Written evidence submitted by Ariel Killick SCOTTISH POPULATION & DEMOGRAPHIC CHALLENGES & THE DIASPORA ONE OF SCOTLAND’S GREATEST NATURAL RESOURCES OCTOBER 2016 2 Contents 1. Author Information: Page 4 o Co-Founder Australian Scots Gaelic Summer School 1997 o Facilitating Employment of 39 Artists & Arts Production Staff across 20 Projects since 2013 o Supporting over 80 Scottish & UK businesses o Delivering 750 Workshops & Performances for 175 Schools, Communities, Festivals & Events, engaging more than 9,400 children, young people and adults o Clearances Descendant 2. Scotland’s special relationship with Australia, New Zealand, Canada and America 5 3. Analogy: The Clearances and Meditteranean Crossing Tragedies Today 5 4. Diaspora Journeys to Scottish Residency – Identity & Adolescence in Multicultural Supercities, British Genocidal Legacies & Impacts of Australian & Scottish Independence Campaigns 6 5. Non-EU Clearances Descendant Contribution to Scottish Employment, Economy, Education & Culture since 2013 7 6. A Close Up View of Communities in Crisis & an Island Welcome - “It’s like an old people’s home here” 9 7. Population Growth 1921 - 2015 in Australia & Scotland - Australia - 5 million to 24 million vs. Scotland - 5 million to… 5 million 10 8. Descendants of Pioneers: Non-EU Clearances Descendants, ‘Can Do’ Attitudes & Repopulating Scotland’s Remote Highland & Island Areas 11 9. Homecoming Year – An Alternative View 13 10. Sqaundering one of Scotland’s Greatest Natural Resources - Disinheriting the Diaspora 14 11. The Zielsdorfs & Brains – International Negative Publicity for Would-Be Non-EU Scottish Diaspora Immigrants 15 12. Shattering the Positive Legacy of Homecoming Initiatives 15 13. 3rd Class Citizen Status for Non EU Clearances Descendants – A Double Injustice 16 14. 1% of 12 Million-strong Diaspora: Reversing Highlands Population in a Generation & Resolving it in Three 17 15. International Precedents for Ancestral Right of Return 18 o Spain & Portugal 2013 & 2014 – ‘Making Amends for a Dark Chapter of History’ - Citizenship for Inquisition Refugee Descendants 3 o Russia – The 2006 Compatriots Resettlement Program - A Step Further Down the Homecoming Path o Poland & Ireland 16. Post-Brexit Possibilities 21 17. Pre-existing Campaign Groups for Free Movement Between UK-AUS-NZ & CAN 21 18. EU Investment Hubs, Joined Up Thinking & Homecoming 22 19. Land Reform, Community Sponsorship & Scottish Diaspora Return Immigration Development 24 20. Digital Clearances: The Digital Stone Age & Internet Access Now a UN Basic Human Right 26 21. Clearances by Another Name? Wealthy Retirees, Affordable Housing, Sustainable Communities & Local-led Development 28 22. Closing Summary - Turbulent Times Redolent with Opportunity 30 23. Acknowledgements: Deputy First Minister, John Swinney, Alex Salmond, MP & The National 32 24. Appendix: Teacher & Participant Evaluation of Ariel Killick’s Gaelic Work 33 4 1. Author Information My name is Ariel Killick and I am an Australian-born, now Scottish-based, professional Gaelic-speaking arts practitioner and performer. I specialise in bilingual Gaelic outreach work through both teaching and performance across numerous artforms, including Circus Skills, Graffiti Art, Wicker Sculpture, and Community Participative Street Theatre & Spectacle, also drawing from traditional Gaelic folklore as a professional Storyteller. From my base in Glasgow, I work primarily in Gaelic & bilingually right across Scotland, and also in Irish Gaelic in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Since March 2013 and by December 2016, my work will have facilitated paid employment for no less than 39 Artists and Production Support Staff, largely Scottish or Scottish-based, working on 20 separate projects, festivals and events, with an approximate aggregate budget total of £68,406. In addition to other solo festival and event work, as well as extensive touring educational work right across Scotland (over 750 Workshops & Performances for some 175 Schools, Communities, Festivals & Events Directly engaging with more than 9,400 children, young people and adults), my work has also supported at least 48 individual Scottish or Scottish- based businesses, 29 Accomodation providers, largely in Scotland’s Highlands and Islands, totalling well over 80 businesses in the UK as a whole. Almost all of these projects featured Gaelic and bilingual work as a central element and further detail is given in subsequent sections. Co-Founder Australian Scots Gaelic Summer School 1997 In 1997, I spearheaded the establishment of the first Australian Scots Gaelic Summer and Autumn Weekend School, with first generation Scottish Australian, Alasdair Taylor, who has been living in Scotland & working with Gaelic for many years now. I am proud to say the Australian Scots Gaelic Summer School has continued since and will be entering its 20th year in 2017, run by Comunn Gàidhlig Astràlia (Scots Gaelic Society of Australia)1. Alasdair and I are not only both graduates of the Scots Gaelic course as part of the Bachelor of Arts, Celtic Studies programme run by Sydney University2, but have also facilitated paid employment opportunities, many focussed on Gaelic, for well over 40 individuals in Scotland. As a side issue, this should make a considerable business case for Scottish Government financial support for a teacher of Scottish Gaelic at Sydney University on an ongoing basis, as well as Commun Gàidhlig Astràilia and the Australian Scots Gaelic Summer School. Further information on the Commun Gàidhlig Astràilia Fundraising Appeal to this end is available here. Clearances Descendant Via my paternal grandmother Jessie Killick (nee McKechnie), I am also a direct descendant of William McKechnie, who along with his entire village of Shiaba, Ross of Mull, were evicted from their homes by the Marquis of Lorne, the Duke of Argyll's son, in 1847. The history of this village is exceptionally well documented, not just by the nearby Ross of Mull Historical Centre, in the tiny village of Bunessan, and in commentary in The Scotsman newspaper3, but the ruins of Shiaba have been described by no less than Sir 1 www.ozgaelic.org 2 http://sydney.edu.au/courses/bachelor-of-arts/major-celtic-studies 3 http://www.scotsman.com/heritage/people-places/shiaba-the-story-of-a-cleared-village-1-465482 5 Professor Tom Devine as “a fantastic laboratory for looking at the clearances (and) … the most significant site in the western Highlands.”4 Indeed the existence of Ross of Mull Historical Centre itself, in what is now a very sparsely populated rural area, is an indication of the considerable interest of Mull Descendants in their history. Although my Scottish ancestors left Scotland in the 1850's, the McKechnie name was carried all the way through to my Grandmother, and if it weren't for patriarchal norms, my last name would be McKechnie as well – and thus the echoes of the Clearances ring loud and clear in an unbroken line via contemporary names and memories many thousands of the Diaspora worldwide would carry today. 2. Scotland’s special relationship with Australia, New Zealand, Canada and America Scotland’s sociocultural history is reflected in its special relationship with people across Australia, New Zealand, Canada and America today, where so many of Scotland's citizens landed after being forced from their Highland & Island homes, or as economic migrants. That this special relationship remains strong is evidenced by the huge number of Highland Games and Gatherings every year across all these countries, as well as the many towns in these countries bearing Scottish names, as what were effectively Clearances refugees, forced, displaced and or economic migrants sought to forever cement remembrance of their Scottish origins in their new surroundings. Descendants of families have not been in Scotland for generations can still feel a sometimes surprising sense of coming home, cultivated by spiritual ties, cultural affection and affinities borne of family histories carefully preserved over many generations. 3. Analogy: The Clearances and Meditteranean Crossing Tragedies Today My Scottish ancestors, who eventually arrived in Australia in 1854, were very fortunate to have survived the journey at all. In just six years between 1847 and 1853 alone, at least 49 Scottish emigrant vessels were lost at sea5 – a situation directly analogous to the tragedies unfolding on a regular basis in the Meditteranean today, albeit with the journeys of Scottish Clearances Refugees and emigrants usually being consideraby longer and arguably thus far more dangerous. The grievous injustices inflicted across so many Scottish Highland and Island communities is amply documented, with thousands of families, villages and crofters, losing their livelihoods, their homes and their lives during this shameful period of history, forced from land they had held for generations as their way of life was exterminated to further the financial ambitions of aristocratic landowners who valued sheep more than people. If they were lucky, those families were dragged screaming from their homes, evicted and left to face destitution. If they were unlucky, their homes were simply set alight as they sat within them, actions that would arguably qualify as crimes against humanity in modern times. The clearances forced the migration of highlanders to the sea coast, the Scottish lowlands, and further afield to the ‘new worlds’ of North America and Australasia. Today more descendants of highlanders are found in those diaspora nations