Very fittingly, Dr McGarvey began by discussing the culture of Scotland itself which plays an immense role in the independence referendum. Scotland is actually the only country to vote against being independent when given the opportunity to vote. That alone reveals a lot. As Dr McGarvey noted, Scotland really is a very unusual nation. It's already pretty independent: it's got its own sports, its own religion, its own press, its own education system and of course, its own legal system! So Scotland is essentially a nation without its own state otherwise known as a stateless nation.
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| Thanks for the picture, dailywhat.org |
Really quick about the education systems since I haven't touched on this already. It's all quite interesting. So, I think I mentioned that people from Scotland go to University in Scotland for free while the rest of the U.K. has to pay 9,000 pounds; however, any country in the EU can go to school in Scotland for free. It's all quite odd. But, compared to England, Scotland's university degrees are for four years and you can study several different subjects where, as I understand it, in England students only need 3 years of university for a degree, but it's much more specialized in terms of subject area. Interesting, isn't it?
As Dr McGarvey explained, over the years of devolution, Scottish politics has developed its own agenda very separate from UK politics while also experiencing an overall decline in Britishness while Scottishness has been accentuated. In fact, he mentioned that if you ask someone in Scotland if they voted yes or no for independence, they would often say "no, but I'm not a unionist" or "yes, but I'm not a nationalist." This makes it seem like Scots shy away from polarized politics and prefer more moderate approaches, which from what I've seen so far, is accurate. After all, the referendum was praised throughout the world as surprisingly peaceful. This doesn't mean, however, that there weren't strong feelings or exaggerations. Here, for instance, is a video of someone very clearly in favor of independence narrating the arrival of English politicians to Glasgow to try to lobby for the "no" vote:
There were many really fascinating results of the referendum. On the surface, the "yes" vote was 1,617,989, or 44.7% while the "no" vote was 2,001,926, or 55.3%. The voter turnout was massively high at 84.6%, but don't forget that 16 and 17 year olds were allowed to vote for the first time as well, which probably added to that number. In terms of demographics, older people generally voted "no" while men typically voted "yes" along with less well off people. All in all, the referendum inspired a wave of interest in politics from all walks of Scotland. Independence and all its trappings became the dominant conversation topic so much so that bars had to put up signs that said "nae indy debates at the bar" (no debates about independence at the bar). The populace was engaged in politics like never before, which perfectly attests to the importance of this referendum.
Now, a little bit about devolution. The process of devolution (the process of distributing the power of a unitary government to its regional governments) is different in each nation of the U.K. So, Wales has different devolved powers than Scotland, which are different from Northern Ireland. 1999 marks the year of Scottish legislative devolution through the Scottish Parliament, but they already had administrative devolution for several years through an institution called the Scottish Office, a branch of the U.K. government that handled administrative affairs for Scotland. Dr McGarvey also noted that devolution is actually more of a conservative policy, which is kind of surprising. But seeing as it's an alternative of independence, it makes perfect sense. It's all about perspective, people. Another piece of evidence for this is that in the Scotland Act of 1998 which established the Scottish Parliament, the supremacy of the U.K. Parliament was reasserted. Finally, Dr McGarvey mentioned that he considered the U.K. to be not a unitary state, but a state of unions, because each of these nations have unique powers and governments. I was taught in high school that the U.K. was a unitary state, but it certainly doesn't seem to function much like one - especially considering the massive devolution in Scotland.
There is a ton more to write about on the subjects of independence and devolution, but I will spare you all for now and you can ask me more when I return if you so desire.
After our lecture, Nina, Omar and I hopped on a train to London for the weekend to get some first hand experience in comparing Scotland to the rest of the U.K., and let me tell you, from what I saw, Scotland and England could not be more different.
First, I'll go through what we did before doing a full-on comparison. We arrived Friday evening and met Nina's friends, Lauren and Niko, who we were staying with. They showed us around the city a little bit before taking us to a truly phenomenal Mediterranean restaurant in Soho called Cookhouse Joe's. Have you every had Halloumi? It's good and you should try it. Then we stopped by a gelato place where I had kiwi, gin and elderflower sorbet - what? It was really amazing though. After feeding ourselves, Nina, Omar and I walked around London ourselves a bit. We said goodnight to Big Ben at midnight and watched the London Eye slowly spin lit up by its red lights.
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| First night in London |
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| About to say goodnight to Big Ben |
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| The London Eye at night |
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| London at night |
Right, so, the next morning we woke up bright and early to be touristy tourists, but also get a sense of what London is all about. While we walked from Picadilly Circus to Buckingham Palace to St Paul's Cathedral and beyond, we began to notice one hugely important thing about London: it's very international. About 1 in 3 people in London are not from England. We probably heard at least 15 different languages throughout our day and saw people from all over the world. It's not just the people though. The food was all very internationally focused, all the tour places we went offered audio guides in a ton of different languages, and to top it off, on all major cross walks, the street literally told you which way to look for cars coming. Like, instead of the white lines in front of you, it said "LOOK RIGHT --->" or "<--- LOOK LEFT." If that doesn't prove the internationality of London, nothing will.
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| Picadilly Circus |
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| Omar, me and Nina at Buckingham Palace |
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| The London Eye |
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| Nina and I at Somerset House |
My favorite touristy thing we did was St Paul's Cathedral. This is a splendid cathedral in the middle of London that has been a very historically central venue for important moments such as William Churchill's funeral and Princess Diana's wedding. There are over 500 steps to be climbed in order to get to the top of St Paul's cathedral - which is really kind of torturous - but the view is so worth it. See for yourselves:
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| St Paul's Cathedral |
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| The view from St Paul's Cathedral |
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| The view from St Paul's Cathedral |
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| The view from St Paul's Cathedral |
To go along with how internationally focused England is, the cathedral also had monuments to all sorts of countries throughout the world including a huge tribute to the "American dead of the Second World War" which stands behind the high altar - which is a very sacred and important place! Such splendor devoted to a former colony of England speaks volumes about the culture of this city and its central cathedral.
My other favorite event was seeing a Vivaldi orchestra concert by candlelight in St Martin-in-the-fields, a lovely church near Trafalgar Square. The music was splendid and the venue matched it perfectly.
It was at this concert I began to consider some differences and similarities between Scotland and England and a comparison between the two. The first thing that sparked this was when I noticed a rather large royal crest at the front of the church on the ceiling. "Huh," my American brain mused, "what about separation of church and state?" Well, dummy, this is England! The Anglican Church was made for the state! Henry VIII split from the pope and made the monarch the head of the church, remember? Right, well, the situation in Scotland is the same, but different (as many things here are). Scotland has a legacy of Presbyterianism, which is certainly ingrained in their state structure as well. Our legal expert from last week, Dr Norrie, agreed that in Scotland there really is no separation of Church and State. It certainly would be difficult to enforce given the relationship between the church and state in England.
Eventually I also came to notice the constant distinction between England and Scotland in London. Signs and information would never call people British - only Scottish or English. This reminded me of what Dr McGarvey mentioned about the decline in Britishness. Come to think of it, I don't think I've heard the term "British" once in reference to a person. This just goes to show the relentless separation of Scotland and England as distinct nations and cultures. More on this in a second!
First, I'll quickly detail our second day. We woke up and headed over to King's Cross to experience some Harry Potter nostalgia. The line for Platform 9 3/4 (kind of a cheesy rip-off people, not gonna lie) was quite long, so we decided to head to the British Library first to go through an AWESOME ONCE IN A LIFETIME EXHIBITION ABOUT THE MAGNA CARTA AND IT WAS THE AWESOMEST AWESOME THAT EVER DID AWESOME. Really quick, for those of you who don't know, the Magna Carta was this rather important document that was a result of the English barons of 1215 and their rebellion against King John basically for some important governmental changes. What it established was that the King had to follow the law, just like everyone else, and the people would not be subject to tyranny. Sound familiar?! Thus, traces of the Magna Carta's message are found throughout all of European history. It doesn't matter that Pope Innocent III (who happened to be England's feudal overlord at the time) annulled it like, 10 weeks later - not important. The document lives and breathes to this day in all sorts of things including, I don't know, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Speaking of those, they both happened to be in this exhibit. Yep. Thomas Jefferson's personal copy of the Declaration of Independence was sitting in front of my face and so was the freaking Bill of Rights. I definitely cried a little. It was magical. (Also, note again the reverence afforded to the United States in this London, Magna Carta exhibit. Okay, moving on.) Okay, also about every copy of the Magna Carta in existence was there, including the closest thing to the original we've got and a few papal bulls and all around amazing medieval and modern documents. It truly was once in a lifetime. Sorry for geeking out here, non-history folks.
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| King's Cross station |
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| The British Library |
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| A lovely park I spent my last few hours in London hanging out in, soaking up the rays |
Although I understand my two days in London in no way allowed me to fully understand English culture in contrast with Scottish culture, there was certainly a palpable differentiation between the two. London seemed to be looking out toward the rest of the world, unconcerned with Scotland or the rest of the U.K. while Scotland is very internally focused. London excreted a mixture of many different cultures forming one very tolerant and ambiguous amalgamation, while Scottish culture is clear cut and full of its own unique character. Neither is good or bad, but they are certainly different. And I definitely did feel a little homesick for Scotland while I was away.
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| DC Thomson in London - one of the only pieces of evidence I saw of a Scottish connection whilst in the city |
That's not to say there aren't plenty of similarities between England and Scotland. They both sell bottled Scottish water everywhere! But beyond that, they're both very egalitarian societies, they both do not have much of a separation of church and state, they share very similar governmental structures and have similar cultural values. So, I suppose on the surface they are the same, but in personality, they are very very different.
Speaking of understanding Scottish culture, Monday was highly eye-opening in that respect. After a morning lecture about the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences (all highly interesting, but this blog is already too long, so if you'd like to know more, just ask me), we headed to the Irn Bru factory! Okay, some background: Irn Bru (pronounced Iron Brew) is essentially the Scottish national drink. Scotland is the only country in the world where Cocacola is not the most popular soda (or as they call it here, ginger or fizzy drink) - it's Irn Bru. Why's it spelled like that? Legislation got passed that drinks had to come at face value, so basically that what the drink says it is has to be what it actually is. Now, there is a little iron in Irn Bru, so that was in the clear, but it isn't brewed like a beer, so the owner of the company said they'd keep the name and just spell it weird, thus "Irn Bru" was born. What does it taste like? Although it claims to have an indescribable taste, I will tell you it tastes like fizzy bubblegum cough syrup.
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| All of us heading into our tour of the Irn Bru factory! I know, we look good. |
How in the world is this drink beating out Cocacola in Scotland? I would argue a combination of the fiercely spirited culture of Scotland along with phenomenal marketing. Two members of the Irn Bru marketing team met with us on Monday to tell us their brilliant formula for building a brand. Essentially they told us about two important concepts when it comes to marketing: the brand's essence and the brand's character. The brand's essence is developed from a lovely pyramid of traits of your product and turns out to be two words that fully capture the product's essence. Irn Bru's essence is "Bold Spirit," which after watching several adds was absolutely fitting. Their marketing scheme is quite bold. Jonathan Kemp, Irn Bru's Commercial Director, told us that if he thinks any of his competitors would print or run an advert (that's what they call ads here), he wouldn't do it. Irn Bru's marketing is unique, cheeky, bold, and filled with the spirit of Scotland. Here's an example:
See how the add pokes fun at Scotland while also giving off this unparalleled sense of pride? That is spirit. And that is Scottish culture. Remember the video of the Darth Vadar music and the English politicians? Classic Scotland. Scotland has the ability to make fun of its rougher side, but still embrace its culture all the same unlike any other nation I know of. It has a sense of humor, it's bold and cheeky, and it is fiercely confident and proud of what it is. Doesn't that kind of sound like a person? That's the second part of what Mr Kemp told us about building a brand: give your product character, like that of a person. So, Irn Bru's personality is essentially Scotland's personality, and that comes across in every advert you see and even the drink itself: bold spirit.
We all got a little nostalgic at the Irn Bru factory. Never before had we seen Scottish culture so greatly represented in a 2 minute video. It just showed us how very much we will miss this place and its very bold spirit.
This one of the last blog posts - I expect about two more. One with more events and one reflective one when I return to the States on Saturday. So until the next one, cheers!
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