St Andrew's Day
Today being the Feast of St Andrew, patron Saint of the Scots, I expected Scot-loving Canada to be a flurry of saltires. Not a bit of it: no haggis on special offer, no whisky displays in the LCBO window. This is odd because Scots away from Scotland tend to be even more sentimental about Scotland than Scots at home, and that really is saying something. I do find it quite curious how people who have never even visited Scotland can be so jealous in their attachment to the idea that this is their nationality. I am baffled in a different way by the (many) Scots who ship out at the drop of a Higher and are never seen north of the border in their adult lives again except to go home for Christmas and yet their nationalistic zeal and defensiveness rips strips off the people who - my god! - actually live there. I don't suppose it is anything about my own home country in particular: I'm sure if I knew more about Russian diaspora, or Greek (to name but two nations also patronized by Scotland's favourite apostle) then the same would be true, though Scots do seem notorious for this.
I can't put my finger on why I find it irks me so much, since I am greatly in favour both of cultural diversity and of having a healthy affection for one's roots. Yet I still think it is a bit cheap to make your life in Oxford or Plymouth or Sydney or whatever, and then demand everyone do obeisance to your deep-seated patriotism for somewhere else. And it is easy to love a country that only exists in the tea-soaked madeleine, or perhaps deep-fried mars bar, of your imagination. Being one of millions around the world who gets a frisson of nostalgia from the sound of bagpipes is not at all the same as living and breathing all that is good, bad and indifferent about the nation, day in, day out. So I really do not fetishize Scotland, perhaps because I still spend enough time there to be fully conscious of its many failings, but also because I think it irrational as well as sentimental to maintain its intrinsic and mystical superiority over the place where I actually choose to make my life. I am very fond of the old place, but not because it's better. Just because it's home.
I can't put my finger on why I find it irks me so much, since I am greatly in favour both of cultural diversity and of having a healthy affection for one's roots. Yet I still think it is a bit cheap to make your life in Oxford or Plymouth or Sydney or whatever, and then demand everyone do obeisance to your deep-seated patriotism for somewhere else. And it is easy to love a country that only exists in the tea-soaked madeleine, or perhaps deep-fried mars bar, of your imagination. Being one of millions around the world who gets a frisson of nostalgia from the sound of bagpipes is not at all the same as living and breathing all that is good, bad and indifferent about the nation, day in, day out. So I really do not fetishize Scotland, perhaps because I still spend enough time there to be fully conscious of its many failings, but also because I think it irrational as well as sentimental to maintain its intrinsic and mystical superiority over the place where I actually choose to make my life. I am very fond of the old place, but not because it's better. Just because it's home.
posted by Scarlet at 1:06 am
2 Comments:
Ah, but you see, the slightest whiff of home makes it all come flooding back. Especially the rugby, when you're drinking a pint of Australian lager, with a load of antipodeans in the Walkabout, all of whom seem to hate the English team more than you do. Any port in a storm, as they say.
Which pointless rambling is intended to point out that all of what you've said applies to the Welsh as well. And more specifically, to me.
Anna x
My enemy's enemy is my friend, eh? It's quite staggering how many nations find they bond with alacrity and dtermination over their shared hatred of English sports teams.
The "flooding back" thing is no joke, though: I do get sentimental about Scotland. And also Wales, as it happens...
Post a Comment
<< Home