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"...To See Ourselves As Others See Us..."
by Alastair McIntyre KCTJ, FSA Scot, of Ontario, Canada.
He is owner/webmaster of ‘Electric Scotland’ which has millions of regular visitors of which 80% are from outwith the UK
 I’M SURE my Scottish friends are not going to be too pleased with my observations, but I’m getting more and more convinced that the best of Scots have already left Scotland.
Over the centuries hundreds of thousands of Scots left their native country. Many had an enterprising spirit and saw business opportunities. Others were forced to leave through the Highland Clearances but it still took a lot of courage to leave the homeland.
In their new countries, they founded banks, legal firms, farms, educational establishments, churches, and were leaders in commerce, shipping, and general industries as well as being heavily involved in politics be it local or national.
In those days Scots had a world vision and an enterprise that was astonishing and their descendants, despite being a small minority in the USA, actually produce 10% of all the millionaires in America.
I find as I travel around the various places in the world where Scots have settled that I get a great deal of help from the Scots and their descendants. They are generally proud of what they and their ancestors have achieved and are willing to provide information on those achievements.
And yet the Scots at home seem a pale shadow of these folk. They don’t have the same vision or pride that our descendants do in other lands.
I have written to 100 Scottish companies to see if they’d be interested in providing some history about their organisation. Not one provided such information, although the Wood Group did some years later. I have emailed or written to every Scottish Council to ask for information and the few that responded offered nothing or little that was of any use. Not one tourism company or tourism organisation in Scotland has offered anything about themselves.
I have attended a number of meetings in Canada and the USA where some Scottish Minister was doing the rounds or other Scottish organisations wanting to talk to local people. Never have they come up with plans on what we can do to help. They tell us a tiny amount about their organisations or what is happening in Scotland and expect us to read their minds about why they have come or what we might be able to do to help.
I keep wondering why local Scots in Scotland are so poor at communicating. We are after all in the communication age. Even if you visit their web sites most are just brochures and very few of them excite or enthuse the visitor. They are so seldom updated that there is often little point in going back as nothing will have changed.
I am in fact fortunate to be in Canada right now and I’ve really come to the conclusion that Canada is the real home of the Scots as so many of them came here, settled and helped to develop the country to what it is today.
And it is these people that have kept alive the clan roots and not, in most cases, the people back in Scotland. Indeed Canada has already had to go back to Scotland to teach them about step dancing. The Gaelic College in Cape Breton is keeping the Gaelic Language alive. The College of Piping in Prince Edward Island likewise for bagpipes. The Centre for Scottish Studies at the University of Guelph is the only place in North America where you can obtain a Doctorate or Masters in Scottish Studies. Some of the finest Burns clubs in the world can be found in Canada and the USA.
We keep hearing about Scots wanting to ditch the tartan and bagpipe image of Scotland and yet these are instantly recognisable brands for Scotland. It was the Scots people of Canada and the USA that came up with Tartan Day and now the local Scots want to ditch that in favour of Scottish Week. Did they ever do anything to help get Tartan Day started? No! So in thanks for all our work to get Tartan Day started they tell us ‘but we need to move on to other things’. Do they actually know of all the work that went on to get Tartan Day recognised? I’m sure most have no idea whatsoever.
I am hugely proud to be a Scot and especially when you consider what the Scots have achieved all over the world. I’m not so sure I can identify with the local Scots of today.
About the only reason for going back to Scotland is to see the country where we came from. Next year we see Homecoming Scotland getting started and to learn how to do a clan gathering they had to visit the Grandfather Mountain Games and Stone Mountain Highland Games and the Fergus Highland Games in Canada. The fact that it is being held on Scottish Soil is perhaps the only reason to go there.
Most people that will go to Scotland in 2009 from further afield than Europe will be going for between 7 - 14 days. Likely at least 3 days will be to Edinburgh where the Clan Gathering is but where will they go next? Perhaps to Stirling but then I would imagine most will head to St. Andrews and the Highlands and Islands. So many parts of Scotland will be missed as no attempt is made to attract people to them. Like why would you go to Glasgow? Why go to a city for your holiday? Would it even occur to you to go to Glasgow unless you had relatives there?
I get reports on Scottish Business saying that Scots around the world send opportunities back to Scotland. But the local Scots seem to want business handed to them on a plate. ‘Do you mean we have to do some work to get the business? Unless there is a grant I’m not interested!’
Our ancestors didn’t get grants but many of them made millions by engaging businesses all over the world. A lot of them found ways to co-operate with each other to help defray expenses. And a lot of them made sure people knew who they were and why they had come. This is entirely different from the secretive Scottish Enterprise who, while involved in North America, make sure you learn virtually nothing about what they do.
We mostly have positive attitudes to “Old Scotland” but I doubt most of us have any particular ties to “New Scotland” unless you have family there. Should the Scotland of today want to engage us they need to give us reasons and provide us with some information as to why we should do so.
That’s not to say Scots in Scotland won’t give you a decent welcome when you get there, but I just think our Scots descendants give you an even better welcome when you visit them. I spent 6 months in Canada and all that time I was put up in Canadian homes of Scots and their descendants. Likewise I was put up for 3 months in the USA, again staying with Scots and their descendants. That just wouldn’t happen in Scotland.
It just seems to me that local Scots have no idea how to communicate with the Scots Diaspora around the world and it’s a real shame as they are ignoring the very best of Scots that have actually achieved so much in their new lands. These are successful people with vision and enterprise. Why would you not want to communicate with them?
Scotland should be able to do so much better - but where are the visionaries, the entrepreneurs? We simply don’t know, as Scotland has a failure to communicate and so most Scots in the Diaspora haven’t a clue as to what Scotland is getting up to today. Only a tiny percentage go to the trouble of finding out.
And so, if Scots want to do better it’s time they went back and looked at their history when Scots were doing all those amazing things in the world.
see: www.electricscotland.com
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