By Dominic Wolsey
Like most people, I was stunned by the magnitude of the SNP’s victory last week and the apparent shift in perceptions of Scotland and in expectations for our future.
As someone who believes strongly in the merits of independence, I felt as though it was a result almost too good to be true. The Nats are now able to secure many of the progressive policies which the last parliament denied them – such as minimum alcohol pricing and, with any luck, the large retailer levy.
Since the result, however, the media coverage and punditry concerning the prospect of a referendum on the question of Scottish independence (and, possibly, on fiscal autonomy) has given me cause for concern.
I feel that both the unionist and nationalist media, by focusing on the economic impact of independence, are neglecting the core issue: identity. You can try and scare voters away with suggestions of financial ruin, or tempt them in with promises of untold wealth, but unless you address the core issue of identity you are merely scratching the surface of people’s ideas about the country they want to be a part of.
Let me give you an example of the bizarre power of national identity. A few years ago, when I was a fresher in London, I met an American girl at the student union bar. We chatted for a bit and she asked me where my accent was from. I told her I was from Scotland. "Oh. My. God. Me too!", came the reply – and she rolled up her sleeve to reveal a large blue-and-white saltire tattoo across her forearm. More than a little surprised, I asked her how many times she’d been to Scotland. "Never", came the wince-inducing response.
Now far be it for me, or anyone for that matter, to dictate someone else’s identity back at them – but that was as much evidence as I’ll ever need to back up Benedict Anderson’s theory of "imagined communities".
Nonetheless, if someone believes themselves to be part of a group, as much as others in that group might argue that membership is conditional on years spent enduring the character-building weather, then membership of that group is part of their conception of self. Each of us has our own individual, intermixed and deeply complex identities, and I feel that the debate so far is completely missing this.
The referendum is currently being represented not just as a choice between independence and the Union but also implicitly between Scottishness and Britishness. Many of my friends, the majority indeed, seemed turned off by independence simply because they see themselves as both Scottish and British – and they believe that, come independence, the latter identity would cease to be.
Then they back up this emotionally registered allegiance with rationalised economic arguments (just as we nationalists often do, it must be said). Well, I believe that in an independent Scotland we would still be British – I certainly would be. Cue horrified gasps and mutterings from other nationalists.
"How can someone support independence and claim to be British at the same time?", I hear you cry. Well, what is it to be British? Is it being ruled from the same parliament in Westminster, or is it a shared experience from common values, history, language and culture? I believe it to be the latter.
Would any of these things go away if the United Kingdom ended? Of course not – we would still be the same people with the same relationships, living on the same island. There's not even any reason why the newly created states couldn‘t settle on a shared contribution to a continued shared broadcasting service and other cross-border institutions.
The United Kingdom would have ended, but Britain would still exist, and so would Britishness. Saying that we need a British state to call ourselves British is like saying we aren’t European without a unitary European state. The parallel I can best use to describe it is Scandinavia: a multi-national region with a deeply significant shared culture, but there are no calls for a unitary Scandinavian state as far as I’m aware.
If nationalists want to convince people of the merits of independence, we have to move past this blinkered view of "us" and "them", of "Scottish" and "British", as though such notions are opposed. The world is just too small and interconnected to sustain it.
– Dominic Wolsey's blog, Thoughts on Scotland's politics and future.
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