Homegrown Horrors for Halloween

On Oidhche Shamhna - the night before Samhain - the door between 'our' world and the world of the dead was reputed to open, allowing for all manner of supernatural beings to pass into the realm of the living. As per usual, it is an apt time to run an eye over the make-believe horrors that those in power, or those in the tabloids, deem to be a threat to our way of life.

Foreigners are usually a good bet. Especially those we see as immigrants - not 'ex-pats' like the English abroad - and asylum seekers. Last year though, saw 'the enemy within' take the limelight.

This year, its a bit of both.

Taking our jobs, having our babies, not going home.

Foreigners. There's nothing quite like a bit of bother from others to get the Great British knickers in a twist. This year, its the shocking news that 25% of all Brit babies are born to at least one foreign parent. Not mentioned is that these figures include parents from the likes of Ireland, the US, Canada - and other 'nice and white new world nations' - France, Spain and the rest of Europe. Let's face it, almost all of us must know one Scot who has a partner from one of these nations. Are we concerned?

The implication obviously is though that these foreign parents are more than likely bleck. Or maybe Asian. Or.... SLAVIC!!! And sure enough, read further into this Metro report and we see 'Eastern European' immigration getting the neep-lantern treatment. Not only that but the shadowy 'Migrationwatch' gleefully dispute the official figures and are adamant that NONE of these Slavs intend to return home after a year or two here doing the kind of work that some Bwits are too lazy or incompetent to do anymore.

On a slightly different note, one has to wonder why the English-based Migrationwatch who seem to take umbrage at the migration of Slavs, Blecks and Asians are credible sources for the media whearas the likes of Settler Watch, Scottish Watch and Sìol nan Gaidheal who highlighted mostly white and well-off English migration to Scotland were slated as 'racists'?

Lastly though, its the horrors at home that we really have to worry about. And everyone from David Cameron to Ed Miliband to Johann Lamont has been warning about them.

It's those of us who want 'something for nothing'. No, not the MPs and their expenses. No, not the bankers. No, not the Royal Family. No, not the arms dealers. No, not those in House of Lords.

There are many but old people seem to be especially scary this year. Labour have suggested that they should pay for their travel, care and prescriptions. The Tories suggest that they should work for their pensions. What the fck these old folk have been doing all their lives, I don't know. But somehow, the entire population of pensioners has reached a ripe auld age without working nor paying taxes! Incredible! Are they all Barclays or Starbucks shareholders?

Get on yer bike, coffin dodger.

Joining the elderly on the Jimmy Savile roll of dishonour are the unemployed who not only need their benefits cut but should not be allowed a chance to gain an apprenticeship according to Labour. Students too think that education should be a right and not a privilege for the likes of David Cameron, Nick Clegg, George Osborne, Tony Blair or Alastair 'Black Dwarf' Darling who were all lucky enough to go to very posh schools indeed.

There are indeed two worlds and the spectres, hobgoblins and bloodsuckers of Tory and Labour take full advantage of that open door to keep their Westminster gravy-train on the go, to stockpile their weapons of mass-destruction and to keep that gap between rich and poor from narrowing.

Real and imagined horrors for Halloween

First you, then the Sunday sailors, then the gay brides.

Last year it was multiculturalism and for some timid souls, that's a bogeyman that will never go away. It shouldn't be but as guising time and dooking time comes round once again, there are new fears to contend with. How many of them really stand the test though?

First of has to be...

Gay marriage. As someone who sees the 'institution' of marriage as outdated, unnecessary and generally about as relevant to modern society as the Scottish Labour Party then I fail to understand the clamour by some gay and lesbian people to be involved in a system of belief that generally despises them. However, should some people wish to believe that their love needs to be 'officially sanctioned' in some god's eyes then go for it. The point for some though is that this actually threatens the foundations of our society. How? One person's choice of sexuality or celebration of it has as much bearing on my life as their bowel movements. If I don't worry about someone's toiletry habits then why should their bedroom habits or love-life matter? Get over it or else choose other cherries from god's word to pick like... waging a war on tattoos, masturbation, menstruation, working on a Sunday or promoting incest (see Lot et al...)

Hey! Some people already wage a war on Sabbath breakers. The 'Tartan Taleban' would be a fitting term for them if only the word 'tartan' didn't conjure up an image of colour. For, in the dour world of Scots Presbyterianism, people shouldn't be free to work, play or even travel on the Sabbath. Hence the dire warnings of impending doom from the Bible bashing lobby over the new Sunday sailings of Cal Mac ferries on the Isle of Harris. The warnings are that allowing people to think for themselves and decide whether or not to travel, work, play or go to church will lead to a 'change of life' for Hebridean islands like Harris. There are some difficulties with this approach though. One, other Hebridean islands such as Barra, Tiree or Islay have not been overrun by sodomites, goat worshippers or Islamists despite Sunday sailings and indeed all three of these islands are as traditional as they were ten years ago. Two, I am not sure of where the Abrahamic god of the King James' Bible decrees that the Sabbath be kept holy in order to maintain a quiet and rural way of life in the Western Isles. If Sabbatarian travel restrictions are to be applied to Lewis or Harris, then why not to Glasgow, Edinburgh or even London?

No jobs in Caithness for Norse speaking Picts then?

Next up is Gaelic in Caithness. Incredibly, the past and present Gaelic culture of Caithness is a persistent problem to some Highland councillors there. First they objected to bilingual roadsigns, claiming that 'Gaelic was never spoken in Caithness' despite the last native speaker of the Caithness dialect of Gaelic being recorded by the School of Scottish Studies in the 1950s and the whole county being littered with Gaelic placenames. Not only that, but because of Gaelic in-migration from other parts of Scotland and local Gollachs learning the auld tongue, Caithness has a Gaelic present too. However, even the one Caithness councillor who now accepts Highland Council's Gaelic plan still claims that Caithness only has 'Norse and Pictish' heritage. This is very handy as it means they can just leave the dead languages in the past. Or are the Caithness councillors going to show us exactly what they're doing to advance Caithness' Norse and Pictish culture? And, virtually every part of Scotland could claim the same heritage. Furthermore, if the Picts adopted the Gaelic language - see the The New History of the Picts for more on this - which was probably very close to their own, why can't modern day beancounters and bigots in Caithness?

Its somewhat fitting that auld terrors are revived now and again, like zombies, to scare the populace. One of these is Gypsy travellers (see excellent article in Bella here). In an age where naked bigotry against blacks, Asians, Jews and gays has more or less been banished to a lunatic fringe, bigotry against Gypsies is still tolerated. Ordinary white English villagers took exception to some Gypsy travellers having redeveloped a derelict scrapyard and demanded that they be turfed out onto the roads whereby they could then be hounded by different authorities using slightly different laws. It seems as if some of the travellers may have broken the law on occasion. Something that never happens at any level of ordinary English society, be it the lager louts at the bottom of the pile or the fraudulent lying MPs at the top.

Lady killers. Unfortunately, a very real threat to half the population. Labour's very own loose cannon and London hardman Jim, er,  Ian Davidson may fantasise about giving female SNP MPs 'a doing' but other nutjobs take it all the way. This sorry state of affairs gives the usual right-wing tabloid brigade another opportunity to gie it laldie with the flamethrower of prejudice. Disappointingly for the Daily Star, Express, Scotsman, Mail and others most misogynists and murderers are home grown 'Brits'. Therefore, any attempt is made to disown the suspect. 'Look, he can't be one of us... he... er he's... a GOTH!' Or maybe he once attended a Gin Goblins concert. Listens to Marilyn Manson. Smoked dope? Defo. Or, as in the case of Chris Jeffries, he happened to be old, eccentric and in possession of a face that only a mother could love. Unfortunately for the moral crusaders of the Brit tabloids, looking like the bastard son of the Grinch and Archie MacPherson does not a murderer make. Fortunately, the cops eventually saw past the hatred and hysteria that was whipped up by scummy tabloid journos, who most folk would agree are themselves only one step above murderers and other such low life on the ladder of public esteem.

Lastly, as if the guy in the sky wasn't busy enough dealing with gay marriage and Sunday ferries, his self-appointed propagandists on earth are agonising over what do with the Occupy London protesters outside St Pauls in London, Some of the godly few in the Church of England have shown support for protesters who they view as embodying the principles of Jesus. Others in the church have taken a more traditional Christian view and called for God to smite them or else to manifest himself in the shape of the Metropolitan Police, wade in and introduce skull to righteous truncheon. The church has also suppressed a report that is critical of the greed and moral standards of bankers. Its only days since Gaddafi was killed at the hands of a mob apparently seeking vengeance for years of brutality - or else incited by French agents and oil-loving NATO types. Whatever, his spirit lives on in the wounds of those peaceful and unarmed protesters shot by rubber bullets in the past few days.

They said that the world would be a better place if Bin Laden was killed, Saddam seen to and Gaddafi gubbed. Thatcher sorted out the unions. Labour gave our schools and hospitals to the private sector. David Cleggeron said that we were all in it together. Despite all this, er, progress... fear still reigns.

Enjoy those pumpkins.

A new bogeyman for Halloween - multiculturalism

The ancient festival of Halloween - Oidhche Shamhna -  is another relic of our Gaelic past. Literally, it is 'the night before Samhain' and 'An t-Samhain' in modern Gaelic simply means November. It was thought that on the night between the death of summer and onset of winter that the door between our world and the netherworld opened. This allowed spirits to pass between both worlds. In Scotland, young men would impersonate the dead by blackening their faces or by wearing masks, sometimes made of animal hide, and carry a 'samhnag' or neep lantern.

Many folk enjoy a good laugh on Oidhche Shamhna but most of us have long since relinquished belief in ghosts, witches and goblins. Some though have conjured up new fears. It's not just the Daily Mail with their daily checklist of bugbears from home-grown dole scroungers to foreign asylum seekers. It's not just Lady Harriet Harman and her 'ginger rodent' abuse of a Scottish politician (imagine if she'd referred to a black politician in a similar vein?).

A few years ago, Gaelic journalist John Morrison laughed at the 'British' suspicion of multiculturalism on a Gaelic TV political debate. To paraphrase him, 'The British drive German cars, drink Belgian beer and French wine, watch American telly on Japanese technology, eat Italian, Indian and Chinese cuisine, holiday in Spain or Turkey etc... yet are suspicious of foreigners.'

Sadly, some bloggers who really should know better have gone all Daily Mail. Not cool.

From smalltown Ayrshire, comes Dark Lochnagar - a former Scots nationalist who now bemoans the lack of awareness of  'British culture' amongst our youth, hates socialism (I guess the latest stats on Norway's "Social Capital" must be sorry reading for him), feels threatened by gays and transsexuals (!) and rants about jobs going to immigrants. The only thing that differentiates this blog from the Daily Mail is the use of 'colourful' language. SubRosa is another such blog. Here ex-DDR opportunist turned Thatcherite German chancellor Angela Merkel and her recent scaremongering regarding the 'failure' of multiculturalism is praised.

What this failure is, we are not told. Playground stories along the lines of 'I heard about a gang of Muslims roaming the streets...' are regaled. Who knows? Maybe there is a kernel of truth in this. Though, the only gangs of aggressive violent and religiously inspired knuckledraggers I've met in Kilmarnock have been Orangemen and Rangers' fans. Perhaps this is a 'failure' of multiculturalism? After all, the Orange bigots commemorate Irish political battles and worship a Dutch tyrant who defended a Semite faith - his homosexuality shouldn't be an issue though the Orange Order doesn't usually come across as gay-friendly.

To John Morrison's paraphrased quote above, one could add... a German language and royal family, a set of laws and parliament rooted in ancient Jewish folklore and popular music which it seems is itself a melange of black African-American and Gaelic Presbyterian cultures. The Gaels too, for all their indigenous status in Alba, are not of 'one culture'. Did the Gaelic-speaking forest dwellers of Perthshire or Badenoch have the same 'culture' as the guga-fishers of Port Nis in Lewis? A shared language perhaps, but I'd argue that the everyday 'culture' was different. The modern Hebridean Gaels too share blood from different corners of the earth and the evidence of different cultures assimilating successfully is patently obvious - from language to art to tools to  religion to architecture and this doesn't take into account the Asian travelling salesmen of the 1930's (who learned Gaelic) or the recent English, Asian or Germanic settlers who have made a home in the Western Isles in the past decade or two. The Gaels have 'Celtic blood' that is mixed with that of the pre Indo-European Picts, the Norse, the Romans and Spanish. Hey, aren't the Spanish themselves of mixed Basque, Roman and Arabic 'blood'? I guess all this can get quite confusing for bigots who decry immigration and the mixing of cultures. I refer to 'blood' here but in scientific terms, as mentioned in my previous post, the biological term for all these people is Homo sapiens.

Are there problems though? Maybe its the Scots themselves. After all, we were the immigrants and asylum seekers for much of the past few hundred years. Maybe its the backward Brits abroad who refuse to speak Spanish on the costas? There can be problems but they are often religious in nature and with religion, anything can be justified. The main barriers to some people integrating are the Orange Order leaders, the Catholic priests, Wee-Free ministers, Baptist pastors, the Muslim imans and Jewish rabbis. Intolerant, self-important and conservative bigots on all sides do hinder progress. I object to any Muslim faith-school be set up in Scotland but equally I object to Catholic schools and the interference of the Kirk in state 'non-denominational' schools.

But what about nature? Take one look at a group of young kids playing together and its obvious that skin colour, hair colour and eye colour are irrelevant. Even linguistic differences will eventually be ironed out. Importance is only attached to these features by adults and their artificial constructs.

Nature decrees that there will be conflict between people though this is as likely to be within a family or between warring clans from neighbouring glens as it is between people of different 'cultures'. If we can't find a foreigner to fight with we  then home in on single parents, Gaelic speakers, gays or lesbians, cannabis users, people on social security benefits, someone in a different church, a follower of another fitba team, folk with red hair, the disabled, travellers, hippies or maybe 'indecent' popular culture, be it youngsters in hoodies or Marilyn Manson.

However, human civilisation has learned to defend itself from much of nature's uglier attributes and intolerance of immigrants and racism should go the same way as infant mortality, TB or being devoured by wild animals.

Our lives have always been multicultural and are even more so in today's small world. To the likes of SubRosa, Dark Lochnagar, the BNP, English Defence League and Daily Mail... get over it. Live with it. Enjoy that pizza. Have some nachos. Nibble at haggis pakora. Listen to some Salsa Celtica. Chill out. Or, see a doctor and get that tight sphincter of yours loosened a little.

Footnote - for a good laugh, see The Croft's account of an English BNP activist and  'white settler' who became an immigrant on the Isle of Lewis. His search for racial purity fell on stony Celtic ground. Scroll down to the comments to the bit where the Gaelic speaking islanders - white Scots who preserve an ancient indigenous way of life suddenly become 'inbred' when they object to this bigot in their midst.

http://thecroft.wordpress.com/2008/11/19/the-only-bigot-in-the-village/

Finally, another link - Native American Celts

Foulkes celebrates the Gaelic festival of Oidhche Shamhna

Rumours have it that Jambo peer George Foulkes has been seen traipsin the streets of Edinbugger with his auld pal Jack McConnell who in celebration of Oidhche Shamhna/ Halloween has dressed himself up as 'an ex Worst Minister'. Foulkes himself has been chappin doors, claiming to be a 'Socialist Lord', singing 'The Sash' and asking folk if he can have their nuts.

This comes on the same day that the Catholic Church has announced to the world that Halloween is 'Anti-Christian'. Foulkes and New Labour have responded with a press-release issued to them by their new Unionist allies, the Orange Order, in which they claim that the Pope himself is the 'Anti-Christ'. Elsewhere, ordinary people will ignore the nonsense of both the Vatican and Orange Order and celebrate this auld pagan Gaelic festival by having a laugh.

Oidhche Shamhna (Samhain's Eve) marked the end of summer and beginning of winter in the ancient Gaelic calendar. It was thought that at this time, the 'door' between our world and the world of the dead would be opened slightly, allowing for spirits and other creatures to sample the other side. This obviously was in pre-enlightenment days. However, science and reason have still to reach some quarters and i don't just mean the scaremongers, bigots and outright nutters of the Vatican and Orange Order who still peddle an altogether more sinister fantasy. We still have 'mystical Celts' who actually believe in sithichean, troichean, taibhsean, bocain, manaidhean, eich-uisge and other mythological supernatural beings from Gaelic tradition. These mystics and boolshitters are happy to use science in the form of the Internet to propagate their delusion and sales-pitches though funnily enough, few of them actually seem to be 'Celts' in the sense that they speak a Celtic tongue.

One such place is the 'Tir na nOg Holistic Centre' which despite being in Scotland, uses the Irish Gaelic for it's name. It is celebrating 'Samhain' (which simply means November to modern Gaels) with a firewalking session. Well-off mystics who possess more money than sense (and probably an accent that is more Cambridge than Carlabhagh) will have to part with £60 for the privilege though.

As they say... "A ceremonial fire will be lit and carefully tended as the group spends the evening in activities which will strengthen the sense of connection to ancestral lines, bring into focus the hopes and dreams waiting to be realised, and identify and break through fears or blocks standing in the way of those dreams. The evening’s main event, walking on red hot coals, will be a symbolic moment of incredible power - firewalking is a metaphor for all those moments in life when we have a choice..."

Curiously enough, traditional pagan sacrifice and blood-letting seems to have escaped transition into modern 'Celtic' celebrations.

Choice? Well, i certainly don't choose to be fleeced by charlatans whose idea of 'Celtic' is some mystical otherworld which probably never existed. And, if it did exist, there's probably a good reason why our ancestors stopped throwing rowan berries at water-horses - i.e. they eventually realised that such creatures don't fkn exist!

This all reminds me of Sharon MacDonald's excellent, 'Reimagining Culture', an academic study of a real Celtic community in Skye. In it, MacDonald talks of the White Settlers who came to northern Skye expecting to experience a Celtic paradise a la Tir nan Og. Instead, they found to their disgust crofters who drove tractors and shell-suited youths who spoke Gaelic amongst each other and laughed when the Settlers entered the local shop. Worse than that, the Celtic locals were so blinded by modern technology that they refused to share their knowledge of local fairies and keening at wakes.

So, this Oidhche Shamhna, the only spirits I'll be meeting will bear names like Ardbeg, Inchgower and Laphroaig.