From The Herald:
Scottish? Or British? For generations many Scots were happy to be a bit of both. Now, for the first time, they will officially have to decide between the two.
The Scottish Government yesterday published the likely questions on national identity for the next census. People living in Scotland in 2011 will be asked to tick one of 21 boxes that they think best defines their ethnic or national background. There will be a box for "Scottish" and a box for "British" but none for both.
I'm an Irish Unionist, born in Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom- British, Irish and European and proud of all three identities.
The people of the United Kingdom should not allow narrow-minded nationalism (of whatever description) dictate the composition of their individual national identities; I look forward to seeing the Unionist parties defeating this divisive proposal
18 comments:
I remember there was something similar in the 2001 census. But I went to work in Dublin for a short period when it was filled up so I did not fill in the form sent to my parents.
Remember Martin Clarke (later editor of Ireland on Sunday, Essex Boy, arch devolutionist, brains behind the Record's keep the clause campaign and a figure of fun in the Sunday Herald in a cartoon called "Rottweiler" where an Englishman editing a Scottish tabloid moans about the Scots and devolution) complaining about this in his column in Scottish Daily Mail (his employment after he was sacked from the Record for annoying most the staff).
In the last days of Austria-Hungary (back to it again!), the last few census saw people registering along "national" lines i.e. German, Czech, Slovene etc.
This was quite handy for Czech anti-semites who used the fact that most Jews in the Czech Lands registered themselves as "German" gave them the excuse to indulge in a bit of bigotry on the excuse they were doing for it for the Czech "cause".
Whilst mainstream Czech nationalism was generally civic (such as Masaryk and Benes), there was some thuggery. Notably the writer of "The Good Soldier Svejk" Jaroslav Hasek who occassionally indulged in setting fire to the outside toilets of German-speakers in Prague.
I might add that Hasek himself was not an anti-semite or indeed much of an anti-German speaker. One of his mates was Jew and fellow writer Franz Kafka (whose father had registered the family as "Czech" despite his wife being from a family registered as "German"). Kafka (name is Czech for jackdaw - Jews registering themselves as Czech had to adopt Czech names over their Hebrew ones) of course went to the top German-speaking school in Prague and indeed wrote his works in German.
So what did that make Kafka in old Austria?
Absolutely disgusting. Scratch a nationalist and this is what you get, invariably.
Will it be compulsory to answer this question?
Aberdonian,
" remember there was something similar in the 2001 census"
No, in the last census you were allowed to be Scottish and British; from the article:
The last census, in 2001, also quizzed people about their ethnic origins, but only offered 14 options. The first, for people who categorise themselves as White, was "Scottish", the second "other British", allowing Scots who felt British to put "Scottish" without denying their Britishness. Whites could also choose to be Irish or Other White.
Emm maybe you should look into this before letting your reactionary unionist bile flow.
This review was instructed under the last (Unionist, unambitious and useless )Executive (definately not a Government) and has happened to be published under the SNP Administration.
Anyway if we are all such red, white and blue true brits north of the border then this census will show your oft boasted domination of Scottish civil society, non?
Or perhaps the results from such a survey would highlight that your sacred British identity is even more doomed than is currently the case?
You're always banging on about a referendum, clean cut, in or out?
This review was instructed under the last (Unionist, unambitious and useless )Executive (definately not a Government) and has happened to be published under the SNP Administration.
They've simply published the findings of the review?
Or given them their stamp of approval?
From the article:
The Scottish Government yesterday published the likely questions on national identity for the next census
And how will the SNP vote on this, when it finally goes up for the vote?
The reactonaries are those whose policy is to limit people's choice on their national identity.
Or perhaps the results from such a survey would highlight that your sacred British identity is even more doomed than is currently the case?
You're always banging on about a referendum, clean cut, in or out?
So you want the referendum to be decided along strict national identity lines?
"Are you a Brit or a Scot" is that the question you're suggestin?
Not at all. After independence I'm sure some Scots people will still call themselves Brittish in the georgraphical, scandanavian, sense.
I personally would never ever use the adjective to describe myself, and I can't think of an occasion when i have met a Scot who would put it before Scottish.
You want a strict constitutional question in a referendum hemming people in to one constitutional stance or the other in order to bolster the apparent support of Unionism, which is your assumed response to any referendum. Why shouldn't independence supporters, and to be honest I don't entirely agree with this proposition either, when given an oppertunity do the same for Scottish identity?
Not at all. After independence I'm sure some Scots people will still call themselves Brittish in the georgraphical, scandanavian, sense.
Simply by getting independence, you wouldn’t change people’s national identity. Those that feel themselves British, will still feel themselves British and in a much deeper way, than simply the “geographical”, “scandanavian” sense.
I personally would never ever use the adjective to describe myself, and I can't think of an occasion when i have met a Scot who would put it before Scottish.
OK, fair enough, that’s your and their choice; but those who think differently should be allowed to express their dual identity on the census.
You want a strict constitutional question in a referendum hemming people in to one constitutional stance or the other in order to bolster the apparent support of Unionism, which is your assumed response to any referendum.
I believe that ties in with the SNP’s stance; I can’t really see how such a question can be couched in any other terms; do you want to remain a part of the United kingdom or not, it’s a pretty closed question, yes or no.
How people vote, however, will not be determined solely by their sense of national identity ie there will be those who do not feel themselves British will still vote for the Union and (theoretically) vice-versa.
Why shouldn't independence supporters, and to be honest I don't entirely agree with this proposition either, when given an oppertunity do the same for Scottish identity?
Because it is not to them to make that choice on other peoples' behalf regarding their national identity. If people feel themselves British and Scottish, that doesn’t make them any less Scottish and they should not feel inhibited officially or informally from being able to declare that dual identity. Why does Scottish (Irish and Welsh) nationalism always need to put us all in single, clearly defined and separate, boxes?
Because there is currently a process of the UK continuing to split along national lines. People organise themselves in units they feel comfortable with, often along national lines and find a political system to reflect that. You can't engineer it - as 300 years of brittish indoctrination shows.
If this trend wasn't actually happening there would be no need to create a census to reflect it.
The UK has been unravelling slowing since 1922 with a brief respite during the second world war. People in the UK are distinguishing themselves as seperate nationalities, its entirely natural. How many estonians felt Soviet? Croats felt Yugoslav? Slovaks felt Czeckoslovak? Many im sure had strong links to these systems but eventually nations organise themselves along the lines of a nation state. It happens eventually, and it will to Scotland. Maybe not in our lifetimes but it will happen.
This census is reflecting the reality of modern Scotland.
Will it go to a vote? I thought the Scottish Government just rubberstamped these kind of thigs. It always hashitherto, although i know how good unionists are to changing the rules when all of a suddent it doesn't suit them.
Print out the comments section and attach them to every polling station wall in Scotland...
... support for the SNP would drop dramatically as people realised this is what Scottish nationalists are really like: raving, bigoted loonies.
"raving, bigoted loonies" said the pragmatic, tolerant and measured Ulster Unionists
I might be wrong, but I think Jack isn't an Ulster Unionist...
Anyway, that comments section in all its gory glory:
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2413586.0.A_question_of_identity_are_you_Scottish_or_British.php
It's something I've noticed in The Scotsman too; the number of threads withdrawn because of downright personally abusive comments is astonishing. Not all down to the Cybernats, but they're definitely responsible for the majority of crap on both sites.
(And before anyone mentions it, yes, Slugger O'Toole has also gone completely off the rails and is now the online equivalent of a peaceline with various verbal missiles being thrown in both directions)
This census is reflecting the reality of modern Scotland.
Well, you should be happy for that *fact* to be proven then- give the people the right to choose what category they feel they belong to...you have got nothing to lose, if you're right.
At least they get the option of describing themselves as Scottish. Last time I filled out a census I could pick Scottish or Irish - but not English.
My wife and I both selected "White, Other" and wrote in "English", as did most of the people we know.
Incidentally, I objected when these "ethnicity" questions were first asked at the previous census, and refused to fill it in. However I was living in an "inner-city" area, and to my surprise in that kind of area they actually send people to check and collect the forms in person rather than relying on them being posted back. My census gatherer filled the ethnicity bit in for me, despite my objections.
I said at the time that it was a slippery slope...
O'Neill is quite correct. I am pro-Union, but my familiarity with Ulster extends only to a long weekend in Belfast. I am from Edinburgh.
I trust that, if you had been blogging at the time, you would have been equally critical of the 2001 census when they didn't bother ptting Welsh as an option. We had to lower ourselves to tick the "other" box.
Yes, the SNP endorse (not even initiate) a change in the cenusus that distinguishes between "Scottish" and "British" so they obviously must be compared to Nazis.
And they are the loons. Quite.
I guess you're alluding to the word "volk"; the word and the concept itself predates the nazis:
http://www.answers.com/topic/folk
and describes alot better the SNP's view of what constitutes the *true* Scottish people than the English nearest equivalent, "folk".
If you don’t believe me, have a read of this from their own site:
http://www.snp.org/node/11859
“The enemies of Scotland are not the English, as one of our founders RB Cunningham Grahame said, they are in fact well disposed towards us. The enemies of Scotland are the traitors within the gate, the unionist parties who, whilst claiming to be Scottish, don’t wish for their country the normal freedom that every world citizen expects for their country.”
In other words, Unionists have no right to describe themselves as Scottish
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