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The Patriot's Warning
The Writer of this article is an ex member
and activist of the SNP
We hear so much these days from SNP figures about how the Scottish
Parliament should "take control over it’s own finances",
which is another example of how "fiscal autonomy" has
replaced national independence in the SNP leadership's list of
priorities. Ironically so, because there can be no fiscal autonomy
for Scotland if the SNP has its way and Scotland joins the Euro.
A single currency means transferring monetary and fiscal policy
over to Brussels and Frankfurt.
However, as patriots - indeed, as Scots - we shouldn't be concentrating
on "taking care of our own finances" - we should be
concentrating on taking care of our OWN!
By that, I mean that the Scots must wake up and realise that we
are a nation, and understand what that means to us before
it is taken away by the powers that be. A nation, a people bound
together by blood, by history, by culture, by the myriad unspoken
assumptions and understandings that make us comfortable, at home,
in the company of our own kind.
The great betrayal of the SNP was to take the "Scottish nation"
out of "Scottish nationalism". What they are left with
is a barren, sterile, irrelevant rump of a political philosophy.
Unlike real patriots like De Gaulle, they have no "certain
idea of Scotland"- the bland, faceless, and instantly forgettable
policy wonks and professional politicians who run the SNP would
throw up their hands in horror at the idea of anything even half
as raw and vital as REAL Scottish nationalism.
And I don't mean that milk water spew that they call "civic
nationalism". What is "civic nationalism"? Who
genuinely believes that the Scots are nothing more than a
random bunch of people who happen to use the same civic institutions?
Is Scotland as a nation nothing more than an overlapping mass
of civic institutions like sewage treatment plants and dogcatchers?
Should we stop calling ourselves a "nation" and choose
a more politically correct term, like "public-service users
of Eurozone 13"?
No.
The roar must go up: "WE ARE A PEOPLE!"
The SNP believes in hand-wringing, mealy-mouthed, universalist
tosh. For them, a "Scot" is anybody who might have smelled
a whisky, once, and might consider voting SNP or at least donating
them a few quid, please? How cheaply they confer that term on
anybody who happens to set foot on the tarmac of Glasgow Airport.
How cheaply they give away a nationality that was bought with
blood and sacrifice by generations of our ancestors, who spilled
their veins so that they could be SCOTS.
The SNP doesn't know what a "Scot" is. They think it
is a marketing term, that can be slapped on anyone according
to convenience. For the SNP has smelled the wind, and seen
that it is blowing towards an atomised, multiculturalised world
where ancient nations are subsumed under a tide of mass
immigration and cretinous consumerism, a world where being a "Scot"
is just another "lifestyle" choice like wearing GAP
khakis or drinking Diet Coke.
For anyone to point out that the Scots are a distinct people,
with a distinct cultural and genetic heritage, well that is heresy,
bordering on "racism". Heresy that was orthodoxy until
just a few short years ago, mind you - by this definition, all
of our best ancestors were "racists", including William
Wallace and Rabbie Burns. And Hugh MacDiarmid:
You canna gang to a Burns Supper even Wi' oot some w izened
scrunt o' a knock-knee Chinee turns roon to say, 'Him Haggis-velly
goot!' And ten to wan the piper is a Cockney
- (frae 'A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle')
Not that other people can't be adopted into this nation of ours
- they can, and many adopted Scots are more patriotic than those
who are Scottish by default. The zeal of the convert is well known,
and should be welcomed, provided the professed convert is genuine
and an asset to this country.
However, this should only emphasise that the Scots are an authentic
people - if we are not, how can outsiders ever become adopted
Scots? How can they assimilate if there is nothing to assimilate
to?
I used to believe in trying to be scrupulously fair and universalist
in my thinking, because of that peculiar inborn trait which we
Westerners possess in assuming that everyone is essentially like
us, no matter how different they might appear on the surface.
People of European descent tend to believe that univeralism is
morally superior to particularism, and don't understand that their
universalist tendencies are particular to them!
What I mean is, other peoples simply don't spend their time worrying
about being "fair" or even being "nice" to
other ethnic groups - they simply pursue what they think is good
for their own people. In pursuing their own ends, they might cloak
their particularism under a univeralist guise - by claiming
that they are merely seeking "fairness" or "equality"
(and these lofty ideals just happen to coincide with giving the
group in question what it wants, what a coincidence!) but they
don't really believe in such standards. We have ethnic lobbies
in Europe and America demanding unlimited immigration for their
own brethren, but strangely enough this is never reciprocated.
Non - Western countries don't practise multiculturalism. Christians
can't get churches built in Muslim countries - but you are a racist
if you don't want the call to prayer to wail from mosques in Scotland's
town centres!
I realised that trying to be a universalist, trying to be a pious,
politically-correct do-gooder doesn't work. It's a mug's game.
It's like following Jesus Christ's invitation to turn the other
cheek - in the showers in prison. You just end up getting buggered.
I realised that I had to be honest
with myself about my inherent biases - and not just to be honest,
but to embrace my biases, to nurture them. Because they exist
for a reason, and that reason is not "racism".
So let me publically declare it - I am biased, prejudiced, even.
I am not equally in favour of all peoples and cultures. I am for
Scotland and the Scots- first and foremost. I feel a special kinship
with people who speak like me, think like me, and (Heaven help
them) look like me.
My heart will never start racing to the clamour of a bhangra band
the way it does to the sound of the bagpipe. My eyes will never
go misty when watching "Kuch Tum Kaho Kuch Hum Kahein"
the way they do when watching "Braveheart". And I will
never, ever, think of calling one of my sons "Boutros-Boutros"...
In other words, I am a Scottish nationalist.
You remember those guys - Scottish nationalists? Many of us used
to be members of the SNP, before being expelled, or leaving in
disgust. Those hairy-kneed lunatics who believe in sticking up
for the Scots, in putting Scotland first in all of our politics,
in nurturing the land and folk from whence we sprang, who delight
in our multitudinous idiosyncrasies and walk in the paths of our
fading folkways.
We are a vanishing breed, these days. Which is appropriate, because
our breed -our nation - is itself in danger of vanishing, through
low birth rates, high emigration, and massive immigration.
The biggest gun which is being held to our head is the psychological
intimidation that goes with being called "racist". Whether
this accusation trips off the tongue of an oh-so-superior white
settler from the Home Counties, or an Albanian drugs dealer who
has decided to take advantage of our lax asylum laws, the effect
is the same. Isn't it amazing that a people who gave up generations
of lives to expel foreign invaders should cower in fear when called
a bad name?
Of course, the psychological bullying is beginning to lose its
effect in countries that have suffered most from mass immigration,
like France, Denmark, Holland, and Austria. People in those nations
have voted in large numbers for political parties which voice
their disgust at seeing their homelands disappearing before their
eyes. The EU was spooked by this, and when its laughable "diplomatic
sanctions" against Austria failed, it decided on a new tack
- this time, it would be personal sanctions, individualised persecution
of anyone who dares to speak out against their nation-killing
plans.
Is anyone fooled by the EU's determination to impose laws against
"racism and xenophobia"? Combined with a European Arrest
Warrant, which will allow people to be whisked away to face prosecution
in a foreign country for things that aren't even crimes in their
homeland, this measure is every totalitarian dictatorship's dream.
Given that "racism and xenophobia" are whatever the
government says they are, people could - and probably will - be
locked up for saying things that most people privately believe.
Big Brother isn't just a crap TV show anymore, he's alive and
well and stalking the corridors of power in London and Brussels.
There once was an Englishman named Hugo de Cressingham, who had
the temerity to assume the power to tax the Scots to pay for their
national displacement. William Wallace had this man turned into
a belt.
Our modern-day rulers, whose plans for Scotland are more genocidal
than the maddest dreams of any Plantagenet king, should take heed.
But they won't, of course, until they are made to take heed by
the people. And that won't happen until the masses are sufficiently
enraged to shake off their petty tyrants the way a dog shakes
off fleas. In the meantime, much that is fair and beautiful will
be lost from this world forever.
Shakespeare put it like this in
Macbeth:
"Be not offended: I speak not as in absolute fear of you.
I think our country sinks beneath the yoke; It weeps, it bleeds;
and each new day a gash Is added to her wounds..."
My poor country! The dying words of Andrew Fletcher haunt
us down the centuries. Or as Charlie and Craig Reid of The Proclaimers
put it:
"We should have held you
We should have told you
But you know our sense of timing
We always wait too long
Lochaber no more
Sutherland no more
Lewis no more
Skye no more..."
...Scotland no more?
Ah, but we remember a time when
a grief-stricken man sat in a cave and watched a spider trying
to climb up a wall, and took heart from the greatest of spirit
found in the smallest of God's creatures. That man has been in
his long hame for six hundred and seventy-three years. His blood
is spent, and we patriots cannot help but feel our own inadequacies
when compared with the heroes of our folk. But King Robert's lesson
remains as valid as ever.
Scotland will prevail. Not all of her former pride and dignity
are forgotten, much remains hidden still, in the secret heart
of the people. I hae faith in Scotland's hidden powers, the present's
theirs but all the past and future's OUR'S!
The time will soon come, when the Scottish people cry out: "We
didna ken, we didna ken!". We should resist the temptation
to respond with a glib "Aye, well ye ken noo!" and grasp
the opportunities which present themselves to free our people.
But not only that, we must agitate, educate, and cogitate our
way to independence. We will win by being bigger, better, and
bolder than our opponents. What kind of creature is a Jack McConnell,
a Jim Wallace, a David McLetchie, or a John Swinney? Not a man,
that's for sure.
We will win because we are right. Truth is on our side. History
is on our side. We are not afraid of saying what we believe, which
is why we are dangerous. The SNP, Her Majesty's Loyal Geldlings,
are to be laughed away - what can a collection of office boys
and pinstriped toadies do to stop us? Would William Wallace have
feared the edicts of a John Swinney... or a Jack McConnell?
It isn't necessary for us to agree on everything that we would
like to see in a free Scotland. It isn't even necessary for us
to agree on the best tactics to win national freedom. So long
as we agree that Scotland and the Scots must be our number 1,
number 2, and number 3 concern, the rest follows. No one party
or organisation or individual will deliver our nation's liberation,
it will be a collective effort by people in different parts of
the country doing what they can for the movement.
The salty tang of the North Sea blowing a chill wind at the housewives
shopping in Auld Reekie. The granite cityscape of Aberdeen glittering
on a clear winter's day. Children playing kirbie outside a red
sandstone tenement in Glasgow. A fisherman nipping into a pub
in Fraserburgh for a wee hauf. The wee crofter's dug cocking his
head at the craic during a Hogmany ceilidh in Skye... think of
your own memories of why Scotland is precious to you, this is
what we are fighting for.
We ARE a people, and we have a
right to exist. This homeland of ours must be guarded jealously,
for we have none other.
"This is my country,
The land that begat me,
These windy spaces
Are surely my own.
and those who toil here
In the sweat of their faces
Are flesh of my flesh
And bone of my bone."
-- SIR ALEXANDER GRAY