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Gaeldom and multi-ethnic Scotland: A long history and a short story

Multi- and transculturality, both in Scotland and in Britain as a whole, are an increasingly recognised fact, and the implications of this fact for national identity are the subject of lively public and academic debates. It is often implied that these phenomena are rather new, and that the traditional concept of cultures and nations as 'normally' homogeneous entities is at least a historical reality, and (for some) also a continuing ideal for the present. Contrary to this fiction, nations and states have always been culturally heterogeneous in some way or other. Cultural, linguistic and political borders are both incongruous and porous—sometimes more, sometimes less. This is true in almost any country, and most definitely so in Scotland, whose richly multilingual history and literature includes, among others, Welsh, Latin, Norse, Gaelic, Scots and English elements. While this traditional multiculturality is well-known, it is not always discussed in connection with the more recent (perhaps indeed especially intense) elements of multiculturality associated with post-World War Two waves of immigration and globalisation. However, it is well worth bearing these connections and parallels in mind. Understanding intra-national cultural difference as a long-standing historical norm rather than a (post)modern aberration might also help to weaken some people's anxieties about more recent immigration and the cultural dynamics it entails.

Unfortunately, such anxieties about cultural plurality, and the often xenophobic and racist responses which these anxieties generate, also have a very long history. This reveals further parallels between the experiences of the traditional minorities of multicultural Scotland, such as the Gaels, and the experiences of more recent minorities. Several of the latter (e.g. South Asian diasporic groups) are rooted in former British overseas colonies, with colonialism as a significant part of both their historical memory and their recent or contemporary experience of othering in Britain (where colonial thought patterns often survive, e.g. in Orientalist exoticisation, racism etc.). It is now increasingly recognised that colonial ideologies and strategies have also been frequently applied to cultural differences and hegemonies within the British Isles, e.g. in Anglo–Scottish relations or the marginalisation of the 'Celtic fringes' (e.g. see Hechter 1975, Murray & Riach 1995, Kiberd 1995, Connolly 1999, Aaron & Williams 2005). Postcolonial Scottish Studies is a growing (though still controversial) research area (e.g. Watson 1998; Stroh 2007, 2009a–c, 2011; Gardiner et al. 2011; Sassi & van Heijnsbergen forthcoming). Such international colonial and postcolonial alignments are of course complicated by the fact that many Scots and Gaels were complicit in overseas imperialism, and that even today xenophobic and racist opinions are probably just as frequent or infrequent among Scots and Gaels as they are among other Britons. Nonetheless, the internally colonial and postcolonial elements in Scottish history merit further consideration—not in terms of simplistic and whining victimology, but as part of a constructive investigation of key aspects of Scottish national history, culture and identity, and of the lingering (and often rather powerful) elements of anti-Gaelicism and anglo-normativity in contemporary public debates about language revival, public spending, education and the media.

It is also worth discussing these issues in relation to other forms of cultural normativity and racism directed at other minorities. In fact, various Gaels have already done so. For instance, when the respected British newspaper The Guardian published a text that claimed that "Gaelic sounds more like somebody chewing a cushion than actual human speech" (Colgan 2003), Gaels who protested against this racist dehumanisation (e.g. on the internet newsgroup "Iomairtean Gàidhlig") drew explicit comparisons to overseas colonial ideologies and the treatment of contemporary non-white minorities, and at least one protester threatened to take his complaint to the Commission for Racial Equality. There have even been complaints that racism against non-white minorities might be more discredited than racism against (traditionally and still largely) white minorities like the Gaels (e.g. McLeod 2004; BBC 2011).

I will now sketch some issues which should be borne in mind in a more sustained debate about the role of Gaeldom in the multi-ethnic nation. First, I will give a brief historical overview of Gael/Gall¹ relations as the most fundamental traditional ethno-cultural split in Scotland since the late Middle Ages. The second part of this essay discusses how this is reflected in literature, combining a wider perspective with a case study of one particular Gaelic short story, Tormod Caimbeul's "Am Branch Manager agus Sourbutt" ('The Branch Manager and Sourbutt'), from his collection An naidheachd bhon taigh ('The news from home', 1994).²

Ethnic relations between Gael and Gall: A historical overview

In the early and high Middle Ages, Scotland still seemed quite at ease with its multi-ethnic make-up, including its Gaelic element. Gaelic was spoken at the royal court and by much of the country's population. Later in the Middle Ages, political and cultural power shifted increasingly to the Scots-speaking world, and Gaeldom began to be marginalised and 'othered', although (or even because) it still retained a considerable degree of autonomy. Paradoxically, this 'Other' also remained an integral part of Scotland's sense of self, due to its historical importance and as a marker of Scotland's cultural difference from England, which in turn could legitimise national autonomy.

The advent of the modern nation state brought the idea that cultural, linguistic and political boundaries should ideally be congruous, and that internal aberrations from the national norm should be assimilated or purged. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, Scotland saw a drive towards internal homogenisation that treated Gaelic difference as increasingly intolerable. This trend was reinforced when the nation state was no longer Scottish but post-Union British: the homogenising drive caused a wave of (partly enforced, partly voluntary) anglicisation which affected both Lowland Scots and Highland/Gaelic traditions. As the modern state established colonies, 'Celtic' and overseas 'savages' were often portrayed as similarly 'backward' on a universal ladder of human progress, and were subjected to political, economic, religious and linguistic 'civilising missions'.

By the end of the eighteenth century, intra-British 'civilising missions' were so far advanced that the Gaelic Other was no longer a threat. It was now safe to idealise Gaels as 'noble savages', partly as a politically harmless form of Scottish distinctiveness and patriotism, and partly to morally counteract the darker sides of progress. Gaelic 'primitive' virtues, like physical hardihood and battle prowess, were also instrumentalised in the British army and overseas colonialism.

While romanticisations of Gaelic noble savagery have survived until today, the nineteenth century also evolved new images of ignoble savagery: especially when 'civilising' missions appeared to have failed after all (e.g. at times of economic crisis), continuing inequalities were rationalised as consequences of immutable biological differences between 'Teutonic' and 'Celtic' races. Racial categories even came to permeate pro-'Celtic' discourses, for example in academic attempts to re-habilitate the specific qualities of 'Celtic' culture. [...]

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¹ English translations of Gaelic titles and quotations are my own, and are indicated with single quotations.

² Gall is the standard term for 'Lowlander' in modern Scottish Gaelic; but it can also denote other kinds of non-Gaels.