The fascist violence in Charlottesville was in defence of prominent public statues to those who fought to uphold slavery. History should not be destroyed, and there is a place for such statues in appropriate explained context in museums. But public celebration of advocates of slavery ought to end. People always throw off the monuments of their oppressors, and so they should. The statues should be removed from their prestigious positions.
Hardly anybody remembers now that O’Connell Street in Dublin was Sackville Street. You will scour Ireland with little success for surviving statues of British Imperial rulers and commanders – there were once hundreds. I found that Burnes Road in Karachi is no more. Uzbekistan and Ukraine are no longer dotted with great statues of Lenin.
Yet I live here in a city which still has a Cumberland Street, named after a disgusting war criminal who perpetrated long term and systematic atrocities on this very people whose capital city is desecrated by his name. Cumberland was a worse racist and an infinitely greater war criminal than Robert E Lee. Yet I hear not a whisper to echo the brave roar of Charlottesville. The imposed regime which crushed Scotland, outlawed its major language and much of its culture and tried to expunge even the memory of its history and native culture, is celebrated in the heart of the nation. Hanover Street, George Street, Rose Street, Princes Street. These vicious, arrogant, Scot-hating people really did crush Scotland’s spirit, to the extent we still cringe before them now they are long dead.
It staggers me that, after we have decades of an element of home rule by alleged Scottish Nationalists and an alleged Labour Party, when even the pathetic colonial status of the devolution settlement gives the power to rename a few streets, Labour and the SNP, as the minimum gesture of self-awareness and a tiny, tiny glimmer of self-respect, have not renamed Cumberland Street after Keir Hardie.
Yes, we have always suffered from a parcel of rogues in a nation. Yet we remain a parcel of cowards as a nation. The brave left wing demonstrators of Charlottesville, supporting the removal of Robert E Lee against the violence of the fascists, put us to deep shame.
put us to deep shame.
Shocking Words..
There are many Blair Roads in the UK (Google it) but no statues of the war criminal AFAIK. There is a portrait of him in the National Portrait Gallery.
http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw210898/Tony-Blair
There is a statue of Thatcher in the HoC (with handbag) but none in public spaces.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Margaret_Thatcher,_London_Guildhall
Pristina in Kosovo has its Ttoniblair road along with a statue of Bill Clinton and still talks of a statue to Blair while Tirana has a George Bush Boulevard. On a recent journey there, I am not sure whether I was most troubled by these, the massive US base at Camp Bondsteel,the ‘good Syrian’ training camps or the proliferation of shining new Saudi-funded mosques.
Rename Scotland, Alba or Pictland, you know it makes sense!
Perhaps the US should tear down the Washington Monument since it was built to honour a slave owning racist.
Talbot street in Dublin is named after a British Lord Lieutenant.
Whose Norman ancestors occupied coastal South Wales. So it goes.
Indeed, as a proud Welshman I can say I doubt there’s a pure blooded Celt left in Wales. Wave after wave of immigrants from Irish and Danish raiders, Norman’s and successive land grabs and grants by and to the favourites of monarchs down the centuries, then finally topped by the Industrial Revolution has provided Wales with a melting pot that can match any.
It’s the idea of being Welsh that binds the nation, not their genetic identity.
These countries may have more balls but we have the baby boxes. The Baby Box Crushers mentioned it on their Radio 2 news this morning, but not without pushing some message that it was a waste of resources giving them to both rich and poor.
I have not been following the events in Charlottesville closely. Why must American domestic politics constantly play out on the world stage?
It is telling that the fight in Virginia is essentially about a symbol. In the post-analogue neoliberal world symbols and rhetoric take on an outsized importance. While liberals and leftists light up social media with play by play accounts of one protest the United States of America is still run by a collection of war criminals, imperialists and warmongers. Barack Obama is still lauded as a liberal hero even though his administration paved the way for Trump and his goons. To date he (Obama) still holds the record for deporting more people than any other US president. He also, among other things, launched the drone murder program, bailed out the banks and helped himself to an extra serving of executive power of which Trump is taking full advantage.
While I sympathize with the people who would like to remove symbols of slavery from the public arena liberals and leftists need to look beyond symbolic acts and waging war on rhetoric. As Obama’s election victory and Hillary Clinton’s record show electing a minority or woman politician to high office in America does not necessarily change anything for that better.
Closely related to this is the hold identity politics has on the left. It is hopelessly reductionist and essentializes race and gender much I like racists and bigots of yore did. Women and non-white minorities are deemed inherently superior to to white skinned people, which is simply illogical and unreasonable and exacerbates the problems they are ostensibly trying to address. A “left” that takes its cues from the American Democratic Party and eschews class analysis and holding capitalism to account is doomed to irrelevancy. Why do liberals and leftists not realize this?
Please excuse typos and imperfect grammar.
Why do liberals and leftists not realize this?
Because they are victims of 50 plus years of an establishment indoctrination program called cultural Marxism, which has successfully created millions of virtue signaling phony idealists, who now pave the road to (our collective) hell with their misguided ‘good intentions’.
You are wasting your time trying to reason with these people.
The cult of cultural Marxism owes much to the writings of Jacques Derrida. Although Derrida knew a lot of words his ideas can be reduced to two main principles: (i) Categorization is a tool of exclusion and; (ii) thought is a system of oppression.
Think about what this means. Anyone that accepts these ideas are by definition immune to reason as reason requires thought and thought itself is oppressive. The destruction of thought is a necessary precondition for an attack on categorization. A thinking person would observe some difference between say a cow and a toilet roll. You can only separate a cow from a toilet roll via categorization. But if categorization is wrong on the basis that it is a system of exclusion then there becomes no difference between a cow and a toilet roll.
I know it is hard to comprehend but this is the stuff that a lot of the modern left actually believe – they are not yet ready to publicly admit to these beliefs but they are getting there..
An attempt to buy time is being made via an all out attack on history – diverting people with stories about things like statues. However the real lesson of history is how to deal with people that are ideologically opposed to reason. That ends very badly indeed. It is the desire to hide this simple truth that explains the current inanity with regard to statues and street names.
This is utter nonsense.
You ever heard of the phrase Quod Erat Demonstrandum?
Allow me to explain – your post is a simple insult. It contains no information at all and as a consequence of this information deficit it contains no reasons to suppose that my analysis is in error.
It does however serve to prove my point that “you are wasting your time trying to reason with these people”
So I am not trying to reason with you. I confine myself to pointing out the puerility of your comment. Contemplating the meaningless nature of your comment serves to prove my point. A point that will be understood by anyone capable of, and interested in, reason.
There is no other response possible to the assertion that Derrida believes “thought is a system of oppression”. I am at a loss as to how you can come to this conclusion even accounting for a complete misunderstanding of deconstruction and semiotics.
The calibre of those of warn of “Cultural Marxism” can be witnessed by googling the phrase. You are in fine company.
Stu – Maybe you should get to know your town just like I know mine.
Here is Professor Peterson laying it all out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ8F_HhzkJE
He is a clever guy, but of course he could be wrong. Another clever bloke called Noam Chomsky is on record as saying he has no idea what people like Derrida are talking about. Of course that is the whole idea.
You can write “This is utter nonsense” and cultural Marxists will attribute the same value to your words as to the complete works of Shakespeare.
This all makes perfect sense as long as you avoid recourse to reason and by a stroke of luck cultural Marxists have outlawed reason, which is pretty much the same as outlawing thought.
No it isn’t, anyone paying attention has seen a significant decline in western society during the last 30 years. The phony liberal/left have been at the root of it.
The Truth About Popular Culture And Cultural Marxism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LswcbsnQUkI
Paul Joseph Watson is con man exploiting idiots. He does not actually believe the crap he is saying.
I agree that there is an ongoing process of dumbing down but it is driven by corporations and governments not fringe academics.
corporations and governments not fringe academics
Are you seriously saying Governments and corporations are not influenced by ‘fringe academics’?. If they like the ideas, and more importantly, the ideas actually work they will shamelessly use them, the origin, or intent is of no importance whatsoever.
The liberal left’s supply of endless well meaning stupidity is exploited ruthlessly by the machine.
Chomsky’s issue with French theory is that they disagree on linguistics not that he struggles to follow it. Peterson is a crank. Railing against cultural Marxism/post modernism is the contemporary version of 1930s anti Semitism.
“cultural Marxists have outlawed reason, which is pretty much the same as outlawing thought.” If they have it shouldn’t be too difficult to find a few passages of their writing which say so……
Deconstruction does not create a loss of meaning it’s simply an alternative to Aristotelian reasoning which relies on a higher/devine power at it’s root. No one is saying that one object (a cow in your example) is the same as a different object (a toilet roll holder). That would be absurd. You say “will attribute the same value to your words as to the complete works of Shakespeare” which is getting close to the issues at hand. The obvious question here is what do you mean by “value”?
Well said.
That comment intended for “TemporarilySane”. Oops.
Seconded.
Add to that the statue of Dundas high above St Andrews Square, the 18th manager of Scotland who kept Scotland under control.
The Ukrainians certainly have a lot of balls. Here you are operating a neo Nazi regime and encouraging people to march around wearing SS Uniforms. You notice that you are running short of money and so naturally enough you sell some high end engine technology to North Korea thus allowing them to develop an ICBM that actually works.
Imagine the balls needed to arm North Korea and move the world a step closer to all out nuclear war. Not to worry because the west can outmatch the Ukrainians for sheer balls by simply ignoring the whole story and concentrating instead on a few statues of dead people. So much more important and interesting than actively conspiring to launch World War 3.
Stop and think of the balls that the Pakistani’s have.
On the one hand (sic) they have established a network of extreme Islamic schools that encourage young children to chop off their own hands to atone for alleged blasphemy.
On the other hand they produce people like A Q Khan. A man responsible for the proliferation of nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. The Pakistani’s have such balls that they resist all pressure that A Q Khan be held to the rule of law. Obviously what the world needs is more nuclear weapons and less statues. Only by radically cutting back on statues (unless they are statues of A Q Khan) can the cause of world peace be advanced.
Loony,
So take it you approve of sanctions being placed on the substantial North Korean export business of constructing statues of African and other national leaders, aka dictators.Personally , I would just leave them all to the pigeons.
On the one hand (sic) they have established a network of extreme Islamic schools that encourage young children to chop off their own hands to atone for alleged blasphemy.
These are set up and subsidised, Loony, the guarantors for future strife, by those, hallo CIA, who created a political Islam to ensure that their 50 year war on terror commences unabated.
Thanks for the links to your Ukrainian conspiracy to cause nuclear war.
You can read all about the Ukrainian supply of high end engines to the DPRK in no less a publication than the New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/world/asia/north-korea-missiles-ukraine-factory.html
In addition to arming the DPRK the Ukraine has also agreed to host a permanent US military presence.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/08/14/ukraine-hosts-us-military-permanently-stationed-on-its-soil.html
Everything seems on track.
You can rail about monuments and street names all you like. You can scream racist and Nazi at anyone not impressed by the latest Islamic terror attack. But one thing you can’t hide is that the Russians are locked on and will bot hesitate. All your statues will be destroyed, your streets will no longer exist so they will not need names. LGBTQIA+ people and all women and minority groups will be incinerated along with what remains of the rest of the population. Racists and anti racists will all go the same way – either vaporized or lingering around long enough to cough up their internal organs.
The only question of relevance is why? Why is this madness allowed to proceed unimpeded by any rational actions..
Maybe everyone has drank from the cup of hemlock provided so munificently by Derrida. Maybe people really do believe that being dead is exactly the same as being alive or that suffering from radiation sickness is exactly the same as not suffering from radiation sickness. The way things are going this particular belief system will soon be tested.
Loony,
” Maybe people really do believe that being dead is exactly the same as being alive ..”
Yes – I understood what you posted but by saying “people” are you not assuming a unanimity of thought there?
Many “people” share your concerns and some think that a war might do some good. The difficulty as you correctly discern is that once two nuclear powers start a war then anything used beyond conventional weapons and the war escalates to nuclear exchanges, then it simply is MAD ( mutually assured destruction).
The above comment was not written by me.
Moderator. Please remove and explain how this is possible
Consider the case of Edward Colston.
Colston was a slave trader and a philanthropist. The vast bulk of his philanthropy was via endowments to benefit the city of Bristol. For generations Bristolians have economically benefited from his legacy.
It is currently proposed that the Colston Hall (named after Edward Colston) be renamed so as to disassociate modern Bristol from the toxic legacy of this particular slave trader. Due to their manifest lack of balls there is no proposal from contemporary Bristolians that true atonement be displayed by agitating to raze Bristol to the ground so as to fully rid themselves of this legacy.
As the British are so idle it may be a bit of an effort for them to actually demolish an entire city. An alternative exists. People that live in Bristol could have their tax rates raised. If they do not pay taxes then they could have their benefits cut. The fact that no-one is proposing any of these solutions demonstrates just how vacuously self serving are the people that whinge about historic crimes.
Or how vacuous are those who do not recognise the syncretic nature of religion, culture generally or themselves. For example, why do you imagine that atonement must be punitive?
Imagine a puritanical streak a mile wide. In order to avoid the implications an entire world view appears, constructed to project hypocrisy rather than recognise it.
Maybe or maybe not.
There are a lot of philosophical reasons to suggest that atonement requires a punitive element. It is certainly hard to imagine how changing the name of the Colston Hall constitutes any meaningful atonement. Do you think Hitler could have atoned merely by changing his name to Jimmy Jazz?
For my part I feel no need to atone for any part of the life of Edward Colston. He died a long time before I was born and neither I nor my family were in any way effected by him. He is merely an historical figure who is nothing whatsoever to do with me.
You want to atone go right ahead – but leave me alone. This means that your atonement must be personal to you and hence is suggestive of some punitive element. You want to involve me in salving your conscience then you are not atoning for anything, you are merely engaged in an exercise of raw power . An exercise designed to prove to yourself that you can force people to conform with your world view and that you can force other people to do or not do something at your specific behest.
You and your ilk have had a long run but your days are drawing to a close. I am not interested. Do what you want to do, but leave other people alone.
Me and my ilk have no idea what we comprise collectively. We remain undecided upon whether our days are closing any more than other ilks but If by that you mean human, then I fear you may be right.
How did this happen? And why? Somewhere our minds were manipulated to accept and to obey!
Fun parlour game: after independence, how will we rename all the ‘Union Streets’?
Recently in Bordeaux one of the locals saw me looking at a street name. ‘It’s because we used to be occupied by the English’ he explained. I managed a thin smile.
How about Pol Pot Boulevard, or Derrida Way.
Alternatively you could dispense with street names altogether so as to eliminate the possibility of inadvertently discriminating between street names.
As implementing these suggestions would all require a degree of honesty I am 100% confident that they will be ignored.
In Glasgow the topic is handled in places with typical Glesca humour as disdain. For example the placing for many years of a traffic cone crown on the head of an equestrian statue of Wellington at the entrance of a well frequented museum of art. The council take it down but the titillating titfer always goes back up. A city centre landmark of mirthful agitprop. At times the traffic cone has been replaced by a large sized wellington boot.
Glasgow, the once second city of the british empire is riddled with place names of colonial battles and masters.
Well done Craig for pointing this out. I noted in the news today that the statue of Robert E Lee has been toppled and all it seemed to require was a rope, a man willing to climb the statue and affix it and a small group willing to pull it down.
It is a symbolic act and by itself it changes nothing, yet if enough people are willing to participate in such activity then eventually the powers that be will take notice. It is not an attack on history or a denial that particular events happened to want to have the figurehead of a repressive force removed or obliterated. Museums are the proper place for these figures, India understands this, Scotland can too.
As for the rest, street signs can be altered by nothing more that a spray can, statues can be repainted or amended, Wikipedia can be updated to reflect whatever you want it to say, and although it will be changed back, notes will be added to the history showing how contentious the matter is. Make it contentious enough to force them to lock the alterations option, they way they did when Thatcher died, Open Street Maps can be used to rename places. The lists of subtle and non violent means to effect change are many. If you wish change to take place it can be achieved. Why not form a group to help pay for the fines such actions may incur.
The US civil war was never really about slavery, though the progressive revisionists will never admit that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLrtXvwPWA8
Lee was fighting for his state, Virginia, rather than the Confederacy of which it was a member. In SNP terms, he would have been a hero, and to remove his statue would have been exactly comparable with blowing up the Wallace Monument. Which might explain the attitude of some of those who wanted it left alone.
Anyone who entertains doubts about the centrality of slavery to the causes of the US Civil War need only read Alexander Stephens’ “Cornerstone Speech” to remove them. “…Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea [ i.e. equality] ; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. [Applause.] This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics.”
“The first casualty of War is Truth”
It was not about slavery, it was about money, as always.
2nd minute onwards
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLL80PsIya4
Pete,
What if in Berlin the people before Hitler’s demise had erected a huge statute of Adolph Hitler in a prominent place in the centre of Berlin. What then post-war?
The statute becomes a shrine and place of reverence for Nazi sympathisers?
The statute remains as testimony to history? or
The statute is removed and placed in a museum?
I think you’re on shaky ground if you’re equating Lee with Hitler. And, Germany having eliminated shrines and ‘places of reverence’ for Nazi sympathisers, the sympathisers still seem to hang on somehow. Indeed, IMO, the constant publicity given to the undesirability of Nazi sympathisers (or holders of any other extreme political or social opinion) only enhances their appeal to some sections of society.
Still, if you don’t want statues of nasty people, wouldn’t it be fairer just to ban statues of anyone? Your definition of nasty may well differ from mine, and we have to be egalitarian. Don’t we? Bye, bye, Nelson Mandela and Ghandi.
As you know, the purpose of comparison need not be to equate, but to contrast, to reveal hidden assumptions not visible without the comparison. Absolutism is one such.
Slippery. Are you a lawyer? Personally I find it less tiresome to have a look for the hidden assumptions and wave them around a bit. Is absolutism a hidden assumption? Was Lee an absolutist? (Answer: no) What’s the, er, comparison with Hitler, then? If naughty mans have a rally round Lee’s statue, that doesn’t make Lee a Hitler. Any more than the EDL having a rally round Churchill’s statue would make Churchill a Hitler..a although maybe you would like it to.
It’s the people you need to interrogate, not the bloody artwork. You might begin by thinking about why rightwing nationalism still has traction, and indeed why leftwing nationalism’s on the rise (historically this has a notable tendency to turn into rightwing nationalism, but let that pass) It’s because it gives thick sods the illusion that they will be better off under the proposed system. Like all other politics, it appeals to naked self-interest – only the groups appealed-to vary. It can’t work, because we are already in a fascist system, with the public interest subordinated to an alliance of corporate power and compliant government: the far-right offers no improvement on this.
Still, what am I doing here? I should be out there, tearing down Saxon churches,Norman castles and cathedrals built in the time of our Franco-Catholic oppressors, teaching Welsh in East Anglia, burning the Yorvik Viking Museum to the ground and dismantling Hadrian’s Wall. Which will make all the nasty mans* go away.
*Or, as they are known today, Middle Eastern, Russian, etc, investors.
Sorry mate, my own lack of clarity. I’m not an academic in any sense as I should have thought was obvious. As I’ve previously said, I’ve lived in relative or severe poverty almost all of my life, uneducated, but reasonably good with a paintbrush. Consequently it’s often that I don’t know the terms for the concepts I’m trying to imagine. For example a few weeks ago I was trying to describe a view of international relations which made sense and googled the most concise term possible. Turns out there’s a whole field of study. Dependency theory went of fashion in the seventies as neo-liberalism came into vogue.
Anyway, I intended the opposite of your inferences above, recognising Lee’s qualities through a comparison with absolutism, but also confronting one’s own assumptions. That last especially relevant in the context of ‘historical uncertainty’ through an increasing recognition of the multiple false contexts we seem to inhabit.
@ J. Cool. Sorry if I went off on one. Unwanted suggestion: when looking to clarify your thinking on political matters, staying well away from any text containing the words Derrida, Chomsky, deconstruction and semiotics is usually a good idea (see argument earlier in thread). Never mind the ‘correct’ term for something as nebulous as a concept. It may well be unknown by your audience, assigned a different meaning, or even absolutely meaningless…use your own words, even if you need more of them. It’s your concept. It may even be new.
That’s a good summary & good advice. I often seem to be striving for a way of seeing the world more clearly, only to discover that I’ve just re-invented a lumpy and misshapen wheel, but at least I found my own little path toward a good idea.
I’m sorry to say Craig, but I agree with you on the gutless attitude of Scots when it comes to pushing for not just independence but even national identity. As for the SNP, they’re far too, well, nice, and almost compliant when it comes to matters when dealing with Westminster.
Cumberland was indeed a vile man, not content with the Cullodeon victory, he ordered all injured highlanders bayoneted to death including a injured opponent at his feet.
Cumberland burned down highland villages stole their farm stock murdered the women and children, and took many prisoners on ships set for England many died before they could reach their destinations. Others were forced to flee, emigrate.
The composer Handel even composed oratorio, called Judas Maccabaeus to celebrate Cumerbland’s great victory over the Scots at Cullodeon. I doubt Handel would’ve been aware of the atrocities the butcher Cumberland carried out on the highlanders and their families.
Even that affront to Scots the Duke of Sutherland statue at Golspie still stands.
RoS, while the Duke still stands, I’ll continue to make periodic visits to urinate at his feet! I have friends who went to Golspie High School and they told me that it was common for the cross country runners to stop and ‘pee on the Duke’ – so I thought it appropriate to follow their example! I know some locals like to see the “mannie” when returning home, but the same can be achieved with a headless statue.
I was always proud of my first name Blair because William Wallaces Chaplin was called Blair then along came Tony Blair a disgusting man but I found out his real name is not Blair but Parsons his father took the name Blair after he was fostered out by his parents to a scots couple called Blair his grandparents were a stage act so they fostered their child out but as I say their name was Parsons so Tony is not a real generations Blair
I’ve always loved that pigeons visit their patina of shit upon the monuments of the great and the good without fear or favour, reassuringly eternal.
Hope you are not implying that Handel’s statue be destroyed too, as the oratorio concerned the Jews’ iroubles the second century before Christ
Rsmember Byzantium’s problems with iconoclasm..
Since one of the arias is ‘Ah! Wretched Israel!’ I suspect BICOM will have something to say about Handel’s obvious anti**mit*sm. Be careful what you sardonically wish for.
At this moment in time ,not to interested in renaming anything etc only interested in Scotland getting “Independence ” and praying that the people of Scotland have enough guts and “Pride ” to do so. YES
Yeh I’ve never been a fan of complex historical contexts reduced to present day simplistic “freedom fighters versus ‘fascists'” BS.
The difference with the other characters mentioned is that Robert Lee was not an occupier or overlord of the people he lived amongst.
Lee like Hitler ( see my post at 2:26 above) was a symbol of repressive and oppressive conduct. Plain and simple. One glorifies it; views such conduct with derision or approval or even rationalises it as a part of Southern culture in one instance – or German culture in another instance; or, one relegates the memories to a select place, such as a museum, as a reminder of what humans were capable of doing and delivering against other humans.
If only that fool Charles Edward Stuart had listened to Lord George Murray with regards to actions on the battlefield and were and when to attack and defend. Things might have turned out very different indeed.
I only mention Charlie not because I agree with his cause, but raising his banner at Glenfinnan, got the ball rolling, on an attempt to break the union.
Most Scots are unaware of their own history, most wont even know that the father of Scottish democracy Thomas Muir, his home is to be turned into a care home, when it should be preserved for the Scottish nation as a important heritage site.
http://www.thenational.scot/news/14896981.Row_over_plan_to_turn_Thomas_Muir_s_mansion_Huntershill_House_into_a_care_home/
Its not true to say slavery was a terrible injustice beyond others because the slavery system provided better conditions than many non-slaves had and its estimated a staggering 600.000 many Scots-Irish-Americans died in the Civil War, let alone the consequential suffering, in a war about state rights. Rather than being consigned to history, I would have thought the Confederacy idea is now topical again as a growing multi-America Union fractures due to globalism and mass-immigration/open borders!
Many questionable and debatable assumptions in there.
And the Hanoverian bit of Edinburgh is the most tasteful and architecturally attractive part*. Made it to the New Town yet, Craig?
You’re coming across as hysterical now. It looks as if, not content with rerunning the independence and EU referenda, you want a replay (on your terms) of the 18th and 19th centuries. Well, ok. Trust your rebellious heroes (none of them at all nationalist, of course; nationalism is bad) are as noble as Scott painted their predecessors, but I doubt it.
* though I hugely admire Paolozzi’s public work. More stachoos, eh?
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paolozzi_Monte_Cassino_3.jpg
PS, Cherie and Euan Blair share offices on the seventh floor of 1, Great Cumberland Place, London W1. Coincidence or what?
PPS. Let us not even ask for whom Lord John Murray fought at the Battle of Fontenoy….or another John, later Duke of Atholl, at Prestonpans (against his Jacobite brother, George).
According to historian Lecky, de Saxe’s decisive victory at Fontenoy over the British, et al inspired the Forty-Five rising, possibly due to the number of British soldiers still abroad and somewhat dejected.
It wasn’t uncommon for some family members to defy their kin and fight with the Jacobites, as did George, William and Charles Murray.
Skirving wrote a song about Cope’s defeat at Prestonpans called “Hey Johnny Cope are ye Waulking Yet”.
My favourite version of this song is sung by Alistair MacDonald.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BcZ4uMmF0vw
According to historian Lecky, de Saxe’s decisive victory at Fontenoy over the British, et al inspired the Forty-Five rising, possibly due to the number of British soldiers still abroad and somewhat dejected.
Cumberland’s tactical incompetence actually gave rise to the ’45? Shades of Blair, there, But wouldn’t you say the causes might have been a little deeper than that, bearing in mind that soldiers were pretty well the lowest of the low, and Scots soldiers were in thrall to their clan overlords?
t wasn’t uncommon for some family members to defy their kin and fight with the Jacobites, as did George, William and Charles Murray.
Sure, it wasn’t. So the glorious martyred ancestors whom Craig extols in another thread could equally have fought for the evil English.
Isn’t ‘waulking’ something to do with beating the shit out of Harris tweed on a rock?
Should read awauken, which is a old Scot’s word meaning awaken in English.
As for Cumberland, as far as I know, Culloden was his only real victory on the battlefield.
I didn’t claimed the English were evil.
I didn’t claimed the English were evil.
It seems to be the universal subtext following blog entries of this sort.
Yes, Cumberland was a lousy tactician, and should have won defeated his distant cousin’s insurgency long before Culloden. After which, he fell right out of favour, and rightly. He wasn’t any better at politics. But doesn’t it occur to you that obliterating the objectionable side of your history is as much an expression of propaganda as the statues were in the first place?
Hardly surprising in a capital city which voted against becoming a fully-fledged one. I’ve lived in Edinburgh for nineteen years, yet I’ve been embarrassed by the city’s lack of political ambition (other than it’s strong support for continuing EU membership). It’s worth noting that the streets concerned are all within the New Town, which has a rather prominent Tory undercurrent (indeed, the Nasty Party’s offices are on another colonially-named street: Northumberland Street).
Scotland as a whole needs to have a conversation about this issue, and I think we also need to have one about Edinburgh’s status. Do we really want a city which has so little faith in our ability to succeed as an independent state, as our capital?
Sorry to be a mild spoilsport, but according to Edinburgh World Heritage this Cumberland Street is named after a later Duke, the fifth son of George III.
I agree with the broader points though. Perhaps some “unofficial” plaques could be made up pointing out the deeds of the figures in our statues?
Let them have their little imagined grievances.
Vronsky writes:
August 15, 2017 at 10:57
Recently in Bordeaux one of the locals saw me looking at a street name. ‘It’s because we used to be occupied by the English’ he explained. I managed a thin smile.
——–
I write:
Vronsky’s Bordeaux anecdote reminded me of the following from Kenneth White, which gave me a hearty (ironic) laugh, since his dismissed option of being “back in Old Caledonia, nursing my grievances, writing long political poems in the language of my ancestors” was indeed very near the bone. However, White signally fails to recognize here that his urging of Scots to escape from their current provincialist “hole” and to “mix with the world” is precisely what motivates the national independence movement. Also that the duplicitous frustrating of that political aspiration is indeed a matter of deepest grief. Individualistic globe-trotting may be of some personal solace, but never a national solution. In this excerpt from his enjoyable book, “La Route Bleue”, White is in Montreal, on his way to Labrador:
« Je me souviens», dit la devise du Québec.
J’ai demandé à quelqu’un de quels souvenirs il s’agissait:
« Du débarquement des Anglais. »
Grand D**u! Qui se soucie encore des Anglais?
Si je me préoccupais de ce qu’ils ont fait, les Anglais, je serais toujours là-haut, dans la Vieille Calédonie, à soigner mes griefs et à écrire de longs poèmes politiques dans la langue de mes ancêtres.
Et merde! On ne peut pas rester écossais toute sa vie. Il faut savoir sortir de son trou, se mêler au monde.
(Kenneth White, ‘La Route Bleue’, Grasset, Le Livre de Poche, 1983, p15)
Mark DC,
No surprise. It happens every year around this time. Sound, fury, bluff and hopefully no blunders.
The North Koreans get upset by the military drills which happen around this time between the US/South Korea.
More to the point is what will be the North Korean reaction after the annual military drills.
I don’ see any war on the horizon – despite the two(2) narcissists trying to convince the world that his dick is bigger than the other leader’s.
Peace!
Courtenay, I understand the US deliberately time these exercises to coincide with North Korea’s sole harvest season, to maximise the hardships and hunger the North Koreans have to endure, with farming labour diverted to defence.
Yes, the US regime is truly evil.
Sounds like sound military strategy, if true. There is no need for North Korea to be starving (while its leaders grow fat on imported delicacies). Just look at South Korea for an example of the prosperity that the North could be enjoying were it not a despotic socialist regime that spends almost its entire wealth on the military while its people starve.
Mark DC, The south has much more arable land and has more than one harvest. If you would be happy to deliberately starve a civilian population as a “sound military strategy”, then we’ll agree to differ on the grounds of our differing personal moral standards.
JOML,
It is rather the military that is diverted to bring in the harvest, such as it is. Both Koreas have spring barley and rice harvests, leading traditionally to the barley hump,while the North grows potatoes and corn extensively with the apparatchiks eating the white rice while kids scrabble for the spuds.. I helped send rice to the North in the famine years only to find much of it going to the military and the privileged.
@Courtney.
With respect, how do you know Kim Jon Un is a narcissist? How can we know anything about people and events in North Korea? The ONLY information I can find is via Western media. I’ve asked several times on this blog for anyone who believes they have a more reliable source to share it. Zilch. Normally cynical people seem happy to accept the simplistic MSM narrative on this one.
In the absence of reliable information, we can only speculate about Kim Jon Un’s motives. Given the genocidal atrocities (no exaggeration) the US committed during the Korean War, it seems quite credible to me that Kim Jon Un’s over-riding motive is to prevent a repeat. He is defending his country and its people. His personality is irrelevant. Portraying this as a battle of egos trivialises a desperate situation.
“The fascist violence in Charlottesville was in defence of prominent public statues to those who fought to uphold slavery. ”
Doubtable. The statues exist. The history exists. The reaction was against SJWs (who are a major nuisance in the States as they are fast becoming here) attempting to deface the country’s history and make it all about them and their endless grievances. They are anti-history and anti-reality. You ought to be ashamed of yourself as an alleged historian for supporting them.
All the countries you mention would be proud of the men those statues represent. Uzbekistan, for example, has a massive great hard-on for Temur, possibly the most evil man history has yet thrown up.
Mark DC, I largely agree with you, but I first had to do a Google Search to understand what an SJW is. Whilst most people are tribal, and seek their icons (religious, political or whatever), I have never gone out of my way to seek a statue of for example John Lennon, or even David Bowie. but I rather like the mural of David Bowie I saw in Brixton last year on the way home from seeing Massive Attack. I trust it is still there and has not been defaced.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/01/12/16/30161ABE00000578-3395255-image-m-42_1452616958198.jpg
Tony
“attempting to deface the country’s history…”
A job better done by effacing every quality it thought it possessed?
Wonder if Craig had Gordon Wilson in mind when he mentioned Scots having cowards as leaders.
Mark DC, I’m not a cheerleader for the North. I only think that much of the trouble spots around the world are the direct result of US involvement, which is always full of self interest and they leave a trail of death and destruction where their military goes.
Trump has played another blinder, neutering China and calling North Korea’s bluff. If you ignore the relentless mainstream media barrage against him and judge him for what he gets done, he is turning out to be one of America’s great presidents.