There's No Place Like Home
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opinion... There’s no place like home hat’s positive If you extend this vision of the Scottish external Homecoming aims to about connection to some of these other diasporas, WHomecoming? you begin to see the huge impact the Scots celebrate Scotland’s That it is happening at all. have had on education, politics, philosophy It couldn’t have occurred and medicine across the world. I’m not contribution to the world. 30 years ago. It reflects a suggesting Homecoming should be marketed greater awareness of the throughout the globe, but it at least should But is it a reflection of Scottish people’s outreach over the centuries incorporate an awareness of that dimension. and a growing historical sophistication and Most of those who will be coming from abroad our lives now, a chance understanding. for Homecoming will be North Americans. This to champion heritage – There are aspects of Homecoming that would highlights one of the biggest tensions in the gain anyone’s unqualified approval. The grass- project: the clash between indigenous Scottish or simply a marketing roots dimension and the music programme identity in 2009 and Scottish –American identity, are extremely interesting. There are also a an identity that has been forged through the exercise? bulletin series of academic events, including the invention of tradition, built around tartanry and Scottish Diaspora debate in the Parliament, Highlandism. In order to facilitate the process interviewed Professors that will be important and engaging. of seducing the American audience, the organisers of Homecoming have had to adopt But the central problem is that Homecoming those markers of Scottishness, which many Tom Devine and David has only made a connection with one part of Scots of today would think of as kitsch. Scotland’s historic diaspora: North America. McCrone (right) to hear This American audience is mainly indifferent to We’ve been sending people abroad for seven modern Scotland. Their interest is in a historic centuries. Only in the last 10 years has there what they think the Scotland: a vision of a romantic past. As part been net in-migration to Scotland. The kind of of Homecoming there will be a 7,000-person Homecoming event I’m envisaging would events say about our march, the Gathering of the Clans, led by the allow the Scottish people to be instructed that ‘clan chiefs’. Given that the great removals this is one of the very few diasporic nations in national identity in 2009. from the Highlands in the 18th and 19th the world. But there is no meaningful centuries were orchestrated by their ancestors campaign as part of Homecoming to appeal – as commercial landlords – most Scots would to Ulster, England, Europe or South Africa. find this idea deeply ironic. Continued page 16, column 1. 14 . THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH STAFF MAGAZINE SPRING 2009 bulletin he Homecoming It’s also important to say that there’s nothing we interest them in coming to a country that celebrations tell us wrong with marketing Scotland. We have a has some affinity with them? And the ‘auld Tthat there are many long and interesting history; it’s amazingly enemy’, England, is the country most like ours, different ways of being a diverse. We have a tourist industry going back and the one we’ve lived with since the island Scot: being born here, at least to the days of Walter Scott. existed. We’ve just completed some survey having parents or grand- work in England. Guess who they see as the We’ve been sending people around the world parents born here, or people they have most in common with? The for a long time, such that many people living simply living here. Indeed, if you want to be a Scots. England is our biggest neighbour and abroad have Scottish ancestors. We can get Scot, you have a number of ‘identity markers’ our biggest market. carried away celebrating the ‘blood line’ – and at your disposal. if we do we then ignore lots of other ways of Concerns have also been expressed about the being Scottish. Homecoming is good if it way Homecoming relates to Scottish Research on national identity that I have encourages people to come here. It’s not nationalism. There is, in my mind, very little link conducted with my colleague Frank Bechhofer good if it implies that you can only be Scottish between a lack of understanding in Scotland indicates that people make their claims to be if your granny is a MacTavish, to coin a of our own history and a rise in the popularity Scottish on all sorts of grounds, and most of phrase. After all, many Scots went abroad over of political nationalism. I know that some say these are accepted, including being born here the centuries, and made contributions to their that we have neglected our history, but there’s – not something we can do anything about! new home, just as many people have settled also the view that we became obsessed by it. There is no one way of being Scottish, any in Scotland and make a huge contribution Nationalism has developed for ‘political’ more than there is a single Scottish culture. here. They’re just as Scottish as people who reasons. Over the last 30 years, we’ve needed We are a mongrel nation; indeed, that itself is left. I was born and brought up in Scotland, more self-government, reflected in our growing a characteristic way of being Scottish. and have been here all my life. Those who sense of being first Scottish, but also British. Homecoming does not necessarily define have chosen to live here are just as Scottish Ours is not an ‘ethnic’ nationalism in which Scottishness simply as a ‘cultural export’ in the as I am. some people don’t have the correct culture or way that some of its critics have implied. skin colour, and so are not ‘one of us’. It’s It’s been claimed the Homecoming celebrations Instead, it recognises the diverse ways of ‘civic’, in that you can be a Scot by aspiration, have too strong a focus on appealing to a being Scottish. If we start saying that you are a by residence, and, of course, voting for our North American audience. If that’s the case, it Scot only by ancestry or birth, you infer that Scottish Parliament. There has been a growing wouldn’t make very good business sense. We some people are excluded. Anyway, none of ‘cultural’ sense of being Scottish – music, have many people around the world who feel us can do a thing about where our parents literature, the arts – but people’s sense of some attachment to Scotland. Our oldest decided we would be born, or what our being Scottish is not directly linked to their allies, after all, are the French. Why shouldn’t ancestors got up to. political or constitutional preferences. Continued page 16, column 3. SPRING 2009 THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH STAFF MAGAZINE 15 . opinion... Continued from page 14 the 1960s and 1970s the Scot preferred the Continued from page 15 role of victim. It was in this period that John We’ve become more Prebble’s books were the most popular form There is also an accusation that Homecoming of historical literature in Scotland – Culloden, celebrates ‘Scottishness’ by employing sophisticated in our the Highland Clearances, the Darien Disaster – artificial symbols and paraphernalia. But lots of national identity over all concentrating on Scottish disasters, the our favourite cultural institutions – kilts, haggis, chip on the shoulder and victimhood. But even tartan, even golf – we borrowed from other the last 30 years ... the most superficial understanding of our role people and made our own. Borrowing is fine, in Empire would conclude that we were the as long as we don’t think we have sole rights The modern Scot is colonisers, not the colonised! over things, or more dangerously, that only certain kinds of people have the right to use now pretty sniffy about How could we inform Scots about the realities, them. Back in the 1990s I wrote a book about and help forge a more balanced view of our traditional Highlandism Scottish heritage. It convinced me that diasporic role? The teaching of Scottish history Scottish was a matter of doing, rather than We have become more sophisticated and in our schools needs to better capture the being; in other words, most folk don’t get confident in our national identity over the last tension between our national history and the terribly precious about heritage. I remember 20 or 30 years. The White Heather Club, Andy wider European and world history. talking to an old man who had set up the Stewart and Moira Anderson sit uncomfortably Ironically this comes back to Homecoming, Tartan Society. “Wear what you like,” he said. with the modern Scot. But what’s being because the Scottish Diaspora is a way of “The great thing about tartan is that it’s very marketed by Homecoming now is very much linking Scotland to the rest of the globe. Our flexible; it can be re-invented.” an incarnation of that. The modern Scot is worldwide impact could be used as a route pretty sniffy about this traditional Highlandism Homecoming represents an opportunity to from the national story into the international in a way that was not the case in the 1950s. raise awareness of Scots’ cultural history and story. One of my recent books, Scotland’s impact on the world. We have a huge While I understand that Homecoming should Empire: 1600 – 1815 (2003) was about the advantage that globally people know of us and be celebratory, there is also danger of it global reach of the Scots during the early two our culture.