A New York State of Mind

I fulfilled a promise to myself a couple of weeks ago. I'd been intending to go out to the US for Tartan Week for a while, but had somehow never got round to it. However, with my now Virginia-based friend Russell Horn and his wife Joanna about to become parents, I decided that there was no better time to go and visit them, and to then head up to Washington and New York to see for myself just what Tartan Week was all about.

One of the advantages of being five hours behind Scottish time is that it means you can read the Sunday papers at a civilised hour on a Saturday and still have time to hit the town afterwards. Doing so the night before my return and reflecting on what had seemed a fairly good week for Scotland, I was treated to a breath of stale air from Brian Wilson, who was busy disparaging the efforts made for Tartan Week.

Now, Wilson is noted for having a bed with two wrong sides to it when it comes to devolution or expressions of Scottishness, so maybe I shouldn't have been too surprised at his disdain for something to which Holyrood had sent a delegation. However, he certainly didn't mince his words when it came to the main actors.

An 'orgy of self-indulgent, pseudo-Scottishness' was how he described it. Doubtless with some long forgotten egalitarian, socialist nerve endings having been touched, he went on to fulminate about 'a plane-load of politicians, minor celebrities and hired hacks... transported at public expense'. You can say what you like about him and many nationalists do, but he's nothing if not quotable.

The colourful invective aside, his case was simple. Tartan Week doesn't make much of an impact in the US media. In fact, it doesn't make any connection with the modern links which exist between Scotland and the US. Therefore, continued participation by Scottish figures in the event owes more to junketry and self-aggrandisement than to the promotion of Scottish interests.

The first response to Mr. Wilson is that in a sprawling, diverse city like New York, very little will ever manage to monopolise the media. Tartan Week might not be on the scale of St. Patrick's Day, but then it hasn't been running for as long and lacks the support of a political lobby as strong as that of the Irish. Even so, I can't imagine any Irish political figures slating St. Patrick’s day as an orgy of self-indulgent, pseudo-Irishness, just because the Hudson flows green one day each year.

It's easy for us to forget that Tartan Day was conceived as a day for those of Scottish descent to celebrate their heritage, rather than a day for native Scots to lecture the diaspora on what they think it should mean to be Scottish. For that reason, we should always remember that we are there as participants and not to dictate how we think events should be. Frankly, a nation which does so little to mark its national day at home hasn't earned the right to be at all sniffy about how the US chooses to celebrate Tartan Day.

One of the few official events that I did go to was the launch of the  ‘Friends of Scotland Caucus’ on Capitol Hill. The US representatives present, both Republican and Democrat, were all keen to play up their Scottish heritage and love for the old country. Meanwhile, a warm welcome was extended to Scotland's modern day representatives from Holyrood, as well as to Alex Salmond, who as the sole Westminster representative was invited to speak on behalf of the entire British Parliament!

It was a chance which he didn't pass up. Highlighting the contribution which Scots had made to the US struggle for independence, he was rewarded with warm applause from those present when he suggested only part tongue-in-cheek that that the US might like to return the favour sometime.

And this is probably what gets Wilson's goat the most. Because beyond the simple marketing of Scotland undertaken by the Executive and its agencies, over the last few years connections have been established and simple affection has been translated into interest in the Scottish constitutional adventure. Tartan Week has meant diplomacy in action, allowing the SNP to at least part-prepare the ground with the world’s only current superpower, in anticipation of the re-establishment of Scottish statehood.

No country, however powerful, has a veto on the right of Scots to choose how they are governed. Nonetheless, the deposits of goodwill made each year during Tartan Week are ones which can be withdrawn with interest in the future by a Scottish government. That's something for which even an arch-unionist like Brian Wilson might be thankful once Independence becomes a done deal.

Rotterdam (Or Anywhere)

En route to New York, I had an unwanted and unexpected stopover in Paris. Unwanted, because it was as a consequence of having missed my connecting flight. Unexpected, because the airline I had booked with had failed to mention that even an Olympic sprinter with rocket boots wouldn't have been fast enough to get from the one gate to the other in time.

While I won't name the airline responsible, its enough to say that if you drop the letter 'n' from their name and rearrange what you have left, one possible combination would be 'Air Farce'. In fairness, I maybe shouldn’t be too harsh, because they did sort things out without quibbling. It did also give me a break in what would otherwise have been a lengthy and pretty boring journey.

It was while hanging around in various lounges and offices, waiting to find out what would become of my luggage and the self-loading cargo traveling with it, that it suddenly struck me how similar everywhere in the world is becoming.

I accept it's hardly an original thought. After all, we can see how our high streets have become facsimiles of each other, with the same shops selling the same goods being staffed by people who deal with the same problems in exactly the same way. Perhaps airport-land, with its boxy hotels, wi-fi hotspots, latte bars and default English setting, represents the advance guard of globalisation rather than the norm for most people. However, in a country which defends its culture so vigorously, it was still a surprise to see how much like everywhere else a little part of Paris had become.

Some of this was good, like being able to use my bank card to check my balance and get Euros at a cash dispenser. Being able to use my mobile phone straight away was a great help too. Having the chance to watch the Champions League live in the evening was also welcome in the circumstances. However, the 'Oirish' pub bolted onto the hotel, selling the same beer in the same glasses and serving the same club sandwich and chips that you can get anywhere, did kind of make me wish that I'd stayed in the tabac/bar in the village next to the whole sprawling complex instead.

As the Beautiful South once sang, it really could have been Rotterdam or anywhere. People recognise brands and will be drawn or repelled from them as the case may be. I know that a Starbucks coffee will taste and cost much the same wherever I am in the world; that my bank will have a 'strategic partner' almost everywhere I go; and that the chances are I'll be able to order a Guinness in a Holiday Inn in just about any city on the planet. All of which is reassuring to a point, but also just a little bit boring.

Those who describe themselves as ‘citizens of the world’ might be ever so slightly portentous, but there’s no harm if they can genuinely see a ‘bigger’ picture. What I find risible and a little sinister is when we are invited to find virtue in those who play down their local identities and linkages to become rootless consumers, defining themselves by their consumption habits and participation in what are now depressingly uniform global experiences. It is a seductive if contradictory message – ‘you too can be an individual, but only if you give up your individuality by conforming like everyone else’.

Another example of this trend comes with the adverts in 'global' business magazines, where the banks and consulting companies flaunt themselves in full colour glossy print. The style employed is revealing - since no culture can be offended, ad-world demands empty sloganeering, preferably including the word 'solutions' somewhere. And if you can hint at the 'global understanding' of the organisation hawking its wares, ideally with a hint of eastern mysticism thrown in along with the reassurance that CNN can also be seen in these fine hotels around the world, then so much the better.

Of course, the words might be recognizable as English, but you could still have difficulty understanding. Global business and those wishing to associate themselves with it now inhabit a world where nouns are impacted upon to become verbs, infinitives are routinely split and every percentage is greater than 100%. It’s a mode of unthinking and fuddled expression which has taken legs and run. Never mind being out of the box or up in the blue skies, it may even be a whole new paradigm.

All of which leaves me slightly ambivalent and cynical towards the whole globalisation trend. I like the fact that I can go to ASDA (sorry, Wal-Mart) and buy a DVD player for £20, although I suspect I would deplore the conditions in the Chinese factory in which it was manufactured. However, providing no-one is being exploited, the trade theory of comparative advantage tells me this should be a good thing if it pushes down costs, improves quality and lets other economies concentrate on offering the goods and services they can provide best.

And yet, and yet… every time I hear an audio jingle on TV from a multinational, I still want to put my foot through the screen. In much the same way, I want to hurl my computer out the window when it tries to get me to spell ‘scepticism’ with a ‘k’, or end a word with ‘ize’ rather than ‘ise’, before giving me an impudent wavy red line when I go back to correct the Microsoft-dictated Americanised ‘correction’ of what from where I hail was already correct.

The march towards global markets, free trade, outsourcing; all are somehow inevitable, just as is the trend towards greater integration in Europe or the spread of Judaeo-Christian values around the world. Resistance is futile, runs the argument. Yet if all this were inevitable, you might imagine that the chief cheerleaders would be more relaxed whenever they encounter opposition or simple scepticism towards the practicality or even desirability of their professed world view and way of doing things.

I’ll nail my colours firmly to the fence here and say that globalisation is neither good nor bad – it’s something which just ‘is’. However, unless we allow local differences to flourish, I suspect that a backlash is around the corner. Proponents of globalisation will scoff, no doubt the sort who fancy themselves as futurologists, or the PR and spin-merchants who seek to enhance their power and status by being associated with something which the gullible or passive might see as cutting edge. In the final analysis, though, their argument of inevitability is no more substantial than witless fatalism masquerading as grand wisdom.

The potential prizes from globalisation, such as those of advancing freedom of information, speech and thought, are far too great to be left to be directed by the spin-merchants and charlatans. However, I'm still left with the lingering doubt that so far, all globalisation means for the majority is stifled innovation and thought, and yet more bland sameness and conformity. Give me an entrepreneurial non-standard response over ‘company policy’, individualism over corporate blandness and the comforts of a tabac/bar over the lobby of a chain hotel any day of the week.