I don't read the Scotsman newspaper very much, not even online. In fact, I probably read the Daily Mail more than the Scotsman. That's a bit of a surprise to me. It's a joke of a paper, the Mail. I love the way it calls itself your Scottish Daily Mail although it has just about nothing in it about Scotland and in fact is pretty anti-Scottish. But at least I can explain to a visiting Martian that this is a foreign newspaper so you can't expect a lot. The Scotsman, however, is written and printed in Edinburgh. How do I explain to my Martian friend that the reason I'm reading bits of it recently is because friends keep sending me anti-Scottish - specifically anti-Scots and anti-Gaelic - articles that are now appearing all too often in the Scotsman.
Like this one:
http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/heritage/hugh-reilly-a-tilt-at-the-windmill-of-gaelic-1-3161984
I've no idea who Hugh Reilly is. I'm told he used to be a teacher. I'm glad that he has joined the Scotsman as a columnist since that has maybe stopped him poisoning a few children's minds against all things Gaelic and Scots.
Reilly claims that Gaelic owes its revival to the SNP. Nothing could be further from the truth: the Gaelic revival started 25 years ago, long before government was a gleam in Alex Salmond's eye. In fact, Gaelic was never really promoted by the SNP till fairly recently. And this is just the first of many examples of Reilly's ignorance of his own country. Queen street station has indeed got signage in Gaelic but that was put up ages ago by a Labour Council - nothing to do with the SNP. He claims 'Glasgow's institute for teuchter education' is in the west end. Not strictly true. It's in Woodside but its population is drawn from all over Glasgow and furth of Glasgow. He regards the increase in the number of Gaelic medium schools as a mystery, but that's to be expected since he knows nothing about the subject. He also repeats the lie that BBC Alba gets 25 nillion quid a year from the taxpayer.
But let's be fair. After all, Reilly is: he's as agin the Scots language as he is anti-Gaelic. He's offensive about a headteacher who has devoted her career in part to the survival of Scots. According to him, only old people speak Scots. That'll come as a surprise to my Ayrshire friends whose offspring are lucky enough to be bilingual in Scots and English. And there's even a few that are trilingual in Scots, English and Gaelic. He describes the Scots of Robert Burns as 'spookily sound(ing) like the final, gurgling words of Robert Maxwell.' He's certainly never heard of the Doric - or any of the other dialects of Scots.
How do you get to hate your own nation and its cultures that much? Is it because the Scotsman newspaper has paid you to do it? Because you're anti-independence and will use any weapon against the yes voters? Or is it, as I suspect, just sheer-bloodyminded ignorance.
What really gets my goat is that the Scotsman has a regular column in Gaelic and has had for years and years. I know a few people who buy it for that reason. There's obviously some kind of split personality at work in the Scotsman offices.
But what I'd most like to know is when articles like this stop being just 'provocative' and become outright racist. If you read Reilly's article and substitute Urdu or Chinese for Gaelic or Scots, does the Scotsman's xenophobia start to be a bit sinister? It does to me.
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