Letter: Colonial myth

Published on Saturday 11 February 2012 00:00

ALAN Clayton (Letters, 10 February) is entitled to his views on the need for an independent Scotland, but his attempt to characterise Britain’s recent history as being distinct from Scotland’s cannot go unchallenged.

Scotland has never been a downtrodden colony of England as some would like to portray us. Mr Clayton speaks of his memories of a discredited and war-mongering Britain as if Scots were somehow divorced from it. The opposite is true, with Scots, for good or ill, being immersed as equal partners.

A fair-minded review of history will surely conclude Britain has been a force for good in the world, though there have been regrettable episodes.

Mr Clayton might wish to claim we Scots were the wee boys standing by the side while the big boys did nasty things in our name and then ran away, but that doesn’t wash. Scots have been at the heart of the British administration and its military since the Union was formed, and his selective recollection of history is an affront to the service personnel from Scotland who, for example, gave the ultimate sacrifice in helping deliver Europe from the grip of the Nazis.

It is right we should review our history; it is wrong to attempt to rewrite it.

Bill Goodall

Baird Drive

Edinburgh

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Pilrig.

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 11:00 AM

Britain a force for good ? Check oot the history o' Ireland tae lay that myth tae rest.

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samcoldstream

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 10:27 AM

Nationalist Alan Clayton views British history in a different light. However, history might well record that, IF Scotland should ever secede from this unitary State, then the catalyst for this momentous decision can be traced back to Margaret Thatcher and her divisive and destructive economic, political, and social policies. In her desire to "save" Britain, Thatcher's Tory dogma ironically removed the proud prefix "British" from hundreds of public AND private companies which later became, American, Dutch, French, German, Spanish, et al owned. Indeed, the Iron Lady might well have inadvertently become the Mother of Nationalism.

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Otto Bàn

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 08:57 AM

The UK is ruled by an upper class concentrated mainly in the south. Scotland is not an equal in this arrangement.

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tattie soup

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 07:07 AM

This is one of these impossible things to prove, ie that Scotland was an equal promulgator with England in imperial conquests etc that became the British Empire. It is a topic that Tom Devine's book about Scots and the Empire has been often used to underpin. But nevertheless I think it is a partial view favoured by those who oppose an independent Scotland. Yes surely Scotland has been a considerable military participant. But that could simply reflect the lesser options for employment in Scotland than in England and followed from Culloden when the Highland clans were subsequently recruited en masse into the Empire's armies. As for World War II - had Britain and other non-fascist governments intervened in Spain against Franco - and I suspect that disproportionate to Scotland's population a greater number of Scots fought with the International Brigade than any other nation apart from Spain itself (though this is but speculation on my part). Had such intervention occurred, perhaps Hitler's ravenous ambitions might have been blunted in the same way that Britain and France stood back and spectated while Czechoslovakia was dismembered, then later Poland, and not until Norway, France etc were attacked did Britain & France react. In expressing such opinion there is no attempt to re-write history. To adjust much of the already writ history perhaps, and written history is full of partiality and in need of adjusting. As for Britain a force for good in the world - what kind of 'force' is referred to here? Britain's empire was achieved by force, military force. So was Hitler's. Enough said.

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