Get SR free in your inbox twice a week
Click here
A Scotsman dared to criticise him
Reading the hysterical letter from William Halloran, emeritus professor of English and dean, Fort Myers, Florida, in the Café, berating the editor of SR, or, indeed anyone from this side of the pond, for daring to comment on or criticise the US president reminds me of a similar incident this summer.
I reply with my opinion, nothing more, nothing less (which, on the question of Obama is, incidentally, favourable). But this was obviously too much for one passenger. He didn’t say anything to me, but he told my coach driver once I had left the tour that he ‘would make sure’ I never worked for the company employing me ever again because I had dared to comment on American politics. ‘It was none of her business’ to have such a view, he declared, and he was ‘outraged’ that I would express any comments at all about anything outside Scotland.
To say I was gobsmacked would be putting it mildly. Yet it clearly made perfect sense to this chap that I should live in a political vacuum, with no knowledge and no view on anything outside my own little border, notwithstanding the impact that US politics has on the rest of the world. I dismissed him as an ignorant hick from the sticks. But now, having read the professor’s all-too-similar views, it would appear that this absurd and plainly ridiculous preciousness extends much further, and it is deeply alarming.
Barbara Millar
With regards Professor Halloran’s letter, can I suggest that his utterly over-the-top response – is the great man Obama so fragile a creature that no criticism is allowed, ever? – is somewhat undermined by his seemingly typical American ignorance of our head of state’s title; her Britannic Majesty (to paraphrase our passports) is no more the ‘Queen of England’ than the ‘Queen of Scotland’.
She is the queen of Great Britain, the two kingdoms of England and Scotland having been ‘united’ in 1707. Admittedly, in these devolutionary times, she is increasingly referred to as ‘Queen of Scots’ when carrying out her official duties in Scotland; indeed, many would support her continuation in that role and title in an independent Scotland.
In any case, I’m quite sure that Kenneth Roy would indeed publicly display similar criticism of the British head of state if he so wished.
Paul Cockburn
We have published a page of responses to my original article and a page of responses to the responses. This correspondence is now closed – Ed
The Cafe is our readers’ forum. Send your contribution to islay@scottishreview.net
website design by Big Blue Dogwebsite development by NSD Web