The Gatekeepers

This from Stuart McHardy, the most recent Guest Blogger on You Scotland, exploring who controls what in modern day Scotland: "Back in the 1990s the late Robbie Robertson, Assistant Director of the then Scottish Consultative Council on the Curriculum (SCCC) referred in a magazine article to his own organisation as being one of the gatekeepers of Scottish culture. This was in response to the suppression of an SCCC report on the teaching of Scots language and Scottish history, that Robbie had compiled a after a very wide consultation process. Effectively he was accusing his own board of suppressing Scottish culture.

The idea of the gatekeepers is one that still has relevance. Much has been made over the past couple of hundred years of the fact that Scotland has separate religious, legal and educational systems from England and that this supposedly has helped to preserve Scottish identity. I suggest the opposite is the case and that these institutions have been nothing other than the gatekeepers of a mindset that is Unionist, Imperialist, male chauvinist and fundamentally anti-Scottish, in both cultural and political terms.

The lack of a central place for teaching Scottish history ( and recognising the independent and continued vibrant existence of the Scots tongue) within the Curriculum is part of a bigger picture. As a particular example, back in the 60s, as a student I expressed an interest in studying Robert Burns within the English Department of Edinburgh University. The Oxbridge trained tutor was aghast and told me there was no one in the department who could help with such a bizarre request.

Things have got better since then but the problem remains. The gatekeepers of the law, the universities and to a lesser extent the church have all flourished under the Union and a mindset has arisen that sees anything too overtly Scottish as a threat to the Union. I have never been a member of the SNP but my lifelong commitment to the study of my own culture and history has often led to both politicians and civil servant assuming that I am, and reacting accordingly.

In particular the Labour Party whose sleazy domination of Scottish politics has thankfully now been broken, seem to be particularly cursed with this notion." Full article here.