Main navigation:

Scottish Man

In many parts of the world there are indigenous people who, by accident of history, have lost much of their dignity and have found themselves disempowered.

Sometimes, as in modern South Africa for example, the indigenous people have regained some of their influence and dignity. Sadly, however, there are many countries where they have not and the dominant population in those countries have often found it difficult to respect the indigenous population.

I have on occasion heard some (yes, only some) white Australians making derogatory remarks to me about aboriginal Australians and then expecting me to share their sentiments. And this sort of thing is by no means unique to Australians.

My parents, who used to live in Canada, were rather upset by the way some white Canadians had such negative and unforgiving attitudes towards native Canadians. And in India, the indigenous populations have long been held in low regard by the incoming peoples and the native populations of India have come to be known as 'untouchables' or 'Dalitz'.

Although I am a little embarrassed to admit it, there also seems to be a hint of this phenomenon in modern Scotland in so far as there exists a behaviour or attitude that leads to some people losing some of their dignity.

I shall try to explain what I mean. It came as quite a big surprise to me one day, when I was twenty years old, to discover that a friend of mine, who studied at the same university as me, had just joined a Gaelic choir.

I shall call my friend 'Marie', but you understand that is not her real name. Almost as soon as becoming surprised, I then felt rather perplexed because some of my classmates at the university (all of them fellow Scots) were gossiping angrily about Marie just for joining that choir and they expected me to be angry with her too.

I could not see what could possibly be wrong with someone singing in her preferred language, whether it is English, Latin, Gaelic or any other language. Perhaps I might have seen things their way if Marie had not been a good friend of mine whom I had a lot of time for but I am glad now that I did not share their sentiments.

I was at the time rather disturbed by their indignation and, to my shame, I was afraid to defend her because that would mean admitting that I did not share their point of view.

Sometimes I used to make inconsiderate jokes about people who spoke Gaelic but after that day I never again ridiculed Gaelic speakers. I came to realise that it is very important for us to accept people as they are, regardless of their preferred language, colour of skin or religion.