This is
"Paisley" pattern;
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| Paisley pattern ties - Wikimedia Commons |
It's a picture of
twisted teardrops, woven into brilliantly coloured fabrics. The pattern is not
originally from Paisley - it was brought there by Scottish soldiers and
merchants who had seen the originals in India and Persia. Paisley weavers
reproduced the cloth mechanically, on looms, and the Scottish merchants went
back to successfully sell the patterned cloth to the then Indian colonies. In
modern terms, they took the Intellectual Property (IP), and turned it into a
profit.
A lot of profit. The
evidence is all over Scotland, where our public buildings (Gallery of Modern
Art, Hutchesons' School, and Hospital in Glasgow, amongst many others) were
donated by people made wealthy by the imperial trade. We benefit today from public goods, ranging
from art galleries to schools, built from imperial profits.
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| Glasgow Necropolis - Wikimedia Commons |
Glasgow's landmark
Necropolis, a hilltop covered in the ornate gravestones and memorials of our
rich 18th and 19th century merchants - the time when Glasgow was the Empire's
second richest city - reminds us that Glaswegians lived, profited and died all
over the Empire. Benjamin Disraeli
(1804-1881) said: "It has been my lot to have found myself in many distant
lands. I have never been in one without finding a Scotchman, and I never found
a Scotchman who was not at the head of the poll."
The Imperial trade
was not simple burglary, or just swapping trinkets for gold. There was
exchange, even if it was not between equals. And it is too simplistic to say it
was just evil white men; I've been to the West African seaboard, and I know
that slaves from what is now Mali were traded by people who would now be
Ghanaian.
There were exchanges
that benefited both sides. Here is one with a Catalan connection: In farms in Minorca you'll see fat black
chickens scampering about the farmyards. Good layers, and good to eat, these
are Menorquin hens. The chickens are
here thanks to the wife of the British Governor of colonial Minorca. This was
probably Ann, wife of James Murray, the Scottish-born Governor or Minorca from
1774-1782. She took some scrawny black hens home to Britain, spent years
improving them (presumably with a bit of good breeding) and returned them to
the island's farmers. Generations of Menorcans have benefited from her imperial
philanthropy.
The Scottish
Referendum reminds us of Empire, because at various points in the debate it has
felt like Scotland is the colony. When George Osborne said that we could not
have the pound it sounded like the Empire speaking. How dare he! That pound is
built on Scottish wealth as well as English; he cannot simply take it away. And
when we are told that Scotland should continue to hand over its oil to support
the UK treasury we are being treated as a colony, only relevant so long as
the Imperial power can extract valuable raw materials.
Now we know, just a
little, how it feels to be colonised.
So now is the time
to face up to our imperial past. That means justice, education and reparation. Education in its
very widest sense, so that we the public learn that our good stuff, much of it,
was built on bad stuff - on injustice, pain, death and cruelty. Education
designed to remind us, before we purchase that new mobile, that new dress or
those shoes, that these objects are made in the Empire of today, the
multinational trading Empire, and that they are made in the pain of the Coltan
mine or the dangers of the sweatshop.
And reparation
meaning that we go back to the communities we abused and repair some of the
harm we caused. We will arrive far too late, and in far too tiny a way; we will
not find the skilled Persian embroiderer who made the first twisted teardrop.
But we must seize this moment when we are, for a while, a colony of England, to
start to repair the ruin of Empire.
Sources:
Article
on Paisley pattern http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paisley_%28design%29
Disraeli quote from
The Scottish Enlightenment, Arthur Herman, Fourth Estate, London, 2002, page
294
Poultry for Anyone,
Victoria Roberts, Whittet Books, Suffolk, 1998
The
Minorca Club - poultry http://www.poultryclub.org/minorcaclub/
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