Cultural Death
Someone on Facebook tonight refused to get involved in a discussion of racism because it's 'a minefield'. Sure is, pal. Turn on your TV and there it is. It's not just an American problem. It's the American problem, born of centuries of exploitation of other races, the failure of successive governments to do anything much to create a fairer society - and fear. Just pure fear.
The fear that started out as white people being scared of blacks once they had been freed from slavery has now turned into paranoia, some of it encouraged by Donald Trump. Decades of work by equal rights workers have amounted to nothing. For some Americans, the only way to be is white. Other races - Native Americans, descendants of former African slaves, immigrants and the children of immigrants, whether they are Indian or Chinese or Mexican - they are not the way America is supposed to be. They are deviants. The way to be is white.
To get away from all this - and in my defence it's been on our TVs and in social media and in our newspapers for days now - I went off to watch some telly.
I don't watch a lot of documentaries. The BBC documentaries of the 60s and 70s seemed to ascribe human characteristics to other animals, talked about 'families' and family connections and was utterly twee and totally ignored the 'nature red in tooth and claw' aspect of nature - and that put me off.
I go for Futurelean academic courses that tell me about the history of the planet and about the first humans. The more I see of these courses, the more I wish I'd studied - what can I call it? - anthropology?
But once in a while I find a TV programme that digs deep into human life and explores our human ancestry. I never knew programmes like this existed till recently. Tonight I watched the second part of Dr Jago Cooper's series about the peoples of the Pacific north-west of North America:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07m771x
(Sorry if you're anti-BBC - I am too, but sometimes it's worth it.)
The first thing that struck me was the similarity between the story of the people of the area that extends from what is now Washington State to British Columbia and out across the Aleutian Islands (or did I get that bit wrong? There was definitely a Russian element in there) and other parts of the world: like Scotland.
The Pacific peoples have been there for 10,000 years at least. I refuse to call them tribes (that word strikes me as insulting) but they were quite distinct and prosperous groups. The population was maybe 200,000 in the 18th century. I can't be sure of that figure. Although references to these peoples are to be found in google, they are highly suspect, especially when the comments tell you the peoples of this area lived 'without much effort.' Wonder which white man wrote that? When was life in the wild ever devoid of effort?
The Pacific peoples prospered, had a rich culture, used the environment wisely (put back what they didn't use), traded with other groups, etc. They had a terrible time when the Europeans arrived. I wasn't surprised to read that. First of all they were able to send their goods, such as beaver pelts, to the USA and Canada, but when it was realised they lived in a rich natural area, their fate was sealed. Their children were sent off to residential schools to strip them of the language and culture - and give them a taste of physical and sexual abuse at the same time. The people caught white man's illnesses, including smallpox. But their fate was sealed when they became a tourist spot at the end of the 19th century with US paddle steamers calling into their villages to buy 'trinkets'.
It has taken the peoples of the Pacific North-West more than a century of campaigning to begin to recover their languages, arts, crafts and skills. And they are only just beginning.
Let's move on to Scotland. This was a properly constituted state, with a parliament, a monarchy and loads of allies all over Europe. It didn't lose its status as a European state overnight: that was due to bad government by its parliament and bad alliances by its monarchy. It didn't lose its freedom as a state. It gave it away.
Quite quickly Scotland was a colony of another state.
Scotland then had two main languages: Scots (yes, I know, plus Norn and Doric) and Gaelic. For some reason, a lot of time was spent after the union in reducing the influence of these native languages. Scots went from being the language of the royal court, the law and education to being 'slang'. Gaelic was dismissed as 'Irish'. It never had that much connection with Irish but when you're paranoid and don't like the idea of foreigners, it's a good line to take. Gaelic was never banned, as some Scots think but speaking both Scots and Gaelic came to be punished in schools. That's a good way to reduce the power of the languages and their cultures.
It didn't work though. Gaelic and Scots continued to be spoken and their cultures - music, dance, poetry - kept right on going. Even making the main language of education by law in Scotland English in 1872 made little difference.
You would think someone would have realised maybe these people and their ability to produce something out of very little: whisky, sheep, cattle, fish, etc might be worth encouraging. But no. What else would you do but turn huge areas of the country into impoverished slums, separate the people from the land they'd always lived on, and send them overseas if you need to? And, of course, stuff the land full of army and airforce bases. Put nuclear submarines 30 miles from the country's largest city. Sell off the land to people who have no connection with Scotland.
I could go further and tell you about young people removed from schools in the Highlands and Islands to be educated in places like Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh. They left and never came home.
But it's for us to make sure Scotland gets the right outcome and it will be our fault if we don't.
The fear that started out as white people being scared of blacks once they had been freed from slavery has now turned into paranoia, some of it encouraged by Donald Trump. Decades of work by equal rights workers have amounted to nothing. For some Americans, the only way to be is white. Other races - Native Americans, descendants of former African slaves, immigrants and the children of immigrants, whether they are Indian or Chinese or Mexican - they are not the way America is supposed to be. They are deviants. The way to be is white.
To get away from all this - and in my defence it's been on our TVs and in social media and in our newspapers for days now - I went off to watch some telly.
I don't watch a lot of documentaries. The BBC documentaries of the 60s and 70s seemed to ascribe human characteristics to other animals, talked about 'families' and family connections and was utterly twee and totally ignored the 'nature red in tooth and claw' aspect of nature - and that put me off.
I go for Futurelean academic courses that tell me about the history of the planet and about the first humans. The more I see of these courses, the more I wish I'd studied - what can I call it? - anthropology?
But once in a while I find a TV programme that digs deep into human life and explores our human ancestry. I never knew programmes like this existed till recently. Tonight I watched the second part of Dr Jago Cooper's series about the peoples of the Pacific north-west of North America:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07m771x
(Sorry if you're anti-BBC - I am too, but sometimes it's worth it.)
The first thing that struck me was the similarity between the story of the people of the area that extends from what is now Washington State to British Columbia and out across the Aleutian Islands (or did I get that bit wrong? There was definitely a Russian element in there) and other parts of the world: like Scotland.
The Pacific peoples have been there for 10,000 years at least. I refuse to call them tribes (that word strikes me as insulting) but they were quite distinct and prosperous groups. The population was maybe 200,000 in the 18th century. I can't be sure of that figure. Although references to these peoples are to be found in google, they are highly suspect, especially when the comments tell you the peoples of this area lived 'without much effort.' Wonder which white man wrote that? When was life in the wild ever devoid of effort?
The Pacific peoples prospered, had a rich culture, used the environment wisely (put back what they didn't use), traded with other groups, etc. They had a terrible time when the Europeans arrived. I wasn't surprised to read that. First of all they were able to send their goods, such as beaver pelts, to the USA and Canada, but when it was realised they lived in a rich natural area, their fate was sealed. Their children were sent off to residential schools to strip them of the language and culture - and give them a taste of physical and sexual abuse at the same time. The people caught white man's illnesses, including smallpox. But their fate was sealed when they became a tourist spot at the end of the 19th century with US paddle steamers calling into their villages to buy 'trinkets'.
It has taken the peoples of the Pacific North-West more than a century of campaigning to begin to recover their languages, arts, crafts and skills. And they are only just beginning.
Let's move on to Scotland. This was a properly constituted state, with a parliament, a monarchy and loads of allies all over Europe. It didn't lose its status as a European state overnight: that was due to bad government by its parliament and bad alliances by its monarchy. It didn't lose its freedom as a state. It gave it away.
Quite quickly Scotland was a colony of another state.
Scotland then had two main languages: Scots (yes, I know, plus Norn and Doric) and Gaelic. For some reason, a lot of time was spent after the union in reducing the influence of these native languages. Scots went from being the language of the royal court, the law and education to being 'slang'. Gaelic was dismissed as 'Irish'. It never had that much connection with Irish but when you're paranoid and don't like the idea of foreigners, it's a good line to take. Gaelic was never banned, as some Scots think but speaking both Scots and Gaelic came to be punished in schools. That's a good way to reduce the power of the languages and their cultures.
It didn't work though. Gaelic and Scots continued to be spoken and their cultures - music, dance, poetry - kept right on going. Even making the main language of education by law in Scotland English in 1872 made little difference.
You would think someone would have realised maybe these people and their ability to produce something out of very little: whisky, sheep, cattle, fish, etc might be worth encouraging. But no. What else would you do but turn huge areas of the country into impoverished slums, separate the people from the land they'd always lived on, and send them overseas if you need to? And, of course, stuff the land full of army and airforce bases. Put nuclear submarines 30 miles from the country's largest city. Sell off the land to people who have no connection with Scotland.
I could go further and tell you about young people removed from schools in the Highlands and Islands to be educated in places like Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh. They left and never came home.
But it's for us to make sure Scotland gets the right outcome and it will be our fault if we don't.
Comments
Post a Comment