How many more years

[Download as A4 poster / Read on Wings over Scotland]

When I was a child I was taught of a long ago battle. It was a monumental battle, an invading army and a defending one, swords and shields, bows and arrows. The attackers were somehow both bad men and good and the defenders lost, their king dead in sight of the sea. When I grew up, I realised that the defenders where not of my country, they were of what was then my country's neighbour; the attackers from yet farther still. I felt a degree of confusion, that I should have been taught something that was not of my country's past, but of the past of my country's neighbour.

When I was a child, I was taught of a document, written by medieval nobility to maintain their power and limit the interference of their king. The document's concepts were difficult to understand and little but the age of the document left a lasting impression. When I grew up I realised that the document was not written by the nobility of my country, it was written by the nobility of what was then my country's neighbour. I found it hard to understand why I should have been taught such a thing, that for many hundreds of years was at best only tangentially relevant to my country.

When I was a child, I was taught of a writer, a bard of great renown, whose works inspired untold numbers around the world. The writer's words and meanings, written such a long time ago in a language I could barely understand, were difficult to interpret, yet gamely I worked on. When I grew up, I realised that the bard was not of my country, although died a decade after his country and mine were first part-joined. I wondered why the work of a writer who was not of my country should be so influential on the language that is most spoken in my country.

When I was a child, I was taught a language named after the country that neighbours my own. I never understood why the language I spoke should be named so.

As an adult, I learned of a long ago battle. It was a monumental battle, an invading army and a defending one, swords and shields, bows and arrows. The attackers were bad men and they lost, defeated by defenders whose number was half that of the attackers. When I thought back to being a child, I felt a degree of confusion, that I should not have been taught something that was so integral to the foundation of the country in which I live.

As an adult, I learned of a document, written by medieval nobility to maintain their power and proclaim the very existence of their country. The document's concept was clear, containing an unequivocal statement of rights. When I thought back to being a child, I found it hard to understand that I should not have been taught such a strong statement of my country's nationhood and right to exist, written at a time when both were under dire threat.

As an adult, I learned of a writer, a bard of great renown, whose works inspired untold numbers around the world. The writer's words and meanings, written some time ago in a language I could barely understand, were difficult to interpret, yet gamely I read on. When I thought back to being a child, I wondered why a writer of such import to my country, was not a part of my language education and why it was he wrote in a language I was not taught.

As an adult, I learned of a language, named after the country in which I live. I was stunned to discover that it was a language in its own right, more than a mere regional dialect of the language named after my country's neighbour, to be shunned from the classroom, fit only for the uncouth of the schoolyard.

Do not get me wrong. I am glad that my education included some of the history and culture of my neighbours. To be taught naught but the history and culture of my own country would have been deeply unfortunate, parochial, demeaning. However, to have had the history and culture of my own country so thoroughly eradicated from my education was wrong.

To be denied one's history and one's culture is close to being denied one's right to exist. It is to be dominated, crushed like a rebel by a mighty empire. It may well be the case that the culture and history of my country is no longer so thoroughly excised from the education of my country's children, however it is not something of which I have any knowledge.

What I do have knowledge of, is not simply the commonly-seen ignorance of my country's worth, I also have knowledge of the equally common, and far more corrosive, denial that my country has any worth at all.

It saddens me greatly to be aware that so many of my fellow subjects have so little knowledge of their country and have so little confidence that we can run our own affairs. For a long time, through the denial of our past, through the denial of our culture, through the denial of our country's very right to exist, we have been denied all that countless numbers around the world have as their birthright.

It is time we acknowledge the worth of ourselves, as a nation and as a people, no better and no worse than so many others. We have a rich heritage and a strong culture, if only we could recognise it. We have the right to exist and we have the right to make the decisions that are best suited to our country.

It is time we stood up and recognised our worth. It is time to break from imposed ignorance. It is time to be the change.