Sunday Mail, Scotland, Apr 4 2004Rosie Kane, Scottish Socialist Party MSP, GlasgowPACK UP THE OLD KILT BAG JACK.. CELEBRATE HERE
DON'T get me wrong, if Jack McConnell wants to parade up and down Fifth Avenue looking like one of the Alexander Brothers, I would be the last person to stop him. But do not tell me the tartan-tinged jamboree in New York this week should make me proud to be Scottish. Tartan Day is certainly a day to puff our chests out a little bit further.
On April 6, 1320, the Declaration of Arbroath was signed. It was the Scottish Declaration of Independence and its values and pledges held such power and resonance that America modelled theirs on ours. It remains an inspiration and the big marches and celebrations should be in Scotland not on the other side of the Atlantic.
Jack will be there to celebrate Tartan Day when ex-pats and New Yorkers will enjoy a great big Scottish-flavoured hooley. Jack will be leading the pipers in procession in New York alongside SNP MSP Kenny MacAskill and other blokes they forgot to ask a woman but that's another story.
I imagine they will have a fantastic time hob-nobbing with politicians and business types while celebrating all that is great about Scotland. But hang on, where is the procession through our main cities? Jack will say he is promoting Scotland abroad. Fair enough but what about promoting Scotland at home?
Yes, we live in a magnificent country of outstanding beauty and, yes, the list of excellent Scottish produce is endless and should be shared with the rest of the planet. But Scotland is not only a trading post and Tartan Day should be about far more than saying 'Look at what we've got, would you like some?'
Tartan Day is actually a repackaging exercise it is the repackaging and the burying of our history. I was duff at school and fell asleep during History, yet I still learned all about English kings, the Battle of Hastings, Victoria and Albert, etc.
All of which I am grateful for but I have asked my folks and friends and not one of them learned much about this monumental part of Scottish history until they sought it out themselves. Why are we not out partying in the streets as we recall the day when our comparatively small country told the rest of the world that it would 'set people above the King'? The declaration is a plea for liberty and freedom. Not the tartan and shortbread type of freedom real freedom and equality and peace.
It is an amazing affirmation of liberty and independence which would end the cruel oppression that was taking place. It is not complicated or hateful. It is humanitarian and sensible. That said, I suppose it is no coincidence that this event has all but been erased from our education nor is it a coincidence that we do not have massive celebrations to recall the day when Scotland said enough is enough.
If we celebrated this event as they do in America how could the First Minister lead the parade when he and his party oppose self- determination; swear allegiance to the Crown so easily and not the people; allow Scotland to be used to house nuclear weapons; grow GM crops; dump dangerous waste and send soldiers to war at the bequest of Westminster... or was it the White House?
I am for an independent Socialist Scotland, not an anti-English Scotland.
It is about breaking from Westminster not breaking from the people of England, Wales or Ireland or any other nation for that matter. I would love the chance to remember the courage contained in our history.
As an MSP, I am constantly disappointed and frustrated when our Scottish Parliament opens its mouth and has no teeth I deplore the fact that we have no say over immigration or that we have no power over despicably low pensions or the fact that our elderly citizens go through degrading means testing when making claims for just about anything.
And I hate it even more when we do have the power to make important decisions for the people of Scotland and the Parliament wimps out. Even if you do not agree with my, or any other, model of independence, surely it is a shocker that we have been forced to forget our own history a history that is celebrated thousands of miles away.
In many ways it may as well have happened thousands of miles away. You can repackage toothpaste but not history the Declaration of Arbroath Day does what it says on the tin. Tartan Day doesn't. Our ancestors dreamed of freedom, peace and liberty and worked to achieve it. So must we.
