Scotland the brave, Ulster the unsure?
By Sasha Uzunov - Wednesday, 23 December 2009
There are moves afoot in Scotland for a referendum on independence from the United Kingdom to be held next year. The
likelihood of the UK falling apart into ethnic warfare à la Yugoslavia or Soviet Union is unlikely should the Scots
reclaim their freedom from London.
However, in the event the referendum is successful (there are signs it may have difficulty getting over the line) then
what of the future of the UK, including for Wales and the highly explosive Northern Ireland, also known as Ulster? In
addition, there will also be other European Union members, such as Spain with its own restive Basque and Catalan ethnic
groups, watching nervously from the sidelines.
The whole concept of “Britishness” is now being called into question. Can you be British and Scottish at the same time?
Hollywood has in recent times played a major part in popularising Scottish independence. High profile Oscar winning
actor Sir Sean Connery has thrown his political weight behind it. Mel Gibson’s 1995 blockbuster film Braveheart, full on
romance and action and light on historical accuracy, about Scottish hero Sir William Wallace’s brave fight for freedom
from the nasty English king, Edward I (The Longshanks) in the late 13th century no doubt has raised public
consciousness.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) emerged in the early 18th century with Northern
Ireland a later addition. It consists of four major ethnic groups: the English, descendants of northern German tribes
known as Angles and Saxons, also related to the Vikings, who arrived in the 5th century AD; and the indigenous Celts:
Scottish, Welsh and Irish. The Germanic and Celtic languages are not related to each other. Prior to the Anglo-Saxon
invasion, the Romans ruled Britain for three centuries.
The term Britannia and British originally refers to the Celtic inhabitants of the UK and the Celtic Bretons in modern
day France. England evolved from the term Angle-land.
By 1066 “francofied” German tribes, the Normans, invaded England and spread a light French veneer over the Angles and
Saxons. By the 17th century English dominance spread to most of the “British Isles” including the adjoining island of
the largely Catholic Celtic Ireland.
English and Anglicised Scottish Protestants, later dubbed Scots-Irish, were sent as colonisers of Ireland. A fact
largely ignored by both modern Irish and Ulster Union nationalists is that some of these Scots-Irish joined the native
Irish Catholics in the 1798 Irish Rebellion against the British Crown, which was brutally suppressed with the assistance
of the native Irish Catholic Church.
By 1921, the War of Irish Independence led by Eamon De Valera and Michael Collins successfully resulted in an Irish Free
State and later, the Republic of Ireland (Eire) in the south largely populated by Catholics and a Northern Ireland tied
directly to Great Britain. Some of the early Irish Nationalists were neither Irish nor Catholic but passionately
believed in the cause. Robert Erskine Childers, a British Naval Intelligence officer decorated for bravery during World
War I, comes to mind.
Since that time, political violence has inflicted Ulster as Irish Nationalists have fought for a United Ireland and the
Ulster nationalists to maintain the status quo and their privileges. In 1969 the British government intervened by
sending in the army to diffuse tensions between the long suffering Irish Catholic minority at the hands of the
Protestant majority. Later the Provisional Irish Republic Army (PIRA), an organisation branded as terrorist by London,
took up the fight for a united Ireland. The conflict has largely been viewed as a sectarian one, despite the ethnic
dimension to it. Various ceasefires and peace plans have come into effect and at the moment the province is relatively
quiet with former enemies sharing power.
One of the underlying fears of the Ulster Protestants has been the thought of becoming a “persecuted” minority in a
united Ireland, should it ever take place. But others point out that the Republic of Ireland is a modern democratic
state and member of the European Union along with the United Kingdom.
Scotland, Wales (its proper Welsh name is Cymru) and Northern Ireland have their own parliaments but Westminster in
London retains control over the purse strings, foreign policy and the armed forces. The Queen, Elizabeth II, is the
monarch for all four countries. At the Olympic Games, Great Britain marches as one team. In the FIFA soccer world cup
competition the four have their own teams. Watching the Scottish national team play at a World Cup is an incredible
spectacle. Instead of hearing the British national anthem of God Save the Queen, usually a lone bagpiper plays the
stirring tune, Scotland the Brave.
If the United Kingdom was to unravel would it follow in the tragic path of the former Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union,
two multi-ethnic federations which spent nearly 70 years in one political form or another before imploding and
transforming into many new nation-states? Probably not, but what effect would it have on the peace process in Northern
Ireland?
If Scotland were to gain its independence, questions of its economic viability would obviously be raised. Supporters
point to the oil rigs in the North Sea, which would fall within Scottish territorial waters. And not forgetting, of
course, tourism and its “boutique Scottishness”.
A clever and award winning Australian journalist Alan Attwood has built a niche industry over the years regaling readers
with quirky stories about his “Scottishness”.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Attwood as The Age newspaper’s expert tennis writer would clearly distinguish who was
English, and Scottish, as in his own case, even though Scotland has not been an independent nation for over two
centuries. There is no separate Scottish passport. Attwood should be applauded for being proud of his Scottish heritage
and no one would oppose Scotland regaining its independence in a peaceful manner from London.
Then there is Attwood’s angst about being torn between two cultures, Australian and Scottish:
“Born in Dundee, Scotland but raised in Australia Alan Attwood felt torn between two countries. He went back to Scotland
to discover his past but discovered he didn't really belong there either.”
We also have him as a working class hero:
“Alan Attwood was born in Scotland and emigrated to Australia with his family when he was four. He has worked as an
abalone packer, a dishwasher and mail sorter, but, since 1978, mainly as a journalist. From 1995 to 1998 he was the New
York-based correspondent for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, and more recently he has been a columnist for The
Age.”
Notice, Scotland is mentioned but not the United Kingdom or Great Britain
But when it came to tennis players from other disputed regions, such as the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia, Attwood would
never go into more detail. Surely, as an expert on all things Scottish and tennis, you would think he would be more
precise.
Not all who came from the Soviet Union were Russians: don’t forget the Lithuanians, Ukrainians and so on Likewise, there
was no such thing as Yugoslav, only Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, Macedonians, Muslim Bosnians and so on. For many years
during the late 1980s and early 90s Attwood refused to listen to those, including myself, who were telling him that
Goran Ivanisevic was a Croat, Slobodan Zivojinovic was a Serb; and Monica Seles was an ethnic Hungarian from Serbia.
Regardless of Attwood’s antics, we wish the Scots good luck in their bid for independence and a long term peaceful
solution to the troubles in Ulster.
ENDS