File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_2004/anarchy-list.0408, message 185


Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 09:47:21 +0100
From: Dave Coull <coull-AT-ocicat.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Nationalisms



Heather wrote

 > As far as I know there are no peoples that can be accurately
 > termed "Scottish" either

Well like Greg said, at the end of the day we're all human.
However, it is a fact that there are cultural differences
between different groupings of humans. This is a good thing.
It would be sad if we had total cultural uniformity all
over the world. Yes, "Scottish" is a political construct,
just as "British" is. However, I think it is a less
harmful political construct, certainly a less imperialist
political construct. To illustrate this, we only have
to look at two "nationalist" parties, the British
National Party and the Scottish National Party.
The BNP is openly racist. It favours an end to
immigration (particularly for people of the wrong
colour) and in fact it wants "repatriation" of
"immigrants" to "back where they came from".
In practice, this would mean attempting to
"cleanse" the UK of all non-whites, including
people who were born here, and their parents were
born here, etc. The SNP, on the other hand, not
only doesn't want an end to immigration, they
are actually actively in favour of promoting
immigration, because they see this as "good for
Scotland". Because the SNP actively supports ethnic
diversity, the "asian" population here in Scotland
(with origins in Pakistan, Bangla Desh, India, etc)
are actually more likely to vote SNP than your average
"native" Scot. Now, my point is that the total contrast
between the policies of these two "nationalist"
parties is not an accident, it didn't "just happen"
to be that way. It is that way because "Britishness"
is an inherently imperialist concept, a concept
which was invented for the specific purpose
of aggressive imperialism. The English ruling
class wanted an end to the situation where
France could attack them through the back door,
through France's Scottish allies. The Scottish
ruling class envied England's growing empire
and wanted a piece of the capitalist action.
So "Britain" was invented. That was the deal.
The Scots gave up their independence, in return
they got to profit from imperialism. The very
concept of "Britishness" will, in my opinion,
always, unavoidably, carry that imperialist baggage.
For this reason, I don't call myself "British".

Dave C



   

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