Race abuse claim by English in Scotland

Telegraph ^ | October 7, 2003 | Tom Peterkin

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

One third of English people living north of the border believe that Scots are anti-English, according to new research.

Further, one quarter of English-born people resident in Scotland claim they are the victims of constant discrimination and harassment because of their nationality.

A Glasgow University study of 500 English exiles found that one sixth were subjected to insults or abuse and one had even received a death threat.

Prof Bill Miller, the academic who carried out the survey, said: "One person we spoke to had received death threats to him and his children. While his children were at school they had kitchen scourers dragged down their face because they were English.

"It is a very small minority of the English-born in Scotland who are affected in this way but that is little consolation to the families in question."

The results will be presented at a conference organised to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the Union of the Crowns next month.

Analysis of the sample suggested that one third of Scotland's 500,000 English population thought that the Scots were Anglophobic.

The same proportion believed they were the butt of anti-English jokes which "irritated or annoyed them". About 11 per cent said they were "hurt" by the ribbings.

The research also found that the majority of the English people living in Scotland would not let the difficulties drive them southwards. About 98 per cent felt at ease living in Scotland and 95 per cent said they had plans to settle in Scotland in the long term.

Prof Miller said: "There is a certain amount of irritation among the English-born but not at a level that would drive them out of the country."

A Scottish Executive spokesman said politicians were working to stamp out all forms of racism in Scotland.

[patriota-ferus]

My wife was on a discussion list the other day. One of the women piped-up and stated that she thought that Mel Gibson was a bad director because he always portrayed the English as the bad guys. She thought about it for a minute… The Patriot- The American revolution-the English are the bad guys, Bravehart- English occupation of Scotland- the English are the bad guys.

Well the English should feel a bit of relief from his next movie, The Passion, because that mean old Mel is picking on the poor Jews instead! :o)

[Natural Law]

The English King Alfred 'the Great' of Wessex and the Danish King Guthrum of East Anglia, divided England between them in 866 along the following lines

"First as to the boundaries between us. (They shall run) up the Thames, and then up the Lea, and along the Lea to its source, then in a straight line to Bedford, and then up the Ouse to Watling Street."

There was ethnic cleansing of the Celts. Many left England and settled in Brittany. The Scots were secured in the north and the Welsh were kept behind Offa's Dike.

[Sam Cree]

"They are all Celts. The English are from the "Island Celts" while the Scots are "Continental Celts". But they all the same people if you go back a little farther in history.

Are you right about this? I agree that they were all Celts before the Anglo Saxon occupation. As you probably know, the Anglo Saxons invaded and occupied England after the departure of the Romans. They remained dominant there until the Norman conquest in 1066, with the purely Celtic areas remaining, as they are today, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall (and Ireland).

This seems to make the English largely Anglo Saxon, Norman, and probably some Celtic. If the Anglo Saxons and Normans were Celts, I hadn't known it, although there are whole books lying around filled with stuff I hadn't known.

I do know that the Celts were a dominant people in ancient times in Europe, occupying France, and even battling the Greeks, and of course the Romans, who defeated them. However, I had not been aware that the Germanic tribes, the Angles and Saxons, who eventually occupied England, were also Celts.

'Course, this still leaves the problem of the even earlier tribes, the Picts, I don't know exactly who they were, or what racial background they were.

[fortaydoos]

In the classical sense. They mean nationality obviously.

The English owe much to the Scots. Were it not for the valor of the Scots, England's empire would have been a fraction of its size. Those red-headed folks (and their darkhaired brothers) are the best fighters the world has ever seen.

[Sam Cree]

BTW, IMO, Anglo Saxon history should be of some interest to us here on FR. The traditions of individual freedom and personal liberty on which our country was founded are derived from Anglo Saxon traditions.

[Sam Cree]

From an interesting page at Ohio U:

"In comparison with the Celts, who have been in the British Isles for some 3,000 years, the Anglo-Saxons are newcomers--their residence in Britain is only about half that length. Even so, the Anglo-Saxon invasion, traditionally dated to 449 AD, changed the linguistic make-up of Britain more drastically than any other invasion before or after. The newcomers brought with them a dialect called Englisc, which soon came to be spoken in the part of Britain subsequently named Englaland (i.e., land of the Angles).

Much of the history of the early Anglo-Saxons remains murky, but it clear that their settlement in Britain was often not peaceful. Taking advantage of a power vacuum created by the departure of the Romans, the Angles, Saxons, and other Germanic tribes came into conflict with the Celts, whom they called wealhas (foreigners or slaves), with the name being the source of the words Welsh and Wales. However much the Anglo-Saxons despised the inhabitants of the territory they invaded, they met some very fierce resistance. The name of one apparent leader of the Celts has become a part of world culture: Arthur, King of the Britons. On the other hand, not all Brtions stayed and fought; the area of northwestern France known today as Brittany was settled by Celtic refugees, and the Breton language has clear affinities with Welsh. The survival of many Celtic river names in the West of England suggests that not all the Celts fled; even so, Anglo-Saxon place names predominate in most parts of England. For example, the counties Sussex (South Saxons) and Essex (East Saxons) clearly indicate who settled where."

The rest of the page is found here:
http://www.cohums.ohio-state.edu/english/People/odlin.1/courses/570/angsaxbr.htm

[Sam Cree]

Found this interesting paragraph: "Among the groups possibly dating back to pre-Celtic Britain were the Picts. The name of this group occurs in early Latin texts: the Roman conquerors of southern Britain fought warriors who painted themselves (and the Latin form Pictus means 'painted.'). Some historians have believed that the Picts were the earliest Celts in Britain, whereas others have considered them to be speakers of a non-Indo-European language. It is entirely possible that there were two Pictish groups, with the more recent arrivals being Celts. By the year 1000 AD, the Picts had disappeared from the historical record, though it is believed that some Scottish place names (e.g., Pittenweem) preserve traces of at least one Pictish language."

Apparently the word "picture" is derived from the Picts, who painted themselves.

[Rebelbase]

Seven ancient Celtic nations have been identified: Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Isle of Man, Spain, Brittany and Ireland.

[Wallace T.]

The Scots are also not purely Celtic. The Highland Scots are basically Celtic, being descended from Irish invaders, who were known as the Scotii, from which Scotland derived her modern name. (There is also a strong Scandinavian substratum among the Highlanders.) The Lowland Scots were at least partially derived from Anglians who settled the Lowlands from northern England. There are also large Celtic (Gaelic, Brythonic, and Pictish), Scandinavian, Norman, and even Flemish elements in the Lowlands. The Scottish dialect of Lallans is a variant of English, not Gaelic. However, Lallans borrows liberally from Gaelic and Brythonic, and from Danish and Norwegian as well. This language superceded the Celtic tongues in the Lowlands by 1400.

Overall, Scotland must be considered a mixed Celtic (Gaelic, Brythonic, Pictish) and Germanic (Anglian, Viking, Norman) nation.

The Irish, or at least the southern, or Catholic, Irish, are predominantly Celtic, although there are considerable Iberian, Scandinavian, English, and Norman influences. The Welsh are probably the most purely Celtic of the nations of the British Isles, with the Welsh language surviving and thriving longer than Gaelic did in Scotland or Ireland. Western England, especially Cornwall, retains a large portion of Celtic genes, as well as Celtic customs, though the Cornish language died out.

[Swanks]

One third of English people living north of the border believe that Scots are anti-English, according to new research.

One-third? A thousand years of working on this and we Scots only achieved one-third?

[Sam Cree]

Thanks.

This is a fascinating subject, IMO.
I've got lots of Celtic blood, but also German

To complicate matters, my wife is Russian Jewish.

[Bad Dog2]

Wallace T. is correct. The South of England has strong Anglo-Saxon influence and as you move North more Celtic influence predominated by Scandinavian influence. The Norman influence insofar as blood lines is concerned is miniscule. Technically the both the English and Scots are a polyglot of racial inflences.

The Scot's basic problem is self-hatred for their nobility's selling themselves out to the English throughout history.

There is some violence and vadalism experienced by the English living in Scotland but hardly any violence directed againdst Scots Living in England. Both races make fun of one another and both equally detest the Welsh who are the butt of everyone's jokes including those of the Irish.

What some English in England resent is being dominated by Scots politicians.

[txzman]

And damn they should be! The English practiced genocide and cultural warfare on a scale that has left deep scars across Scotland! What a joke even to bring this subject up.

[Wallace T.]

The Norman influence is not as predominant as that of the Saxon, Dane, or Celt, yet much of the English and some of the Scottish aristocracy and upper classes have Norman derivation. To this day, Norman names are frequently found in the telephone directories of the wealthier areas around London. Their influence is also evident in Ireland, where some names considered to be very Irish, like Fitzgerald, Burke, and Costello, are actually of Norman derivation.

As for the Welsh being the butt of jokes in the UK and Ireland, does that have anything to do with their fame as singers, actors, and poets rather than as explorers and warriors? Unlike the Scots and Irish, the Welsh are lovers, not fighters.

[Doctor Stochastic]

When ye come to play golf ye maun hae a heid! - Charles Baird MacDonald

[a history buff]

There's a Latin verb pingere or the like that's pinxisse and pictum in the past tenses.

[Sam Cree]

"The Germanic tribes were also Celtic tribes, as were those in France, Belgium, Spain, Scandinavia, etc. ".

I'm not enough of a historian to dispute this, and am willing to concede the possibility that you are correct, but would love to see a reference.

My reference, "The Celtic Empire," by Ellis, has some interesting info. It states that the Celts seem to have originated in what is now present day Germany, thus rivers such as the Rhine and Rhone have Celtic names, but they were later pushed out by the incoming Germanic tribes (ancestors of the present day English), into France.

He does, however, credit the Teutones with being a Celtic people.