This page gives links to an article on Land Reform and National Identity, by Vérène Nicolas and Alastair McIntosh, published in Le Monde Diplomatique, Paris, in French and also in English, German and Spanish editions, November/December 2001. To access, please click on the appropriate language link below.
English Original (16 Nov 2001, p. 13 in print edition): Scotland plc - Land Reform and National Identity
The above link takes you direct to "the Diplo's" English website, where the English original of the article may be viewed in full (with the title and tongue-in-cheek introduction that they have given it). The Diplo can be obtained monthly in English by subscription with The Guardian Weekly - to visit their subscriptions site, see http://guardianweekly.com . The English edition is also available, but selected titles only to non-subscribers, at http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/en/ .
A major land reform bill is passing through the Edinburgh parliament. Off-shore islanders are now buying and managing their land and within a decade, the country will be owned and run quite differently.
By Alastair McIntosh and Vérène Nicolas
Scotland recovered its own parliament in July 1999, after 300 years of rule from Westminster, and three of its first eight legislative priorities were land reform. And they tell us about the history of globalisation far beyond Scotland itself.
The British minister of state, Brian Wilson, spoke in June last year to the London committee of the powerful Scottish Landowners Federation – it has 4,000 members and they claim to control 80% of Scotland's private land. He warned that "an irreversible shift" had taken place "in public policy towards land ownership in Scotland". Land reform was now "a litmus test by which the parliament and executive would be judged".... (click above link for more).
French Version (1 Nov 2001, No. 572-48, p. 6 in print edition): Quand l'Ecosse Distribue les Terres: Vent de Réformes Après la Conquête de L'Autonomie .
(Below is the introduction from the French website of the Diplo. The full text can be accessed on this website by clicking the title above, or on the Diplo's own French website at http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2001/11/NICOLAS/15812 .
Dans le contexte historique, démographique et social qui es le sien, chaque Etat gère à sa manière ses nationalismes régionaux. Plus que l'expression d'un particularisme culturel ou linguistique, la revendication qui a débouché sur le statut d'autonomie récemmencent accordé à l'Ecosse au sein du Royaume-Uni a reposé sur le rejet de la politique de ségrégation sociale mise on place depuis Mme Margaret Thatcher et une distribution de la terre digne de l'Amérique latine.
Par Vérène Nicolas et Alastair McIntosh
Après trois cents ans passés sous la férule de Londres, l'Ecosse possède à noveau, depuis juillet 1999, son propre Parlement. Et trois de ses huit priorités législatives concernent le partage des terres selon un processus qui met en lumière l'histoire de la mondialisation et son impact bien au-delà de l'Ecosse........
German Version: Das Geheimnis des wahren Schotten
Ausgabe vom 16.11.2001: http://monde-diplomatique.de
(Below is the introduction from the German website of the Diplo. The full text can be accessed on this website by clicking the title above, or is available on the Diplo's own German website at http://monde-diplomatique.de/mtpl/2001/11/16./text?Tname=a0047&idx=17 ).
DER historische, demografische oder soziale Kontext ist in der Regel entscheidend dafür, wie ein Staat mit seinen regionalen Gruppen und Minderheiten verfährt. Entsprechend hat der autonome Status, der Schottland 1997 innerhalb des Vereinigten Königreichs zugesprochen wurde, seine Hauptursache vielleicht weniger in einem ausgeprägten kulturellen oder sprachlichen Partikularismus als vielmehr in der Ablehnung der von Margaret Thatcher vorangetriebenen Politik der sozialen Spaltung. Erste Schritte für eine Landreform, die vor allem die quasifeudale Macht der Großgrundbesitzer einschränken soll, hat das schottische Parlament jetzt in Angriff genommen.
* Mitarbeiter des Centre for Human Ecology in Edinburgh. McIntoshs Buch,
"Soil and Soul: People versus Corporate Power", das das Thema dieses
Artikels ausführlicher behandelt, ist im September 2001 bei Aurum Press in
London erschienen.
Nach dreihundert Jahren unter der Londoner Zuchtrute besitzt Schottland seit Juli 1999 wieder ein eigenes Parlament.1 Und nicht weniger als drei seiner acht wichtigsten Gesetzesvorhaben betreffen die Landreform. Im Juni 2000 sprach der englische Staatssekretär Brian Wilson vor dem Londoner Komitee der sehr einflussreichen Scotish Landowners Federation, der etwa 4 000 Mitglieder angehören, die nach eigener Aussage 80 Prozent des privaten Grundbesitzes in Schottland kontrollieren. Dabei meinte Wilson, in "der öffentlichen Politik hinsichtlich des Grundbesitzes in Schottland" sei ein "irreversibler Wandel" eingetreten. Und er erklärte die Landreform zum...
368 Zeilen, VÉRÈNE NICOLAS - ALASTAIR MCINTOSH, Seite 15
Spanish Version: Reforma agraria e identitaria en Escocia
por Vérène Nicolas y Alastair McIntosh
In the Chile edition, December 2001, No. 15 (and possibly also in other Spanish language editions). At the time when I checked the following website, it appeared only to be available in print or perhaps to subscribers: see
http://www.primeralinea.cl/c_lemonde/index.asp .
The following links are to related material on this website that might be of interest to readers of this article:
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Les Highlands Ecossais dans une Perspective Coloniale et Psychodynamique
-
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Soil and Soul: People versus Corporate Power
Keywords: Centre for Human Ecology, Brian Wilson MP, Alasdair Morrison MSP, community land ownership, Isle of Eigg, French Revolution. Hebrides, Isabel MacPhail of Assynt, Lord Edmund Hoyle-Vesty, Declaration of Arbroath 1320 , Scottish constitution, Scottish Crown, Community of the Realm, Union of Parliaments 1707, Union of the Crowns 1603, England, Auld Alliance, Entente Cordiale, France, Robert Burns, such a parcel of rogues in a nation, Jacobite uprising 1745, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, Stewart, Marshal Saxe, Dunkirk, Jacobites, white slavery, plantations, Caribbean, Scottish ancestry, Battle of Culloden 1746, kilt, Highland Clearances, commodification of land, Linda Colley, British state, British imperialism, British Empire, Protestantism, Catholicism, globalisation, Anglo-American international business culture, Napoleon, Hitler; Falklands, Afghanistan, national totem, nuclear weapons, national identity, belonging, belongingness, Margaret Thatcher, special relationship, President Reagan, Scottish Parliament,Welsh Assembly, Lord Parekh, The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain, racism, Scottish Affairs, Historiographer Royal for Scotland, Professor TC Smout, civic identity, ethnic identity, Haider, Le Pen, Scottish National Party, Independence within Europe, Tony Blair, New Labour party, Braveheart, cool Britannia, consciousness, Canon Kenyon Wright, Scottish Constitutional Convention, People & Parliament, cultural psychotherapy, sacred duty of hospitality and fostership, Prince Emmanuel Obike, multiple identity, dual identity, Who's a Real Scot?, Embracing Multicultural Scotland.
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21-11-01