The glue that binds us Featured Posted on January 15, 2014 4 How the Unionists deny us our future by having us deny our past By Christian Wright (updated) The British State has set aside £50m of taxpayers money to celebrate the centenary ofWestminster the commencement of the Great War in August 2014. This seems deliberately designed to compete with or obscure the anniversary of Bannockburn. Why would anyone celebrate the start of such a bloody war? Well, while promoting this remembrance the Unionists, particularly the likes of Lord Jim Wallace, Lord Forsyth, Lord Foulkes et al, are at pains to ensure we should forget Bannockburn on its 700th anniversary. “It’s seven hundred years since”, the noble lords will tell you in mocking tone – “for goodness sake, no one cares!” – It’s not relevant – It’s clownish braveheartism, braveheart, BRAVEHEART!!! We are told to grow up and get real. Braveheart There is method to their madness, and I think those of Nationalist persuasion – most of us – have fallen for it. We are sheepishly apologetic and readily agree to demean and dismiss Bravehearts and Braveheatism. We deny “Ourselves” in doing so. The Unionist “Braveheart gambit” – seeks to denigrate Scotland’s historical fight for freedom against a belligerent neighbour whilst vigorously promoting Britain’s colonial wars and continental wars. They would have us forget Bannockburn and how the bravery and guile of brave men helped forge this nation and temper our national character. I call it the Braveheart Gambit because usually the focus of their derision is not really the film about the life of William Wallace, but rather Wallace himself, and the attack on Wallace remains the template upon which all other such attacks are made. Mythologies are an essential ingredient of the glue than binds a people and creates a national identity. That is why icons of Union and Empire were paraded endlessly by the broadcast media in London’s Olympic pageant of 2012. Bruce Yet simultaneously there has been a concerted effort by the chattering class and the jocktocracy in the Lords, to delegitimize that phenomenon where Scotland is concerned (whilst promoting the notion shamelessly where Britain is concerned). None speaks to the heart of our people like the deeds and the persona of Wallace and events like Bannockburn, and no Scot should feel embarrassed to embrace that narrative, so shamefully demeaned and ridiculed by Westminster’s pet jocks and their counterparts in Holyrood. Whatever you self-identify as, carries with it an encyclopaedia’s-worth of historical and cultural defining referential events. Of course, this does not mean that anyone will make a decision in 2014 solely on the basis of ancient history and mythology, but that we should look to the past for an understanding of how we came to be who we are today, in order that we may more fully contextualize the alternatives that confront us in this referendum, and choose the direction of our tomorrows.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 08:48:12 +0000
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