Amid all the debate about oil, currency, pensions and a million other items, I’m surprised higher questions have not been asked about our cultural identity. I’ve never said I’m British in my life, I’m Scottish, but the full story is more subtle than that.
Despite being a football fan, a Scot and a Gordon Strachan fan, I watched another channel when Germany-Scotland was on. My sense of personal identity, the anthems I cherish, the emblems I’ve always worn, my ‘national’ community, is the one I share with you.
I know we have a large number of England-supporting, English-Celtic fans here, just as there are Ireland-supporting, Irish, and Scotland-supporting Scots, but some of us feel our strongest affinity among our urban, west of Scotland-based, Celtic community. This community will only ever march behind a green flag. There is nothing wrong or unpatriotic about this, finding your own identity is what multiculturalism is all about.
There are a thousand more national identities than actual nations, but why do many of us feel more like sons of Jock Stein, than Jock Tamson, or (cough) John Bull?
I don’t think there is a single British, or Scottish, cultural institution I feel an attachment to. I was really caught up with the whole Mo Farah/Jessica Ennis-inspired Super Saturday at the Olympics – delighted at the success of British athletes, but later that day, when Ki stepped forward to take the decisive kick for South Korea against GB, I punched the air with joy. The whole Burns Night thing feels like someone else’s party.
In fact, it’s worse than not having an affinity with a British cultural institution, our Celtic community is marginalised by competitors in the south. If Scotland, which is perhaps more bound-up in tribal football culture than anywhere on the planet, had EQUAL access to the UK’s cultural markets, would we feel so excluded?
I know there are many who are happy with the way sentiment is going right now, but if those intent on saving the union want to get busy on some urgent nation-building, they should set about removing the two-tier cultural divide which keeps our club, our community, from the top table. We pay an obligatory BBC tax to subsidise an England and Wales league, our non-tax-based pay TV money goes the same way. This is a distorted market, with Scotland obscured by an England-Wales cartel. As a result we’ve been drained of talent and financial muscle for a century.
Football is not controlled by politicians, but it can be, and is, influenced by them. Westminster is speaking with a more unified voice than I’ve ever known right now. Its voice should be clear: Scotland needs equal access to the UK’s cultural markets, including football.
Our exclusion is intolerable, unfair, has fermented disaffection and must end, irrespective of what happens next week. Why would Westminster politicians be unable to say this?
Let’s hear you.
The fantastic new edition of CQN Magazine is out today. You can read it, for free, here, at it’s dedicated site (don’t try to read on the graphic below).
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Bob O’ Baldy:
I agree but there is a very subtle difference in what I posted (without comment) in case it went over your head, what I posted was about finance and not by bigoted blue-noses and football.It
On reflection I’m sure you did appreciate that.
Oh! and just a wee question, where do both sides of the debate get their infor from? Please tell me nobody has swallowed the guff that is in the SNP White Paper.
eddieinkirkmichael:
Like I said – sand – head – bury – and pray God the tide does not come in.
Bob O’ Baldy:
I’m a cockney at the moment, as though I can shed my nationality depending on which part of the world I find myself. How pathetically puerile of you.
kitalba
06:46 on 10 September, 2014
eddieinkirkmichael:
Like I said – sand – head – bury – and pray God the tide does not come in
————-________
The tide always comes in and it usually brings in a load of crap with it
eddieinkirkmichael:
Whit is that supposed to mean?
kitalba
So, you live in London now, that level of bias is 10,000 times worse.
You should be happy, rental prices in London are going to fall dramatically (grin)
Less happy, if you’ve bought though :)
Bob O’ Baldy:
What level of bias are you refering to Bob O’ Baldy?
kitalba
the idea that you’re preaching from London, with news, from the financial sector…
my understanding is London still fancies itself as a world financial power…no?
Financial sector trying to bully people eh? Who’d a thunk it.
Favours called in by Westminster?
Who they kidding? They’ll sleek back when it’s all over because there is money to be made.
Will the ‘markets’ or the people decide?
Bob O’ Baldy:
I preaching nothing. Did you actually read those articles, don’t they make you at least stop and think before you dismiss them as scaremongering like our Eddie.
Oh! and God help you if they are indicative of what is coming. But don’t worry, Freedom bro.
There a golden rule about regarding the financial sector in newspapers, if an article says it’s time to buy then it’s time to sell, and if it says it’s time to sell then it might be time to think about buying.
Why?
The time it takes from the financial insiders, via their go-betweens, via the journalists and then distilled into the general public.
In other words, those insiders have already cashed their chips, before those reading the MSM have even heard of the story.
Articles in the press from the financial sector invariably are just in their own way, a form of Ponzi scheme due to the many hands on the story, before the story is actually published, nb it has to go through the newspaper editors room too…
Kitalba a unionist. Well whadya know?
Good morning friends. Sorry for the repetitive report but it’s yet another fine, dry, cloudless morning in ole EK. Just wonderful.
YES
Morning All
Today Wee Oscar should have been celebrating his 6th birthday. That wee bhoy achieved more in his short life than many of us will in a lifetime!
Thanks wee pal for everything, hope they are throwing you the best party ever in Neverland!
jobo balde:
Sneaked over the Border aboard Train heading for Birmingham. Just south of Penrith and I can confirm weather the same as EK.
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
minx1888 praying to wee oscar
07:17 on 10 September, 2014
Hoopy Birthday Wee Oscar, our Wee Bhoy, Angel and Hero who had a Heart of Lion.
Have a great day, God Bless.
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
kitalba
I have a question for you, do you ever read back what you have written as if it was written to you?
If you do you might see that it always reads as if you have contempt for the people you are writing to. Stop have a think and try and empathise with that persons point of view.
Just my opinion.
Born 67.
kitalba.
I have a question for you, do you ever read back what you have written as if it was written to you?
If you do you might see that it always reads as if you have contempt for the people you are writing to. Stop have a think and try and empathise with that persons point of view.
Just my opinion.
Born 67.
Sorry about the double post.
Born 67
DiCanioWasADream:
The tone of my posts are set by the tone of the posts that I am responding to. If they come across as contemptuous to me then I will respond accordingly, there is a very good reason for that.
I will, and always have, reciprocated respect in kind.
There are a multitude of sites blogs facebook pages on the independence debate All over social media. One of the ones I delve into is IQN. I remember the good old days though when it was CQN.
DiCanioWasADream:
And if I view a poster as an insignificant agitator I just ignore them, it works for me.
lennybhoy- You didn’t happen to pass a train going in the opposite direction marked “Desperation” did you?
goldstar10
07:44 on 10 September, 2014
Funnily enough it was just pulling our of Carlisle as mine pulled in…:)
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
Personally, I found the English fans chants funny.
MWD says AYE
Morning all. Bright and beautiful down here once again. Ghod is definitely in his heaven, smiling down on us.
The more this campaign goes on, the less I feel a real Scot, as defined by the Yes voters. My identity is much more localised: I am at heart a Glaswegian Catholic Celtic supporter. It is something, imo, that a large swathe of “multicultural” Scotland has never truly accepted, far less allow to integrate. Maybe I’m just too old.
WestofScotlandSSRCSC.
Thoughts & Prayers with Knoxy2000, Leona and Izzy on what would have been Wee Oscar’s 6th birthday.
And also Big Jock.
Hail! Hail! to them both.
MWD says AYE
Who is this Rafat Rizvi character that’she been seen having lunch with Sandy Kray err Easdale?
All we know is that there’s apparently an Interpol warrant out for him as a result of alleged fraud in Malaysia.
Looks like he may be trying to join the ever increasing line of spivs queuing up to shaft the gullibles again.
Mind you sevco already have a Rafat as in Sally Rafat Basturt.
Morning all. So, what is the favoured selection for Saturday as we do battle against the top division`s second biggest Club?
JJ
PS The Aberdeen support at Celtic Park create some atmosphere at the game. If we have become a wee bit blase about winning the League, it certainly does not feel like that when their support is in full voice.
Everyone enjoying the front pages of the Daily R*an*er online?
Anyone think that they’re quality journalism differs on the front pages from the back pages?
The Eton boys are over today… campaigning for the YES vote I imagine?
No more House of commons, No more House of Lords…
Oh, any word on the injury to Guidetti?
theres been a lot of talk on here about stock market crashes and money and companies being pulled out of scotland if we vote Yes
i know its a bit of a utopian dream but wouldnt it be great if we could loosen the grip these financial companys and bankers have on our society
they are only interested in feathering their own nests and toss aside us mere peasants when it suits them
only yesterday standard life announced it is scrapping its current staff pension and replacing it with one which is worth much less to the staff on retirement
this will have a serious affect on thousands of people in the future, and was done purely to boost share price and allow the chief exec to claim a large bonus at staff expense despite the company consistently posting good results – a nest feathering exercise
so people should stop bleating on about a pension timebomb in the wake of a yes vote
money grabbing chief execs and governments who dont give a shit about us will ensure we dont have a pension anyway regardless of who governs us
Morning all.
God bless wee Oscar and Big Jock.
HH!!
TODAY marks the anniversary of the passing of Jock Stein, as it was on September 10, 1985 that the great man suffered a fatal heart attack while managing Scotland in a World Cup qualifier against Wales in Ninian Park, Cardiff.
He was, of course, the first manager of a British side to win the European Cup in 1967 when his Celtic team beat Inter Milan 2-1 on May 25 in Lisbon´s Estadio Nacional, and he enjoyed a glittering domestic career, winning 10 Scottish League Championships, nine Scottish Cups (one with Dunfermline) and six Scottish League cups.
Jock Stein is synonymous with Celtic Football Club, but he also managed Dunfermline Athletic, Hibernian and, briefly, Leeds United before going on to manage the Scottish national team from 1978 until his tragic death in 1985.
He had joined Celtic as a player back in December 1951, and was captain of the side which won the Coronation Cup in 1953 and then the league and Scottish Cup double of 1953/54.
Lisbon Lions captain and Celtic Ambassador Billy McNeill said of his former boss: “Jock Stein is a true great within the world of football. He was one of the finest men and the greatest manager I ever worked with.
“He made us what we were as a team and he was the major factor in the club´s success during his reign as manager – without him, none of it would have been possible and every Celtic supporter holds Jock Stein in equally high esteem.”
Today, the Celtic Family remembers a great man who did so much for the club and whose Celtic team achieved worldwide success, in the words of Jock himself: “…playing football. Pure, beautiful, inventive football.”
http://www.celticfc.net/news/6640?
.
Are We Really saying.. If we Vote No will You please let us come and play in the EPL.. Really..?
I left Scotland in 1981 hitched hiked the length if the UK for about 3 Years.. Devon-Glasgow.. England had well lit Motorways and service stations up and down its length.. Then You see the Welcome to Scotland sign heading North and 400 Yards into Scotland and Boom darkness..!! and the A74..
Does anyone remember Begging Thatcher for 4 Million to rebuild Hampden.. Nada.. Look at Wembley and The Welsh stadium Now compared to our white elephant..
Is there Not a Super New railway planned..for the *UK..
Have We as a Nation became Beggars.. FFS..
Come on Scotland.. Be a Nation Again
Stand up against them..
If I had the Choice of My Scottish Identity or Swapping it to dance with the Devils in the EPL .. Then sorry Celtic all the Best and Good Luck..
Summa
Good morning CQNers,
This beautiful morning I’m honoured to find I share my birthday with Oscar, may God rest his soul.
Oh, well. I tried. IQN it is.
Cheerio for now,
JJ
Tom McLaughlin
07:13 on 10 September, 2014
‘Kitalba a unionist. Well whadya know?’
#####
It’s an interesting word isn’t it, unionist?
What does it mean?
http://www.energyvoice.com/2014/09/expert-alex-kemp-predicts-north-sea-oil-bonanza/
Working all day today in about 15 minutes (probably badly because I am not good at my job, a nutter and thick according to one rabid poster on here) but please tell me if this article or the opinions in it are presented as facts by the BBC or any others in the MSM.
I’ll hold me breath until 8pm tonight.