Nationalism has many potential outcomes, but they are all based on a concern for ‘our people’ not ‘the people’.
Nationalism has many potential outcomes, but they are all based on a concern for ‘our people’ not ‘the people’
Scottish nationalism, we are always told, is civic, tolerant and open, different to other nationalisms. So welcoming in fact that many signed up to independence will argue that it isn’t really nationalism at all.
From Billy Bragg’s distance it all looks very cuddly. Up close though, finding safety in numbers through a process of division, it looks a lot less pleasant.
Taking just a few examples: demonstrators gather outside the BBC and unfurl banners denouncing people as ‘anti–Scottish’, claiming that only the ‘corrupt media’ stops people supporting Independence.
A writer, Alan Bissett, prominent enough to be invited to perform to the conference of the governing nationalist party, describes current constitutional arrangements as ‘Subjugation; cultural, political and economic’. The acme of liberal independence supporting commentators, Gerry Hassan, expresses satisfaction that the Scots ‘are becoming a people’ and ‘developing voice in its deepest sense’.
It’s easy to recognise tropes here familiar from other, less favourably looked on nationalisms. Principally that only by asserting ourselves as a nation can we throw off alien influences and truly be ourselves. Perhaps then, Scotish nationalism isn’t all that exceptional after all.
Responding to JK Rowling’s endorsement of a No vote, a writer from the ‘National Collective’ declares Scotland is ‘a State of Mind’. Independence is all about ‘the story we choose to believe in’.
How very open, how very welcoming; anyone can be Scottish, provided they share our state of mind.
Except this, naturally, involves embracing independence. The status of those of us unwilling to do this isn’t quite spelled out. Neither is the corollary; if anyone can be Scottish by sharing ‘our’ state of mind. Also, what if, like myself, you don’t? If the ‘story you choose to believe in’ is a multi- or even non-national one, are you somehow less Scottish?
This is as much about exclusion as it is inclusion. And it is this process, more than independence that is developing momentum. Robin McAlpine, director of the Jimmy Reid Foundation and one of the gurus of the Radical Independence Campaign, used to describe non Indyfan lefties as ‘fellow travellers‘ for whom they should ‘keep a seat at the table’. He now issues dire warnings that ‘We are not afraid of you, we are going to win and history will remember you for how you behaved’.
Of course, all of the above matter much less than the SNP and the Scottish government. Recently, Nicola Sturgeon drew a distinction between ‘essentialist’ and ‘utilitarian’ nationalists. This isn’t anything to do with fundamental outlook, just a tactical difference about the timing of state formation. The deputy first minister went on to explain, in a phrase redolent of Michael Gove on steroids, that she wanted a new Scottish constitution to ’embody the values of the nation’.
What those values might be were (thankfully) left undefined. Add to this the vaguely sinister sounding intentions of education secretary Mike Russell that the views of scientists on research bodies ‘might be aligned’ with those of the Scottish government.
A more serious indicator of what might be in store was given when Ed Balls and George Osborne, invoking the national interest of the rest of the UK, said they didn’t support a currency union with an independent Scotland. They were immediately decried by the First Minister and his supporters as ‘bullies’ ganging up on Scotland.
In the howls of anguish that followed, it was taken as read that assertions by the UK couldn’t be valid in themselves, they were merely attacks on Scotland. The ‘Scottish’ interest wasn’t just deemed to be the most important or priority viewpoint, but the only legitimately held opinion.
The economics or even politics of the situation (eg If Balls or Osborne were interested in having a supranational banking arrangement deciding governmental borrowing limits, they would have joined the Euro) were abandoned in favour of the financially illiterate spasm of ‘It’s our pound too’.
Stripped to its essence, it was a case of the leader of a nationalist party building support for a policy by saying foreigners were attacking the country. If that looks like it has worked then don’t think it will stop on September 19. Nationalist ends won’t be willed in the referendum without embedding nationalist means to sustain them afterwards.
Clearly the SNP aren’t some sort of Jobbik style proto fascists. But suggesting that ‘Technocratic Administrative Boundary Adjustment’ or ‘Blood and Soil’ are the only two possible settings on the nationalist dial isn’t right either.
Nationalism has many potential outcomes, but they are all predicated on defining and separating, with concern for ‘our people’ not ‘the people’. Real progressive politics does the opposite. People at home or in the places that will shortly be abroad if there is a yes vote in September would do well to remember that.
Stephen Low is a Labour Party member and part of the Red Paper Collective
268 Responses to “Up close, Scottish nationalism looks a lot like other nationalisms”
Trevor Moore
Heather, not sure where you’re coming from with all the stuff about insults and bile. Wasn’t it you who first referred to me as a troll? Your outrage seems misplaced.
My hatred of the SNP derives from the fact they are nationalists who, as the article above points out, are concerned only with their people and not with the people. They are particularly loathesome as they masquerade as a left wing party in order to entice more people to their cause. In times when people as disaffected and disenchanted by politics the public is always vulnerable to the predations of nationalists. The nationalist modus operandi is a simple one: create a hate figure or bogeyman in the minds of the people, convince them this hate figure is to blame for all their ills and then promise the people that bringing them to power will rid them of the object of their hate. Salmond’s genius was to deflect the hatred from England to “Westminster” (not, you’ll note, the present government, but, rather, the seat of our parliamentary democracy), which made his hate fuelled ideology more palatable to people such as yourself. However, it is not an ideology that stands up to scrutiny, which is why debate has to be stifled and dissent silenced. All a Yes vote guarantees is an international border when none currently exists. How very helpful!
I agree with you that the Labour Party lost its way under the leadership of the dreadful, self aggrandising Tony Blair, and is still clawing its way back. However, the fact that nationalism has filled the void is very sinister. If I hadn’t witnessed it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have thought it could happen in Britain.
There will be as many visions for the future of Scotland under the “Westminster system” as there are No voters. What they will have in common is that they will recognise that the best future is one that encourages unity and cooperation and does not creat division. Personally I don’t believe the union is the source of Scotland’s problems, but it is an ideal scapegoat for right wing nationalists who wish to deflect attention from the real problem, capitalism. This my vision for Scotland under the “Westminster system” is to work together with the people in the rest of the UK and work towards a progressive tax system and fairer society. Not divide the proletariat and offer up Scotland to the likes of Trump, Murdoch and the oil majors.
Heather
My troll comment was a tongue in cheek aside – maybe I should have put a smiley face.
Do you really not see the irony in your statement that Salmond and the SNP are following the nationalist modus operandi by creating a ‘bogeyman’ and your own (and Labour’s) behaviour in making a ‘bogeyman’ out of Salmond/SNP/Yes?
Again the insistence that the SNP and indeed the whole YES movement are ‘stifling debate and silencing dissent’ – this seems to be a bit of a mantra with some on here and its a rather sweeping statement and I really don’t know what you mean by it.
Breaking up of the proletariate? We can have solidarity with each other and all the people of the world whether we are independent or part of the UK. If you mean that Scotland leaving the UK will have an effect on the resultant politics of the rUK I think that myth was de-bunked a long time ago. The UK is going to have a neo-liberal government for the foreseeable future. If an iScotland can establish a left of centre society think of the hope that could give others and what a boast to the proletariat that would be.
Implying that wanting an independent Scotland is in anyway connected to right wing nationalism is irresponsible and so wide of the mark I have trouble believing that you, or the writer of this article, actually believe it. It is the last resort of frustrated Unionists to scare people out of voting Yes. I am not an SNP supporter and have never voted for them. I have never been influenced by Salmond or the SNP in my belief that Scotland should be an independent country. I voted Yes in 1979. I am certainly not being duped into being a nationalist now. I have always disliked the Westminster political system and the Establishment that surrounds it. It is elitist, unrepresentative, unaccountable and corrupt. I have lived in the SE of England and seen what successive neo-liberal governments have done to health, education, welfare, energy, transport etc. there and those policies are not for me.
An international border may well be a result of a Yes vote but as Europe daily proves they are really not that much of a hindrance – if you don’t want it to be that is. And as for WM being a scapegoat for the real problem being capitalism – WM is a hub of capitalism, is run for capitalism and is used by capitalism. Scotland and the rUK have already been offered up to Murdoch et al.
Why would anyone who had the chance to escape the clutches of WM and the corporations who control it not take that chance?
With a Yes I see a chance for Scotland to break free from all that and and at least try to do something different. Nothing frightening and nothing sinister. So again, please do not assume that you know where my politics come from.
Derick Tulloch
All of the Scottish people. Surprised you can get about for this forest of straw men, frothing over their claymores. Keep up
Derick Tulloch
So you’ll vote No for a coronation in London and for No Change. You’ll vote No to legitimize the current bewilderingly vicious assault on the poor and vulnerable. Vote No to continue the Great Power delusion and to waste money on WMD. Vote No for foodbanks defended by nuclear missiles. Wake up!
Phil Zambonini
British unionism is all about, inequality, bankruptcy, American nuclear weapons in our waters, the cover up of pedophile rings and the slaughter in Gaza. The union’s dead, the people of Scotland don’t support the slaughter of Palestinians, Iraqi’s, Libyan’s or Afghans, Westminster’s a cesspit and it’s corrupt to it’s kiddie fiddling core.