Who Would I Honour with a statue?

Who would I honour with  a statue?  This is a list of writer and others that I particularly admire.: The names that come to mind are – Robert Burns,  Thomas Paine, Orpah Winfrey, Maya Angelou, Rembrant, Michelangelo, Mozart, Bob Dylan, Bach, Mary Somerville, Thomas Muir, Elsie Inglis, Constable.

Recently people threw the statue of slave trader Edward Calston, into the river. 

I’m glad to see a statue to James Clerk Maxwell, the great physicist in Edinburgh’s George St. 

I attend Edinburgh book festival each year and one of the great aspects of this festival is that merit it accorded to those who achieve rather than to any empty celebrity. 

Recently I watched a tv program about the mega rich and their massive yachts. I wondered about the French revolution – when they over threw a greedy aristocracy – but they simply escaped and instead of stately mansions set up massive yachts. 

Kevin Pringle argues we should have dynamic, on going debate on whether any statue in a civic space, continues to be relevant to todays world. That society is not static or unchanging. Also that the Edward Colston statue removed Bristol was no longer relevant. He suggested in 2003, that the Duke of Wellingtons statues in Edinburgh’s Princes St, should make way for one of Scotland’s national bard, Robert Burns.

In a recent survey Burns was voted as Scotland’s no 1 hero. I was surprised to realise his Edina statue is down the bottom of Leith walk, removed from the city centre. There are more statues to Burns in America than of any other writer and he is honoured and respected world wide from Russia to Canada. (Mind you maybe Burns would rather stare up from the coast!)

In Belgium, statues of the tyrant Leopold II are being removed. Pringle writes of the diplomat Roger Casement “who was knighted for exposing atrocities 1904 in the Congo and was later hanged by Britain for championing Irish insurrection. People are complicated, and no statues can ever capture that.”

                                  **Who Would I Honour with a statue?

Thomas Paine -  English-born American political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary. He authored the two most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution and inspired the patriots in 1776. 

  

Robert Burns  – Scotland National Bard

Yes he was a flawed man – but he also put his creativity and egalitarian views, and collecting Scotland’s tradition of song and ballads, as his main creative genius.  

Thomas Muir - Great reformer of the Friends of the People.,

Scots lawyer Muir defended many others until he found himself a wanted man. He was arrested on landing at Portparick. and taken in chains through Gatehouse of Fleet to Dumfries and on to Edinburgh, where he was tried for sedition. He was found guilty and sent to Botany Bay. Later he escaped and made it over to Vancouver island and Monterrey bay – then on to Mexico and got caught up with a naval fight in Cadiz harbour, where he ahd half his face blown off. He died near Paris, aged only 

Women of colours and women of today I most admire - 

Oprah Winfrey

Toni Morrison

Maya Angelou

Mary Somerville

The Pen is Really Mightier than the Sword

In Tom Paine’s pamphlets made the American Revolution. Without his words there would have been no victory – His ideas reflected Enlightenment ideals of transnational human rights.Common Sense was so influential that John Adams said: "Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain". (Rights of Man 1791/ Common Sense 1776) 

WB Yeats – 

Yeats gave the Irish ‘who they were’ before the endless fighting. He elevated the old heroes and gave the political expression of the people.

Nations are not about lines. Every people need their myths. There is “no fine nation without literature and no fine literature without nationality.” 

Robert Burns

No one wrote poetry like Burns. After reading Tom Paine’s 'Rights of Man', he wrote the best loved poem that speaks of equality for all - "A  Mans A Man For A That." Burns was a radical who wrote about equal rights for all men regardless of rank.  He also wrote , the Liberty Tree, The Slaves Lament, Parcel of Rogues to the Nation. 

Poet Hugh MacDiarmid wanted to write of a Scottish voice – his best known poem is ‘The Drunk man talked to the Scottish Thistle.

George Buchannan, tutor to James VI, wrote thatall political power resides in the people, and it must reside in the people: and that it is lawful and necessary to resist kings (or queens, or we might say all rulers) if (or when) they become tyrants.

A short distance from my home there is a monument in the small town of KiIlearn to one of the most important writers on democracy, reformer George Buchanan. He was one of the most significant literary and political figures of the 16^th century -  poet, playwright, historian, humanist scholar, and teacher to the great French essayist Michel de Montagne, Mary Queen of Scots and later to her son James VI of Scotland and I of England (United Kingdom.)Buchanan was a native Gaelic speaker from lower loch Lomond. He was deeply impressed that the Gael had held on to their language and culture for more than two thousand years. He was a Catholic, who was committed himself to the Reformation and he joined the Reformed Protestant church in 1560s and published several books.

Are we in danger of loosing cultural confidence. In todays world of turmoil we are  loosing sight of what really matters. We have false and shallow leaders who blow with whatever wind is blowing – they have no backbone, morals or compassion.

Pen Not Guns,  We need new stories. 

We Need New Stories

Through understanding our past stories: and as singer songwriter Rab Noakes says, "a future with no past has no future". New stories can emerge through the exchange of ideas, new stories may emerge.

Professor Tom Devine writes, in his latest book, The Scottish Clearance: A History of the Dispossessed, that until the 1960s, there were few academic studies on Scotland’s history after the Union of 1707.((there were more on Yorkshire)

Is democracy failing today, with the rise of populism, and as people seem to have lost all trust and faith in the system? Military expert now say its all about counterintelligence – Russia and China are experts in this field. Its no longer about huge warships and its about who controls information flows. With the rise of cyber warfare and online propaganda, how can we protect our freedoms and democracies. How can we regain trust?

We in Europe we must remember we do have the rule of law, some accountability measures of free press, vibrant arts and quality universities. Knowledge is central – reading stories, creativity, collaborations and understanding our past.  

Most Scots have pride in their Scottish culture: from our highland glens, ballads and poetry, Edinburgh enlightenment, border hills, western isles, imposing historic castles and ever changing skies. We’ve had turbulent histories: William Wallace, John Knox, Mary Queen of Scots, Bannockburn, Reformation, Jacobites. We are known for our whisky, Clyde ships, fish, oil, tweed, tartan, golf, poetry and song.

We’ve given the world the great songs of Robert Burns and other great writers. And innovations such as Penicillin, steam engines and more. The traditions are continued by powerful troubadours of folk music with popular live acoustic music and world scale festivals such as Celtic connections and Edinburgh festivals – the world’s biggest arts festival. 

I am encouraged that Scotland’s first minster is a keen reader. But equally dismayed to read that neither Trump or Corbyn are readers. In fact Trump has fake book covers lining his walls. Says it all really. 

Our national poet Robert Burns was a ferocious reader and read at the dinner table. He enjoyed his aunts stories, his mothers songs and his fathers reading and conversations. Famous fashion designer, Karl Lagerfield, valued his vast library of books above all else. Francoise Frenkel, fled the Nazis ( author of No Place to Rest my Head) - and it was her books and poems that kept her hope alive. When the Communist regime in Russia wanted to control arts and thought, they exiled any free thinkers, writers and artists on the Philosophy steamer. 

Nations Apart: Turbulent times

Burns and Mozart both lived in times of huge turbulence - late 18^th century. Burns 1759 - 1776. Mozart 1756 - 1791.

Robert Burns retold and recharged the great tales and songs of the Scottish nation in such unique ways. 
I visited Vienna last year where the genius musicians Strauss and Mozart told the tales of central Europe, Austria (population 8m) and of the great Danube river.

The poet Bob Dylan lived through the turbulent times of the Cold war and the civil rights marches. 

In Paris in the 18^th century Impressionism painters expressed the great creative out pouring and flair, to see in new ways. 

Italy’s Renaissance (14^th century to 17th) took two dimensional art not only to three dimensions but to stratospheric new heights and told of Italy’s great struggles and love of beauty.  

All these highly unique stories matter …

Scottish heroes

Alexander Hamilton 

Admiral Cochrane – Named by Napoleon, "the sea wolf', he never lost a sea battle. After exclusion from the Royal Navy he assisted other country's to achieve their independence. 

John MacLean – Political hero

Alexander Hamilton – One of American founding father 

George Buchanan – Father of Democracy

Elsie Inglis -  Scottish doctor and medical reformer. 

Thomas Muir – Votes for all reformer.

Robert Burns – Kept Scots song alive

Charles Rennie MacIntosh – Architect for a simpler beauty of design

Margaret Macdonald -  Scottish artist and designer. 

The scale of contribution of physics and medicine. 

Notably James Clerk Maxwell –  important physicist. electromagnetic radiation

James Clerk Maxwell

Admiral Cochrane

George Buchanan

Lord Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald (1775 – 1860), British naval Officer of the Royal Navy, mercenary and radical politician. He was a daring and successful captain of the Napoleonic Wars, leading Napoleon to nickname him Le Loup des Mers ('The Sea Wolf'). He was successful in virtually all his naval actions. He was dismissed from the Royal Navy 1814 following a controversial conviction for fraud on the Stock Excahnge. He helped organise and lead rebel navies of Chile and Brazil during their successful wars of independence1820s. While in charge of the Chilean Navy, Cochrane also contributed to Peruvianindependencethrough Freedom Expedition of Peru. He was also asked to help the Greek Navy but was prevented by events from having much impact.

In 1832, he was pardoned by the Crown and reinstated in the Royal Navy with the rank  of Rear Admiral of the Blue. His life and exploits inspired the naval fiction of 19th- and 20th-century novelists, particularly the figures of C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower and Patrick O'Brien's protagonist Jack Aubrey. 

John Maclean (1879 – 1923) a Scottish schoolteacher, and revolutionary socialist, Red Clydeside. He was notable for his outspoken opposition to the First World War which caused his arrest under the Defence of the Realm act, and loss of his teaching post, after which he became a full-time Marxist lecturer and organiser. In April 1918 he was arrested for sedition, and his 75-minute speech from the dock became a celebrated text for Scottish left-wingers. He was sentenced to five years' penal servitude, but was released after the armistice. Maclean believed that Scottish workers were especially fitted to lead the revolution, and talked of "Celtic communism", inspired by clan spirit. In captivity, Maclean had been on hunger strike, and prolonged force-feeding had permanently affected his health. He collapsed during a speech and died of pneumonia, aged forty-four.

James Clerk Maxwell (1831 – 1879) Scottish scientist in mathematical physics, His most notable achievement was to formulate the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation. bringing together for the first time electricity, magnetism and light as different manifestations of the same phenomenon. Maxwell’s equations for electromagnetism have been called the "second great unification in physics"^[ after the first one realised by Isaac Newton. With the publication of “A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field”

in 1865, Maxwell demonstrated that electric and magnetic fields travel through space as wavesmoving at the speed of light. Maxwell proposed that light is an undulation in the same medium that is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena. The unification of light and electrical phenomena led to the prediction of the existence of radio waves.

  

Scottish Collaborations: Medici Intersection

In Edina at the Mercat Cross, the great and good gathered -  from all walks of life and it was a great melting pot of ideas. They met near William Creech’s publishing house, in the time of great men such a David Hume, Adam Smith, Dugald Stewart, Robert Burns, Alexander Nasmyth, and many others. 

“During the renaissance the Medici family provided opportunities for people from different disciplines – artists, writers, scientists, engineers, natural philosophies – to all come together, in a space where they could work together to solve problems. All the labs in England and Wales are commercially driven and are completely privatised. Whereas in Scotland we have  a more cohesive organisation, not driven commercially.”

‘its partly our philosophy of working together, which comes out of the Scottish enlightenment. The enlightenment here emerged in a different way than it did in England and Wales and France and elsewhere, because instead of just having scientists and natural philosophers working together to solve problems we also had artists and writers and poets and we brought them all together in some sort of a rammy.” Forensic scientists Dundee centre, on their multi disciplinary approach. "  

Namh Nic Daeid, Dorector Forensic centre Dundee

Medici intersection

Robert Burns Ellisland

This summer I was so pleased to visit the last farm our great poet Robert Burns lived in. Ellisland is just north of Dumfries and incredibly is pretty intact as when Burns lived here and contains books and other material he had there.  

 **In 1788, Rob and Jean settled at Ellisland farm, a few miles north of the town of Dumfries. It was romantic and he was so pleased to have the river Nith running beside the new farm. A new farm house had to be built: the land was neglected with old ‘run-rigs’ strips, little drainage, no hedges to keep animals off the crops and no farm house. They had a servant and farm workers at Ellisland farm, so he was then able to write many songs and poems while he lived here - Auld Lang Syne (1988), Banks O Doon (1791) and his masterpiece the narrative poem Tam O'Shanter(1791). 

Robert Burns had enjoyed a second winter in Edina in 1788, when stayed in St Andrews square. 

He left Edina that March, little knowing I would never return there. He wanted to return to find his muse to the land and to raise his young family. 

Burns married his Jean in March 1788 and they lived for a time in a small room in Mauchline. 

He was offered the choice of three farms and decided on Ellisland. The farm houses and Byre had taken some time to build and Jean stayed with his mother to learn about cheese making for those months.

Burns found time to write near the woods of Craigie burn near Moffa and at the Hermitage.  He visited the Birks O Aberfeldy on his highland tour. He wrote and sang in the open air to study nature and human nature both. He studied the life of nature around him, from the wild flower, the river banks, the woodlands, the bird song, the small animals underneath, and the fields of corn.

His most famous song, Auld Lang Syne was written after he heard an old man singing this songs and Burns added new verses. Burns collected all these old songs on his Scotia travels, which inspired him to write his own songs too

He wrote Tam O Shanter – his most famous narrative poem on a free day as he walked along the shady path by the banks of the river Nith. He lived at Ellisland for four years. 

He also began training to be an Exciseman, which meant long rides away from home. 

Burns was only thirty and he had been the toast of Edina - he was the new father, the struggling farmer and the ambitious bard. 

Perhaps he had been doing too much - a young father, Exciseman, farmer and collecting songs and writing poetry.  

It became all too much. He sold off the stock to leave the farm life for town life in Dumfries.  

And in 1981 he and his young family left Ellisland for a town house in Dumfries town

Why Our Stories Matter

In London there is the Tate Britain, the Imperial War Museum, the British Museum, the Beefeaters at the Tower of London, Carnaby street, the Globe theatre and the Thames flowing past. My favourite London walk is from the National Portrait Galleries and Trafalgar Square, along Whitehall and no 10, past the now crumbling (and being rebuilt at a cost of millions) gothic Westminster, and on over the bridge to the Southbank and the late evening sun.

I am not very proud of the great wars, I think it is sad a generation of young men had to die to prove a point against Germany, not once, but twice. There are stories of great heroism, fighter planes, muddy trenches and gas gas boys, from the poignant Dulce et Decorum Est poem by Wilfred Owen. He ended up in a rehabilitation centre at Craiglochart in Edinburgh and then was sent back to die at the front. It all seemed pointless.

Thankfully out of the ashes the European project emerged (one of Winston Churchill’s ideas) sand we’ve had free trade, prosperity and peace now for over 70 years. After the war many of the British empire countries regained independence. At one time the British navy (along with the Dutch navy which joined forces with our navy under William of Orange or King Billy)  ruled the waves and many small islands around the world. And Glasgow and Belfast were the greatest centres for shipbuilding.

But times change. Our long reigning Queen has presided over a Commonwealth of faded past glories and now places like China and India have strong growing economies. And recently the stories coming from England have become defensive, confused, floundering. I don’t really know what modern Tory England stands for today. Has it lost its way? I am often reminded of the past stories that England once stood for - Bath and Jane Austen; Brunel Kingdom’s bridges; Cameron Mackintosh and Lloyd Weber and Cats; Liverpool and the Beatles; the great painters Freud and Hockney, Turner and Constable. Royal babies 

Campaigning in council elections recently in London, Tory MP Tom Johnson claimed, “Everyone knows the Tories will spend less and deliver more and better resources.” I am not sure I understand this logic unless they are miracle workers? Is it possible to spend less and provide more, like Jesus and his fishes? They are attempting to hire more nurses from Jamaica, which will drive nurses salaries down. And in London near the Thames there are shining empty monuments to failing London centric capitalism, the blackened Grenfell tower and tellingly knife crime and murders have increased. Whatever happened to training those British workers?

And sadly some have decided that Britain’s leaving the EU project will sort out Britain’s housing and NHS crisis. It won’t. Europe has given Britain prosperity by being an integral part of the world’s largest trading block and I fear this self-harming will seriously damage our economy. Brexit has become this strange word banded about like a dangerous football.

But there are other stories among these crisis. After two weeks of Commonwealth Games this April at the Gold Coast, we discovered that there is a Windrush generation – those from Jamaica who were invited to help Britain rebuild after the war. They came here and worked in our hospitals and buses and have lived here all their lives since the 50s and 60s., mostly in Birmingham and the south east. Scandalously their rights have been taken away – their right to work, health care, passports and some have been put in detention centres and deported. Because of Ukip’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and May’s hostile environment at the Home Office, these grandparents suddenly found they had no rights to citizenship. We were asking Commonwealth citizens to leave!

There are many other stories often forgotten in ‘Britishness’ though – the Welsh valleys, the Scottish mountains, islands and seas, and the Irish rolling hills and dairy farms. During the Brexit debates I heard no mention of the British ‘regions’. So much is centralised on the white cliffs of Dover, the London’s financial markets and the cosy shires, that the regions are looked on as peripheral and unimportant backwaters. Recent polls suggest those in England would sacrifice the union for their Brexit and care more about Gibraltar.

For the people who live in Belfast or near the Irish border in Newry or Derry or in the busy harbour of Aberdeen or the remote Hebrides or historic Edinburgh, they feel isolated and cut off from this ‘British’ story. I recently visited the western isles and it struck me to have a healthy economy we must care about all our remote regions. Scotland has run its own devolved parliament since 1997 with limited powers, and now dominated by the SNP since 2007 for ten years now. In fact ever since the Union of the Parliaments 1707, Scotland has been run by some kind of Scottish government (or over lord suppressor). At that time only the landowners, or less than 5% of the population had a vote – so this take over was never democratically voted on. In fact, most Scots at the time, rioted in the streets!

The south east of England knows even less of their Irish cousins and the Irish border was never mentioned before the referendum vote - would the English have voted for Brexit if there was a risk of the dreadful Troubles starting again? I remember the horrific nightly news broadcasts of knee capping, bombs and murders. The DUP are presently propping up May’s Tories, so how the customs alignment is to be achieved is beyond most people’s understanding and some think a few cameras might suffice at the three hundred mile border. 

A majority of Scots want home rule or devolved government: the question might be, how much should Scotland be run by those in London- on defence (trident in Scottish lochs); on welfare (bedroom tax), on foreign affairs (Brexit, Windrush), pensions (lowest in the OECD). The Scots language has been protected within the EU by a European charter. One third of today’s population speak a modern version of the same language used by Burns. Will old Scotia’s heritage, laws, rights, language, culture and arts be protected once we leave the EU? Will our wildlife be protected?

Westminster may not imprison Scottish indy supporters, instead they tie our hands with limited free press or media. Around half of Scots support indy and undemocratically less than 5% of the media represents these views. Scotland’s stories have always been different, and Scotland kept its church, law and education and runs its separate health service. Three hundred years ago, politics mattered less than the church, which held the dominating powers. 

Are there British stories in Scotland - well yes but mostly not good ones? In St Andrews Square Edinburgh we have the tall, dominating statue of the tyrant who enforced the highland clearances Henry Dundas. Overlord of the clearances. Also in Edinburgh the new town has streets named after the Hanoverian kings (rather than the Stewarts) although I discovered recently that George of Hanover was the grandson of Elizabeth Stuart (daughter of James VI of Scotland). I read of the golden eagle being endangered by these large Robber Barons grouse shooting estates. Our Britishness here means the flag waving of aggressive Orange parades or the empty shipyards on the Clyde… 

Otherwise I struggle to think what Britishness means here in Scotland. Most of our statues are to great Scottish thinkers or poets. Edinburgh had a great 18^thcentury enlightenment and then in the 19^thcentury series of books by John Prebble, which put out a false myth of a poor downtrodden Scots people. Scotland has many unique and different stories we must be proud of – Reformation, radical thinkers, enlightenment, expressive Scots Poets, Gaelic song, scientific and engineering discoveries.

The young Robert Burns admired independent minded freedom fighters such as Hannibal and William Wallace and from his writing it is clear he supported democratic values and votes for all men. A Mans a Man for o That, the Slaves Lament, Parcel of Rogues to the Nation, the Tree of Liberty. At this time (1765 to 1783) the American and (1789 to 1799) French revolutions were raging and there were great fears of rebellion in Britain too. Equality means we all deserve equal rights – but equality does not mean we are all the same. Humans have succeeded because of their diversity and also from co-operation. I believe in some capitalism (as in Sweden) but also far more social programs to benefit all. 

Edina now runs one of the world’s most important International Arts festival. I had no idea though, growing up in Edinburgh how major it was, or of all Edina’s important stories. I studied history at school, but it was all English imperialist history and literature. I am teaching myself Scottish history now and I am sad for the not knowing when I once walked down her cobbled high street to college. 

Can a Thousand Scotlands Bloom?

This blossoming of artists, musicians, writers since the Scottish parliament opened 1997 (20 years ago) gave us belief back. I used to hear – ‘oh Scots are a nation of scroungers!’ After the 1979 Devolution Vote farce for a hoped for Scottish Parliament, many left Scotland and we felt demoralized, it was a sad time. For centuries Scottish culture has been suppressed and ignored by those Anglicised Scots – those Scots who view themselves as English first, Scottish second.  

In response to Gillian Bowditch and her Sunday Times article, ‘Narrow cultural focus will tie us all to a tartan straight jacket’ where she writes on the author Muriel Spark - Spark wrote of a decidedly small niche of cloistered girls at Gillespie’s secondary school Edinburgh – how is this so deep or rich, compared to say Burns or Irvine Welsh?

How can a thousand Scotland’s bloom when we were taught nothing of our heritage, and culture in Scottish schools until recently….!

I grew up in Edinburgh and walked her historic streets and I wondered about her stories. Meanwhile I learnt of the Tudors, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Wilfred Owen,  and American writer Hemmingway at school.

Plockton cottages

In their time Burns, Scott and James MacPherson were internationally famous.

Burns was greatly influenced by both Scots ballads and English poets and he knew four languages, he was not simply a ploughman poet!

The only place I encountered Burns was at Primary school choirs. Burns wrote of nature, love, radical politics, hypocrisy, those conflicts between morality and our wilder passions.

Burns crossed many borders and was both national and international.

We are strongly linked to England and Ireland, but that doesn’t mean Scotland should be ruled by London. We never gave up our Kirk, which was far more important than the politicians in 1707. Burns also wrote the proud Scots songs Scots Wa Hae, and Parcel of Rogues. 

Scottish historian Tom Devine, in his lecture on the Scottish Enlightenment, spoke of how Scotland has for centuries been an outward-looking, trading nation – many Scots travelled to Poland, Netherlands, France, In fact more outward-looking than an often more insular England. “Scots suffer from “virtual universal historical illiteracy’, says Devine, “ perhaps that’s why they’ve struggled to engage with Referendum campaign."

It is only when we understand our roots, that we can also look outward. 

Yes the old tartan shortbread, White Heather club idea of ‘Scottishness’ of the 60s was so embarrassingly parochial. Surely we have moved on.  Two major Scottish festivals, Celtic Connections and Edinburgh Festival, both embrace their international element. Each August I attend the Edinburgh International Book festival where I see many inspired young Scottish writers of today. 

Edinburgh art galleries

This is also about whether you view empire building or stories of ancient Rome – where you have one group superior to the rest and an exploited underclass. Or you see a more progressive future for Scotland of a more socially integrated, fairer society that is fundamental to the success of our culture, economy and education. A successful small country in a larger European trading block.

pipers at Edinburgh castle

The Scottish nationalist movement is a broad church and not exclusively about the SNP. It was begun by poets such as Hugh MacDiarmid, back in 1939, and the Scottish renaissance of Montrose. MacDiarmid wrote - 

We are both national and international and to forget our rich heritage is a dark, ignorant thing…

skies across from Appelcross

near Loch Ardinning and the Campsie's