Monday 30 August 2021

Ali Smith’s film 'Art in a Time of Lies' at Edinburgh International book festival 2021

 

Seeing Things - short film with wonderful images by film maker Wood Edinburgh International book festival 2021

 

The highly-respected Scottish novelist has teamed up with artist Sarah Wood to create a new short film made uniquely for Edinburgh. Seeing Things: Art in a Time of Lies, directed and edited by Wood; written and narrated by Smith (one time showing and will not be on-demand). , At the start with wonderful old black and white clips of gangsters.

 

THIS CULTURE OF LIES is like seeping rain, an aesthetic.. 

“I RANT AT THE TELEVISION AM I RESPONSIBLE FOR IT? CORRUPT GOVERNMENT. I FEEL SHAME.

INTO OURSELVES AND BEYOND OURSELVES, INSIDE OURSELVES. DARK AND LIGHT. IMAGINATIONS WAKENED – WITH A CHINK OF LIGHT IN THE DARK.

THEY ARE CUTTING THE ARTS BY 50%.”

 

These cycles come round and round – destroying. World changing too – left EU, end Trump, 

 

“Art is a lie that reveals the truth. What a slippery fish truth is. Little lies become a story. 

A lie distracts from the truth and take us down a garden path,  politics make lies sound respectable, (do they believe we believe them? Its always about power, lies are sanctioned. We become a slngle self, and persuaded to be tribal. A surface world shunts fast info, and we discard so much of it. “

 

Questions? Is art simply a displacement activity, a diversion from the ‘real things’ happening in the world? Or could it be that Ali Smith’s achievement is to reveal – with her trademark nimbleness – just how important art can be in helping make sense of a stupid, shameful, schismatic world? 

After the screening, Smith talked about her writing and some of the artists who have inspired her with Festival director Nick Barley

 

Questions: Is fake news new? “Shakespeare’s fake news is ancient: fake news today is faster – radio or t and now in our pockets.“  Split, diverted politics enrage, people under pressure, exclusion lines – becomes fascism. When we must work together.

Stories give us space, of our history, politics, and our dreams. 

 

Pull something light out of the mess,  Looking and seeing.

Art is difficult and shocking.

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL 2021, Ali Smith - https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/ali-smith-art-in-a-time-of-lies

 

In each novel of Ali Smith’s Seasonal quartet, the narrative closely follows real world events. Brexit, the internment of migrants and the Coronavirus pandemic: each is woven into the fabric of Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer, lending them a keen sense of relevance. But look again at this group of genuinely novel novels, and there are countless references – from other times and other places – to artists and thinkers. 

Visual artists Barbara Hepworth and Tacita Dean; filmmaker Lorenza Mazzetti; writers Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare – why do they have such a profound influence on Smith’s characters? 

 

Tom Devine and Ciaran Martin: 'Our Nation’s Future', at Edinburgh International book festival 2021

With Clare English. Where next for the UK’s future? English said, “Since union 1707, 300 years ago, there has been a largely stable relationship?” (Mmm really? Apart from riots, rebellion, hangings, clearances, deportations, battles, 

“In 2014, Scots rejected indy by 55.3%. what now is the settle will? Scots have little affinity with Johnson’s government.” Questions: between votes and the law; what is the UK? Move away from union; control over indy vote; Constitutional chess.

 

Ciaran Martin: Civil servant, Oxford Professor, constitutional director for the Referendum 2014 and from Northern Ireland. We need trusted and impartial government. progressive unionism.  

Tom Devine – Eminent Scottish historian asked, How has the nation changed; concede nationalists? Is threat of nationalism receding. We need cool heads and rational thinking.

 

*Ciaran Martin – ‘Remaking the British State,’  He said there is now a lull but there will be soon be constitutional chess games. Holyrood will request a Section 30 request which will be refused and end up in court. Scottish government will loose. There will be stalemate and a clash of mandate and law, an existential crisis. Something has to give.

 

He asked, what is the union? There is a lack of consensus and understanding, and a lack of any constitution. He recommended Michael Keatings book, State and Nation in the UK. There is two competing sovereignties, and a contested Scottish narrative – one the source of authority; the other multi-national with Scottish nationalism considered self-indulgent.

 

With union, Martin claims Scotland retained a strong sense as a nation, and never became a region. After Ireland left, Britain has allowed itself to break up. Northern Ireland agreement 1998 allowed to vote to leave. Most “countries” will not allow any break up. (BUT is Britain a country, surely it is a state?) Serious ministers will block any meaningful path to break up and the union will be based on force of law. Still unclear, struggle between mandate and law. The stakes will then be tested in the court of pubic opinion. Union an imagined construct: a political construct first. 

 

Poll supporting Scottish indy show 48% support is a serious threat. Over the decade 2011-2021 shows an increase of 10-15% in indy support.  Long way to go, but there will be an existential reckoning. Votes not laws. He discussed the health of the nation and how to expand support for the union. George Osborne and his Project Fear treated  Scotland as a possession and worried about loosing face on the world stage, is not an enduring policy. 

 

1. Muscular unionism – British nationalism, cultural pageantry, views devolution as a disaster. The internal market bill and taking back devolved powers and the Scottish hubs, means a marginalization of Scottish voices. But don’t forget who is paying for the UK.

 

2. Federalism -  Is not achievable with the dominance of England. After Brexit there is no desire to spate into smaller pieces.

 

3. Progressive unionism - The English want to preserve status quo. Best of both worlds slogan 2014 – is devolution settlement still viable - BBC, NHS - ways of dealing with tensions. Does Westminster support devolution? Even Wales feels London is hostile to devolution settlement.  A British state remade?

 

*Tom Devine

May Elections 2021 – “The union is in greater peril than at any time in my life time,” Gordon Brown. Devine says, “ The union is in greater peril since Prince Charles Edward Stuart and his Jacobite army invaded England to remove Hanoverians and to break the union!”

 

August 2021. London press and media’s conventional wisdom is that Scottish nationalism is on the ebb. That the Scottish government is parochial and incompetent, on ferries to drugs, so how can they run a sovereign nation? There has been a slight decline in the Pro indy polls (vaccine bounce?)

 

There is a state of Armistice at present with no battle going on, a truce – no judgement. What is the long term for the constituent parts. I'm not sure this is entirely true, as the Unionist are plotting heavily how to undermine Scotland Devolution settlement of 1997. Scotland has always retained control of its education, health, laws and kirk.

 The UK, under the spotlight. Historians look at the long term view, the demographic one, shows 2020, those under 40, 70% regard the union as over. 


The Grim reaper is on the side of Scottish national party. Two major issues, one is the Brexit vote – the first time Scottish opinion on major issues was denied. The other is a demographic one 2020 – because of the under 40s, 70% regard the union as over.


Sadly Devine’s time was cut short, while he did cover other issues in the Q & A session and he was keen to allow time for that. Martin asked, what other country allows itself to be broken up? What does this statement mean? Ireland considers itself a nation with a long history and distinct culture – as does Scotland and England. But Britain is a state much like Scandinavia and not a nation! 


Tom Devine and Ciaran Martin: Our Nation’s Future EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL 2021 - https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/ciaran-martin-with-tom-devine-where-next-for-the-united-kingdom


Sathnam Sanghera 'Empireland', at Edinburgh International book festival 2021

 

How Imperialism Shapes Modern Britain – “Silence is Violence”

Sathnam Sanghera discussed his book Empireland at the Edinburgh International book festival

He writes for the Economist newspaper. 15K copies of his new book have been bought for England’s schools. He said that even those students with history degrees have no knowledge of Empire. Sanghera spoke of the malicious forgetting and how the patterns keep repeating. At the extremes there is the nostalgic views  or the critical view of Empire. 

Post imperial, Little Britain, big Lens.

There is so much ignorance. For instance many in Home office had no idea of the Windrush generation and their British citizenship. This is truly shocking.

 

The British Empire lasted over 500 years so hard to study – from Henry VIII to the hand over to Hong Kong 1997- compared to the world wars, which lasted a mere 4 years. The empire was haphazard, complicated and motives changed. 

The British created the Sikhs. Highlanders and Sikhs fought together and went over the lines first!  Some Regiments of Indians who died in the wars were not even named.

 

The cycles keep repeating and the prejudice against the ‘other’ – say Irish, with their strange religion, not integrating,… From Jew to Irish to Muslim. 

 

We can be both proud British and questioning of our history. The UK may soon be 40% ethnic. How do we break the pattern? Proud and ashamed.

Routes into reconciliation. Brown vs White. In America there is at least a level of conversation and the Scottish curriculum is more enlightened. While Echo chambers take us nowhere.

 

Positives of Empire? Multiculturalism and British people travel like no other. Brexit? – from colonizer to rule-takers. A great free trading nation, tied up with empire. Indian princes were sent to British schools. 

 

We need truth. There is a culture war and fake history. Empire is still pushing colonialism – the City of London sits outside the real needs of the nation to finance the Empire of business and insurance.

Tell your truth. There is an emotional side to the slave trade – try to understand it and look at facts. The Commonwealth approves everything Britain did and it is no longer relevant.


Sathnam Sanghera Empireland Edinburgh International book festival 2021 -


https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/sathnam-sanghera-how-imperialism-shapes-modern-britain



Tom Devine 'Rewriting Scottish History', at Edinburgh International book festival 2021

 

In conversation with Alan Little:  “A deeper sense of Scottishness” - Tom Devine Rewriting Scottish History at Edinburgh International book festival 2021

 

Devine commented that Scottish history was hardly studied and shockingly the history of Scotland is less developed than Yorkshire’s. At the ancient universities, any department on Scots history was small, peculiar, introverted, inward looking. A Cinderella project. Wheras British history was considered outward-looking. Alan Little commented that at Primary school it was all Wallace and Bruce - and with no teaching of the evolution of the nation. 

 

Devine said, that today there has been a sea change, with a resurgence in Scottish scholarship, the first time since 18th century. Scotland has now developed a Constitutive history. A deeper sense of Scottishness. Which came first though? – does the explosion in scholarship predates political development, until 1970s?

He mentioned Canadian historian Rodger Smith, who wrote – “Political constitutive story is crucial – where do people come from, a sense our past, or our mooring threatened with loss. “

 

Devine also discussed the emerging crisis of Britishness with loss of Empire, and that once the union was never challenged. 

 

*The British Empire - “England ruled the empire and the Scots ran it” - came at a time of crisis and cultural revolution, industrialisation, agricultural revolution. Scotland became a place of heavy industry.

 

Scotland was 10% of the UK population but it was around a third of the Empire. Scotland was the world’s second richest country – with immigration from Ireland, Lithuania, Italy, Poland and also the paradox of a great deal of emigration. 

 “no nation has been more connected to the wider world than Scotland’

 

Book What is a nation? Ernest Waldon – Sorbonne, wrote that Nations are based on language, ethnic solidarity, product of imagination, relationship to the past. Scotland’s ties with overseas is very unusual. 

 

*Walter Scott 

Scott reconnected Scotland to its past and what makes Scotland Scotland? Scott began writing poetry to preserve the Border ballads.His writing has Influenced drama, fiction, poetry. At the time the Scots nation was in crisis – identity, sense of self, linkage to the past. Scotland was thought of as parochial, of no value and did not appeal to academics. Scott mixed fact with fiction. At the time 30% of the books being read in France were by Scott. 

“To be literate and civilized you have to read Scott.” 

 

These were crisis times. The enormity of the 5 revolutions in Scotland and the assimilation into England. A hybrid identity of Scottish and British and there was a catatonic shift from peasant life to industrialization. 

History as tragedy, based on the highlands – Scots were perceived as noble, brave and doomed, and  preordained to fail. Like the lament, or the durg…

The poet Edwin Muir 1930 claimed “Scott and other writers were false bards of a false nation.”

 

*Questions.

Devine was asked a few question by the live audience. He was asked if it was a mistake to come out in favour of Scotland’s independence in 2014. His answer was cautious – which included a number of factors and his views would be clear soon. He hoped there would be close connections to the rest of the UK and an amiable relationship with the UK government back in 2014. He said that every historian is biased but that he has kept his impartiality. 


EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL 2021, Tom Devine with Allan Little: Rewriting Scotland’s History -

https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/tom-devine-with-allan-little-rewriting-scotland-s-history


During the 20th century, Scotland commonly depicted its own history through the lens of a kind of colourful, tragicomic victimhood. This amounted to a tartan-clad story set against a Highland backdrop and a sense of national self-doubt that has sometimes been described as ‘the Scottish cringe’. Since the 1980s, however, that characterisation has changed, and Scotland has developed a more confident, modernised sense of its history and roots. 

Tom Devine can take considerable credit for this change: the most influential historian of our times, he has been instrumental in helping reframe the nation’s sense of itself. The Edinburgh University Professor of History and Paleogeography speaks to BBC journalist Allan Little about the changing nature of Scottish history. Using some of the most significant moments in Scotland’s story, from the ill-fated Darien Project of the late 17th century to the arrival of the Scottish Parliament two decades ago, Devine and Little discuss the ways in which Scottish history can be revisited to help us find a new sense of self.

 

BOOKS:

TOM DEVINE The Scottish Nation, from Union to Modern day; The Lowland Clearances,