Dear David Torrance, I read both Alan Bissetts article today and of course your article previously and I also took the time to read your reply this afternoon over some lunch. Firstly , when I read the initial article I was disappointed to speak plainly. It read to me as being mischievous and an effort to cause controversy where little was necessary. If there isn’t enough joie de vivre in Scotlands story and I can appreciate the thirst for something a bit more juicy to bite into. However, creating a story for the plain and utterly confusing reader is both trite and dare I say immature. Alan, like I and many others work hard, unpaid and with passion to write and support an environment that by all accounts has been the most democratic cause for Independence in history and without as much as a punch thrown. Given the backdrop of impending doom and disaster the likes that haven’t been seen the Darien disaster, I don’t doubt that you may not be too pleased that the very movement for independence is not the same colour as your own palette from which you choose your colours. Moreover, it shows what you are not prepared to even begin to challenge and whilst its important to look at both sides of the debate, so far I have not seen by your very absence in your work, the slightest exploration or the whiff of criticism of the deluge of bile, negativity and British nationalist tripe daily served and of cause for any journalist to more than quench their thirst with. In the last week any number of topics could have been chosen. Food banks reach giving out to a million in the last year, all sorts of spurious allegations of the west would be unsafe to the third world would suffer as a result of Scotlands becoming independent and yet and yet!. Doesn’t that make you salivate to write a column about, which is real and tangible? No, not a peep. Zilch, zero, nada That aside, I am not writing here, either to attack your defence nor indeed defend Alan’s reply to your article. I am writing to ask why you thought it both necessary and indeed worth the controversy that has now ensued? What lies beneath that you suspect and what is it that you are trying to tease out and to what effect? How can your article ‘seem’ to have caused controversy when that was what was your intention all along. As a writer in the public domain, do you not follow a code of ethical journalism?. Debate is good and crucial to any living breathing democracy, but your positioning of the argument was crass and certainly not balanced as you would like to now assert. I don’t write unqualified either, as both a student of both Scottish History and Social anthropology in my earlier life, ‘ethnicity’ takes on several meanings and in different contexts and referring to the dictionary is really first years stuff at University I’m sure you will agree. As I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, what makes this movement both encompassing and also interesting, is that its a movement for all Jock Tamsens Bairns and not one that ought to inspire the mischief you set out to achieve. If that’s boring or a little bit uncontroversial, then lend an ear as I am more than happy to point to larger than life stories looming every day. all the best Chris Law https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2014/04/17/torrance-response/
Posted on: Sat, 19 Apr 2014 12:26:08 +0000
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