Scottish Review

Who postponed the future? Why the power of nostalgia can hurt us all Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, April 30th 2019 Last week I attended a talk about one of the seminal bands of late 1970s Britain - Joy Division - where the author and cultural commentator Jon Savage discussed at an event run by Monorail, a wonderful independent record shop in the centre of Glasgow, the band, their music, originality and enduring influence. It was a mesmerising talk about the power of music, importance of place and of Britain - both in the late 1970s and now. In one observation,

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The importance of hearing the sounds of silence Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, April 24th 2019 Art Garfunkel performed in Glasgow on Easter Sunday; in an age filled with what seems to be incessant noise, it has never been more critical than to listen to seek out, and listen to, the sounds of silence. Despite everything, they can be found. Years ago when I was thinking about public debate I read A.L. Kennedy’s first book ‘Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains’ – which has in it a passage which is an evocative hymn to the power and prevalence of silence. Kennedy

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Dundee and the Limits of Cultural Regeneration Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, April 17th 2019 Dundee is the talk of the town. The once forgotten city of Scotland – certainly in the eyes of the Glasgow and Edinburgh chatterati – is now widely celebrated and recognised. It is winning piles of awards and attention, the latest of which being named ‘Sunday Times’ Best Place to Live in Scotland, with Dundee High School-educated Andrew Marr stating that ‘Dundee is certainly a very good idea’. Dundee’s moment in the sun is well-deserved and has been a long time coming. There is an undoubted

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How can we change the declining fortunes of Scottish football? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, April 10th 2019 Scottish football last week witnessed the regular circus of an Old Firm match. It was the usual pantomime of bad feeling and nastiness, with two Rangers players sent off and Celtic captain Scott Brown assaulted. Both clubs, Rangers manager Steven Gerrard and Brown were charged by the football authorities, while three football supporters were stabbed with one seriously injured – which was downplayed by most fans and media. This unedifying drama and reflection of the worst of Scotland regularly comes around: with the

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History cannot be written in stone: Why are public statues important? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, April 2nd 2019 In recent years, from US campuses to towns to the UK, public statues have increasingly become a subject of heated debate and controversy. From Charlottesville in the US where one protestor was killed, to Cecil Rhodes in Oxford, and to what kind of plaque Henry Dundas has in Edinburgh, this is a live issue. These debates are about much more than the statues in question. They touch upon the legacy of Empire in Britain, racism, slavery and xenophobia and, in other societies

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Standing Up to Child Sex Abuse: The Story of David Steel and Cyril Smith Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, March 27th 2019 The mantra of the current age is that we take child sex abuse seriously. We listen to victims, we respect them, and we act on allegations, knowing how difficult and painful it is for people to come forward. This is a comforting account on an important and sensitive issue. But in the light of recent events we have to ask whether we really take child sex abuse that seriously? Have we really changed that much as a society from

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Scotland’s Culture of Colluding with Violence Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, March 20th 2019 Scotland was once infamous for its reputation and reality as a violent place. This was associated with all sorts of potent, demeaning caricatures of the angry, aggressive Scot, but underlying these images Scotland did have a problem. We had a culture of all too pervasive violence, a high murder rate with Glasgow earning the moniker ‘murder capital of Europe’, a problem with knife crime, and a wider attitude that it was too often permissible to solve differences by violence, including widespread violence against children. Much has changed

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The ‘F’ word rears its head again: Federalism and Labour Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, March 13th 2019 One political principle unites not just the Labour Party from Jeremy Corbyn to Tom Watson but also the Conservative Party - from Theresa May to the most ultra-Brexiteers in the Jacob Rees-Mogg faction. That principle is a belief in parliamentary sovereignty: which for all its elevated sound actually means the right of governments to do what they like and not be bound by things like the rule of law, human rights or what previous administrations have done. It is of course a

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The Importance of the McCrone Report and Scotland’s Future Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, March 6th 2019 There was major interest and debate last week about a UK Government paper on Scotland - the McCrone report - written nearly 45 years ago. The McCrone report was written in March 1974 by then Scottish Office civil servant Gavin McCrone for ministers in the aftermath of the UK general election the month previous. It was subsequently given a wider circulation in government in April 1975 with a covering letter but remained publicly unknown and unpublished until it emerged as a result of a

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The Birth of the New: BBC Scotland Finally Takes Off Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, 27 February 2019 BBC Scotland’s new channel launched on Sunday at 7pm. There was a small amount of expectation, a countdown, and even nervousness. Sitting, waiting for it to begin, in those last few seconds I reflected how seldom a new TV channel is born on old-fashioned telly. The last I remember being Channel 4 in the 1980s, with Five not at the outset or since really registering. Then it came on air. The first night opened with the Chvrches and had ‘A Night at the

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