socialism and the European Union is some distance from E.F. Schumacher and even further from His Most Catholic Majesty Charles Stuart, long may he reign. But then I don't pretend to be an authority on Scottish politics in any real sense; I just strike silly poses and leave the analysis to actual Scotsmen like Massie.

Photo by Flickr user Peter Macdonald used under a Creative Commons license.

Comments

This has to be the most useless post of the year. Why do conservatives like scottish independence? because they are as malevolent as the SNP.

I mean, I like Slovakia, but breaking up Yugoslavia was, well, not the best thing in the world.

Posted by charlie | December 14, 2007 4:26 PM

Demonstrably professing his stupidity Charlie describes the SNP as "malevolent." He continues the exercise by writing:

I mean, I like Slovakia, but breaking up Yugoslavia was, well, not the best thing in the world.

Slovakia was never in Yugoslavia. Slovenia, on the other hand, has done well in the breakup of Yugoslavia. The short-term effects of the breakup were undeniably tragic but the long-term impact is likely to be very positive for the people there.

It is stupid to insinuate that the chaos following the breakup of Yugoslavia is meaningful in the context of Scottish independence.

Posted by ndm | December 14, 2007 5:06 PM

Cam' ye by Athol, lad wi' the philabeg,
Down by the Tummel, or banks of the Garry?
Saw ye the lads, wi' their bonnets an' white cockades,
Leaving their mountains to follow Prince Charlie.

Follow thee, follow thee, wha wadna follow thee?
Long has thou loved and trusted us fairly!
Charlie, Charlie, wha wadna follow thee?
King o' the Highland hearts, bonnie Prince Charlie.

I have but one son, my gallant young Donald;
If I had ten, they should follow Glengarry;
Health to MacDonald and gallant Clan Ronald,
For these are the men that will die for their Charlie.

Posted by Jacob | December 14, 2007 5:09 PM

I used to be a Scotish romantic too, Braveheart was a heck of a film, then I read How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman and now my sympathies lie with the urban lowlander protestant champions of Great Briton.

Posted by Northern Observer | December 14, 2007 5:20 PM

Ross, Schumacher considered himself a socialist. A Christian socialist in the R.H. Tawney mode, and possibly not one who would have liked the SNP (I don't know much about the SNP). But unquestionably a socialist. He sang the praises of workers' cooperatives and things of that nature, and talks in his book quite a bit about socialism. He was a man of the (Christian) Left, and the right wing attempt to lay claim to him is absurd.

And yes, the breakup of Yugoslavia was a disaster. The idea of creating an artificial, ahistorical entity called 'Bosnia' (and now another artificial state called 'Kosovo') was a completely unjustifiable imposition by the West. Bosnia and Kosovo belong to Serbia historically. The only reason that Bosnia had a Muslim plurality in 1992 was because the fascist Croat regime murdered a million Serbs during World War II; prior to the Second World War Bosnia was a Serb-plurality region.

Posted by Hector | December 14, 2007 5:21 PM

NDM, quite correct about my Slovakia/Slovenia mixup. Up there with Mauritius and Mauritania.

However, to judge the disaster that was the breakup of Yugoslavia by observing the Slovenia has done well -- and it has -- is disingenuous. Somebody always comes up on top in these struggles.

My main point is that it sign of the general idiocy of the American right if they somehow mistake a nostalgia for Scotland --my ancestral place -- with supporting the efforts of the SNP.

Why is it that these groups that scream the largest in Europe for separation are the most unpleasant: Basques, Croats, Flems, (and now Scots?)

Posted by charlie | December 14, 2007 6:49 PM

Re: and thus created a natural affinity between the American Old Right and the Jacobite cause.

But wouldn't family values and Biblical Law crowd regard Cromwell as a sort of hero while the Stuarts with their mistresses and fancy boys would be no more loved than modern rock stars and Hollywood vixens.

Posted by Jonf | December 14, 2007 7:12 PM

I'm very skeptical that the Cousins' War theory, if it has any validity at all, can be extended to the Civil War. Most American Scots came not directly from Scotland, but by way of Northern Ireland, and therefore came from an anti-Stuart lineage. The Yankees of the North and the Scotch-Irish of the South were both of Calvinist lineage, and if anything, hard-core Calvinism lived on the South to a much greater degree than in the North.

Posted by James Kabala | December 14, 2007 7:48 PM

Also, neither side in the 1745 uprising was fighting for a truly independent Scotland; Bonnie Prince Charlie's open goal was to make his father king of all of Great Britain (and Ireland), and in fact his troops penetrated into England as far south as Derby. It is true that if the Stuarts had regained the throne they would have nullified the 1707 Act of Union, but the personal union of the two crowns would have continued, and who knows what might have happened in later years?

Posted by James Kabala | December 14, 2007 7:52 PM

Charlie writes:

Why is it that these groups that scream the largest in Europe for separation are the most unpleasant: Basques, Croats, Flems, (and now Scots?)

I don't know where the idea that Basques, Croats, Flems, (and now Scots?) are the most "unpleasant" in Europe comes from.

Regardless, I think it is pretty obvious that the European Union has disrupted the traditional notion of the Nation-State in Europe. It is quite natural then for the people of Scotland to look at say, their Irish cousins, and think that they could have had the same success were they no longer constrained by membership of the United Kingdom.

Posted by ndm | December 14, 2007 8:02 PM

To be honest, this sort of thing doesn't endear America to Britons such as myself. What business is it of yours to go around the place idly wishing to abolish and reorganise my country, and all in the name of some selfish, faint, remote, deluded ancestral pinings? I support the Iraq and Afstan engagements to the hilt, but I begin to believe there is something to this notion of clumsy American imperialism, and I do not like it one bit.

America and Americans have no business stirring up more problems in the UK. You did enough of that with Ireland. And before that, with India, and all the rest of it, after the war. Fuck off. The end.

Posted by cp | December 14, 2007 8:53 PM

Hey, watch it, cp, or we'll start talking about Wales next...

Posted by Michael Simpson | December 14, 2007 10:28 PM

As a general rule, both parties are better off economically and in terms of lives saved when they remain united (e.g., Canada and Quebec, UK and Scotland) except in situations where the oppressive attitudes and/or intolerance of those in power towards the minority are such that the it is impossible for the minority to live under the majority's control (India / Pakistan, Israel / Palestine, USSR / Baltic States).

Since the English are not going to murder the Scots or raze their religious temples or force them out of the best jobs and schools, I doubt that independence for the Scots is really a great idea.

Posted by Dilan Esper | December 15, 2007 1:53 AM

Re: What business is it of yours to go around the place idly wishing to abolish and reorganise my country, and all in the name of some selfish, faint, remote, deluded ancestral pinings?

Valid complaint, but will Euroepans then stop lecturing Americans on how to run our country? Even when I agree with you on issues like the death penalty and universal healthcare, it's still none of your business.

Posted by JonF | December 15, 2007 7:35 AM

I agree with Dilan. I am glad that Ireland is mostly independent (although I don't agree with all the methods that were used to bring it about), because it clearly was a case where the Catholic Irish were under the thumb of a generally oppressive regime. Scotland hasn't always had the best deal, but the Scottish have very rarely been truly oppressed. Don't forget that Scotland was not conquered by England in a military fashion; they became united in a two-part process of a Scot ascending the English throne (1603) and an act approved by both nations' Parliaments, albeit possibly with bribery (1707). I have sympathy for the Jacobite rising, but it was not a true independence movement (as I stated above) and was not supported by all Scots.

After they had gotten some romantic posturing by Robert Burns and others out of their system, during the nineteenth century and most of the twentieth there was almost no movement for Scottish independence. In contrast, the Irish were never reconciled to their lot.

Posted by James Kabala | December 15, 2007 9:06 AM

"I don't know where the idea that Basques, Croats, Flems, (and now Scots?) are the most "unpleasant" in Europe comes from."

Umm, just go there and look around. Yes, in an EU framework you can be a little state. However a lot of this separatism is being driven something for familiar: making sure government jobs and money are being spent on their native sons. When you make Flemish the national language, you are excluding a large labor pool (and African immigrants who speak French). Same with the Basques (i.e. you can't be a teacher if you don't speak Basque). Go to a Basque school and look at the terror-inspired haircuts. These guys are blackshirts. Also the Lombardy League. Don't know so much about the Croats except that they were the bad guys in WW2 -- and I mean as bad as the Nazis. I would hate to see the Scots join that lot.

The SNP is a bunch of wankers and wombles, and it is dangerous to support them just because you love their country. There is an ancient anti-English sentiment in this country -- we did fight a war with them -- and maybe these right wings GOP dogs are trying to draw on that sentiment.

And an independent Scotland is not going to be Ireland. For one thing, all the EU money which developed Ireland is going to be spent elsewhere -- and the North Sea oil is going (or gone). I'd like to see the Scots without their English subsidy.

And Dilan -- it wasn't so much that India and Pakistan split because the Muslims were going to be massacred -- there are after all more Muslims in India than in Pakistan. A better example might be East/West Pakistan. Or maybe Sri Lanka -- where despite some bad choices with the Tamils it makes more sense for it to be one country.

Posted by charlie | December 15, 2007 10:37 AM

James Kabala writes:

I have sympathy for the Jacobite rising, but it was not a true independence movement (as I stated above) and was not supported by all Scots. After they had gotten some romantic posturing by Robert Burns and others out of their system, during the nineteenth century and most of the twentieth there was almost no movement for Scottish independence.

The Jacobites have nothing whatsoever to do with the modern push for an independent Scotland. The idea that Robert Burns poetry was "romantic posturing" is an insult to the beauty of his romantic poems and the stridency of his political poems. That there was little drive for independence a century or more ago is irrelevant to the current situation which is much changed.

Dilan Esper writes:

As a general rule, both parties are better off economically and in terms of lives saved when they remain united (e.g., Canada and Quebec, UK and Scotland) except in situations where the oppressive attitudes and/or intolerance of those in power towards the minority are such that the it is impossible for the minority to live under the majority's control (India / Pakistan, Israel / Palestine, USSR / Baltic States).

The people of Europe are clearly not living in a time when the "general rule" holds - they are living in a time when there is enormous change in the relation of the state to the citizen and the citizen to the state. As the European Union, much to the chagrin of the little Englander, tries to migrate loyalty from the individual state to "Europe" the bonds holding people to their state inevitably come under stress.

The two most significant events in Scotland since the end of WW2 were the discovery of oil in the North Sea and membership of the European Union. The people of Scotland have seen the wealth generated by North Sea oil squandered by a Thatcher administration which was malignly indifferent to their fate. And like the Irish, the Scots have seen significant quantities of regional development aid coming from the EU to upgrade infrastructure such as roads. But unlike Ireland, Scotland has been prevented from responding to these changes because the needs of Britain always override the needs of Scotland - the recent fracas over fishing policy being an example. However, the EU has changed since 1973 when it was a Common Market of nine nations, and the relationship of Scotland to the EU needs to change in a way that is impossible while Scotland remains servient to a British Parliament that is at best benignly indifferent to its needs.

A comedy sketch a few years ago exposed a trivial example of that indifference. Someone read out the names of about forty countries and asked which was the odd one out. The answer was Scotland because it was the only one the Prime Minister hadn't visited in the previous year. Now the sketch might have been stretching the truth but it wouldn't have been funny were there not a smidgin of truth to it.

And finally, the comments of cp and Charlie resonate in the patronising tone that is so familiar to Scots whenever they venture out of their country. That song remains the same. But the time has come to start a new song - a song of hope.

Posted by ndm | December 15, 2007 2:42 PM

Dilan Esper sez "As a general rule, both parties are better off economically and in terms of lives saved when they remain united (e.g., Canada and Quebec, UK and Scotland) except in situations where the oppressive attitudes and/or intolerance of those in power towards the minority are such that the it is impossible for the minority to live under the majority's control (India / Pakistan, Israel / Palestine, USSR / Baltic States).

Since the English are not going to murder the Scots or raze their religious temples or force them out of the best jobs and schools, I doubt that independence for the Scots is really a great idea."

An ill-informed and foolish comment. George III wasn't murdering Virginians or razing New England's temples in 1776, but still....

Scotland signed a deal in 1707. It was a good deal then, but its time is done. Move on.

Posted by Gallowglass | December 15, 2007 3:33 PM

some Southern roots in the family tree

Huh.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | December 15, 2007 7:50 PM

Dilan shows once again how little he knows about international affairs. In general I believe that small countries are better than large ones, and secession is better than union, for the same reasons that I despise cosmopolitanism and globalization. I think India was probably better off without its Muslim provinces, and the Soviet Union better off without the Baltic States, because I think that both states were unmanageably large.

But to assume that the Muslim minority was being oppressed by the Hindu majority is intellectually lazy and vacuous. It is redolent of the liberal presumption that all minorities should be treated as the victimized party and that all religions and creeds should be treated as equal. Both of which are absurd and baseless. As a Christian of Hindu ancestry I take this personally. The Hindus of India were the victims of a thousand years of Muslim oppression. Which included forced conversion, religious oppression, torture, murder, rape, polygamy, usury, economic exploitation, and tyranny. It's an open question whether the Muslim rulers of India were more exceptional for their brutality or their decadence. Certainly they excelled at both. The Muslims of India were by every measure the oppressors and the guilty party. They were the ones who razed Hindu temples in the name of their polygamist 'prophet' and massacred thousands of Hindu pilgrims, not the other way around. The Muslims of India needed to make reparations and apologies to the Hindus, NOT the other way around. Until that point, there were eminent reasons why the Hindus of India justly felt aggriedved towards the Muslims. People like Dilan are trapped by their simple inability to discriminate between good and evil.

Posted by Hector | December 15, 2007 11:51 PM

I don't know where the idea that Basques, Croats, Flems, (and now Scots?) are the most "unpleasant" in Europe comes from.

The Phlegms have the least pleasant name, at least. The Basques just want their place in the sun.

Posted by Mike | December 16, 2007 2:32 AM

Hector Wrote: But to assume that the Muslim minority was being oppressed by the Hindu majority is intellectually lazy and vacuous. It is redolent of the liberal presumption that all minorities should be treated as the victimized party and that all religions and creeds should be treated as equal. Both of which are absurd and baseless. As a Christian of Hindu ancestry I take this personally. The Hindus of India were the victims of a thousand years of Muslim oppression. Which included forced conversion, religious oppression, torture, murder, rape, polygamy, usury, economic exploitation, and tyranny. It's an open question whether the Muslim rulers of India were more exceptional for their brutality or their decadence. Certainly they excelled at both. The Muslims of India were by every measure the oppressors and the guilty party. They were the ones who razed Hindu temples in the name of their polygamist 'prophet' and massacred thousands of Hindu pilgrims, not the other way around. The Muslims of India needed to make reparations and apologies to the Hindus, NOT the other way around. Until that point, there were eminent reasons why the Hindus of India justly felt aggriedved towards the Muslims. People like Dilan are trapped by their simple inability to discriminate between good and evil.

What Hector said. Historically, the Hindus in India were victims of Muslim invasion and raiding and were not agressors. The Muslim campaign in India has been considered by historians to be the bloodiest campaign in history - moreso than the Spanish and Portugese in South America, the Holocaust, or the Turks massacre of the Armenians. The death toll inflicted by the Muslim invaders and rulers was staggering, and that doesn't even include the mass famine that was caused by the confiscation of food either by forced payment of the jizya "tax" or just naked thievery and destruction. The Sultanate rulers were not content simply to rule the Hindus but forced them to convert to Islam, die by the sword, or live as dhimmi (second class citizens) with payment of the jizya tax, which of course the people could not afford.

In addition to the sultanate rulers, Timur the Lame's campaign in India involved pillaging, systematic rape of Hindu women, murder, and forced famine. Although he also made war against the Muslim Indian regime as well, as a devout Muslim, he targeted Hindus as infidels and mostly spared the Muslim population. Certainly, the atrocities were visited only on Hindus. Timur sacked and destroyed the city of Dehli and executed 100,000 captives. By his own personal account:

"In a short space of time all the people in the [New Delhi] fort were put to the sword, and in the course of one hour the heads of 10,000 infidels were cut off. The sword of Islam was washed in the blood of the infidels, and all the goods and effects, the treasure and the grain which for many a long year had been stored in the fort became the spoil of my soldiers. They set fire to the houses and reduced them to ashes, and they razed the buildings and the fort to the ground....All these infidel Hindus were slain, their women and children, and their property and goods became the spoil of the victors. I proclaimed throughout the camp that every man who had infidel prisoners should put them to death, and whoever neglected to do so should himself be executed and his property given to the informer. When this order became known to the ghazis of Islam, they drew their swords and put their prisoners to death.

One hundred thousand infidels, impious idolaters, were on that day slain. Maulana Nasiruddin Umar, a counselor and man of learning, who, in all his life, had never killed a sparrow, now, in execution of my order, slew with his sword fifteen idolatrous Hindus, who were his captives....on the great day of battle these 100,000 prisoners could not be left with the baggage, and that it would be entirely opposed to the rules of war to set these idolaters and enemies of Islam at liberty...no other course remained but that of making them all food for the sword."

None of this in any way exonerates other agressors in India or elsewhere in the world, but the simple fact is that Muslim agression in India was brutal over a time period and to an extent rarely if ever seen in our world. The scope of the brutality is horrifying.

I don't have a general opinion when it comes to whether succession or continued unity is better. I suspect that it's very hard for outsiders to determine what's really best for the folks involved or how they might feel.

Posted by hugo | December 16, 2007 7:55 AM

Re: The Muslim campaign in India has been considered by historians to be the bloodiest campaign in history

Which Muslim campaign? The Ghazi Turks (10th century I think) were appalling in their brutality. So was the Mongol ruler Timur (AKA Tamerlane) five centuries later. But the Moghuls are generally given credit for being enlightened and tolerant, until their latter generations when their empire collapsed in part because of their increasing emphasis on enforcing Islamic norms on their vast and mainly non-Mulsim realm.

Posted by JonF | December 16, 2007 4:38 PM

That's a very good point, JonF -- too broad a brush should not be painted. There were periods of tolerance, but we're talking about oases of tolerance and enlightenment in a desert of almost a millenium of brutality and oppression.

Posted by hugo | December 16, 2007 5:05 PM

yes, Timur's campaign, although a holy war, was against the Delhi sultanate because it tolerated Hindus. And Timur was just a bad man -- the Persians, Ottomans, Arabs and everyone else also had to suffer under him. Make Chinggis Khan look like a hero.

But Hindus are not being oppressed today (except in Jammu) and citing Timur does not help us understand what is happening in Gujurat or elsewhere.

And NDM, thank you for proving my point that SNP and their supporters are a bunch of whiners.

Posted by charlie | December 16, 2007 5:51 PM

Anyone who pines for Scottish independence, has clearly not spent time there recently. The country now consists mostly of drunk, illiterate bastards on the dole. How the hell are they going to rule themselves? And to what end? I know quite a lot of English people who will be glad to stop subsidizing them. Most of the Scots productive class long ago went south, and they mostly won't be coming back, independence or not.

Posted by Siobhan O'Lairghe | December 18, 2007 4:46 AM

Dear Siobhan O'Lairghe: may I take it from your Gaelic* name that you're Irish?

I "went south" at the age of 6, to South Africa, but I've lived in Dublin for 8 years now. For the first year or so I had regular doses of Guinness, but since then I have seen enough drunken behaviour to make me stop drinking altogether.

Do I really need to point you at the headlines on the RTE news website, about the effect of binge drinking on hospital emergency wards? The "pavement pizzas" in Grafton St. on Friday and Saturday nights? The absenteeism affecting businesses at this time of year?

You have no business making such comments about Scotland. I don't live there any more, but your comments are equally applicable to Ireland. You just hide Ireland's alcohol problems under a veneer of Green romanticism, and wait for the St. Patrick's Day tourists to bring their cash to Temple Bar.

* yes, I know you call it "Irish". OK, you can have the language back, and welcome to it.

Posted by brian t | January 13, 2008 2:20 PM