Notes from the Highland as Scotland prepares for the independence referendum

On September 18, as the Scots vote in a referendum for or against independence from the rest of United Kingdom (comprising England, Wales and Northern Ireland), this is a tiny reality check of their own past as oppressors in the heart of Glasgow’s renowned museum. Perspective is a wretched little wrench.

In 1707, Scotland and England were forged (or “forced”, depending on who you talk to) into a union and have since been indistinguishable from each other as the British Empire for the rest of the world. After over 300 years of a mostly peaceful co-existence and despite the relentless jibes that both the English and Scottish keep hurling at each other, it remains to be seen if Scotland will vote for a culmination of what some see as a centuries’ old struggle for a separate identity (a ‘Yes’ vote) or keep their faith in a continuing Union (a ‘No’ vote) and lean towards the similarities shared rather than the differences. Opinion polls predict a very close race, as both sides issue desperate last-minute pleas to woo voters.

) a wall sporting a Scottish independence referendum sign; Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow; the Edinburgh cathedral

“I won’t vote ‘Yes’, because I’m British — doesn’t matter Scottish or English!” says Sam Rother (name changed), a volunteer at the recently-concluded Commonwealth Games, who was born south of the border, and has lived all his life in Scotland after his parents moved up north. “As British as someone from Manchester,” he adds. He’s pat with his figures. Glasgow makes ships for the Royal Navy and 16,000 jobs could be gone in a blink in case of Yes, he moans. Close to 7 lakh people will need to be displaced — movement from north-south and vice versa. Two years ago, it was 80-20 in favour of ‘No’ in official polls, now it’s 60-40 and could get tight.

At the Games, several English volunteers struggled to comprehend the Glasgwegian chatter — fast, sing-song, abbreviated, brusque — almost like English spoken by a hurried Russian. “Not all British are same. London’s different from Manchester, and Glasgow’s different from Edinburgh which is different from Inverness (up towards the Highlands). Do we all break free of each other after so many years together?” asks Rother, who has many African friends from college who tell him, “I know nothing about fighting and dying for independence, because I’m lucky to vote peacefully for it.”

The sentiment to assert their own unique cultural identity has always existed north of England. The Scottish struggle for independence has its keywords: Bonnie Prince Charlie, Mary Queen of Scots, 1707, banning of the Highland dress and playing the pipe, Jacobite Risings, The Forty-Five, Robert the Bruce, Culloden, Bannockburn. It’s a rich, tragic history, though these days they make jokes about how those who vote a ‘No’ are in line for knighthood, by pleasing the Londoners.
The Scots have their own set of boasts to berate the English which have found their way on Glen Appin art-work on posters. “What’s like us? Damn Few And They’re A’ Deid,” it says. It proceeds to rub in how the Englishman likes marmalade (invented by Mrs Keiller of Dundee) at breakfast, wears a raincoat (patented by Charles Macintosh from Glasgow), walks to office along an English lane surfaced with tarmac (invented by John Loudon MacAdam of Ayr), has his cars fitted with Pneumatic tyres (patented by John Boyd Dunlop of Dreghorn), dines on his favourite traditional roast beef from Aberdeen Angus, raised in Aberdeenshire.

“Frustrated rockstars make wonderful crime writers,” says detective-fiction writer Ian Rankin in a documentary on himself. Rankin, who has mapped out Edinburgh like no other for his crime-fiction readers, stays on Merchston Street and has JK Rowling and Alexander McCall Smith for neighbours in his tony, leafy lane. His first-ever John Rebus novel (based on the iconic brooding detective) was meant to be a hat-tip to RL Stevenson’s Jekyll-Hyde, with the quibble that the author of the psycho-thriller, despite being born in Edinburgh, based the novel in London. In the same documentary, Rankin explains how “Rebus is a conservative with a small C, hates change, so he’ll vote ‘No’.” Siobhan Clarke, the younger woman detective he created, would probably say ‘Yes’.

His neighbour Rowling, and musician James MacMillan have openly sided with ‘No’, inviting staunch criticism. Stuart Kelly, who recently did a radio programme for the BBC about the referendum debate called “How Did Scotland’s Artists Turn Nationalist?”, delves into the reasons why those like writer Irving Welsh will weigh in with an ‘Yes’, while others enjoying the ‘cultural confidence’ that artistes, writers, poets in Scotland are benefitting from, might side with a ‘No’. “Culture has filled what has been a political vacuum in Scotland. In the absence of a functioning legislature, people often looked to novelists and poets to ventilate issues of the day,” the radio programme says.

As such, artists like and welcome change, but contemporary Scottish literary and art figures “have followed in the footsteps of the titan of 20th century literature, poet Hugh MacDiarmid”, says Kelly. With Anglophobia as one of his recreations, and frontier spirit breathing through every word he wrote, the poet has many following his works. “Many Scots see the later Thatcher-era through his lines,” says Kelly. A cultural-resistance to high-Thatcherism might have a part to play in the polls.

No one believes they are living in a real oppressive state, which usually produces revolutionary literature, but a certain buzz follows every word uttered by literary figures on that matter of referendum. David Greige, famous playwright likens the September 18 vote to the world offering the central character of a play (the hero) with a choice. “It’s not an easy choice,” he told Kelly in the BBC radio show, “but if it was easy, the hero will simply make it. If there was no pressure of time, the hero would simply defer making the choice forever. This is Scotland revealing its character.”