Monday, April 6, 2015

Wearing my Kilt on Tartan Day - WHY?


It's April 6th - Happy Tartan Day. 
Here I am proudly wearing my Clan Davidson kilt and my bonnie blue bonnet with the white cockade. Clan Davidson is one of the oldest families in the world. One source suggests they trace their lineage back to the biblical David ("son of David"). I don't know about that, but I do know that the Davidsons were Picts. The Picts were the people living in what is now Scotland when The Roman empire first invaded Britain. The Romans never conquered the Picts.
The Blue Bonnet with a white cockade was worn by the "Jacobite" Highland Clansmen fighting alongside Bonnie Prince Charlie against the English Government in 1745-46. Clan Davidson was one of the Jacobite Clans in "the '45." The Prince wanted to restore the Stewarts to the Throne of Britain (which had been "illegally" taken from them by the english Parliament). The clansmen fighting alongside him were probably more interested in keeping Scotland (or maybe the highland clans) independent of an english political-financial system which threatened their more traditional way of life. To be fair, this english "economic feudalism" (which I think evolved into capitalism) had already changed the highlands. And some of the clan chiefs (the wealthier ones) decided to fight with the english against The Prince and his Blue Bonnets. After successfully threatening London, the Jacobites were chased back to Culloden outside Inverness where they were slaughtered by the english government forces. Once this resistance to their objectives was removed, the english government pursued a policy of cultural (and arguably physical) genocide against the highland clans, culminating in the forced removal of people from the land to make room for sheep herds - because sheep were more profitable. But Jacobite sympathizers remain. And the battle of "we the people" against "government for private profit" continues.

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