A new republican tricolour flag has been designed to represent a new republican identity in a new Scotland. The three colours are each highly symbolic championing secularism, democracy. The tricolour design connects Scotland with the the UK’s ‘next door neighbours’, Ireland and France who both fly tricolours. Lesser-known republican tricolour flags are also used in Wales and England. The three vertical stripes stand for a society which values liberty, equality and solidarity. This is a secular and republican flag and points to a future Scotland founded on the sovereignty of the people; at present we live under the sovereignty of the crown and its anti-democratic powers which lie in parliament, including the devolved parliament.
Blue: First and foremost, blue symbolises the seas and skies of Scotland!
Blue is of course a fairly generic colour for Scotland, thus the blue stripe maintains much existing Scottish heritage. Saint Andrew was one of the earliest Christian saints. The current saltire is officially dedicated to his memory.
It was also associated with and used by freedom fighters like the greatly misunderstood WilliamWallace (c.1270-1305) and the Covenanters (from c.1638), they who defended their own rights, whilst also aware of their own connection to struggles going on beyond the borders of Scotland. Wallace is deeply misunderstood, and the Covenanters - particularly the Cameronian Covenanters - are criminally underknown. They made profound contributions to Scottish democracy. To study them is to reflect upon a higher level of democracy, yet to be achieved.
Artwork by Andrew Hillhouse
Understandings of the ‘Wars of Scottish Independence’ are wrongly affected by the nation-state paradigm. First and foremost, it was not a war between Scotland and England, but between various mainly Norman-French families vying for power. Robert the Bruce was motivated by self-interest, changing sides multiple times, supporting Edward of England’s claim to the Scottish crown when it suited him. Wallace on the other hand, was not born into that aristocratic world of the court. Far from being a blood thirsty ultranationalist, he held an international outlook, sought to improve the economic situation of all people, and came from a Welsh background. Wallace in Scotland - and his counterparts in Flanders - injected into the ‘official’ feudal war, another war which brought new forces onto the historical stage; small landholders, city burgesses, perhaps even peasants. Bruce’s official court poetry tried to remove all of this from the records, sanitising Wallace by depicting him as an Anglophobe.
The Covenanters were a mass movement in Scottish society which expressed itself through the Presbyterian faith against the abuse of power of royals who believed in ‘the divine right of kings’. Around 20% of Scots signed the Covenant petition, and this was a movement in which women played a major visible part. Like Wallace, the story of the Covenanters has also become twisted. The Covenanters’ opposition to Catholicism was an expression of their disgust at the abuses of power. crown. And yet, Covenanter-nostalgia is expressed by Orange Williamite Royalists as a masked expression for anti-catholicism. However, humble clansmen forced to fight for the Jacobite cause and Irish catholics were powerless. See this song for example ('the covenanter soldier'), it is tainted with that regressiveness, but is still worth a listen. Republicans should reclaim the Covenanter tradition from purely Orange and purely Kirk-centred interpetations
Image of a mural near Strathven/Darvell https://auloudon.wordpress.com/genealogy/lanarkshire-history/the-covenanters/ Covenanter church service held outdoors. Either to avoid being seen due to the illegality, or due to their poverty and not owning a kirk to celebrate inside of.
Interestingly an early version of the Irish tricolour was Green, White and Blue, in recognition of the radical covenanting contribution to the United Irishmen (1791-1804). Although blue was of course replaced by Orange, thereby representing a much less progressive, even anti-progressive, anti-democratic sycophantic tradition of uncomfortable paranoia.
Green: represents the forests and field of Scotland, as well as a concern for the environment. Green also represents Scotland’s Irish community (who did so much to advance republican and internationalist thought from the 1880s onwards, and who also contributed so much to the 2014 vote of Glasgow, Dundee and West Dunbartonshire and North Lanarkshire to secede from the Union). This can be taken further, with green symbolises the ancient Gaelic and more broadly Celtic cultures more generally.
Red: Between blue and green sits the red stripe. It carries us to the red soils of the Borders, the red shales of the Central Belt, the red rocks of the Highlands (e.g. Red Cuillin). Red also transports us deep in time, to the pre-Christian and primordial era. The red stripe is linked with anthropologist Chris Knight’s idea of the role of early women and red’s cultural symbolism. Archaeology has also shown that red ochre decoration was one of the earliest forms of artistic human creativity and expression.
On the Irish tricolour, the white flag of negotiation sits between green and orange in anticipation of reconciliation and peace. On this Scottish flag, the blue Germanic aspects of Scotia, are bridged with her green Celtic components, via a red bridge. Blue and green may also represent protestant and catholic, or conservative forces and outside influences.
These are bridged by the red flag which symbolises primordial aspects of humanity, beside which our differences pale in significance, and which also symbolises social republicanism. This symbolism date to the 1848 Spring Time of Peoples and evenearlier. It continues to be associated with socialism, communism, and the working-class. It is in this strand of our history that we most primarily build upon, it is where our strength lies, and where all aspects of Scottish culture (new, old, past, present, future) can be bridged. We all bleed red; raise the scarlet standard high.
The Scottish tricolour; Blue, red, green - Fly it high
We should not only reject the butcher's apron union jack, but can also aim much higher than its component parts, instead adopting new republican flags for these islands. From top to bottom: Scotland, Ireland, Wales, England.
I can't believe I am listing to a song from a Rangers FC album! Joking aside, I found the song coupled with the visual images most poignant. Again I am very much at the foothills as regards the history of the Covenanters, but that being said, the more I read the more sympathetic I am too their plight and see a lot nascent republicanism in their cause.
ReplyDeleteA delight to read, to see, to hear...