Economic Growth, Colonisation and Scottish Unionism

A fantastic visualisation of economic growth below by Hans Rosling for BBC4.

It shows how life expectancy has changed over the last 200 years and more for 200 countries. Interestingly he shows how it can be broken down into regions and rural:urban areas.

One interesting focus is on how independence helped former British colonies improve their health dramatically in a short space of time. Scotland's role in the British empire was and is shameful and we haven't even begun to atone. While there are encouraging records of Scots mutiny against orders, examples of disgrace are legion.

In more recent examples of imperial adventure we can point to evidence of abuse in Afghanistan and Iraq. The process of dehumanisation can and will turn many morally upstanding citizens into colonising soldiers who abuse subjugated populations. Studies show that it is not difficult to have people administer pain to another by convincing the subject that it is good for the victim.

This is not an attempt at justifying or excusing those aspects of Scotland's shameful imperial record but understanding the process that lead to it.

I believe that much of the blame for Scotland's involvement belonged to its aristocracy (which is really part of a small club called British) - democracy was still a long way off.

This Scottish elite which prospered so much from empire under the patronage of Lord Melville formed the basis of modern Scottish unionism. It undermines the aspiration of the people by attacking it along the lines of both class and identity. It does this job and takes the consequent kick-backs.

In Northern Ireland colonisation was effected through the process of turning those from a specific population into second-class citizens and by educating them that their culture was of limited value. This policy was rolled out across the empire.

When the class struggle looked like it might be lost this Scottish elite absorbed the Scottish Labour movement into enough of its trappings to have them do the job for them.

Watch the video and consider the average life expectancy of certain areas of Glasgow and how it is among troubled third-world nations like Ghana. Perhaps we should consider these parts of Glasgow as Labour colonies kept in a state of abject poverty in order to beat their votes out of them. At the same time their history, language and culture were denigrated as part of the pincer movement.

Guards posted to suppress personal volition - the oldest imperialist trick in the book: