Scotland: Creating the Hobby Country

Let’s face it, the Scotland you know today is little more than a hobby country. You wear a kilt at a wedding, you toast the Bard on Burns Night and you cheer on the team in the Six Nations. And that’s about it. Scotland doesn’t participate on the world stage because it can’t. It has no seat on the UN and its flag is not internationally recognised. The Saint Andrews Cross is actually only recognised internationally as a nautical flag (meaning “my vessel has stopped” - somewhat appropriate when you consider the state of Scotland's nationhood after 1707). Yet Scotland’s journey from being one of the oldest countries in the world to being that of a British region has a long history. It all started with that age-old tactic of divide and rule…

Divide and Rule
You would think that most countries would envy Scotland, bestowed as it is with misty mountains, loch-side castles and world famous whiskies. Scotland is a land steeped with a rich heritage and culture, and gifted with its own indigenous languages and traditions. Yet for centuries, Scotland’s very existence was under threat from an England hell bent on claiming the island for itself. Scotland, however, was a hard nation to conquer and, as a result, England resorted to one of the oldest military strategies known to man: divide and rule. In essence, turn the natives against each other.

The primary focus of this strategy stemmed on creating a Highland / Lowland fault line in Scotland. It was a manufactured split, but one which would work to great effect. Indeed, testament to the success of the strategy lies in the fact that, even today, Lowland Scotland is often distinguished from Highland Scotland as being a linguistically and culturally separate entity.

Attacking the Language and culture
Essentially, England focused its attentions on embracing the Southern Lowlanders as being their cultured and civilised brethren whilst castigating those in the Highlands as barbarous. And, by the start of the 15th Century, the distinction between Lowlander and Highlander appears to have become firmly established. By the 16th century, Lowland Scots had even started to refer to Gaelic as “Erse” (meaning “Irish”), even though Scots Gaelic as a language actually pre-dated the existence of Scotland itself! In reality, Scots Gaelic was not a Highland language but was in fact spoken throughout Scotland from Thurso in the North to the Rhins of Galloway in the far South. Indeed, in Galloway, there was even a very distinct variety, known as Galwegian Gaelic.

Next, it was the turn of the Scots language to face the firing squad. The particular method of attack was to downgrade its status to that of a dialect. Yet Scots is not just a dialect, but a language. It is branched off from early Middle English around the mid-14th Century in a similar fashion to the way that English branched off from German, or Norwegian evolved from Danish. Indeed, to say that Scots is a dialect of English would be the equivalent of saying that Norwegian is just a dialect of Danish, a statement that would undoubtedly be received poorly in Norway, to say the least. Yet, regardless of this, the Scots language was nonetheless demoted in status - a factor that ensured that the writing and speaking of Scots could be belittled as simply poor English grammar.

As usual, there was no shortage of spineless Scots eager to out-do each other with just how much they disdained their Scottish-ness. And, one by one, prolific Scottish writers in the 18th Century started to turn away from the use of Scots words (or “Scotticisms” as they were disdainfully referred to at the time) in their work. Indeed, renowned Scottish philospher, economist and historian David Hume even went so far as to publish a list of “Scotticisms” to be avoided in the Scots Magazine in 1760.

Yet language was not the only element of Scottish culture under attack. After the last Jacobite Rising ended in 1746, the Hanoverian government tried to obliterate all Highland Scottish culture and, a year later, the playing of the bagpipes in Scotland was banned by an Act of Parliament. Furthermore, the wearing of tartan and carrying of weapons were also forbidden. Coupled with this was the fact that, from the mid-18th to early 19th Century, Highlanders were cleared from their lands to make way for sheep.

The final nails in the coffin of Scottish nationhood
As the 18th century progressed, more and more lowland Scots, eager to embrace their new lords and masters since the Acts of Union, continued to turn their back not just on “Highland” culture, but on Scottish culture itself. With Scots Gaelic dismissed as Irish, Lowland Gaelic all but defunct, the Scots language dismissed as little more than bad grammar, “Lowlander” turned against “Highlander” and Scots customs either banned or ridiculed, it was pretty much game over for Scottish nation. Modern day writers and historians have often argued, through the likes of “Kailyard” Myths, the Kirk (Church of Scotland) and the continued existence of Scots Law, that Scotland retained key elements of nationhood after 1707. Yet, in reality, by the end of the early 19th Century, with the end of the Napoleonic Wars with France, the notion of a Scottish national identity distinct from that of England was almost laughable.

It would not be unreasonable to assume that it was the Highlands that lost most in terms of culture over the centuries, given that it was so often the primary focus of attack. Yet, in reality, it was the Lowlands that lost more. It had sold everything for the promise of English gold. It has lost its culture and its languages. And it has now lost everything that it traded these for in the first place: its place as the workshop of the world.

The Empire is long over and with it, the industries that lowland Scotland so depended on. Scotland’s biggest city Glasgow, once the so-called 2nd City of the Empire after London, no longer builds ships. Nor does it serve as a trading port of any importance. Rather, its people answer phones. And this is not because Glaswegians have an aptitude for this, or because they have “classless” accents, as is so often the reason given for the prevalence of call centres in these parts. Rather it is because they are a seen as a cheap source of labour compared with England.

Scotland today: the hobby country
There is a scene in the film Four Weddings And A Funeral when the character Gareth walks into the wedding reception, witnesses a ceilidh and shouts: “It's Brigadoon! It's Bloody Brigadoon!”. A harmless bit of humour perhaps, but indicative of the way that Scottish culture has come to be viewed in the UK. The so-called “Tartan / Shortbread” image, whilst endearing to so many people elsewhere throughout the world, is actually viewed by the Scots to be something of an embarrassment. The years of ridicule have taken their toll and Scotland today can sometimes resemble little more than a “hobby” country. It’s a place where people will wear a kilt at a wedding, pour a dram for the bard and cheer on their team when it plays the “auld enemy”. Yet, once the 90 minute game is over, they soon revert back to being unquestioning subservient Brits they’ve been for the last 300 years.