Pro-indy artists’ desire to please ‘pathetic’
● Macmillan rails against ‘meek and mild compliance’
Scotland’s leading classical composer has accused dozens of cultural figures of harbouring “a pathetic desire to please those in control” by issuing their own declaration of Scottish independence.
Sir James Macmillan condemned the likes of crime author Val Mcdermid, writer Liz Lochhead, actor Brian Cox, rapper Darren Mcgarvey and musician Pat Kane for losing a “thirst to speak truth to power”.
He said the group of artists and creatives were instead guilty of “a meek and mild compliance” and asked why an artistic desire to shock the establishment had “become the desire to bend over for them”.
Writing in the American social, cultural and political magazine National Review, Sir James, 60, said that the best thing for Scottish culture would be for the Scottish Government “to get out of our faces”.
The Ayrshire-born composer suggested that those who backed the declaration had “forgotten that nationalist movements throughout history have sought control over culture and heritage”.
He added: “It’s odd – people in the arts, who often pride themselves on being free thinkers and anti-establishment, have, in Scotland, become something else.
“Gone is the thirst to speak truth to power. In its place is a meek and mild compliance, a pathetic desire to please those in control. Art should not bend the knee to governments or ruling castes.
“Since when did the artistic desire to shock the establishment become the desire to bend over for them?”
Actress Elaine C Smith, singer Karine Polwart, poet Michael Pedersen, author Andrew O’hagan and playwright Stephen Greenhorn were among the other cultural figures to back the independence blueprint, published days before the SNP’S autumn conference in Aberdeen earlier this month.
The declaration stated: “It is our belief that the best option now open to the Scottish people is for Scotland to become an independent country.
“The alternative is to accept that its fate would remain in the hands of others and that the Scottish people would relinquish their right to decide their own destiny.”
“Since when did the artistic desire to shock the establishment become the desire to bend over for them? ”
SIR JAMES MACMILLAN