Sectarianism in Scotland: The Last Decade (Chapter Three)

At the Edinburgh International Festival in August 1999 the composer James MacMillan made a speech accusing Scotland of 'sleepwalking bigotry'. Yet again the debate exploded into the public arena with virtually everyone keen to expound their views on Scottish sectarianism. The majority of instant reactions from people were either applauding or condemning MacMillan according to their own beliefs. A more detached and sensible attitude would be to accept that he might be right and take action to at least compile statistics and learn the true extent of the problem.

Many people spoke out suggesting that sectarianism does not exist in Scotland anymore, this may in part be explained by geography. Sectarianism in Scotland has largely been confined to south central western Scotland (around Glasgow and Lanarkshire particularly) and as Styles points out in his article entitled 'The Non-Sectarian Culture of the North East' there is little evidence of sectarianism outside this area. Attempts to drum up support and organise Orange marches in Aberdeen resulted in mass protests and marches were banned. The suggestion was that groups from south central western Scotland were trying to export their sectarian beliefs. MacMillan refers to his experience growing up in the west. The media interviewed everyone available for reactions to the speech including the leading Scottish historian, Professor Tom Devine, and the sociology Professor, David McCrone. As Gerry P.T. Finn pointed out in his excellent essay A Culture of Prejudice both Devine and McCrone were happy to discuss the speech without having heard it. In fact '....despite being privately unaware of the details of MacMillan's argument, Devine proceeded to dismiss MacMillan's case as academically unsound and based on personal experience'. This kind of response from academics is very disappointing and Devine in particular seemed keen to play down the issue claiming that it had not been a problem for about twenty years. Although more positively he did encourage debate and research on the subject. McCrone wrote an article with Michael Rosie in the aftermath of MacMillan's speech and attempted to utilise some of the scant evidence which does exist to examine the differences in attitude between Protestants and Catholics in Scotland. They came to the conclusion that Catholics within Scotland had undergone 'acculturation and assimilation into mainstream Scottish society'. This reminds us of a key point about the debate which is that Catholics in Scotland are not a seperate community linked to Ireland, they are Scots.

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