From: morna@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Morna J Findlay)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.celtic
Subject: Re: Scots Gaels
Date: 7 Oct 92 13:16:35 GMT
Reply-To: morna@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Morna J Findlay)
Organization: Laboratory for the Foundations of Computer Science, Edinburgh U

In article <Bvqpwo.sB@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk> newt@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Michael Steven Newton) writes:
>downey@enh.nist.gov writes:
>
>>What are White Settlers regarding Scotland?  From the article posted
>>about Scots Gaels and American Indians, I have a general idea but
>>would like further clarification.
>
>  The white settlers are the people from England who are of a different
>  culture, yet have enough money (there is a big difference in economic
>  scales between Scotland and England) to buy summer homes and retirement
>  homes at prices which the local Scots could not afford.  As a result
>  local culture and population become displaced and angry. 
>

As we say in net-land - "OK - I'll bite"


I don't completely agree with Michaels analysis. The term "White
settler" is deliberately used to denote a person who moves
into an area, with more money than the local people and who does not
understand the local culture and in many cases does not respect it.

This us what the "white settlers" of Europe who invaded the "colonies"
of the Americas, Africa and Asia  were like, and this is where the 
inspiration for the modern term has come from.


It should be obvious that "white settlers" don't need to be English.

Why should a young couple on Raasay, forced to live in a caravan
thoughout the wild hebridean winter, because the price of local houses
is now beyond their reach, care whether those houses are now
occupied by people hailing from Surrey( England) or Morningside(Scotland)?


I know such couples and the answer is they don't care whether incomers are
English or German or Scots.

It's not true that immigrants from Scotland are neccesarily any
more caring of the local culture than those from elsewhere. Just like
the English ones, they often think they know it all and soon set about
letting the locals know just what they've been doing wrong for all these
years. And they'll not be Gaelic speakers. The school on Raasay stopped
teaching in Gaelic because of the number of non-speakers who are now
attending. White settlers expect their children to be taught in
English.


What is true is that there is an enormous well of resentment, sometimes
bordering on hatred for the new arrivals.

One of the problems is that these (mostly) middle-class ( mostly)
middle-aged people all want to live in the same lovely places, and small
communities can't take the pressure. On Raasay, half the houses in the
village of Inverarish lie dark for most nights of the year. Imagine how
depressing it must be to live in a half-empty street, when you or your
friends would love to move into those homes and use them properly.

Imagine how resentful you must feel when your next-door neighbours do
nothing but garden - some of the white settlers on Raasay have
beautiful gardens - having retired in their fifties, while you
must struggle to make ends meet.

I have met some of the white-settlers on Raasya and they seem quite
nice, but the resentment of the locals is felt and usually returned
after a while. I've listened to a bunch of them assert that the
islanders "didn't appreciate" the beauty of the island. The evidence for
this was that "they never went hillwalking", as if they should spend
their days off from fishing or herding the sheep getting soaked and
frozen to justify themselves ot the incomers. An amazing attitude!



However, I think it is only really holiday homes that we can really
complain about. If someone wants to go and live in a beautiful place,
instead of living in Slough, then they should be able to - it's not
their fault they were born in Slough after all!


Current Labour Party policy is that Planning Pernission from the local
council should be required if a house is to be used as a holiday home.
Thus I suppose locals could have some control over the amount of wastage
of perfectly good houses.



M



p.s. I've got a Cornish pal living in a caravan too.
--
Morna Findlay 					JANET:morna@uk.ac.ed.dcs 
	Thanksgiving For a National Victory (Robert Burns)
Ye hypocrites! are these your pranks? To murder men and give God thanks?
Desist, for shame! Proceed no further: God won't accept your thanks for murther.