A Challenge to the Separatists

Two books on Scottish issues were waiting for me at the English bookshop in Bucharest – the first a dry technical treatment of the debate on Scottish independence; the second a much more lively and courageous book which breaks away from the constraints of the “yes-no” framework and looks at various local struggles for more power which have taken place in the past few decades in different parts of Scotland. Housing and land ownership and health inequalities have tended to be the subject of these campaigns.

In the early 1970s, I was one of a small group which pushed (successfully) for recognition of the scale of urban deprivation in the West of Scotland. Our strategy of positive discrimination ran for more than 20 years - with community development as its central accompanying element. The Scottish government of 1997 took over those commitments - and has continued them since.

In those days, we assumed that the scale of the poverty we encountered within such a significant section of the population reflected the heavy industry in the area – with the insecurity of employment which went with it. But more recent research has suggested there is a “Scottish effect” which affects even those who live middle-class lives.

Various hypotheses have been proposed to account for the effect, including vitamin D deficiency, cold winters, higher levels of poverty than the figures suggest, high levels of stress, and a culture of alienation and pessimism

Lesley Riddoch has been an eloquent and campaigning Scottish journalist since the 1980s. Her book - Blossom - is inspiring, and makes a clear, coherent case for community ownership and more devolution at a local level. 
Since we Scots gained our Parliament 15 years ago, there has been nothing to stop such developments - except the mind-set of the Scots themselves!

The book is, for me, a unique challenge to explain the persisting disempowerment and inequality in Scottish society - particularly in the excellent use it makes of comparisons with Scandinavian countries -

Through a thorough and enlightening examination of our history Ms Riddoch argues that Scots have an inherited tolerance for inequality. Centuries of feudal land ownership and the many social ills that has spawned – such as unaffordable housing and chronic over-crowding- have taught us not to expect access to our own resources.

As a result we are politically disengaged and completely unaware of our own capabilities and capacity for change. For centuries, Scots living at the mercy of distant landlords meant high rents, bad treatment and insecurity; feudal landownership created a huge landless class, most of whom had no choice but to inhabit industrialised areas where they were further exploited. No poor law meant work or die.

However, this was not a universal experience. In Norway and Denmark, many workers were also landowners- and those who moved with the tide of industrialisation into towns and cities were given access to allotments and small plots of land by way of compensation. Even In England, where many workers had historically been freeholders, the urbanised working classes were accommodated in terraced housing- allowing them access to a front and back garden as compensation for the upheaval from their rural roots. The Scottish crisis in land ownership led to a second one in housing and chronic overcrowding in Scotland’s towns and cities.

The Royal Commission on Housing in 1917 found an ‘almost unbelievable density’ in Scotland compared to England, a trend that continued to grow throughout the twentieth century.In 1951, census results showed that 55 per cent of Glasgow’s population were living in chronically overcrowded conditions – compared to just 0.5 per cent of their counterparts in London. Even in the 1970s and 80s Scots continued to live with an epidemic of dampness spreading through cheaply built social housing. 

The point – according to the author – is this; we are a nation of people accustomed to bad treatment and inequality; ‘such a profound experience of deprivation doesn’t easily leave folk memory.’She goes on to suggest that behavioural patterns and cultural preferences are determined by the an inherited template of inequality. Because generations of our predecessors endured some of the worst living and working conditions, today we tolerate the same injustices in their modern day incarnations – and think nothing of it.The largeness of the country estates owned by a handful of elites has been transferred onto every other aspect of our lives and we blindly trust in distant authority and centralised power instead of the capacity of the average person. 

Scotland has the largest councils in Europe and the lowest level of democratic activity. Staggeringly, in France 360’000 local councils exist compared to our 32.We don’t make decisions about what affects us locally because we’ve never owned and controlled the land we live on, and voter turnout is pitifully low because historically landownership was a precondition of enfranchisement.

Today 25 per cent of Scotland’s estates have been owned by the same family for over 400 years, and tenants of these estates still live in fear of speaking out against landowners should their lease fail to be renewed.Poor Scots don’t exercise or eat well – we are the sick man of Europe and die young because that’s the way it has always been. We continue to live within the fourth most unequal state in the world where the gulf between the richest and the poorest is obscene by any civilised society’s standards.The voices of women are excluded from public life as if it that were absolutely normal and we tolerate some of the lowest levels of female representation in our parliament and public bodies. We also let very rich men who were gifted everything they have by accident of birth tell us that the poor and underprivileged of our country are to blame for their circumstances – and should expect nothing from them.

As a trustee of the Isle of Eigg Trust, Ms Riddoch was involved in the historic 1997 community buy-out of the Island. Prior to the buy-out many inhabitants lived within the confines of one room to conserve heat. Diesel was the expensive and often inaccessible fuel they relied upon entirely. As no land was made available for a rubbish tip, most people shared their already limited living space with rats, and the majority lived without leases.

After years of struggling to finance the buyout, today, the Isle of Eigg is one of Scotland’s most capable communities, tackling problems such as climate change and depopulation head on. In 2008, diesel was finally replaced with a mini grid integrating solar, wind and hydro energy known as Eiggtricity. By 2009, emissions had been cut by a third and the Eiggachs now have a much sought after and elusive asset – affordable energy security.

A co-operatively owned estate near South Lanarkshire is another success story. Tired of tolerating the damp, badly heated and insecure towerblocks they inhabited, the tenants of West Whitlawburn formed the Steering Committee of a Housing Co-op in 1989.

Describing her visit to the estate in 2010, Ms Riddoch explains the sharp contrast between the west and the neighbouring council owned East Whitlawburn estate where icy paths, single glazed windows and disintegrating brick work were still ubiquitous.

In the west, paths were cleared every morning and alarms fitted in the homes of the most vulnerable tenants. People took it in shifts to monitor CCTV screens and provide cups of tea in the middle of the night to any of the 70 vulnerable tenants who buzzed down for whatever reason. 11 deaths have been prevented because of this monitoring system, and the co-op have produced social accounts providing facts and figures proving that their way of doing things saves lives and cash – for anyone who is any doubt that community ownership is the way to go.

The Eiggachs, tenants of West Whitlawburn and others like them – Ms Riddoch states – were only able to reach their potential once they had full access to their own resources and decision making at a local level. This is a message which will resonate well with independence supporters, and clearly one that the author feels is at least somewhat relevant to the current constitutional debate. 

Nevertheless, it is an indictment that in a country which considers itself a modern democracy: “So much effort had to be expended…to reach a level of fairness that’s been normal in other neighbouring nations for centuries”.Despite the success of the Eiggachs and the tenants of West Whitlawburn, community ownership is still not a mainstream option in housing provision. The Eigg buy-out put land reform on the political agenda, and the Land Reform Act was passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2003, but very few communities have taken advantage of the Scottish Land Fund to finance Buyouts. There is a very practical reason for this – the community buyout model is too intimidating for most, and politicians routinely advocate for community ownership without coughing up the resources to make it happen.

Land Reform is one of the most pressing issues facing Scotland and Ms Riddoch suggests the swift introduction of a land tax would be the most sensible way to bring that about. However, community buyouts alone will not rectify the disempowerment felt across Scotland.Although the author doesn’t devote too much time to the explicit discussion of next year’s vote, there are important messages here for Independence campaigners. Ms Riddoch warns it is possible that “Such a divided, unequal nation is unlikely to push wholeheartedly for a cause like Scottish independence. why bother when folk have smaller fish to fry?”

She maintains that “change will only come when people can visualise things being otherwise” – this is an important point which is frequently made by other progressive commentators such as Gerry Hassan. Knowing what we know about the Scottish psyche, it is essential that the broader Yes campaign move heaven and earth to spark imaginations and – although it is beginning to sound like a platitude – provide a real ‘vision’ for the future of Scotland. This can be achieved by allowing the terms of the debate to be shaped by as many sections of the population as possible. In the process people who might now be disengaged will find the confidence to participate in building the independent country we hope to see. The fact that so many are already by-passing the official campaign in favour of grass roots movements such as National Collective and Radical Independence is of course the strongest indicator we have that a Scotland closer to the democratic and empowered one Ms Riddoch provides us with snap shots of here is possible. 

Trusting the people of Scotland to build a better society from the bottom up is an essential step in empowering them to take the leap towards national self determination.

Don't even try to understand the significance of the painting! I just couldn't find a suitable one for the subject of the post - and therefore chose this opaque but stunning piece by Tony Todorov, a favourite of mine introduced to me by Vihra of Astry Gallery in Sofia. He spends most of his time in Cyprus.......

The Status Quo is not on offer

The Anthony Frost English Bookshop in Bucharest has quite a few books on the Scottish Independence debate waiting for me – which I hope to pick up later in the week when I make the (very pleasant) 5 hour drive up there. 

In the meantime, I am catching up with the content of the 3 blogs which are dedicated to the constitutional aspects of the debate. 

Notes from North Britain (a blog written by Adam Tomkins, Prof in Public Law at Glasgow University) is proving to contain first-class material – this post from a year ago gives an important bit of the recent history and makes the critical point that a No vote is not a vote for the status quo 

The SNP first assumed office following the Scottish parliamentary election in 2007. Alex Salmond became First Minister as leader of the largest single party in Holyrood. The SNP did not in those days have the overall majority of seats in Holyrood that they have enjoyed since 2011 but they were, by a solitary seat, the largest single party. They ruled for four years as a minority administration. 

Alarmed at the advent of Nationalist rule, the three Unionist parties in the Scottish Parliament established an all-party commission to review Scottish devolution and to make recommendations as to its further development. This review, known as the Calman Commission, reported in 2009. The thrust of its recommendations was accepted by the then Labour Government in Westminster, and when Labour lost power in 2010 their broad acceptance of Calman was not reversed by the incoming Coalition. On the contrary, Calman was embraced by the Coalition as it had been by Labour.
 The result was fresh legislation in Westminster to augment the powers of the Scottish Government, to enlarge the powers of the Scottish Parliament, and generally to reboot Scottish devolution. That legislation was passed last year and is called the Scotland Act 2012. 

Let’s pause here to notice one thing. If you like devolution (and, indeed, if you’d like to see more of it), note who has delivered it. Labour created it in 1997-98 (with the original Scotland Act 1998) and the Tory / Lib Dem Coalition, with Labour’s support, delivered round two in 2012. The Scotland Act 2012 is not the promise of future powers. It has been enacted. It has been passed. It is the law of the land. It has been delivered. The Unionist parties — all three of them — have delivered what they promised. We have grown so used to politicians failing to deliver on their promises that it is just worth noting that this failure has not been repeated in the case of Scottish devolution. 

And, now, note this. The SNP opposed both the moves to create devolution in 1997-98 and the moves to enhance it in 2009-12. So, what does the Scotland Act 2012 do?
- Some of the changes are massive. Huge new borrowing powers are conferred on Scottish Ministers, for example, in order to assist them with the planning and delivery of Scottish public policy.
- And unprecedented tax powers are conferred on the Scottish Parliament, representing the biggest internal shift of fiscal power away from Westminster since the Acts of Union, no less.

Again, it is important to reiterate that these are not idle promises of what might be done in the future (“vote NO and then we’ll see”).All of this has already been delivered (“vote NO to preserve what’s already done”).

The new powers will significantly alter the nature of the powers which MSPs have. Thus far, their fiscal powers have been sharply focused on deciding how to spend public money, and a number of the achievements of Scottish devolution have been decisions to spend public money differently from how it is spent by Ministers in London. But, thanks to the Scotland Act 2012, MSPs will now also have powers to decide how to raise public money: that is to say, decisions over taxation. Decisions about tax are among the most sensitive that politicians have to make.
 The aim of the Scotland Act 2012 is that, by handing these powers to MSPs in Holyrood, the Scottish people will think ever more carefully about the sorts of folk they want to elect to the Scottish Parliament (“with power comes responsibility” and all that). 

Now, the scheme of the 2012 Act is that the handing over of tax powers from MPs in Westminster to MSPs in Holyrood will be staggered.
It’s not all going to happen at once in a rash fit of fiscal irresponsibility. To start with, the focus will be on income tax, as well as on one or two more minor duties such as stamp duty and landfill tax. But — and here is the beauty of the Scotland Act 2012 — the Act provides that new taxes may be devolved to the Scottish Parliament without the need for any fresh Westminster legislation. We know, for example, that Scottish Ministers have said that they wish to be able to set their own rates of corporation tax. A lower rate (such as Ireland’s) might attract additional international investment into the Scottish economy, the SNP have argued. The SNP may or may not be right about that, but let us assume that they are correct.

The Scotland Act 2012 contains the trigger that can enable the power to set rates of corporation tax to be devolved from London to Edinburgh without any further parliamentary time having to be taken up. All that needs to happen is for the Scottish Ministers to make a case to the UK Government that this needs to happen in the Scottish national interest and, as long as the UK Government is persuaded, the power can be devolved without further ado. 

This is why I say that there is no such thing as the status quo in Scottish politics. Responsibility for income tax in Scotland is set to become shared for the first time between Scotland’s two governments (in Edinburgh and London). Responsibility for new and further taxes can and will be devolved to Scottish Ministers as soon as the Scottish Ministers make the case that this should be done. Devolution has always been a fluid and flexible regime. The Scotland Act 2012 makes it even more fluid and flexible. 

The choice that confronts us on referendum day is a choice not between “change” and “no change” but between the SNP’s vision for change and everybody else’s. A NO vote is a vote FOR the ongoing fluidity and flexibility, development and growth of devolution. The only party that opposes this vision is the SNP.

Deepening the Scottish debate

There’s been a lot of discussion in the past decade about the extent to which such things as the social media and blogs are changing the media and politics. I am no fan of newspapers. Indeed I have not bought one for 20 years. Although I go to The Guardian website every morning, I do so for its articles rather than news - simply because media coverage of critical issues such as the debate on Scottish Independence is so superficial. Indeed, lets call a spade a spade - its piss-poor! 
The media and politicians are caught in a vicious circle of one-sided simplifications. The marketing philosophy which is our new religion has everyone convinced that the public does not have the attention span of a gnat. So we are fed a steady diet of headlines and short statements.

Weekly and monthly journals are not much better – The London Review of Books and Vanity Fair are rare in the licence they (occasionally) give to writers such as James Meek and Michael Lewis to write 10,000 word articles. For serious writing, you have to go bi-monthly journals such as New Left Review or The Political Quarterly - although, so far, even these titles have failed to give the issue of Scottish Independence the attention it deserves….

To get serious consideration, you have to go to a few dedicated websites and blogs. In the posts of the last couple of days I referred to the website of the UK Government - which has been issuing a series of issue assessments called “Scottish Analysis”. The UK Parliament’s Select Committee on Scottish Affairs has also been conducting its own hearings and reports (although the latter are seen as rather partial)

Probably the most useful website is one set up 2 years ago on the initiative of academics across the law schools of the Scottish universities. It seeks to provide an independent framework within which the key questions concerning Scotland's constitutional future can be aired and addressed – and is called The Scottish Constitutional Futures Forum. Its site gives all the key documents, a timeline and offers links to current debate. 

Two very useful blogs have been active for some years – Devolution Matters is an individual blog which 

aims to help inform debate about devolution and the UK’s ‘territorial constitution’, drawing on my academic and professional knowledge.  Much of the debate tends to be conducted in black-and-white terms (‘devolution’ versus ‘independence’ and so forth), when the reality is more complicated.  This blog will try to illuminate current issues, and explain the constitutional, technical and administrative issues involved.  It draws on my knowledge of those matters, which means it focuses chiefly on devolution to Scotland and Wales, and the implications of that for the UK as whole.  I am less involved in issues relating to Northern Ireland or the governance of London, and so have less to say about those issues.

UK Constitutional Law is a collective blog which goves public law scholars the opportunity to expatiate on a range of constitutional issues of which the devolution of power is only one.

One important post considered the uncertainties surrounding a “yes” result – looking in particular at the timetable and the complications which would ensue from the uncertainties about (i) EU negotiations, (ii) the General UK election of 2015 and(iii) the Scottish elections of 2016.

Finally a new project at the IPPR Think Tank has started to explore a “Devo More”option – against the possibility that the Scottish people reject Independence but wish to continue (as they certainly do) the push for greater powers.

This is the third in a series of postings this week on the issue of Scottish Independence - a referendum on which will be held(for the Scots) on 18 September.

Hanging Together???

Two things you wouldn’t pick up from media coverage of the Scottish referendum are that –

·         60% of UK public spending in Scotland is handled by the Scottish Government – devolved since 1999

·         A significantly additional amount is slated to be given to the Scottish Government – under powers granted in a Bill approved in 2012 which will, however, only be implemented if Scotland votes “No” in the referendum.

I had cleared today to look more deeply (as an ex-pat Scot) at the issues involved in the historical vote which will ‘take place in September. It must be one of the world’s most transparent and sustained dialogues – it’s been going on for 2 years since 2014 was first announced as the date. Slovakians were offered nothing similar 22 years ago and the recent Crimean vote was simply a farce.  

A new blog (for me) Notes from North Britain gave me a useful quotation -

The choice before us in September is not “independence versus the status quo”; “change versus no change”. A No vote is guaranteed to mean that devolution will change and develop. How do I know this? I know it because it’s already been legislated for, in the Scotland Act 2012. This Act, described at the time of its enactment by the then Secretary of State for Scotland as the largest transfer of fiscal powers within the United Kingdom in its history, will bring to Holyrood a substantial degree of fiscal devolution. These new powers — as long as Scotland votes No to independence — will come fully into force in 2015 and 2016. Now, this is not “jam tomorrow”, as Nationalists sometimes claim: it has already been legislated for. So the choice we face on 18 September is one between bringing devolution to an end (for there will be no devolution if Scotland becomes independent) and developing devolution further.

And I was then led to what are clearly 2 key texts – the first a statement from the Chairman of the Yes Campaign which bears the rather Boon and Mills’ title - We Belong Together. The second is a more academic approach which also sports a rather curious title “Hanging Together” . You will find the voluminous official Scottish Government White Paper arguing the case for independence in a previous blogpost.

My attention span, however, for such analyses is not what it once was - and I was quickly sidetracked by a visit to the second-hand Elephant English bookshop a few minutes away. In particular by a couple of books from the 1990s and 2000s about the Naples Bay area; and by Paul Theroux’s Ghost Train to the Eastern Star (2008) which has him revisit a heroic 5,000 km train journey he undertook in the 1970s......

So the various papers which the British Government have been publishing in the last year to help inform Scottish voters about the issues involved will have to wait until I return from my diversions. Those impatient to get on with things could have a look at this.

Drifting Apart

There’s less than 6 months to go to the referendum on Scottish independence. The wind is in the sails of those who want to cut loose from England…..a few months back those disposed to vote “Yes” to the question about independence  accounted for only a third of the electorate . Thanks to what is widely seen as bully tactics by those with political and financial power, those in favour of independence are now within a few points of those disposed to say no.

My father was Scottish; my mother English. I left Scotland 24 years ago but still strongly identify with the social democratic ethic of the nation (and it is – and always has been – a nation, with its own legal, religious and educational sovereignty). The different culture is evident from the fact that only one Conservative politician (out of 75) represents a Scottish seat in Westminster. And all Scots are increasingly alienated from a neoliberal Coalition Government which has been in power since 2010 in London. The Scottish Parliament and Government (Executive) which has been in power in Edinburgh since 1999 has differentiated itself strongly from that ideology – not least since the Scottish Nationalist gained an overall majority in 2007. But is this alienation a sufficient reason to cut off the ties with England which we’ve had since 1707?

As an ex-pat who has no vote (no residence) who follows the various discussion threads, I am amazed at the self-confidence of all who take part. Where is the agnosticism and scepticism which such a portentous issue requires…..??

Donald Rumsfeld is not normally someone I would quote, but his comment about “unknown unknowns” deserves respect and understanding.  In all the discussion, I have seen no serious attempt to develop different political, fiscal and social scenarios for Scotland let alone England.

It is obvious that a highly- developed country of 5 million people could operate as a nation state – there are about 40 members of the United Nations and a quarter of EU member states with smaller populations.

The real questions are more on the following lines -

·       How independence would affect the dynamics of trade, currency and investment (public and private) in Scotland - and in the residual (disunited) Kingdom

·       With different scenarios for relations with Europe and the Euro

·       What precise additional benefits will independence give which the traditional and post 1999 measures of Devolution don’t

·       How these benefits measure against the risks suggested in the first two sets of questions….    

At the personal level, I face a future where 2 of my daughters would have passports from a different country; in which I’m not even sure what form my 2015 passport (and driving license) will take; nor in which denomination my (yet unclaimed) pension will be paid. All minor nuisances, I readily agree, compared with the anguishes of migrants in the Europe of the first half of the 20th century......

One of the few discussions which reflects my concerns was on the site of the Royal Society of Edinburgh -

However, there is much that Scots currently take for granted, aspects of good government at the micro-level, that might be threatened by independence. Will an independent Scottish state have to replicate the entire panoply of government ministries and public agencies, many of which benefit from economies of scale and are run – relatively speaking – cheaply and smoothly as British-wide institutions? How much would it cost Scotland, for instance, to set up its own equivalent of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency at Swansea or, alternatively, to contract in to it from outside the United Kingdom? In other areas of public administration, the costings will be more elusive. By contrast with the humdrum and unspectacular efficiency of the DVLA, the BBC provides a compelling example of a widely loved service, whose broadcasting role in Scotland would be precarious in the event of independence.Moreover, notwithstanding coded talk of a ‘social union’, welfare and pensions are, of course, likely to be even touchier subjects for Scots. Unionists need to capture for themselves the rhetoric of social union.Obviously, matters of public administration and the distribution of benefits do not capture the imagination of the wider public in the same way as centuries of grievances – or imagined grievances – concerning the overbearing behaviour of a richer and more powerful neighbour.

Nevertheless, such is the complexity of modern society that an interlocking set of effective UK-wide bureaucracies – however dull and uninspiring a subject for campaign slogans – is not to be lightly jettisoned without overwhelming good cause.

The House of Commons Select Committee on Scottish Affairs is chaired by an ex-colleague of mine who was notorious all of 30 years ago for his duplicity and who does not seem to have improved much with his added years. This site gives an insight, however, into the seriousness with which that committee at least has taken the issue of separation and this evidence gives a sense of how the economic aspects are being explored

Georgi Markov - a forgotten writer

What do Europeans think when they think of Bulgaria? Until last year’s fuss about immigrant workers, the typical response would probably have been a scratch of the head and a reference to the Black Sea coast. A minute’s more thought by older respondents might produce a reference to the poisoned umbrella which killed a Bulgarian dissident in London in the 1970s. 

Georgi Markov was a famous writer assassinated on a London street by the Bulgarian secret services – although the precise details are still not known.

A well-known sculptor, Spartak Dermedjiev, is someone who has tried to keep Markov’s memory alive – initially with an exhibition and, earlier this month, by marking Markov’s birthday with a small monument in a square in central Sofia. Coincidentally The Nation journal published a piece about the man -

When Georgi Markov left Bulgaria in 1969, at the age of 40, he was one of the country’s most lionized writers, the darling of readers and, until that point, party officials.

By all accounts, his success was astounding. He was a chemical engineer by education and worked in various factories in his youth, writing only in his spare time; yet his second novel, “Men”, was named novel of the year by the Bulgarian Writers’ Union in 1962.

Markov was immediately granted full membership in the organization, an unprecedented honor at that time.The award flung open all of the important doors. “Men” was quickly adapted into a movie, a play and a radio drama, and translations of the novel appeared throughout the Eastern bloc. Markov’s subsequent books were also praised by critics and his plays staged in major theaters in Sofia and across the country. He was appointed to a cushy editorial position at Narodna Mladezh, one of the most prestigious Bulgarian publishing houses. And that, in turn, brought him more rewards and privileges.

He became increasingly critical of the regime and eventually failed to return from a foreign visit – landing up in London where he broadcast for the BBC and Radio Free Europe. His broadcasts (often about aspects of Bulgaria) were collected in a book called In Absentia which (sadly) I cannot find online. The article recounts what is known about the role of the Russian KGB and its Bulgarian equivalent in the eventual assassination of the writer in 1978 – but also makes some comments about the lack of proper recognition today of the man.

Last year, a sociological study spearheaded by the Hannah Arendt Center in Sofia examined young Bulgarians’ knowledge of totalitarianism in Europe and at home. The respondents were between the ages of 15 and 35, and the results were striking: 79 percent hadn’t heard of the Gulag; 67 percent hadn’t heard of the Iron Curtain; 51 percent didn’t know the reason for Markov’s death; and 89 percent had no knowledge of the book In Absentia Reports. 

The Bulgarian crisis of historical memory is hardly peculiar to young people, especially when it comes to Markov’s literary works. Most adults are familiar with his name today, but only in the context of his murder. Few have read his essays or novels, and only the biggest bookstores in Sofia stock a book or two of his by chance. It is much easier to find a copy of the memoirs of the dictatorTodor Zhivkov than, for example, Markov’s excellent novellas “The Portrait of My Double” and “The Women of Warsaw.”
 His work is not taught in schools….. The Bulgarian who should have taken the same position in his nation’s literature and political history as Brodsky in Russia, Havel in the Czech Republic and Milosz in Poland has been relegated to the dustbin of memory. After his murder abroad, Markov was killed a second time, this time in his home country.

Well at least there is one person, Spartak Dermedjiev, whose work keeps his memory alive!

Putting words in their place

Questions of English reverberate through our daily lives.  When we use a language, we may be making a social connection, answering a question, enjoying ourselves, passing time, or showing off, but fundamentally we imagine that the interest of the person or people to whom we are speaking is engaged.  The desire to shape and emphasize this engagement is crucial.  How do I get you to listen to me?  Can I persuade you to like me, hire me, trust me, come and see my etchings? 

Manipulations of our language -- by the state, advertisers, salespeople, factions, preachers, prophets, poets, cheats -- are legion.  Then there are other questions.  How do we refer to social groups other than our own -- people of a different ethnic background, say, or people with disabilities?  How do we address strangers, which words are hurtful, and when is it okay to swear?  Is the language of an email different from the language of conversation?  What songs can we sing, and how should we pray?

This is an English language blog – written by a young-hearted old-fogey who, as such, prides himself on his use of the English language. I shiver when I hear prepositions being (in my view) misplaced. It has been some time, for example, since “different to” apparently replaced “different from” but I still can’t accept the new version. We (still) say “I differ from you” – but, despite this, have allowed “to” to usurp the place of “from” when it follows the word "different".  

The Language Wars by Henry Hitchings (from which the opening quotation is taken - page 20) is a book which puts some of this prejudice in its place.

It will come as something of a relief to find out that, when it comes to language and usage, the sky has always been falling. People have been lamenting the coarsening, bastardizing, and very death of English ever since it first emerged, with each successive generation looking wistfully to the previous generations’ undiluted character and general superiority. Hitchings takes a common sense stand when surveying contemporary usage; there are rules, he writes, and there are principles, and when “we write, and also when we speak, we should pay attention to the needs and expectations of our audience, and we should never forget that we are part of that audience.” 

Hitchings deftly charts the boisterous evolution of English, couching it in rich historical context. To wit: as English emerged in Great Britain out of the dialects brought by Germanic settlers in the 5th century, regional usage ruled. Given the obvious lack of ability or opportunity to easily cultivate written works, dialects varied widely from place to place. As a result people tended to be very tribal and jingoistic about usage; it seems we have a natural tendency to believe the way we speak and write is correct and to regard other accents as impolite, rude, uneducated, or the evidence of straight-up moral turpitude.

English was mostly repressed until the 14th century; French (or Latin) was then the official language of government. After the Black Death wiped out a third of Britain, however, surviving peasants and laborers began to rebel against established labor laws. The language of protest was English, and it started being taught in schools around 1350. Soon thereafter, Chaucer began using English (specifically a London-based dialect) in his work. This decision, Hitchings writes, “was bold”, and the rest, as they say, is history: after Chaucer’s death, “as his poetry circulated widely in manuscript, he was anointed as the inventor of English as a literary language.” 

Plague, revolt, the cultural power of poetry? Awesome stuff. Equally awesome is the nutty rogue gallery of usage experts (many of whom are self-proclaimed (natch)) Hitchings has the good sense to let stride through the narrative. For instance, who knew that it was none other than John Dryden who led the charge against ending sentences with prepositions? Or take Lindley Murray, an American expat in Britain in 19th century and celebrated grammarian, who insisted on not using the relative pronoun who when referring to children “for the reason that ‘We hardly consider children as persons, because that term gives us the idea of reason and reflection.’ ” This is just the tip of the iceberg; it turns out that people who care deeply about language are frequently pretty crazy generally. 

In a quick 300 pages, Hitchings takes his readers from the emergence of English; through the divergence of “English English” and “American English;” how it grew to become the lingua franca of business and power and the sociopolitical ramifications of this; evolving conceptions of vulgarity and swearing; the sowing of many Englishes around the world and their complex legacies; the death of British imperialism; George Orwell; all the way up to the present day, where he touches on the influence of the internet, text messaging, PowerPoint, and technology generally. It’s quite a trip.

The New Yorker reviewer took a more severe view of the book’s “descriptive” or relativistic approach – clearly belonging more to the “prescriptive” school which Hitchings takes every opportunity to ridicule. But the review gives a very good summary of the different ways English useage developed  on the other side of the Atlantic

For a long time, many English speakers have felt that the language was going to the dogs. All around them, people were talking about “parameters” and “life styles,” saying “disinterested” when they meant “uninterested,” “fulsome” when they meant “full.” To the pained listeners, it seemed that they were no longer part of this language group. To others, the complainers were fogies and snobs. The usages they objected to were cause not for grief but for celebration. They were pulsings of our linguistic lifeblood, proof that English was large, contained multitudes. 

The crucial document of the language dispute of the past half century was Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, published in 1961. This 2,662-page revised edition of the standard unabridged dictionary of American English was emphatically descriptivist. “Ain’t” got in, as did “irregardless.” “Like” could be used as a conjunction, as in “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.” Some of these items had appeared in the preceding edition of the unabridged Webster’s (1934), but with plentiful “usage labels,” characterizing them as slang, humorous, erroneous, or illiterate. In Web. III, usage labels appeared far less often; they bore more neutral names, such as “nonstandard” and “substandard”; and they were defined in subtly political terms. “Substandard,” the dictionary tells us, “indicates status conforming to a pattern of linguistic usage that exists throughout the American language community but differs in choice of word or form from that of the prestige group in that community.” Two examples that the dictionary gave of words acceptable throughout the American language community except in its prestige group were “drownded” and “hisself.”

On many sides, Web. III was met with fury. It was the closest thing to a public scandal that the quiet little world of English-language manuals had ever seen.Out of it a new lexicon was born: the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1969. The A.H.D. was a retort to Web. III. It was unashamedly prescriptive and also, strictly speaking, élitist. 

This is one of these rare books to which I want to return immediately it’s finished. Its 15 page bibliography is an incentive to further searches. It has a tantalising reference to the way young English people now tend to finish their sentences on an interrogatory note – apparently known as “uptalk” or "high-rising terminal" - even when there's no question involved.

Those with an interest in the continuing development of our vocabulary are recommended to use the Lexican Valley blog 

Some recommendations for those visiting Sofia

This has become the time of the year when my mind turns to the Carpathian house. Most of the last 7 winters have been spent here in Sofia (with forays to the small Bucharest flat and some sad weeks in a Belgrade winter) and I have been particularly happy with the latest attic flat (right in the old quarter, off Patriarch Eftemi Boulevard) with the 1927 date carved in the stone entrance.

It has the sort of stairhead I imagine Ilyia Beshkov using for one of his wry sketches….. and my small flat (which I;ve been renting for 16 months) has all the original wooden features and stained glass as well as a nice veranda onto a set of leafy courtyards. I thought I would have to give it up but my landlord has changed his mind and offered me an extended lease – which I am happy to take. Despite its centrality, there is no noise – except that of the bells of the old nearby Church on Ignatiev St   

I will miss (for the next few months) my home-made walnut, sesame and sunflower seed bread which I buy from the corner vegetarian restauarant – with superb fragrances wafting across just before I hit the shop itself.

I will also miss the Bulgarian Rakia and its incredible range of white wines - although I have been changing my allegiances in the lists of the last two.

Rakia is rather tasteless – compared to Romanian Tuica let alone Scottish or Irish whisky. But it is the spirit I have grown to prefer – although still insisting on the wine rather than plum or pear variety   For the past year or so, under the influence of my arty Bulgarian friends, my preferred  “poison” has been Yambolski ( a town in east-central Bulgaria). Half a litre for 4.5 euros! But I have now been introduced to Kailashka Rakia from Pleven, north central of the country. It has very good marketing – with a label reminding us of a Kentucky Bourbon and a 1922 date.

So I’m in mellow mood – having had a delightful afternoon cycling and picnicking with 2 young friends in the famous South Park with the quiet retro music one finds in Sofia’s parks – generally guitar or jazz.

I used to be a fan of reasonably-priced St Ilyia white wines in central Bulgaria (Stara Zagora area) – part of the Edward Miroglio group - but have now gravitated to the Black Sea Gold winery of Pomorie (Burgas) whose Soroko (Chardonnay) has the sort of “tickle” I love. And the nearby Ethno winery offers amazing tastes and prices.

And restaurants I will miss? 

• For sheer value for money and atmosphere, the atmospheric house nearby - at the corner of 6th September and Khan Krum Streets - is the greatest. Divaka is actually a chain of three with the more central (and cavernous) being just off Vitosha Bvd and Solunska St.  
•  The Club of the Architect is the classiest restaurant.
• The Rocket offers a great experience (with a retro decor and rakias a speciality) in the gardens at Bvd Dondukov right next door to the Vaska Emanouliva Art Gallery  
• Grape Central Tsar Samuel 45 is  a new addition to a small street which offers great art experiences. Nice brick décor and a fantastic selection of Bulgarian wines, grouped by Region – with modest eating to match the wine.
• Made in Home (Angel Knchev ul. 30A) is a small local restaurant (house wine only) with the best atmosphere (for me). Its just off Vitosha.

Beshkov drawings illustrate the text