Hàlo! Is mise Siusaidh Nic An Toisich!

Susan McIntosh

In case you didn’t quite recognize that it is Scots Gaelic for “Hello! I am Susan McIntosh” – and I am honored and excited to begin blogging for the great team at ScotClans. A few folks may already know me as the immediate past president of the Council of Scottish Clans & Associations (COSCA). I stepped down as COSCA President in March of this year so that I could slow down a bit and try my hand at a few new tricks. Some of you might also have run across nearly three years of my column on the back page of Scots Heritage Magazine called “McLetter From America”. While all of that was great fun, I am chuffed to say that I have consolidated my efforts into the most active, inquisitive and engaging Scottish heritage presence on the web and on the field – ScotClans. Whether we are old friends or new I can’t wait to begin to interact with you here on Bletherskite.

I will be writing about the two Scots loves of my life. No, not Sean Connery and Sam Heughan, although I would not shrink from that duty. I will be reporting on Scots Gaelic culture and history and on Scottish contemporary affairs with an eye to making both easily accessible, intelligible and fun for folks of the global Scottish diaspora. Here’s a bit more about what’s in store.

Not your father’s Gaidhlig

Not everyone with a Scottish heritage sports Gaelic ancestry or interest but many do. Even if yours is a family of Scottish Normans, who somehow never made the Bruce mistake of marrying into those wild eyed Gaels, a better knowledge of the Scots Gaelic culture will enrich the larger brotherhood of Scots. Plus its just plain fascinating stuff.

I will be looking at our Gaelic ancestors using a different lens, using resources that focus with and on Gaelic eyes and words free of non Gaelic interests and bias. This will be a story that has gone untold and is largely forgotten in the Scottish diaspora world. Resources with which to learn about Gaeldom from the Gaelic perspective based upon resources written in Gaelic by Gaels are tragically few and largely inaccessible to the Scots Diaspora.

The good news is, over the last few decades, more scholars and institutions are locating and digging into these true primary Gaelic resources and they are providing insight from a native perspective. The less good news is that most of these resources and scholarly interpretations are widely dispersed and hard to find, often written fully or partially in the Gaelic language, and not easily available and organized for those who have the greatest hunger for the information and the least time to spend hunting for it – the Gaelic Diaspora.

Americans learn virtually nothing about our Scots Gaelic past in school and those of us with an interest must take it upon ourselves to go find answers. Yet when we discover what has been written about our ancient indigenous roots we too often find that it fails to satisfy. We learn about Gaelic culture through the filter of words such as “savage”, “barbaric”, “primitive”, “outlaw”, “backward” and “anxious to be improved by British civilization.” We have been fast forwarded to a history told from the perspective of a growing, Anglicized, urban-centered, industrializing and outward looking 19th Century British Scotland. As you might guess we aren’t getting the whole story. Or necessarily the correct story all the time. We want to know as much about our ancestors’ worlds as possible. Consequently, we want to know their world through their own eyes.

But what is that story? It’ll be my job to begin to chase that down and bring it to Bletherskite. I am not a Gaelic scholar and my own knowledge of the language is steadily approaching rudimentary. I will be picking the brains of the best scholars out there today to begin to paint the picture of what it means to be a Gael – from our own perspective.

And lest we forget, Gaelic culture is a living thing. So don’t be surprised to find some chatter about the contemporary arts side of our Gaelic world to complement and give context to the ancient roots. I look forward to an exciting and enlightening journey to recover and learn about a great Gaelic civilization and I hope you join in!

Watching Scotland: The world is watching Scotland – maybe we should find out what all the buzz is about.

While most of us in the Scottish Diaspora can extemporaneously provide a rousing and mostly accurate recount of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, few of us can do the same for 2014′s version of “the 45” or “the 56” for that matter. My second job at Bletherskite is to begin to change that for anyone that is interested.

Both “the 45” and “the 56” are new monikers, freshly minted in the exciting and turbulent world of contemporary Scottish politics. Scotland boasts an extremely engaged, creative and energetic society today and Scottish independence from the United Kingdom is only one area that has garnered huge worldwide attention.

Scotland is currently in the midst of fundamental land reform discussions the outcome of which could have profound consequences for the Scottish diaspora, including our built and environmental heritage. In other news, the very backbone of Scottish politics and government, the Labour party, has recently imploded while a record 56 Scottish National Party (SNP) MPs were sent to Westminster recently, one of whom is the youngest Minister of Parliament in the history of the Union at 20 and she has a colleague who is 23. Scotland is folding 16 and 17 year olds into the electoral process as the nation recognizes the importance of youthful views and judgment for the future. Scotland is an exceptionally exciting place to live – and watch – right now!

No one outwith Scotia is more interested in Scotland than the Scottish Diaspora but geez-Louise it is difficult to find trustworthy straightforward reporting on the subject. America is a particularly difficult market as we are not of the Commonwealth and thus one more step removed from news of the United Kingdom.

Then there is the challenge of understanding it all. From the American perspective just about everything about Scottish and United Kingdom politics and government are, well, foreign. Who can tell a Labour or a Tory MSP from a hole in a pine tree over here? Ta da! I can and I’m going to help you make some sense of it all too.

Specifically, I will abandon the comfort of good ol’ American news sources and daringly sift through actual British and Scottish news and opinion and blog about the stuff that matters most to the Diaspora:

• Scottish independence (or not)
• Scottish natural environment
• Scottish heritage

You’ll see a few interviews with key Scottish leaders here as well. As we go along, Rodger, Amanda and I will be providing some keen resources to help folks in the Diaspora interpret what is going on in your ancestral homeland today. Look for my first Watching Scotland post here on Bletherskite for a wee glossary of terms necessary for understanding what the heck is going on over there.

So that’s it! If you have any thoughts or suggestions or comments or gripes, fire them over. We are interested in your ideas. I can’t wait to get started and I hope to see and hear from everyone in the ScotClans extended family!

The post Introducing Susan McIntosh – Our latest member of team ScotClans! appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.

We have grown in the tens of millions and developed differently than we would have in Scotland. We know of course that only Scotland is Scotland – the weather, the landscape, the Scots. There is no Scot like a Scot from Scotland. Yet, likewise, there is no Scot like a Scot from America or Australia or Singapore. Scotland owns us all, as Robert Louis Stevenson and others have noted, to the twentieth generation and beyond.

With its mind lately on independence, Scotland may not have noticed that as the Scottish nation has recently become ascendant in the eyes of the world, so has its diaspora. More people are aware and proud of their Scottish ancestry and heritage today than at any other moment in history. Scotland today has a very big and very supportive global family and that is no small thing.

The matter of Scottish independence is now burning brightly on the world’s screen. The transformation of ‘the Scottish question’ into a question of global importance via the unpredicted success of the YES campaign means that the world is now closely engaged with what had previously been portrayed as an internal if not somewhat trivial British matter.

Despite sharp prodding of journalists, most of the leaders of Scottish diaspora organizations have remained silent on the question of Scottish independence while the debate remained almost entirely a Scottish matter. As the President of The Council of Scottish Clans & Associations I have been one of those who have withheld opinions. However, as the President of the United States has now officially opened the ‘butting – in’ season in America and the rest of the world has followed course, I will add my individual Scottish American voice to the din.

Of course I cannot and do not speak for the Council of Scottish Clans & Associations on this matter as COSCA has not taken an official position on the Scottish referendum. However, as the debate over Scottish independence widens to the world, the voice of the Scottish diaspora ought to be heard. So count my voice simply as one of those who care.

It’s the Union Stupid.

My own view toward Scottish independence has only recently been solidified. It has been determined more by the demeaning, warlike and punitive nature of the NO campaign itself than by the whizzing shrapnel pieces of economic, social or political substance that I have managed to catch while following the heated battles. It isn’t that all of the facts and figures and ‘what if’s’ are unimportant. Of course they are important – those that aren’t simply fantastical scaremongering. Yet there is something much more fundamental that seems to be motivating the heart of this young, energetic, upbeat & spirited YES campaign. Something that must be settled even before you can get to the economics.

As Henry McLeish insightfully predicted as early as 2012, the rock solid refusal of Westminster to honestly accept Scotland as an equal partner within the British Union will eventually result in a sovereign and independent Scotland outside of the Union. Britain’s relentlessly negative drum beat has finally led me to place one of those snappy wee YES twibbons on my social media profile and I suspect it has moved more Scots in a similar direction than almost anything else in the campaign. The manner in which London has approached and conducted this campaign is the best evidence that many at Westminster prefer to dominate Scotland instead of deal with her as an equal sovereign partner sharing an influential but very small set of islands. That is no good foundation for a political union.

In the wake of a YES vote the need for England to live next to Scotland on a friendly, cooperative, commercially active and healthy basis will of course remain as important as it has always been. If a new union of interests as to certain areas of life appears to be in the best interests of both nations in the future, logically, there is no reason both Scotland and England as friendly neighbors would not pursue that or some other mutually beneficial path. Certainly it is hard to believe that the people of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland would want anything other than a decrease in the present level of conflict. That is what the rest of the world will want.

Yet until the very recent fear and panic set it, Westminster’s NO campaign statements sounded as though September 19th following a YES vote would initiate a period of intentionally destructive economic and social warfare levied against the people and institutions of Scotland. While not at all an unprecedented reaction by England, it doesn’t really predict the sort of temperament that you might want to cuddle up to in a 21st century political union. Point of the YES team made. The British Union was improperly founded and has matured in a way that disallows Scotland’s people the opportunities to freely and completely pursue their national vision for the future.

I Am Unanimous In That

In a way, the original referendum campaign is over. The YES campaign has already won victory: Scotland is, by now, fairly united that fundamental constitutional adjustment must come and come now. All that is left is for Scotland to determine what the relative positions of the two nations will be in the negotiations that will follow the vote. Will Scotland choose to enter those discussions unified as a free and independent member of the nations of the world or as a questionable sub region of a marginally and temporarily repentant overlord? That question remains critically important.

Scotland has gained the high ground. A NO vote now surrenders the nation. The time to back down and hope for the best deal – if ever there was such a time – is past. Scotland seems to be growing more united behind major constitutional change but London is clearly not. Achieving a true commitment to a different fundamental relationship between Scotland and England south of the border is not a thing that can happen in a day and it won’t occur without a strong hand. Success will require unity and clarity of purpose in the people of Scotland so the leaders can be held to no less. If Scotland believes that it is every nation’s equal in the 21st century it should begin 2015 having made a clear and unavoidable declaration of that belief on September 18, 2014.

Can The Torch of Liberty Be Loaned?

I am a great fan of the American independence movement – the old one back in 1776. The primary point of the American Revolution was to break old bonds that no longer made sense and create something better and more just than anything mankind had attempted before. Historical scholarship is now firmly united in the view that we got our ideas about freedom, liberty and justice more from 17th and 18th century Scottish enlightenment thinkers than anyone or anywhere else. Aye, and the development of America was largely engineered by the pioneer Scots who flowed across the country and Arthur Hermann has sold an awful lot of books entitled “How [the Scots] Invented The Modern World (And Everything In It)”. For good and for ill this isn’t the first time Scots have been at the heart of major political change in the western world.
Our modern world could use some peaceful reinvention and no one may be more keenly aware of that than Scotland’s Yes voter. Certainly no one in western civilization is presently more willing or better equipped to take the first difficult step along that path with courage, commitment, selfless virtue and goodness of heart than the people of Scotland and those around the world who support that nation. After all, these are the people who, over the course of decades of work and commitment, have come to the brink of engineering a major political revolution crafted with ideas and dogged human communication instead of bullies and bullets. Perhaps it is now time for America to lend the torch of liberty back to the people of Scotland so that they may advance the cause of human freedom, equality and justice a little further on down the line.

The post The World Is Watching – A View From the USA appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.

David Cameron answers questions from the media in East London after his speech on the importance of Scotland to the UK.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron has referenced his clan heritage in an appeal to keep Scotland part of the United Kingdom. In a speech given in East London last Friday, Cameron urged Scots and Britons to defend their shared history and heritage by voting against the upcoming referendum on Scottish Independence.

With only seven months to go before the big vote, Cameron spoke of his pride in his own Scottish roots in a major speech on the issue. Referencing his West Highland ancestry, Cameron said: “The name Cameron might mean ‘crooked nose’ but the clan motto is “Let us unite” – and that’s exactly what we in these islands have done.”

Cameron’s emotional defence of the Union also praised Scotland’s role in Britain’s military achievements, from the rich history of ship building on the Clyde to the bagpipes of Lord Lovat’s regiment which roused troops during the D-Day landings. He also stated Scotland had helped to make Britain “the most extraordinary country in history”, then used the success of Team GB at the 2012 Olympic Games to urge voters to keep together “the winning team in world history.”

While the speech made a great deal of importance of Cameron’s clan heritage, it conveniently left out Clan Cameron of Lochiel’s long history of battling the English. Described as ‘fiercer than fierceness itself’, Clan Cameron’s reputation can be summed up with their war cry: “Chlanna nan con thigibh a so’s gheibh sibh feoil!” (Sons of the hound come here and get flesh!).

Legend states that a Cameron contingent fought alongside Robert the Bruce against the English king Edward II at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, the decisive clash of the Wars of Scottish Independence. Members of the clan also fought in the front line of the Jacobite Army during the disastrous battle of Culloden in 1745. Following the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Cameron estates were forfeited by the Government because of the support the chief had given to the Jacobite cause.

Cameron’s speech also did not mention that he has for many years enjoyed family holidays on the Tarbert estate on the Scottish island of Jura. The estate, owned by his wife Samantha’s stepfather, Viscount Astor, has 6,000 deer, which the Prime Minister has joined stag shooting parties to hunt.

Responding to the Speech, Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond called it “flimsy” and attacked Cameron as a member of the “out–of–touch Westminster elite”, stating: “This speech was a threadbare defence of the case for Westminster Tories retaining their undemocratic control over Scotland, which betrays the utter weakness of the Prime Minister’s case.”

Mr Cameron admitted people had advised him to stay quiet on independence – previously he has admitted his “Tory toff” image is an impediment – but on Friday he said “frankly, I care far too much to stay out”.

The post PM Cites Clan Cameron Heritage in Referendum Speech appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.

I wanted to find out a little bit about the political system in Scotland, especially when tasked with having a say in the country’s future on such a contentious issue. Feeling a little confused as to how the Scottish Parliament works alongside Westminster, I took a trip to the Scottish Parliament last week to find out more.

The Scottish Parliament is situated in the shadow of Arthur’s Seat at the bottom of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. On the day I visited a meeting of the Parliament was being held in the debating chamber, where SNP cabinet members for the Environment and Justice were questioned by other parties about their portfolios. This included questions and debates on reducing carbon emissions in Glasgow, amendments to the crofting reform act, assisting farmers affected by the recent cold weather and whether the Government is planning to reduce the number of Police Officers in order to meet budget cuts. An interesting question was also put forward regarding safeguarding the bee population of Scotland, to which much to my delight many bee-puns were given in response, (e.g. “I knew you would sting me with that question…”). The experience was entirely different to my visit to Westminster in November – The House of Commons is about five times smaller than the Scottish debating chamber, with UK MPs decidedly more ruckus.

The Scotland Act of 1998 established the first Parliament in Scotland since 1707. This passed power from Westminster to Holyrood on a range of devolved matters including health, education, housing, justice, the environment, agriculture and the arts. However Westminster still retained powers to make laws for Scotland on certain issues. These issues generally have a UK-wide or international impact and are known as reserved matters. They include things like benefits, immigration, defence, foreign policy, employment, broadcasting, nuclear energy and the Constitution.

The Scottish Parliament is made up of 129 elected representatives, who are known as Members of Scottish Parliament (MSPs). The voting system used is a type of proportional representation known as the Additional Member System, which gives each voter two votes in an election. The first vote is the constituency vote, with the candidate winning the largest number of votes gaining the seat. The second vote is for a political party within a larger electoral area called a Scottish Parliament region. In each of the eight regions, parties are allocated seats depending on the number of votes they receive in the regional ballot, and taking into account the number of constituency seats they win in a region. Of the 129 MSPs, 73 are constituency representatives, while 56 represent the eight parliamentary regions. In the last election in 2011, the Scottish National Party won 69 seats – making it a majority government. Previous governments were a minority government or coalition.

Bills passed by the Scottish Parliament don’t have to be approved by the UK Parliament, however royal assent by The Queen must be given before they can come into force. In contrast the UK Parliament can pass laws that affect Scotland on devolved matters. By convention the UK Parliament would normally do this by seeking the consent of the Scottish Parliament through a legislative consent motion proposed by a MSP. It is possible for MSPs to become Members of the UK Parliament simultaneously (called a dual mandate), however the roles are entirely separate. There are 650 MPs in the House of Commons, 59 hailing from Scotland and representing Scotland on reserved matters.

During my afternoon in the debating chamber there was only one mention of the most hotly contested issue in Scotland at the moment – independence. The mention of this word by a SNP cabinet member made the debating chamber erupt into a fully fledged House-Of-Commons style debate, with MSPs from all parties crying out and waving papers and arms in the air when they disagreed. Scotland’s Parliament surely does have an interesting year and a half ahead if the little snippet on independence I saw is anything to go by.

The post Holyrood Perplexities – A Beginners Guide to Scottish Parliament appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.

Mohamed Al-Fayed

Egyptian businessman and Harrods owner, Mohamed Al-Fayed has said that he wants to be president of an independent Scotland.

Al-Fayed, who owns a 65,000 acre Highland estate, is hoping that Scotland will go to a referendum and vote for independence, and he has urged  his ‘fellow Scots’ to denounce the monarchy and become an independent, self governing nation.

But the Egyptian is not a big fan of Scotland’s current leader, Alex Salmond. He was quoted saying,

“When you Scots have your independence, I’m ready to be your president.

“You have been living in a coma for too long.

“Whatever help is needed for Scotland to regain its independence, I will provide it. I have lived in England for 40 years but now the home that I want is Scotland.”

“It is time for you to wake up and detach yourself from the English and their terrible politicians. But I don’t want this Alex Salmond. I asked to meet him but he refused. Salmond would be better off fishing for salmon than being a politician. He is a dickhead.”

A spokesperson for the SNP leader did admit that Mr. Al-Fayed requested a meeting with Alex Salmond to talk about a potential donation, but the request was declined, adding that “no disrespect was intended”.

If Scotland did leave the United Kingdom, then Al-Fayed said that he plans to buy Balmoral Castle and turn it into a museum. But, for now, it is now the businessmans intention to erect a statue in honour of Scota, an Egyptian princess who is said to have founded Scotland some 3,600 years ago.

Al-Fayed said, “You Scots are originally Egyptians. Like Scota, I travelled north and I found the Balnagown estate. I will erect a statue of her to honour the links between Scotland and Egypt.”

However, unfortunately for Mohamed Al-Fayed, historian Richard Oram, from the University of Stirling, has said that the myth connecting the two countries was “rubbish”.

The post Mohamed Al-Fayed – President of Scotland? appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.