AND IT CAN CHANGE EVERYTHING.

Posted byiainlawson27Posted inUncategorizedTags:, , ,


Sara Salyers

In 2010, living in the USA, not far from Knoxville, Tennessee, I joined a large community college as an adjunct faculty member of its Transitional Studies Department. This department was dedicated to helping ’remedial’ students to reach the academic standard required for college entry, (the eqivalent of our HNC level). 

My task was to get my students to a level of literary and oral proficiency in ’standard English’ that twelve years of primary and secondary education had failed to produce. And I had just sixteen weeks to do it. The problem with these students, my colleagues explained, was that they were ‘not academic’, not ‘college material’, deficient in some intrinsic way that meant that, as one well meaning faculty member told me, ‘They shouldn’t really be here’.

My students not only understood fully that they were regarded as ‘inferior’ candidates, they had come to regard themselves in the same way. “Not very bright” was the way one young woman described herself – entirely inaccurately as it turned out. Their personal college profiles, available to their lecturers as an aid to assisting them, listed their “deficits”. The things we had to fix.

To cut a long story short, I decided that this narrative was both unacceptable and unreasonable. So instead of trying to fix their deficits, I set about trying to fix the story. I threw out the prescribed syllabus and designed my own, something that cause more than a little consternation and even uproar within my department when it came to light. And my own was based on these  questions: What if none of these students, apart from those with specific learning disabilities, was in any way intellectually less able than any other college student? What if they had no ‘deficits’ but merely artificial, mental blocks to success? What if, in fact, they could be and do anything at all they chose? And, if all that is true, what is actually stopping them?

The answer, as I proved with a success rate that earned me an ‘outstanding adjunct’, college and national award, was that what was stopping them was the very system which required them to succeed. It demanded that they do so in the teeth of rules, conventions and methods that made it impossible. The educational system in which they had struggled and failed to progress for most of their young lives was a stacked deck from the first. 

As Jack Whitehead who founded the Living Educational Theory movement told me, this is a form of internal colonisation. Educational colonisation, he explained, is the imposition of a foreign worldview, foreign sets of values, foreign language or language variant on any population by a superior power which automatically classes as inferior any culture, langauge ro social group which differs from itself. The greater the divergence from the colonising group, the greater the inferiority of the divergent population. 

Colonisation of the mind, perhaps of the spirit, is what happens to all children who are forced to learn in the context of modes of thought and emphasis, (ways of thinking and understanding the world), unlike anything in their own, direct experience. They are forced to learn to write, speak and read about a foreign culture, from within the conventions and value systems of this foreign culture and in a foreign langauge, an ‘English’ they neither speak nor hear daily. 

The effect is a passive acceptance of inevitable failure. An internalised sense of inferiority, of inherent deficiency, not merely in their own ability but in their very identities. (That deficiency is implicitly shared by the families and communities who obviously suffer from the same fundamental inferiority.) A sense of shame develops, which is expressed in anything from a crippling self-doubt at one end of the scale to what we call a ‘chip on the shoulder’ at the other. There is a natural resistance to undergoing repeated failure that becomes both ‘I can’t’ and ‘I don’t want to’. A deep rejection of the coloniser and the coloniser’s measures of success, (a rejection that goes unexamined and impossible to articulate), sits side by side with the experience of being absolutely powerless to do anything about it. The end result is a cycle of failure and learned helplessness, of personal and communal shame, of internalised anger and acceptance, subordination. 

Now, apply all of that to Scotland, not only to our children, from primary school on but to the measures of ‘success’ which are set up for every working adult. Apply it not only to the lived experience of colonised children who become colonised adults, but of the entire nation as a collection of communities, all living the same experience. Conditioned to believe that they have no power to change the experience of failure, that they are (and this is deeply hidden within us), shamefully inferior. This is the source of what Professor Baird calls, ‘the Scottish cringe factor’.  Just as for my many brilliant but permanently labelled, ‘remedial students’: there is no real point in trying; there must always be someone to authorise the attempt; it is always dangerous and sometimes impossible to think your own thoughts or have your own ideas, in your own way and outside the prescribed lines; it is impossible to express these thoughts and ideas in your own language. We are controlled, coralled and impotent.

The good news is that I did find a way to reempower my students. First I showed them exactly how human beings really learn and why the design of the education system shuts down the ability to think critically or make ‘executive decisions’. I showed them the colonisation. I helped them describe and become – justly – angry about their experiences. And then move on. I reduced ‘academic success’ to no more than a skillset for navigating a members-only club of establishment opportunity. We celebrated our own communities and cultures and discovered the very superior qualities that they did, in fact possess. Together, we threw off an invisible, crippling control exerted by an invisible colonisation. 

An almost identical task faces Scotland today. There is no nation without a people. There is no independent nation wthout an independent people. A tiny group of independent politicans making ‘independent’ decisions on our behalf is not independence. And it does not, cannot, lead to true independence. Independence means independence of thought, confidence in our identity, rejection of that foreign ‘members club’ and pride in our own. It means replacing the sense of exclusion and inferiority with a sense of belonging and self worth. And from all of that comes empowerment, an unstoppable certainty and determination in place of the ‘cringe’ and the cap in hand mindset. 

This must take place person by person, community by community until it is a national phenomenon. The empowerment of the individual, the community and the combined communities which make up a nation, is what we call both decolonisation and independence. There cannot be one without the other. Impossible? Before your heart sinks at the prospect of reversing the condition of our Scottish, national psyche, think about this. I saw a lifetime of learned helplessness and academic failure reversed in 16 weeks, semester after semester. The only ‘miracle’ required was that someone recognised the real root of the problem. Once you have a diagnosis, after all, you can prescribe a cure. Without it, you are doomed to try to fix the ‘wrong’ problems.

Our cure? It begins with the recognition of the lies that weaponise colonisation and it takes effect with the restoration of a national identity, confidence and belonging. National identity and belonging leads to a powerful will to protect and reestablish it. And that leads inevitably to independence. There is not, and never has been, a successful independence movement without this, which is why the message at the heart of Salvo and Liberation, a message contained in the Edinburgh Proclamation, in our Scottish constitution, our political valules and the rights we assert, is so important. It says, ‘This is who we are as a people, yesterday, today and tomorrow’. And it can change everything.

MY COMMENTS

When I read an article like this it makes me very proud to be part of these organisations Salvo, Liberation and the Scottish National Congress that are working so hard to spread this message, to challenge and change the colonial process in Scotland. It is hugely enjoyable as I witness the great progress in such a short period of time. The Claim of Right is now an established part of the Independence conversation and it causes no end of problems for those who wish to stop any question of exposing their controls. As I write I cannot tell you about some new campaigns because we are having them checked by legal experts but I am very hopeful we will get a green light soon. Very soon.

BEAT THE CENSORS

Regretfully a number of pro Indy sites operate on the basis of censoring and blocking messages from other pro Indy sites that do not slavishly follow  one particular Party. To overcome this attack on curtailing freedom of speech many of my readers share my articles  to negate this censorship. My thanks for doing so.

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SALVO

The work and important development of Salvo has been a beacon of hope and as it develops Salvo is creating campaigning hubs throughout Scotland. Salvo will join  with Liberation.Scot and as the campaigning arm of Liberation we are looking at very effective campaigns. This requires money so all donations to this site, once the running costs are covered, will go to support the work of Salvo/ Liberation. I think you will see it well used and effective. Donations are currently limited to £3 so give regularly

LIBERATION.SCOT

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63 thoughts on “AND IT CAN CHANGE EVERYTHING.”

  1. I have believed for this to be true for many decades and have attempted to explain Scotlands colonisation to my fellow country men and women. It has been a sair, fecht even among activists in the cause. I never really understood why so many Scots couldn’t see what was happening.. This essay by Sara Salyers explains’ to me, in a most articulate manner, part of the reason why a sense cultural shame and denial exists in the Scottish psyche.
    Thank you Iain, I hope that Sara’s essay is spread far and wide.

    Liked by 17 people

  2. Inspirational article.

    “A tiny group of independent politicans making ‘independent’ decisions on our behalf is not independence. And it does not, cannot, lead to true independence. Independence means independence of thought, confidence in our identity, rejection of that foreign ‘members club’ and pride in our own.”

    That is the very antithesis of what many of today’s would be ‘command and control’ leaders of YES want.

    “It means replacing the sense of exclusion and inferiority with a sense of belonging and self worth. And from all of that comes empowerment, an unstoppable certainty and determination in place of the ‘cringe’ and the cap in hand mindset.”

    That’s what we want and need. And will have.

    Facebooked.

    Liked by 16 people

  3. Living in a small country with a great sense of national identity, this has been feature of its society. How it copes with modern colonisation of the mind via the Western media colossus remains to be seen. Current trends are worrying, though. Danes, like folk in other small nations, feel the need to be validated by the big boys club. Like wee boys they sometimes compromise their principles to be accepted. There’s a warning for us there, post-independence restored. .

    “Our cure? It begins with the recognition of the lies that weaponise colonisation and it takes effect with the restoration of a national identity, confidence and belonging. National identity and belonging leads to a powerful will to protect and reestablish it.”

    Liked by 15 people

  4. A great explanation of colonisation and how it wormed its way into the Scottish psyche.

    However, none of that was accidental or an unintended consequence. The anglicisation of our major institutions, as Alf Baird has also described, has been a long time in the development and delivery of a programme to create English clones of those institutions. This has resulted in our cloned universities churning out graduates to further develop and deliver those cloned ideologies that has, in most cases, succeeded in the loss of their Scottish identities.

    Combine that with a foreign civil service, beholden to England for its very existence and we have in today’s Scotland the English establishment that has been so effective in denying our Sovereignty and our rights as a people.

    They have even created its own administrative structure at Holyrood, designed by Westminster, with rules that support Westminster dominance over anything and everything that Holyrood decides. They even established the UK Supreme Court to ensure that the People of Scotland had no route in domestic law to achieve self-determination and independence.

    However, thanks to Salvo, Liberation.Scot and a few notable individuals, the People of Scotland are now waking up to that deception and the fact that none of this was accidental but by design. When the English spy, Daniel Defoe just prior to the signing of the Treaty of Union stated “The Scots will be allowed to send to Westminster a handful of men who will make no weight whatsoever. They will be allowed to sit there for form’s sake to be laughed at”. The day after Westminster passed their Act of Union, an English member of parliament stated : “Good. We have Scotland on the rack now.” John Smith, the Speaker joined in the chorus, “We have catch’d Scotland and will bind her fast.”

    Not much has changed in the intervening 300+ years and they have certainly succeeded in binding Scotland “fast”!

    However, the emergence of Salvo, Liberation, The Edinburgh Proclamation and the creation of The Stirling Directive have changed the rules of the game. We have thrown away the ball that the Westminster bullies gave us to play with and brought our own ball to the game, and that ball belongs to the People of Scotland.

    Liked by 20 people

  6. A very clearly articulated article that gets to the roots of the issues, both in most education and the regaining of self-determination, on an individual and national scale.
    Thank you, something to reflect upon on the train to Edinburgh, where I’ll be interested to see what happens and what is said on the march today.

    Liked by 7 people

  9. Sara show so clearly what is holding Scotland back. And equally clearly that we need our politicians to start asserting Scotland’s rights – now. No more delay. They have the ear of the media and the public so they should use it.

    Liked by 9 people

    1. “we need our politicians to start asserting Scotland’s rights”

      Aye Sarah, oor richt tae lairn oor ain indigenous langage an aw, an thon’s a human richt tae, accordin tae the Cooncil o Europe nae less, an UN as weel. Holyrood shuid hiv gien us a Scots Langage Act lang afore noo.

      The Scots langage is the foonds o oor identity an withoot hit oor fowk an naition wad suin perish. Scots langage is noo gey rustit efter ower chree hunner year wi anely Englis wirds garred doon bairns thrapples in colonial schuils, tho Scots is hingin on juist.

      ******************
      As Sara well demonstrates in her excellent article, the entrenched colonial mindset of our educational elites prevents even a pseudo-nationalist administration from returning to us oor ain braw Scots mither tongue, which is a violation of any indigenous peoples human rights.

      Liked by 5 people

  10. A remarkable article and a very positive story with a great outcome for those kids.
    I know that story…it is mine and many other Scots who climbed through the constant drag of “who do you think you are”. The colonisers created a culture in which we did the work for them.

    As Jimmy Reid once pointed out while walking past a row of tenements…..”How many great composers are behind those windows”, “How many great surgeons”,” How many great Engineers”……”We will never know, because they will never get the chance”.

    Changing that was my dream for2012/14.

    That is Sturgeons legacy. She has condemned at least one more generation to that fate.That is what she should be remembered for.
    Sadly she also shaped the NUSNP to continue that policy with Murrell Enterprises placed above the future of Scottish children. She created reward for the self interested, she put her interests ahead of Scotland.

    Once more has Scotland and its People been betrayed for English Gold. The Short Money, Westminster Pensions and salaries are no different from the money paid in 1706/7 to act for the London elite.

    Liked by 13 people

    1. “As Jimmy Reid once pointed out while walking past a row of tenements…..”How many great composers are behind those windows”, “How many great surgeons”,” How many great Engineers”……”We will never know, because they will never get the chance”.”

      Yes, this is the tragic outcome for the mass of an exploited and alienated people lacking opportunity in thair ain laund, with colonial schooling limiting their potential and our own nations universities closed to them as ever more student places are ‘bought’ by international elites searching for ‘high-status’ degrees. Scots aye pay the price! The resultant housing shortage and high rental prices in our main university cities is another common feature. In most other nations such outcomes would be considered a national scandal and politically unacceptable. Here our daeless politicians welcome and support such oppression, whilst elite universities have become no more than international businesses.

      Upon independence Scotland should create a National University as in other former colonies such as Singapore, whose purpose would be to provide opportunity in abundance for the Scottish people who, as Ian Hamilton once said, are our greatest resource.

      Liked by 5 people

  11. It is high time Sarah Salyers was front and centre at AUOB marches and Rallies. Unlike at the Rainy day coronation protest in Glasgow where she was left talking at the END to one man and his dug. We also had misguided IDIOTS prancing around with wee paper crowns on their nuts appearing to support the Spaniel!!!

    Liked by 9 people

  12. Boom!Boom! Right on target. We must stop asking permission. We need to give ourselves permission. Or “we are the people!

    Liked by 8 people

  13. I didn’t get any Scottish history at school, I wondered why. I read a comment somewhere that a chap had asked why? and been told “it’s not important enough”. Imagine, your own history is not important enough to be taught in your own country. And they wonder why we have the Cringe, why we have been for too long so susceptible to “too wee, too poor, too stupid”. Because all the time we were told, implicitly and explicitly “you’re not good enough, not important enough, second rate”. And they did this to a country that even that old Imperialist Winston Churchill said had contributed more to civilisation than any other country bar perhaps Greece.

    Voltaire said “we look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation”. Perhaps that is why they had to grind us down, to ensure that we would and could not break free of the chains that bound us.

    Sara is right, we need to change the paradigm. We need to empower the people. Above all we need to rid ourselves of the political class in the nu SNP and pseudo Greens that have no intention of delivering independence, nor does it seem of even delivering competent devolved government. Looking at our coalition government, I can understand some might be prone to thinking “too stupid”. Scotland has many bright people with skills and experience, the tragedy is (with a few exceptions) that too few of them are elected!

    Liked by 11 people

    1. “Scotland has many bright people with skills and experience, the tragedy is (with a few exceptions) that too few of them are elected!”

      Or ‘selected’, in what remains an Anglophone dominated cultural environment. The result is, as in any colonial society, a ‘mediocre meritocracy’ in which “the colonizer imports or recruits experts among his own kind” (Memmi).

      Liked by 4 people

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  15. I am writing as a teacher who qualified in Scotland and taught in Scotland all my working life. The writer is talking about the American system. Education in Scotland has always been run by Scotland and the syllabus has always been decided in Scotland. Scottish teachers have Scottish qualifications. A teacher qualified in England cannot teach in Scotland without first obtaining a Scottish teaching qualification. So if anything is wrong with Scottish education it is a homegrown problem. I would however draw your attention to the Age of Enlightenment when Edinburgh was regarded as one of the foremost intellectual cities in Europe. This was about the same time that America was fighting for its very independence. I think perhaps our American author should read a little more about Scottish history before casting Scotland in the same light as the USA.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I came through the Scottish secondary system knowing more about the Tolpuddle Martyrs than the Seven Men of Knoydart or the butchery of Cromwell and Cumberland.

      The grey cloud thinking that Sara sought to disperse in the USA was formed organically. The clouds in Scotland are/were formed from plumes of acrid obfuscation.

      Liked by 12 people

    2. Not sure I agree with the tenor of your comments Miranda.

      Scottish schools have big time omiited Scottish history, have omitted Scottish language, have omitted Scottish writers and poets whilst importing and focusing on English writers such as Shakespeare.

      Speaking Gaidhlig in the class or play ground in the Highlands and Islands also used to attract a belting.

      And no, we don’t teach much if anything about the Scottish Enlightenment in Scottish schools.

      And as a boy I remember all too well the map of the world coloured pink to show the British Empire being displayed in classrooms across every school in Scotland.

      But maybe you are right that is a homegrown problem.

      You attack however on Sarah with dismissive comments is however utterly misplaced..And you know what, I think I’d rather see more Sarah’s teaching than your good self. Your comments are most certainly less than helpful.

      Liked by 14 people

    3. As far as I know, Sara is Scottish though like many from our country (whether by choice or necessity), she has lived abroad.

      As a teacher, you might be aware of the Education (Scotland) Act 1872 that effectively banned Gaelic language education and indeed that of Scots, fair less our history and culture. Of course this was a time when the voting franchise was greatly restricted and far from universal.

      “It was a continuation of a general policy (by both Scottish and, after 1707, British governments) which aimed at Anglicisation.”

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_(Scotland)_Act_1872

      Liked by 9 people

    5. Dear oh dear, what a defensive post. I recommend reading Doun Hauden the excellent book by Professor Alf Baird. Judging by your comments it will be a revelation to you.

      Liked by 7 people

      1. I think that when someone’s in a certain profession or part of something that they automatically take anything that challenges it personally when it’s not. An example of this is when there was a discussion on the voting franchise and possibility that it could have been open to cheating. There right away were folk who were involved with the count right on the defensive when it wasn’t about them personally. We are seeing this crop up with people who critique government policies too and often being called unionists and other things for daring to.

        Liked by 3 people

    6. Unfortunately, a perfect illustration of the colonial mindset so deliberately created and promoted by our larger southern neighbour. Can you please enlighten me as to the identity of this “American author” that “should read a little more about Scottish history…”? Dear, oh dear indeed Iain.

      Liked by 5 people

      1. State education was not introduced in the UK until 1876. Before that date schools were run by religious institutions. In England that was the Anglican Church, the Methodist churches and the Roman Catholic Church. In Scotland prior to 1876 schools would have been run mainly by the Church of Scotland (which is Presbyterian not Anglican) and the Roman Catholic Church (to a much lesser degree). How is that a colonial mindset ? Dear oh dear indeed if you think the Church of Scotland is colonial !

        Liked by 1 person

      2. That will be the Church of Scotland who sat quietly as their congregations had their homes burned indeed sacking clergy who stood with the people. Not their finest hours.

        Liked by 8 people

      3. “the Church of Scotland is colonial”

        In a colonial society all institutions are colonial in terms of their values, what they deem to be significant. The CoS demonstrated this by celebrating the charade of the non-crowning of a king of our nation. Its privileges are enshrined in a mankit and oft-violated treaty. Its misunderstanding of numerous English Imperial wars and conflicts that Scots were and still are drawn into. Its absence of comment on the continuing theft of our nation’s resources, and on the peoples poverty and lack of opportunity. And its lack of voice in the most critical matter facing our people – their national liberation.

        Postcolonial theory explains more, telling us that:

        “..the colonized’s institutions are dead or petrified. (The native) scarcely believes in those which continue to show some signs of life. He often becomes ashamed of these institutions, as of a ridiculous and overaged monument. All effectiveness and social dynamics…seem monopolized by the colonizer’s institutions” (Memmi).

        On the last point, the Church of England and the Imperial State Crown is a rather obvious example – with the CoS reduced to a bit-part player going through the motions of what remains a national and international deceit. Ditto Westminster, with Holyrood its dependent ‘child’, to be scolded from time to time, telt whit tae dae.

        Liked by 4 people

    7. Then why did I leave school in the Sixties with no knowledge of Scottish or Irish history but could recite the King and Queens of England? and the date of battles in England From 1066.
      Why was Thomas Muir or the Red Clydesiders things I discovered decades after leaving school.
      Why did the Clearances not get mentioned?
      I have no recollection of a teacher even suggesting I look at an external source.

      Liked by 11 people

      1. Your reading my mail Clootie. My experience exactly. 1485 to 1660. Bastard Tudors and Anglcised Stuarts.
        The history literally under our feet sometimes. At the bottom of our road there was a low hill with three Scots Pines on which marked the grave of three covenanters killed after the battle of the Hietoun in Hamilton. The only reason my enquiring young mind knew of this was because the coalmaster who owned the estate had set a commemorative stone into a wall near, by which read,

        ” On the knoll indicated by the three pine trees lie the bodies of two brothers by the name of Smith and a man whose name has not been carried down. They were on the retreat from the battle of the Heitoun when at the edge of this garden they were overtaken by royalist soldiers and killed on the spot.”

        There is no trace of the wall or the estate now. The stone was relocated to the auld kirk in Hamilton, thereby disassociated from the story.

        Liked by 3 people

      2. Why ? Because those responsible for the curriculum in your school chose not to. It’s that simple. Are you talking Primary school ? Most Primary schools only teach periods of history like the Vikings or the Picts and the Jacobites. I certainly taught all three in Highland Region in Scotland in the 1980s and 1990s. As a pupil in Secondary School in Scotland we covered the Golden Age of James IV in first year. Did you actually take history to certificate level ? If you did you would know that the Higher syllabus was based on Modern History and involved domestic topics such as public health, the the extension of the franchise and the rise of trade unions whilst international topics covered World War 1 and the Russian Revolution. The syllabus for Higher is decided by the Scottish Education Department. The syllabus within Primary schools is decided by the Headteacher and class teachers. History is not taught as a separate subject but as an integrated part of environmental studies. So when looking at the Vikings we would also look at where they came from and settled (geography), evidence in place names (mapping), their agricultural methods and boat building skills (science and technology), their stone carvings and metal work (art). Difficult to apply all that to the Covenanters. Most Primary school children are not interested in the differences and disagreements between Presbyterianism, Protestantism and Catholicism.

        Like

      3. Yes but they would be fascinated at why their ancestors homes were burned, that Cumberland’s forces operated genocide in the Highlands after Culloden, about why many of their direct family live abroad because they were forced to emigrate either by force or by economic measures. We don’t want to tell them that do we? Your version of history is disgraceful I hope your days in the classroom are well behind you.

        Liked by 1 person

    8. “A teacher qualified in England cannot teach in Scotland without first obtaining a Scottish teaching qualification”

      While that is true, just as important is not what was not said, i.e. that this “Scottish teaching qualification” can be obtained in one year”.

      Liked by 5 people

      1. Approx one third of teachers in Scotland today come from rest-UK, with 50% or more in some areas such as Borders, D&G. Higher education in Scotland employs even fewer Scots, only around 10% in most of the elite uni’s, i.e. 90% of academics coming from outside Scotland. Most of these ‘educators’ will have little if any Scots language knowledge, or know much about our country and its people and history. Such knowledge is not a requirement to be employed in Scotland’s institutions! All teachers must generally have an English Studies Higher of course.

        Liked by 4 people

  16. Having met Sara several times, each time the impressed me more. One of the reasons I am 100% with Salvo and Liberation now. Sara knows what we should all be learning and believe in. For the sake of all real Scots we really do have to go down this road to really be an Independent nation again.

    It is also true that there are many people who have now seen the light, one that will will and should stay with as we go forward. There are now also many people working within Salvo, who are exceptionally hard working, they are behind the the scene and the need, nor want applause for what they they do.
    They are true patiots, I am sure many more will follow in the same principle.

    Thanks Sara for all you do, in pursuit of the necessary goals.

    Liked by 13 people

  17. Thank you Sara. A very well written explanation of what has happened to the people of Scotland. It makes me extremely angry now I am too old to enjoy what is coming. Independence.
    Like someone said we never taught Scottish history in school. I learned most of my Scottish history, post school, with regular visits to the library. I certainly don’t agree with Miranda’s comments or her attack on Sara, is quite despicable.

    Liked by 9 people

    1. Try and get Scottish history books from a council library they now dont purchase any now. I wonder where that directive has come from in our colonial administration.

      Liked by 5 people

  18. Isn’t it funny how the Irish (who were colonised by England for 800 years) managed to educate their people without a colonial mindset (thanks to the Roman Catholic Church) whilst the Scots (who were never actually conquered) now want to believe that they have a colonial mindset when they were never even conquered and England was never responsible for their education system ! Scotland will only progress once it accepts full responsibility for the actions and inactions of past Scots and stops playing the victim. Be more like the Irish and then you might actually achieve independence.

    Like

    1. “whilst the Scots (who were never actually conquered) now want to believe that they have a colonial mindset when they were never even conquered”

      No, we were just sold out by a Parcel of Rogues, the so called elite Lords, who signed the Treaty of Union in secret to avoid the unfranchised people who were against it so much they rioted! Whilst never a de jure colony we have been treated as a de facto colony for centuries, notwithstanding SOME Scots did very well from both Union and Empire.

      “England was never responsible for their education system”

      Except as you’ve already stated, it wasn’t until 1876 that state education was introduce by a parliament that was dominated by England who passed an Act upon Scotland which meant teaching in Gaelic and Scots language was prohibited.

      “Be more like the Irish and then you might actually achieve independence”

      I’d rather avoid Civil war and partition is that’s okay.

      Though it is interesting you appear to suggest Scotland should unilaterally withdraw from Westminster and set up an independent parliament and be republic.

      “you might actually achieve independence”

      Not we then. Are you actually Scottish? I wouldn’t normally ask but you did wrongly accuse Sara of not being Scottish!

      Liked by 9 people

    2. A lot of Scottish folk are fae families that were fae Ireland and you’re kidding yerself that it’s some kind of utopia free from issues. Coming fae family that followed both churches all I can say is am lucky that I decided to be neutral and mair like traditional being free as in real sovereign human being. I respect the right of people to follow their choice of faith if it doesn’t harm anyone (especially children) so maybe some of us are being mair Scottish and Irish fae old and joining the Liberation movement and enjoying learning the things that were denied us.

      Liked by 7 people

  19. You say you qualified here but don’t actually say you’re Scottish. Obtaining a Scottish teaching qualification doesn’t mean that teachers get to determine the curriculum. Prior to the opening of the Scottish Parliament the curriculum here would have been decided by the Scottish Office which was distinctly un-Scottish and very much pro-Union. A lot of Scots got next to nothing about Scottish history in the Seventies and Eighties (and before that). A teacher at my school actually said they’d been told they weren’t supposed to teach it so I very much doubt it was decided locally. Your comments about the age of enlightenment are irrelevant. Don’t bother patronising us with your comments about the Church of Scotland being Presbyterian not Anglican. I think it’s you who’s the Anglican. The Church of Scotland is part of the Establishment and would have worked within an establishment framework. I don’t believe for a second they were teaching much Scottish history. What was Fort William and the other fortresses if we weren’t being kept down by an army? Why was out language banned? Doesn’t sound like much of a “Union” to me. Lastly, on Ireland, I understand that their official schools were banned from teaching their history before their independence and rebels set up unofficial schools to teach it.

    Liked by 14 people

  21. @Miranda MacDonald So, Ms MacDonald, as a working-class male who received a Scottish education, how come I know much more about 1066 and the Bayeux Tapestry than I do about the Highland Clearances or the role of Scots-born thinkers in the European Enlightenment? What possible need did I, and many more like me, have to learn the history of England before that of my own country? Please explain.

    Liked by 12 people

  22. This for me hit the nail on the head , colonialism starts in the mind. I remember at School being told I would never amount to anything. The acceptance of failure and lack of expectation is ingrained into you indoctrinated and enforced from a very early age by a bantu education system The SNP Colonial administration had the chance to change things, by promoting the Scottish. Language, proper Scots music not the Jimmy Shand and Harry Lauder that is projected to create the cringe factore ,gaslighting you in the psychological projection of race inferiority. Real Scottish history is subverted and written in a Unionists agenda you never hear about the Scottish Enlightenment or anything Scottish in a positive light. English Mass Murders like Edward but especially Cromwell and Cumberland are mockingly remembered in our Street Names the architects of genocide and ethnic cleansing perpetrated on the Scottish people . We are slowly coming to the notion of what has been done to us as a race, our Irish cousins always knew and kept the knowledge alive but we like the Welsh are just being to understand the full extent of what British rule has done to us .

    Liked by 10 people

    1. “our Irish cousins always knew and kept the knowledge alive ”
      That thought also struck me Alastair and I wondered about the difference. Both countries were occupied and garrisoned, Scotland after 1745 and Ireland after 1798. Both countries were subjected to Acts of Union.
      There are a lot of other factors and differences in 19th C history in both countries – Ireland’s persistent rebellions, setting up associations to preserve its language, games and music from the 1790s onwards etc.
      I don’t know enough about Scotland’s history to compare and contrast the diverse forms of resistance to Westminster rule in the period
      But underneath it all, generally speaking, I wonder if the main difference lay in Ireland identifying with Republicanism ( a modern political philosophy) being influenced by the American and French Revolutions, while Scotland focussed on its failure to restore an ancient monarchy?

      Liked by 4 people

      1. Personally I think the main difference between the Irish and the Scots is the establishment in Ireland was always viewed as English here in Scotland our establishment became part of the British/English state they embraced the Union and Empire, they enriched themselves apeing their masters while impoverishing us the ordinary people We had our rebellions the Radicals being an example some wished Napoleon to liberate us from the gentrys tyranny. However we need to view the Scottish establishment as being Anglophones complicit and keen perpetrators of our subjugation and oppressions of our rights. We in Scotland have always had the enemy within the difference was the Irish recognised them we didn’t.

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    2. In Gretna and in Eastriggs, all of the original street names are from the “British Empire”. They include, The Rand, Melbourne Avenue, Pretoria Road, Empire Way, Dehli Road etc. etc. etc. Children in those 2 small towns in Dumfries & Galloway accept this as part of their experience and growing up and it becomes entrenched in their minds. After all, if the local worthies thought that their street names should be named after towns and cities in the British Empire then the empire must have surely been OK – must it not?

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      1. @arthor 49: Naming streets and roads after tthe aristocracy and Empire heroes,battles and conquests was common throughout Britain and Ireland, so that influence was the same for everybody at the time.

        @Alastair: This quote from Theobald Wolfe Tone, Father of irish Republicanism, links Republicanism with recognition that the Anglophone establishment (men of property) was complicit and keen perpetrators of our subjugation and oppression of our rights:

        “Our freedom must be had at all hazards. If the men of property will not help us they must fall; we will free ourselves by the aid of that large and respectable class of the community – the men of no property”

        Liked by 5 people

      2. Yes arthor49, this is very much a colonial heritage legacy, as are many of the monuments around us that glorify our oppressor. Ireland got rid of most of them after independence, as did most other colonies.

        Why should we have to walk past monuments that glorify our oppressor’s culture and values? This is all part of better understanding our ‘colonial condition’, a necessary prelude to liberation.

        Liked by 5 people

    3. The Welsh had the good sense to keep their mother tongue, knowing full well that the English were too proud or lazy to learn it. That’s their secret weapon. The male voice choir tradition as well I reckon creates natural orators and public speakers. They might steal a march on Scotland yet.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. The Estonians did the same, after they were invaded if a Russian came into a shop the assistant would pretend not to know what they were wanting forcing the Russian to learn the Estonian word. It worked!

        Liked by 1 person

      2. When I was young and fit enough for rock climbing in North Wales we would go into the pub of an evening (surprise surprise) and the local people would of course be speaking Welsh. The first time this happened my climbing partner from Leeds said to me, they are being quite ignorant speaking Welsh when they know we don’t speak the language. Being a member of both the SNP and Plaid Cymru at the time (as so many of us were back then), I told him that he had it the wrong way round and that it was their country and their language and it was us anglophones that were ignorant in expecting them to change speaking their native language to suit us. He did understand when explained to him and 55 years later we are still good friends.

        Liked by 1 person

  23. lovely article! its sentiments have fashioned my life!

    15 months to dissolve the Union! it can be done but the mind set has to change! Everything must be focused on it and the momentum of “it will happen” will triumph!

    Liked by 6 people

  24. I enjoyed that and combined with an e- mail with an update from Salvo it gave me a lift with regards to Indy not being dead. It looks like a good day was had by all at the march in Edinburgh with a turnout of between 5,000 to 20,000 depending on which account you read. I cannot face trawling through the couple of hours of footage after a long day but the 500 or so hardy souls that marched across the Skye bridge in the pissing rain the other week for AUOB mean more to me than this event. Looking at the numbers it looks more like the AUOB march in Oban a few years ago than the big marches in Edinburgh and you just wonder how well they did with the begging bucket collection. I couldn’t help notice how much coverage this march got compared to the AUOB marches from the reptiles in the press. Murray the Foot must have called in a few favours or opened his wee book of secrets.

    Liked by 6 people

    1. It was well attended and good to see even a handful of Salvo and other flags there. It all seemed well-organised too, as I’ve seen on AUOB marches too, my own feeling is that it would be good to see more collaboration between these organisers; if people disagree with this sentiment I’d be keen to hear why as I’d like to understand more the causes of some of the apparent divisions.
      It was interesting to hear the speeches, lots of good words but it still sounded more like aspirations than real determined intentions to me.
      Overall, I’m glad I went and I heard a lot of good discussions between people on the train home and had a good chat with some on the march itself, plenty of lions on the ground but more are needed in the political arena.

      Liked by 5 people

      1. “I’d like to understand more the causes of some of the apparent divisions.”

        As Frantz Fanon explained:

        “So we can observe the process whereby the rupture occurs between the illegal and legal tendencies in the party. The illegal minority is made to feel that they are undesirables and are shunned by the people that matter (and) already there is a rift between the two tendencies. The illegalists, therefore, will get into touch with the intellectual elements whose attitude they were able to understand a few years back; and an underground party, an off-shoot of the legal party, will be the result of this meeting. But the repression of these wayward elements intensifies as the legal party draws nearer to colonialism and attempts to modify it ‘from the inside’. The illegal minority thus finds itself in a historical blind alley.”

        The illegal minority, according to Fanon, must then look to “the mass of the country… who keep their moral values and their devotion to the nation intact” but whose understanding of the situation remains “rudimentary”; this is because the party has never undertaken “a reasoned study of colonial society”.

        Which implies that the march this weekend is organised for and by the ‘legal tendency’, whose ‘moral values’ and ‘devotion to the nation’ remain questionable, according to postcolonial theory. (‘Legal’ in this sense means those playing only by the colonizer’s rules.)

        Liked by 5 people

  25. Well said Sara. Lightbulb moments, for me anyway, happened outwith the education system. The system is designed around ignorance and conformity and thus far it has been very successful. We are taught how we can best serve a dysfunctional society. Of course if you go to Eton or harrow, you would be taught that society is there to serve you.

    Liked by 5 people

  26. The lady doth protest too much may be an English saying but I do think it reflects comments being made here.

    Colonialism is indeed in the mind and is an absolute key to retaining a colony, More so in fact than physical force and guns. Controlling hearts and minds they, inculcating all kinds of thinking……. too wee, too poor being but one example.

    And where better to start than in our education system. Get em young, fill em up with right thinking, is it any wonder that Scottish history and Scottish culture is written out of the curriculum in favour of English history and culture. And that’s just the schools.

    None so blind as they say and the lady does protest too much. But in doing so she exposes the physical and cultural and phisical colonialism so extant in Scotland.

    The 2014 referendum ran them close. Closer than we may dare think and that is why the establishment is in fear and on full maneuvers to try to derail independence.

    Scotland could be closer to independence than we think. Eyes are being opened, sound unstoppable strategies for going forward are being implemented.

    Our time will come!

    Liked by 5 people

  27. Not commented here for a while ; not through any disenchantment with the site – it’s still excellent and I still read ( most ) of the posts and BTL – really , it’s down to getting a bit tired of my own opinionising and the repeating of those opinions on different blogs . Anyway …..

    I can’t commend this article by Sara highly enough – a simply inspirational ,deeply felt – and thought – piece that – if we had the kind of ” main vehicle of Independence ” & pro-Independence media we’re crying-out for , would be printed IN BOLD TYPE on the front page of the National and issuing from the mouth of every – supposedly – pro-Independence politician/media pundit .

    That combination of personal experience , intellectual acumen and emotional ( in the true sense ie from the depth of one’s heart – not worthless , ineffectual sentimentalising ) commitment Sara evinces truly is a ” pearl beyond price ” and will ultimately prove of more real value than any/every SNP * controlled * march or ( pitifully inept ) ” Initiative ” . We want nourishing soul-food , not bland , tasteless F.M – modified ersatz junk . We want the real thing ; we won’t settle for anything less .

    Thanks Sara & Iain and everyone involved in the arduous and often thankless task of awakening our nation to it’s history , present * condition * and – potential – future as a free , Independent Nation . Again .

    ps Great that you had/have the generosity of spirit to re-post those excellent recent articles by Pete Bell & Robin McAlpine . They both deserve the widest exposure possible .Good on ye , Iain

    Liked by 6 people

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