Maybe it's just us but we found this a refreshing break from the miasmic gloom and ill-feeling. No dithering about - a straightforward opinion expressed in clear terms. Some will disagree with the tone but others will appreciate the clarity and understated passion.
There are clues in the title, illustration and text, to help identify the author. Sadly, we are unable to offer any prize but we're sure that the sheer kudos of being the first person to 'win' an OTS quiz will be reward enough in itself.
The question is simple enough:
‘My voice has not spoken loudly for Scotland, but whenever it has voiced an opinion, that opinion has aye been on the side of rebellion, if that is the correct word to use for an assertion of the quiet dignity of our own country. My attitude is summed up by MacDiarmid.
The sons o’ freedom drie their weird,
And huvna loss nor gain.
For none keeps tryst wi’ Scotland
‘til Scotland’s born again.
That time is now upon us. I have not changed, but my country has changed. It recognises itself now. I could never have taken part in the politics of an alien country. I entered manhood with a touch of treason. That is how I felt towards Westminster then. It is not how I feel now. Now I defy Westminster utterly. I defy the right of a vast majority of Englishmen to rule over my country. I defy the right of any Englishman to rule over my country. Westminster, with its vast inbuilt majority of English MP’s may be the temporary government of Scotland, but the de jure government, the real government, is the Community of the Realm of Scotland. Ourselves alone.
Do not ask for devolution from Westminster. Westminster has nothing to give us. It is not for England to give us things. It is not even for us Scots to take them. It is for us Scots to create our own political institutions out of our own unbounded and abounding native talent and ability. We are a nation. After almost 300 years of foreign government our nationality is unabated. We must create our own political institutions. It is no-one’s responsibility but our own. Ours, not theirs. Ourselves alone.
Already we are looking around us with a new confidence. Devolution, whatever that may mean, is nearly upon us. The Scottish Grand Committee sits in Edinburgh. At least I think it does. It has been very properly ignored by us Scots, as though it never existed. That is the way to treat Westminster, under whatever guise or disguise it comes. Whatever clothes it wears, we must not even give it a nod of recognition. The only Scotsman Scotland should send to Westminster is an ambassador. Not even a Lord High Commissioner. Ambassadors represent free peoples, and we are a people hewn of an ancient and enduring freedom.
‘Look ye into the pit whence ye were dug, and unto the rock from which ye were hewn’ said the prophet Isaiah. Strangers have come to our country, black, white, brown, and yellow among them, but they have not tried to teach us their ways. Instead they have done us the great honour of adopting ours, and of joining the body politic of Scotland. They are as Scottish as any family who has lived here for 2000 years and more. Only a handful of anglicised Scots disgrace us by aping the ways of the English, just as Mrs Thatcher disgraced the English, and the true spirit of England, by aping the ways of America. When we look at the rock from which we were hewn we need not be ashamed. It is a fine stone and there is plenty of great material left in that quarry, for ourselves and for the world. We will serve the world better when we serve also ourselves.
We are part of world history. Two hundred and 15 years ago a handful of American settlers, many Scots among them, defied the greatest power the world had seen since the days of Rome. The old regimes laughed at them and their puny handwritten constitution, a constitution which has endured, with amendments, to this day. Scots had a hand in the writing of it. It is the constitution of the country whose President lives in the White House. With a jest about the White House I draw this book to an end. A jest and a family boast. My family made the White House white, so we did. Before 1812 the White House was not white. It was just a dirty grey. In the war of 1812 my granny’s great-uncle Tom set fire to it. He burned down the White House.
When the Americans repaired it they whitewashed it to hide great-uncle Tom’s burn marks. But the burn marks keep showing through, just as the nation of Scotland has kept showing through.
If one Scot can make the White House white, five million of us can make our Parliament House a Parliament again. We will see it soon. When the Queen rides to the State opening of the first Scottish Parliament since 1707, I’ll be there. See the Queen! See me! I’m the wee man standing in the crowd with his hands in his pockets, and the wry grin on his face. See any Scot. See me.’
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