Perhaps Ron Ferguson (18 December) is a little too close to the heart of matters to see why the erstwhile St George’s Tron congregation are being portrayed as victims in their current dispute with the Church of Scotland.
Is it really the case that the congregation – with which I have nothing whatsoever to do and which I have never visited – are master manipulators of the media? Are all the journalists covering the goings-on in relation to the congregation totally blind or stupid? I think not.
Rather than a calm analysis of the situation, Mr Ferguson loads his comment with emotive terms: ‘strident’, ‘hardline organisation’, ‘links to very conservative groups in England, America and Australia’ (without even explaining why it should be morally wrong to have any link to a ‘conservative group’, whatever that may be, and why, in particular, the alleged sin is compounded by connections to England, America and Australia).
If it be the case that the management structures within the congregation of St George’s Tron were disbanded and replaced by some different structure, the question must surely be: Were the revised structures put in place in accordance with what is permissible in the Church of Scotland and, if not, why was action not taken immediately by the presbytery as the next superior court? If the minister and/or other office-bearers in St George’s Tron were persistent in acting in a way contrary to that required under the laws of the Church of Scotland, why were they not charged accordingly – or to put it into church language, libelled in terms of the form of process which has governed such situations in the Church of Scotland for more than 300 years?
Any charitable body – and, as I understand it, the congregation is a charitable body distinct from the Church of Scotland’s central organisation – has to have accounts duly audited and an abstract made available to all with a legitimate interest. It is passing strange if the presbytery, as the superior court, were not obtaining, as a matter of course, audited accounts of the congregation and enforcing, as is normal presbyterian practice, an annual examination of all the records of every congregation.
Be these things as they may, matters have now come to a head. The congregation no longer wish to be associated with the structures of the Church of Scotland. The property was bound to be a contentious issue but, on the other hand, it appears to outsiders that the Church of Scotland is awash with surplus property and didn’t build the property in question anyway. The response of the media to sheriff’s officers being sent to a prayer meeting is hardly surprising. Legal action which involves even a return of hymn books seems, in the larger scheme of things, almost farcical.
The Church of Scotland could, of course, have acted in a way which would have appeared magnanimous in a difficult situation. The media coverage seems to have made the judgement that they did not. The media coverage seems further to have made the judgement that the reason was probably to warn office-bearers of any other congregations unhappy with the situation in the Church of Scotland that they could expect to have the full force of the secular law brought against them should they attempt action similar to that of St George’s Tron. The media are not, in this instance, dancing to the Church of Scotland’s tune, but does the explanation for the media’s view of the situation really lie entirely in some deep-rooted conspiracy in St George’s Tron, as Ron Ferguson seems to allege?
John MacLeod
In his article ‘The fall guy for a project hostile to the spirit of Scotland’ (6 December), the editor is too kind to Andrew Dixon. He appears to have missed an episode at the very beginning of Mr Dixon’s time with the Scottish Arts Council and Creative Scotland which was an indication of things to come. Mr Dixon visited Aberdeen at the height of the heated debate over the fate of the city’s Union Terrace Gardens and rushed in to support the side hostile to the arts.
In effect, this was nullifying a decision of the Scottish Arts Council. In brief, there was an almost fully-funded project, to enhance the amenity of the gardens and building an arts centre which would be new premises for the city’s Peacock visual arts centre. It was supported by an Arts Council grant of several million pounds. Planning permission had been granted and it was estimated that the project was three months from breaking ground. Then an alternative scheme was promoted heavily by business interests in the city. It made no provision for the arts centre and controversially would remove the gardens as a feature of the city centre. This was the scheme which Andrew Dixon publicly supported. He appeared not to know or care that the grant funding and the arts centre would be lost. Peacock is still in former church school buildings which are needing repairs.
Was he really just a fall guy? He happily took his salary.
Mentioning the Press and Journal was also appropriate. The paper was nakedly and unashamedly on the side of the City Square project, going against the interests of the arts and good journalism, but guarding its advertising revenue.
A J Fenwick
Arts bureaucrats tend to be troubled beings. Their appointments are often seen as acts of apotheosis as they dispense largesse often with cruel impunity. The big power arts barons (read board-members) believe talented artists are tedious proto-nationalists, opaque expressive elites or even creative terrorists seeking to forge an autonomous audacity often within a nation-language fuelled by bitter class experiences.
Accepting a senior post in Scotland’s current ‘bubblin an bilin’ arts and cultural cauldron will require a profound understanding of the core function of supporting artists and cultural talent. Will the post-holder have the necessary consciousness of the plural nature of current artistic expression: possess the enormous courage, political savvy and hopefully the prior respect of artists in Scotland? The ground is shifting as we migrate towards a ‘sovereign sensibility’. How do we express this new day while retaining our internationalism and profound humanism?
This may seem redundant but with the current board still in place the candidate will require a professional/intellectual grasp of what constitutes the Scottish arts community. More particularly will the new person have an appreciation of/for the several regional, ethnic, civic, linguistic, social and above all artistic options and talents available? (There is also the need to have an acute awareness of the social nuances that create the troubling cultural schizophrenia often seen in our arts.) The new director should also require some hint of experience of the incredible variety of forms, frames and modes of contemporary Scottish expression.
There is a political problem in arts management, dialectical in nature. Artists should be able to say ‘fake-off’ to power. Yet they are required (almost like the feudal minstrel/fool/bard) to go proposal-in-hand to seek a crumb. (Jim Kelman doesn’t ask and exists on £15,000 a year from writing).
So can Creative Scotland (as currently constituted) create a sustainable (and thriving) future for artists; develop a supportive creative climate characterised by integrity while seeking expressive excellence?
Creative Scotland should look after arts development: providing artists with time and space to create. Inter alia its remit should be to discover fresh talent, instigate, nourish, nurture and enable while supporting established artists. For this to happen we must move out the power of the bankers who see life differently.
But there is a case for a Scottish cultural industries sector but not in Creative Scotland. Let Scottish Enterprise seek opportunities to apply technology to talent. There are entrepreneurial opportunities in publishing, print-making, computer games, digital arts, design, craft, fashion, the recording industry, heritage tourism and above all in an indigenous film/TV production industry. But this down- stream commercial industrial development vision (with export potential) needs very different heads who seek profits not prophets. (Move in the bankers.)
So Kenneth Roy is so right in suggesting that the minister/cabinet needs to take a much more vigorous and formidable look (again) at Creative Scotland. First step change the board, then change the vision, change the remit and give artists a chance for change.
Thom Cross
Denise Davis
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