Nationalism - The New Refuge of the Scoundrel

Alex Salmond demands that the British Prime minister ceases ‘interfering  in Scottish affairs’ over the staging of a referendum on independence. This seems to indicate that the Union of is of no consequence to England whatsoever, yet it is an absolutely key constitutional question, perhaps the biggest for 101 years.  Nationalism, the new refuge of the scoundrel, rears its unpleasant face from across the northern border.

What is Nationalism after all?  On hearing the word culture Herman Goering reached for his revolver, nationalism leads everyone to eventually reach for theirs.  One is supposed to be ‘proud’ of one’s nationality – but why? I might be proud of playing an instrument well, helping my team with a spectacular goal, bringing up a wonderful child, achievements all. I certainly didn’t ‘achieve’ Englishness… I had it trust upon me, is it therefore the same thing as greatness?  Of what is there to be so proud? Am I to be proud of my whiteness, my left-handedness, of being born in Pembury Hospital?

My fellow countrymen may be shocked by this lack of patriotism but do they similarly expect a Scot to be proud? Do they think less of him if he does not trumpet his thrill at being Scottish? No… they probably think him sad and a little ridiculous if he does.  If not him, what about a Spaniard, a Chaddian, an Albanian? Do we admire them all the more if they strut around professing their love of country and singing the national anthem while thrusting their chins at the horizon? No… we find them ridiculous and so we should.

I’ve heard the arguments regarding the economics of the union, who benefits, who subsidizes who and one thing is for sure, since the figures can be made to come out either way there cannot be much in it; whatever the desire for Scots independence it is not primarily an economic one. No…it is all about the obsession of our times- ‘identity’ - that phantom denominator of phony worthiness. For this we must draw a new and darker line on the map between our two countries and, once that line is there, we can find some real stuff to fight about. North sea oil, fishing rights, trade agreements, immigration, extradition or the very border itself.

Are Scots demeaned, defamed or discriminated against south of the border?  It seems not, Scots have occupied positions of power and influence in Britain for centuries. Many Scots from Sean Connery to Ronnie Corbett and Billy Connolly are to found in the national treasure chest. There have been many Scottish Prime ministers and even an English prime minister, Alec Douglas Home, who claimed to be Scottish, though this was denied by many from north of the border  – hardly a sign of discrimination by the British establishment.

Once counties disagree the ultimate arbiter is not the right or wrong of either position but the willingness of one human to fire bullets into the body of another. National identity is, ultimately, backed by an army. This maybe fanciful but once the two countries are separated the onus will be on each to outfox the other and get whatever they can over on one another. Co-operation, that most valuable of human traits, will be replaced by competition. Our nature will defeat our civilization, something we have spent millennia struggling painfully away from. All this may not happen right now but one thing is for sure… once Scotland is an independent nation and history has marched us down the road a generation or two they CAN happen. Having seen what the Balkanization of the Balkans can bring about who would want to take even a single step in that direction?

Sectarianism, already rife in Scotland, can only blossom once the border has been set. Once the power game can actually produce a winner the two communities will feel bound to compete for it lest they lose out to those they perceive as likely to oppress them. What then, another border dividing the Protestants and Catholics of Scotland?

The EU has more or less crippled itself in the pursuit of economic and political union…something that would have bought the counties of that union a far more politically and economically powerful position than they have separately. We have that in place with Scotland and yet, if Salmond is to have his way, we are to abandon it. To satisfy the emotional longings of a lot of chin pointers and flag wavers?

For better or worse we are in this together and to tear it apart on what, in the long term, amounts to a political whim, is capricious in the extreme.  The union, like any marriage, may not be prefect but is infinitely preferable to the nasty squabbles over the island home we will still have to share, even if the Decree Nisi is eventually granted to Mr Salmond and his Nationalists.

Opinion-hated!

Opinion-hated!

Is it possible to have an opinion without wanting, no, expecting, no, DEMANDING every right-minded person share it?

A lot of course depends on the strength with which one believes in what-ever-it is, the niceness, or otherwise, of Bovril/Marmite, the horridness of Moyles/Robinson; hardly the stuff of mass movements,-some things however carry a lot more weight.

I am a cyclist; ergo I am hated equally by motorists and pedestrians alike. The former for cycling on the road at all, the latter; for either cycling on the pavement or not cycling on the road as if I were cycling on the pavement.

Take Sir Paul McCartney’s apparent ‘rant’ at a cyclist this week. After being ‘forced to throw a female passerby from the path’ of the ‘pedaling thug’ Paul regaled Soho with some language most unbecoming a Knight of the Ninky Noo Naa or whatever he is. The words: ‘I was crossing the road when I saw this bike courier careering towards us’ tells us that both of Paul’s goody-two shoes were actually in the road at the time of the incident. Presumably then, since this was a ‘busy area’, the chap should have slowed down to walking pace so that Paul was not required to look before crossing and would not have to hurl innocent ladies from the carriageway.

Why (oh why oh why) is it that the people on the pavement think they have a right to walk straight in front of those riding bicycles along the road – what are we expected to do, haul on the brakes and tug at our forelocks while stammering apologies, every time some i-pod toting somnambulist chooses to wander randomly off the pavement? It’s funny but pedestrians feel like idiots when they do this to cars but seem perfectly entitled to curse poor cyclists, who are just as likely as they are to be hurt in any collision between them. The irony here is that the courier was probably hurtling through Soho delivering some god awful piece of artwork for some hopeless product nobody wants or needs on a deadline set by some over demanding twatker - how is the new album by the way Sir Paul?

Some people shouldn’t be allowed shoes - but then that’s just my opinion!

Handy?

I just cannot seem to get through the simplest job at home without a good deal of Mutleying. Not the laughing Mutley either, the grumbly one. Firstly there’s the ‘Finding the Stuff.’  While you know you have a 5ml spronk-nurdler somewhere – you remember taking back to the hardware shop when you discovered it was the anticlockwise one and it turned out, after removing most of your knuckle skin and snapping the ratchet-spring-tensioner-shaft-retaining-spindle, that you needed the clockwise one – you have no idea where it is. ‘No man owns that which he cannot find.’ (Wikicydidies 270BC)

As the search extends you hear yourself Mutleying ‘well where else would it be!?’ (fushoowushawas…etc). You engage in hopeless activities like looking behind the bread-bin, shrugging – to yourself! Your partner, lifting it straight out of the drawer you’ve been going through like a cat litter tray, only serves to blacken your mood further.

Then everything is so pointlessly difficult and fiddly. My gold plated spade-ended-speaker-connectors finally arrived all the way from the Bay of E yesterday. They are like little gold Churchill victory fingers attached to a narrow collar. All I had to do was lever open the collars, slide them onto the wires, and crimp them shut with a pair of pliers. Well they may only have been gold plated but they seemed to be made from weapons grade titanium. No amount of measly poking at them with a screw driver had the slightest effect, so then I had the accursed ‘bright idea’. If I hammered a fat nail into them they would be forced open. A bit of fossicking in the second oldest tool box produced one just right, but then I needed something to rest it on (which wasn’t the dining table) while I set to with the only hammer readily to hand; one I had bought our son for an abortive fossiling expedition to the south coast this summer. It seemed a little OTT but what the hell, better a hammer too big than too small!

Finding that the bread board made an ideal rest, I closed my fingers round the tiny item and began hammering away like a Chilean Miner at a tin of sardines. Golly it was tough, Nasa Spec stuff at online prices! Eventually I found that I had forced the nail to do my bidding and opened the thing far enough to slide my speaker wires into, the only problem being was that it was now attached, permanently it would seem, to the bread board via the quite sizable nail. Eventually, after much prizing and considerable overuse of the word ‘ridiculous’ I managed to pull the sword from the stone. It was then I discovered just how firmly my item was clasped round the nail I had used to force it open. This, of course, needed a firm grip from the pliers and the use of still sterner forms of invective until, eventually, I had it free of the nail – only to find that the amount of force needed to grip the bugger had closed it up again. Back to square zero! After many versions of this procedure, interrupted by anxious glances at the clock (‘This will all be put away if I take him to trumpet practice for you then?’) I had finally got the fiddly little wires through the fiddly little collars and given them an almighty crushing with the big pliers - only to find I’d put them onto the old speaker wires I had had just removed. I’m not sure what language it was the neighbors heard coming up through their floor boards yesterday afternoon but I’m sure Mutley would have understood every word!