Time to stop depending on the spoils of war

Published on Sunday 28 June 2009 21:59

THE National Trust says the World Heritage status of St Kilda is at risk thanks to Ministry of Defence plans to remove 125 staff from its radar base on Hirta and associated missile ranges on Benbecula and South Uist.

On first hearing, that claim sounds crazy. Anyone who has trekked four hours each way to reach the near-legendary islands will have had the same reaction upon arrival. Wow. Swiftly followed by, "What the hell are these prefabs doing here?" And, therefore, the same reaction to news of the MoD's departure. Hooray.

Currently, Nissen huts and a diesel-powered generator with a broken, blackened funnel form the centrepiece of Village Bay. And up on the Mullach Mor ridge sits an utterly incongruous radar golf ball, to track missiles fired from Benbecula.

Rusting junk everywhere, not that you'd know from the photographs of those who've been: the towering sea-cliffs; the Lover's rock where men proved their marriage-worthiness by leaning out on one leg; the world's largest gannet colony on neighbouring Boreray; the street where the men of the St Kildan parliament met; hundreds of hillside cleats (mini black houses for storing fish, oats, and sea bird carcases). All of this is what the visitor has made a long crossing to see.

So we all connive in screening out the unsightly military hardware, and allow the myth of pristine St Kilda to continue.

So has the National Trust.

Severely strapped for cash, it has depended on the military to provide a year-round presence, with electricity, stores, reliable sea and air transport, and creature comfort in the shape of the PuffInn bar. The whole ugly tangle of Nissan huts dwarfs the receding grey houses of the Street, the broken dry-stane dyke that once kept Soay sheep off painstakingly-maintained pastures and the church of a people who never went to war or sampled the demon drink. Some of the MoD huts on one of just 22 double World Heritage sites on the face of the planet reportedly contain asbestos.

This is the terrible culture clash the National Trust and Western Isles community leaders believe they must retain. Without the jobs, people, bustle, transport, know-how and purchasing power of the military, they fear St Kilda will rapidly become wild and the economy of the Uists will virtually collapse.

According to Angus Macmillan, chairman of Storas Uibhist, the community body that owns most of South Uist: "The loss of 125 jobs in Uist (and St Kilda] is equivalent to 25,000 jobs lost in Glasgow. This disastrous proposal from the MoD and QinetiQ (the MoD's agent company] will be fought strenuously by this community."

It's an understandable reaction to the threat of losing well-paid jobs in a recession. But is it wise?

Two hundred years ago, islanders crushed by the Hanoverian army at Culloden were recruited into craftily named, clan-like regiments. Penniless and broken, they had little choice. Can this generation do nothing better than cling to the military so the diesel fires keep burning on St Kilda?

It's emblematic of the sorry state of island culture that peaceful Gaels fight to keep the British military at the heart of their society rather than turn and face the real enemy – their own disempowering fear that, without outside control, Hebridean society will wither and die.

Looking round Scotland, the reverse is true. Remote communities with military bases often suffer low self-esteem and a lack of alternative employment. By contrast the military-base-free Orkney, Shetland and Faroes have blossomed in population, diversity of employment and cultural confidence as the hardware-spattered Western Isles have declined. With half the land mass, the Faroese currently outnumber Hebrideans by almost two to one. In 1901, it was more than the other way round.

We should wave goodbye to the MoD on St Kilda and not detain them a minute longer. The Scottish Government should devote energy instead into obtaining decommissioning cash – a "peace dividend" from the MoD based on precedents created by Scottish Natural Heritage, which has spent millions on Rum fixing drainage, housing and electricity before transferring those assets to the community, and BP, which agreed from the start to restore Sullom Voe to its greenfield condition when it finally quit Shetland. Such development cash could fund the safe removal of buildings and retrain QinetiQ staff to create a renewable energy project on St Kilda to replace the MoD diesel generator.

And the people of Benbecula could consider an even bolder move – a community buyout of St Kilda on the grounds they are the nearest landfall community. That would relieve the National Trust of an island it cannot afford to maintain and create a trust to sit beside Storas Uist receiving the MoD's "peace dividend" cash and donations from around the world.

I'd guess the Scottish diaspora – arriving next month in Edinburgh – would contribute to a St Kilda Trust if it could promise to demonstrate in this century the same resourcefulness and tenacity St Kildans exhibited in the last. If generations of improved renewable technology, engineering capacity and telecommunications can't deliver a non-military solution for St Kilda and Benbecula, then these societies are indeed doomed. Not next week, maybe not next year, but soon. There is no example of the military being persuaded to stay somewhere they have decided to quit.

So I would encourage the good people of Benbecula to think bold, big and fast. Mount a community buyout of St Kilda, set up a trust and devise a plan for the world's most famous rock. Set up a World Remote Islands Trust and get out there next month pressing the flesh with the well-funded Caledonian societies of the world. Organise a bonfire of the debris when the MoD finally leaves and celebrate the end of dependency on the war machine.

Or, failing that, buy a job lot of khaki paint.