Immortal Memory 2017

On a couple of occasions this year I have been asked to propose the Toast to the Immortal Memory of Robert Burns' at Burns' Suppers. Here are the notes I compiled to work from.

Immortal Memory

On www.gov.uk one can look up the speech Beyond Brexit: a Global Britain, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's "first major policy speech at Chatham House." In it he says:

"To those who say we are now too small, too weak, too poor to have any influence on the world, I say in the words of Robert Burns:
"O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us!"

What does this tell us? What's my point? It's two-fold.

Firstly, clearly our Foreign Secretary is a buffoon. The quote is from Burns' poem To A Louse: On Seeing One On A Lady's Bonnet, At Church. In it he contrasts the "fine lady" in whose expensive bonnet he observes a louse with other people whose station in life might be considered to render them a more suitable host for the parasite, deftly and humorously criticising class, privilege and pretension. The closing stanza, in characteristic Standard Habbie metre used by Burns for direct and intimate address, concludes:

"O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!"

So, the point is not that we would appreciate the influence we have in the world, as the honourable member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip implies, but the opposite, we would understand how ridiculous we are, and indeed, how we are all ridiculous, and what unites us as humans is not necessarily those qualities we use as a pretext for pomp, but are often those very qualities that embarrass us.

Indeed, the deeper point here is sympathy for our fellow humans as a moral force.

Consider the times in which Burns lived, during the efflorescence of the Enlightenment. Scotland at that time was the principle seat of philosophy in the world, leading to the description of Edinburgh as the "Athens of the North". As Voltaire said at the time, “We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.” To that one may add George Bernard Shaw’s observation “God help England if she had no Scots to think for her,” which I think the (former) Foreign Secretary admirably exemplifies.

Two different moral philosophies were articulated at this time, one by David Hume, the great empiricist philosopher from Edinburgh, for whom moral distinctions are derived from sentiments: feelings of approval and disapproval that those observing a character trait or action might feel, and the desire of someone to benefit from high esteem and avoid condemnation. Some might consider this quite a selfish formulation of morality, others might say it exhibits a degree of realism. Indeed, the “what’s in it for me” approach might appeal to the great deal-maker across the pond.

The other position, which we might find more recognisable ourselves, was described by Adam Smith, from Glasgow, and it is interesting to see Scotland’s two greatest cities compete about a question arguably more fundamental than the correct condiment with which to accompany a poke of chips. He is best known for The Wealth of Nations in which he founded modern political economy. However, his interests were much more wide ranging. For example, he also founded what we would call literary criticism, being the first person to use contemporary vernacular works rather than classical prototypes to illustrate rhetorical concepts. The English critic Samuel Johnson learned of the approach while visiting Scotland and subsequently popularised it in London.

In his Theory of Moral Sentiments Adam Smith describes a position quite distinct from Hume's. He might be said to have discovered his conscience, indeed, the very idea of having a conscience. He considers how we may deceive ourselves about the moral consequences of our actions, and transposes Hume's observer to be an internal spectator that allows us to dispassionately regard our own conduct. This internal observer is our conscience. He says:

 "Self-deceit, this fatal weakness of mankind, is the source of half the disorders of human life. If we saw ourselves in the light in which others see us, or in which they would see us if they knew all, a reformation would generally be unavoidable. We could not otherwise endure the sight."

Smith makes clear that it is sympathy for others that enables us to imagine what we must seem like to them. Our capacity for moral conduct, our ability to exercise our conscience, relies entirely on our ability to feel sympathy.

Robert Burns possessed a copy of Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments and we are struck by the similarity of Burns' words to Smith's. Both are expressing a universal and moral concept we might call sympathy. I am reminded of the words of Che Guevara: "above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world," and also, "the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love."

Which brings me, at last, to my second point, and the reason I brought BoJo into this in the first place. It is the enduring relevance of Burns' work. Even though Johnson misconstrued Burns' words to the maximum extent possible, making himself ridiculous in a somewhat crazily meta way, the fact is he resorted to Burns' when trying to directly appeal to people. Burns' universal values of humanity have spoken directly to people high and low, young and old, rich and poor, since Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, otherwise known as the Kilmarnock Edition, was published by John Wilson of Kilmarnock on 31 July 1786.

His words include in their scope the most abstract reflections on morality and the most direct, immediately relevant impact of those ideas in the everyday lives of common people. I would like to pull together a couple of examples.

On Facebook, the other day I saw a poem someone had written criticising the practice of extraordinary rendition, whereby suspects are transported to jurisdictions where methods of enhanced interrogation that would otherwise be illegal can be used on them. In other words, torture, of which we now know the current president of the United States, Donald Trump, is a fan, and which our former Home Secretary Jack Straw permitted, letting the Americans use Prestwick Airport as a stopover point.

Jim Monaghan, from Govanhill, noting that Prestwick was recently renamed Burns' International, wrote this:

So, they changed the name of the airport,
to a man who wrote poems and songs,
but the pure dead brilliant rebranding.
couldnae cover up the wrongs,
for people were forcibly taken,
from their homes in the middle of night,
blindfolded, handcuffed, visibly shaken,
bundled on board that flight,
that would take them abroad to be tortured,
at the hands of the CIA
far away from their sons and their daughters,
and then on to Guantanamo Bay,
its the blood and injustice that haunts the place,
not Rabbie, Freddie Laker, Elvis and them aw,
and if one man has to be picked as its face,
then they really should rename it - Jack Straw.

Poetry lets us express ourselves about things we feel strongly about in a succinct and direct way. We can convey things we would not otherwise be able to communicate as a result.

Here's another example I saw on Facebook where someone has been equipped by Burns and the popular poetic tradition of which he is a pre-eminent example to access her muse. Lorna Wallace (in a piece shared by Rosemary Meechan) is expressing her dismay at the inauguration of Donald Trump.

Since I saw this poem on Facebook, and actually since I wrote the first draft of this speech, Lorna has won prizes and much acclaim for this poem. Indeed, it was read out last night at the anti-Trump protest in Buchanan Street in Glasgow. You can see the poem on Lorna's WordPress blog Writing by Lorna online.

A Scot’s Lament fur her American Fellows (Oan their election of a tangerine gabshite walloper) 

America, aw whit ye dain?!
How could ye choose a clueless wain
Ti lead yir country? Who wid trust
A man sae vile?!
A racist, sexist eedjit
Wi a shite hairstyle?

Yet lo, ye votit (michty me!)
Ti hawn’ this walloper the key
Ti pow’r supreme, ti stert his hateful,
Cruel regime.
A cling ti hope that this is aw
Jist wan bad dream.

But naw, the nightmare has come true,
A curse upon rid, white an’ blue,
An’ those who cast oot Bernie
Must feel sitch regret
Fur thinkin’ Mrs. Clinton
Was a safer bet.

So noo we wait ti see unfold
Division an’ intolerance, cold;
A pois’nous bigotry untold
Since Hitler’s rule
As the free world’s hopes an’ dreams
Lie with this fool.

Alas, complainin’ wullnae change
The fact this diddy has free range
Ti ride roughshod ow’r human beings
That fall outside
The cretinous ideals borne of
His ugly pride.

Awch USA, we feel yir woes
An’ pour oor wee herts oot ti those
Who ken this oarange gabshite isnae
Who they chose,
But jist sit tight; Trump’s cluelessness
Will time expose.

Fur sittin’ there beside Obama
Efter the election drama,
Trump looked like reality
Had finally hit:
Aboot the role of president
He knew Jack shit.

Poutin’, glaikit through this farce,
His mooth wis pursed up like an arse,
His Tangoed coupon glowin’ like
A skelped backside.
Despite all his bravado
Trump looked keen ti hide.

Let’s therefur no despair an’ greet,
Or see this outcome as defeat.
Let’s wait an’ watch this bampot
Flap his hawns an’ squirm
When presidential pressures
Crush him like a worm.

Hawd oan ti values you hold dear,
Don’t let this numpty bring yi fear,
His chants of hatred don’t speak fur
The human race.
Love will endure despite this
Oarange-faced disgrace.

So USA, in ma conclusion,
Know we Scots feel your confusion:
We are also chained ti those
Not of oor choosin’.
Stand firm fur unity will break
Through Trump’s delusion.

So, we can find in Burns a ready source of comparison and contrast with prominent figures of today, and there are none more prominent than Donald J. Trump, whose presidency is currently inflicting acute embarrassment on the people of the Isle of Lewis. Like him, my mother is also from Lewis, but I suspect I have a little more Gaelic than he does.

Trump's counsellor Kellyanne Conway may speak of "alternative facts," but as Burns' said, in his poem The Dream, "facts are chiels that winna ding, an' downa be disputed," and there are some hard truths Trump has to face up to.

We might reflect on how Burns' attitude towards women compares to Trump's. Observing that when Nature (a female divinity) created men, it was only to practice in preparation for her greater achievement in creating women, Burns sings in "Green Grow the Rashes":

Chor. - Green grow the rashes, O;
Green grow the rashes, O;
The sweetest hours that e'er I spend,
Are spent amang the lasses, O.  

There's nought but care on ev'ry han',
In ev'ry hour that passes, O:
What signifies the life o' man,
An' 'twere na for the lasses, O.   

Green grow, &c. 

The war'ly race may riches chase,
An' riches still may fly them, O;
An' tho' at last they catch them fast,
Their hearts can ne'er enjoy them, O.  

Green grow, &c.  

But gie me a cannie hour at e'en,
My arms about my dearie, O;
An' war'ly cares, an' war'ly men,
May a' gae tapsalteerie, O!  

Green grow, &c.  

For you sae douce, ye sneer at this;
Ye're nought but senseless asses, O:
The wisest man the warl' e'er saw,
He dearly lov'd the lasses, O.  

Green grow, &c.  

Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears
Her noblest work she classes, O:
Her prentice han' she try'd on man,
An' then she made the lasses, O.  

Green grow, &c.

Later Katie is going to sing for us "Ae Fond Kiss," a beautiful love song about a deep, fulfilling relationship, a meeting of minds, thwarted by circumstances, a relationship whose physical celebration is now attenuated to just a single kiss.

I won't repeat the utterances of Donald Trump on the same subject for obvious reasons. We all know what he said. He is an emotionally stunted man-boy for whom, clearly, affection was replaced by money at an early age, leading to a florid and delusional narcissism that prevents any genuine connection with people, or any sense of sympathy that would enable him to self-censor his outrageous remarks.

Perhaps my favourite Burns song on the subject of love is the achingly tragic "O mirk, mirk is this midnicht 'oor," in which a heart-broken young woman is abandoned and exposed to censure by Lord Gregory, who has deceived her and callously used her before disposing of her. Or let us consider the more familiar "Ye banks and Braes of Bonie Doon"

Ye banks and braes o' bonie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary fu' o' care!
Thou'll break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons thro' the flowering thorn:
Thou minds me o' departed joys,
Departed never to return.  

Aft hae I rov'd by Bonie Doon,
To see the rose and woodbine twine:
And ilka bird sang o' its Luve,
And fondly sae did I o' mine;
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree!
And my fause Luver staw my rose,
But ah! he left the thorn wi' me.     

We should be content to consider Trump to be like the villain of these pieces, the false lover, and like Burns, we will not distress ourselves by attempting to describe him in more detail than that.

I will conclude by extending the scope of my comparison beyond women to all humanity. Trump recently signed an executive order banning entry of refugees from various countries, including Syria and Yemen, into the United States. We can all appreciate how those refugees might perceive something of a lapse in human sympathy in this act.

When I first wrote this speech to give at a Burns' Supper last Saturday to the Tarbolton Crescent Bachelor's Club (that's Tarbolton Crescent in Chapelhall, not the South Ayrshire debating club founded by Robert Burns and his friends in 1780) that's as far as we had got. Things have moved along quite briskly since then.

Trump is setting quite a pace in establishing himself as a tyrant. A fortnight ago I thought it would take him years to achieve what he has managed in the few days since his inauguration. And in sacking Sally Yates, the acting Attorney General, for stating that his executive order is illegal, he has crossed the Rubicon. There can no longer be any pretence about his ambitions.

It must surely be a matter of days, or even hours now, until law enforcement in the US have to choose between the judiciary and the executive, in terms of whose orders they follow, a decision that will determine a lot about how messy extricating ourselves from this situation will be.

Trump will be fine of course. He has his own private security, something no previous president has insisted on. The words "Praetorian Guard" spring to mind, as do the words "Schutz Staffel" (I apologise for setting off the Godwin alarm with that remark). And he is wealthy, of course: despite being essentially a failed businessman whose tedious fantasies of greatness have been insulated from reality by money he inherited from his father, he is now in a position to indulge in unbridled kleptocracy.

In one thing alone has he succeed. In the land of an American Dream built on genocide and slavery, where ambition is cramped by consumerism and ignorance is deliberately cultivated, his extravagant, obnoxious fantasies have developed truth-resistance, because they give everyone else permission to indulge their own delusions, and for that they will crown him.

Against this I can find no better words to argue than those of Burns himself when he says:

Is there for honest Poverty
That hings his head, an' a' that;
The coward slave-we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, an' a' that.
Our toils obscure an' a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The Man's the gowd for a' that.  

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an' a that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine;
A Man's a Man for a' that:
For a' that, and a' that,
Their tinsel show, an' a' that;
The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that.  

Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that;
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that:
For a' that, an' a' that,
His ribband, star, an' a' that:
The man o' independent mind
He looks an' laughs at a' that.  

A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that;
But an honest man's abon his might,
Gude faith, he maunna fa' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their dignities an' a' that;
The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth,
Are higher rank than a' that.  

Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a' that,)
That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That Man to Man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.