Here is an article by someone who thinks Scotland is just an embarrassment. I think she has issues about the whole tartan thing but there are plenty like that in Scotland. If that is what sells Scotland what is wrong with it? http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/...534929.0.0.php
The inevitable comparison to St. Patrick's Day... ...see, living in Chicago, St. Pat's has been the "We're Irish! Aren't we great? Let's get drunk!" kind of holiday...when did the breweries discover that it was such a great marketing opportunity? Never mind the fact that this city and a whole lot of it's environment was built by Irish emmigres that found an alternative to some pretty grim circumstances back home when they came to the USA. Want to see the cemetery for the workers who died digging the canals that made Chicago a viable place to live? Do they have a nice dignified service at that cemetery to honor these guys? Haven't heard of one yet. I've always heard that St. Pat's was a more serious day back in Ireland but that some of the party-hearty attitude that exists in the USA has sort of filtered back to the Emerald Isle. Does anybody want to see Tartan Day or Week become a superficial celebration? How do you balance the "honoring" aspect of these types of ethnic celebrations with the "celebrating" aspects? I think that most of the forum members wear the kilt as real clothing and not as a dress-up costume for Tartan Day of the Highland Games...I like the idea of the kilt as the Pan-Celtic garment that reminds the public at large that those of Celtic descent (and there's a lot more Celtic descendants out there than most people think) have made major contributions to the culture of the world. Part of what I'm getting from the article is that "whither Scotland?" kind of thing. Does the image of Scotland as a historic contributor that has to remain dynamic and move forward prevail or do we indulge in nostalgia? Of course, I'm not a native Scot but, as Red Green says, "...I'm rootin' for ya...we're all in this together." So take anything that I have to say on the subject with a grain of salt. I'll say the same thing for my own country, though...can't just live in the past; got to look and move forward. Best AA
I didn't get the impression that they thought "Scotland" was an embarrassment. The message I took away from this was that Tartan Day and, by association, Scotland were being redefined by parties who only seek to find another reason to get drunk and act silly by mocking the thing that the celebration was initiated to promote or just plain out disown the proud heritage in an effort to appear "contemporary". That is much the way I feel about the kilt when un-knowledgeable people say that it's womens clothing or any other number of ignorant opinions. I thought this "letter" was a call to all Scots, by birth or by blood, to take ownership of the celebrations and make it present the proud image that it deserves.
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