A NEW book raises the question of whether Burns is the best cultural icon for the Yes movement.
In the run-up to the independence referendum of 2014, the words of Scotland’s national bard were often cited to support arguments for a fairer Scottish society, free from Westminster rule.
Former first minister Alex Salmond was particularly fond of the poet, famously quoting that “the rocks would melt with the sun” before tuition fees were introduced for Scottish students.
However, the new book by literary researcher Dr Paul Malgrati examines Robert Burns’s political legacy in modern Scotland and questions whether he is a fitting figure for the independence movement to adopt.
While Dr Malgrati believes Burns was a suitable cultural icon in the push for devolution, he is not convinced the same case can be made for using him to further the cause of independence.
“It’s hard to summarise Burns politically – his views changed throughout his life. What you end up with is an ambiguous picture,” he said.
“He was a patriot who celebrated William Wallace but who also prided in Britain’s constitution; he was a conservative Jacobite in his 20s but switched to a more egalitarian, revolutionary stance in his 30s.
“That’s a fitting cocktail for devolution as Burns’s political ambiguities reflect our awkward state of affairs where Scotland’s new institutions remain embedded in a British framework. If you try to summarise Burns, you end up in these ambiguous waters which lend themselves fairly well to devolution but become overly fluid for the more black-or-white independence debate.”
Dr Malgrati said he wasn’t trying to advise the SNP but added that it was an issue the independence movement might want to consider.
“Admittedly, it would be a missed opportunity not to use Burns considering that he is the most popular historical Scot according to polls,” he said. “There is a political interest in using him from the standpoint of the SNP – or any party that’s serious about Scotland. You can see why they do it but it is a question mark for independence.”
He added: “Independence is not leaving us but there is still work to be done, not only in building the economic case but also building a cultural case that is different from the case that was made for devolution.”
Dr Malgrati pointed out that before devolution, Scotland was a nation devoid of any government over its own affairs. Lacking this, Burns Night in January became one of the unofficial conduits enabling Scots to reflect on their identity.
“The rationale for the book is that we need to look at how Burns has been treated and debated because it tells us an awful lot about Scotland’s national identity when there was no official space to debate these things,” he said.
The main thesis of the book is that in the late 19th century, Burns (below) was used as a kind of cultural icon of unionism, although not the kind of Unionism that is current today which is almost a denial of Scottish identity.
“The unionism you had in the Victorian era was much more a form of Scottish patriotism and the source of the patriotism was grounded in the experience of empire,” said Dr Malgrati.
“Burns was seen as a beacon of civilised Scottishness – a symbol of Scotland’s cultural achievement that justified the notion that Scotland was a civilised and civilising nation. Some of Burns’s more military and martial songs like Scots Wha Hae were used to celebrate the Scottish army within Britain.”
Dr Malgrati said that Burns today is still an icon of Scottish patriotism but with the narrative of independence and self-determination to the fore. To get to this point, however, the rise of the labour movement in the 20th century should not be ignored.
“That is interesting because with the rise of the labour movement, the discussion about Burns was taken away from the issue of patriotism to the issue of class which of course is another key dimension of Burns – the plebeian, ‘ploughman poet’,”
said Dr Malgrati. “He was writing at the time of the French revolution and became an icon in other countries like the USSR and China as well as one of the favourite poets of Karl Marx.”
However, Burns’s socialist legacy really came to the fore with the creation of the welfare state after the Second World War.
Dr Malgrati said this could be seen clearly in the history of the Burns Federation which was one of the foremost cultural organisations in Scotland and was always fairly political, starting off conservative-liberal in the 1890s before embracing the philosophy of the labour movement in the 1940s.
“They redrew that very unionist narrative but in a very different form of unionism with the idea that British workers should unite,” Dr Malgrati said.
“The Lord Provost of Glasgow at the time was Patrick Dollan, a labour man and head of the Burns Federation in 1946 and 1947. He said Burns was the prophet of the welfare state.
“So you have this very important moment in the 1940s and 1950s where Burns was seen in Scotland along those class lines, along these social democratic lines, and that is very much where the mainstream of Scottish politics was at the time. Burns was not seen as an icon of empire anymore but an icon of class and social progress.”
Then along comes Thatcherism, which led to a recycling of the labour movement rhetoric in 1980-90s Scotland, where Burns’s social-democratic values were increasingly seen in opposition to Tory-voting England.
“This is what leads us to devolution in 1999 where the reopening ceremony of the Scottish Parliament was marked by Sheena Wellington singing A Man’s A Man For A’ That, Burns’s main anthem of social equality and a symbol of Scottish patriotism as well,” pointed out Dr Malgrati.
When it comes to the run-up to the independence referendum, he said there appeared to be a consensus that Burns was one of the Scottish icons that was useable in the Yes campaign.
“By contrast with Scotland’s past warlike heroes, Burns’s identity as a poet was more appropriate at a time where there was such a hostile media trying to portray nationalism as a sort of xenophobic endeavour,” he said. “Burns was obviously a lot safer to use to push this left-of-centre agenda along with nationalism.”
Dr Malgrati added: “In a way, the cultural legacy of 1990s Labour, which linked the socialist Burns with the patriotic Burns against Thatcherism, was just up for grabs as a cultural narrative. And this is exactly what Salmond did. Of all the politicians, he politicised Burns the most in the referendum, although the poet also featured in the folklore and culture of the broader Yes movement.
“That is more or less where I leave the book but in conclusion, I reflect on this and how the narrative about Burns was just imported without thinking much at all about what that meant. From 1999 to 2014, it is as if the case for independence was the exact same thing as the case for devolution although these are very different goals.
“Devolution is, to a degree, the realisation of that kind of 19th-century form of Scottish unionism which wanted a federal UK and Scotland having more of a say in the management of the empire.
“Independence means really separating Scotland from that imperial past and Burns, as a politically ambiguous character, is probably too awkward an icon for such a task. He shifted his views in a way that doesn’t ally with modern politics and before the modern form of nationalism that Scotland has experienced in the last few decades.
“Overall, while Burns remains a brilliant icon of Scottish patriotism, his unionist, imperial context jars with our contemporary challenges.
Last century, the culture of devolution could build on such Burnsian ambiguities. But the culture of independence remains a radical project in need of radical invention, rather than paradoxical commemoration,” Dr Malgrati said.
Robert Burns And Scottish Cultural Politics by Dr Paul Malgrati is published by Edinburgh University Press
