The first thing that anyone needs to know about the Scots is that they are the greatest people on earth! They'll tell you that themselves; and they'll vindicate their boast on the grounds that this small nation has thrown up more great men for its size than any other country in Europe. It has to be admitted that there is some slight justification for what they have to say when you come to consider that it was the Scots who invented or discovered the telephone, television (prostituted by the English and the Americans); even the Thermos flask the modern bicycle, to say nothing of the discovery of penicillin.

The second thing that anyone needs to know about the Scots is that most of them are probably the most stupid lot of fools in existence. Today Scotland has, out of a population of 5 million, a third of a million unemployed - with more to come. This in a country that had a potential as rich as that of the Arab oil states; but while the Arabs sold carefully and used their newly gained millions to improve the conditions of their peoples, the Scots allowed the English to rob them of everything. When the Scottish National Party claimed that it was "Scotland's Oil" the English and their toadies immediately yelled "We're all British and the oil is Britain's". The old gag about the mean Scots was worked for all it was worth. The Scots fell for all this and the cowards of the SNP characteristically gave in.

A few years ago, when Scotland looked like achieving some measure of independence, the English and their lackeys proceeded to batter us with an anti-Scottish propaganda exercise that half the idiot-Scots accepted - or appeared to accept. Large posters defaced our land. The newspapers (including Scotland's self-styled 'National Newspaper!') were defiled by intemperate advertisements. They proclaimed "Scotland is British" and they bore the ultimate insult of having England's cross imposed on Scotland's lion. In any other country these posters would have been ripped from the hoardings. In any other country the newspaper offices would have been blasted; but not in Scotland. The Scots merely laughed at the posters and left them to damn their own cause. But did they damn it? They did not. The people of Scotland have been so conditioned as to accept lies as truths and insults as normal. Were the so-called Scots behind this anti-Scottish campaign traitors and fools, or fools and rogues? Let us see.

As far as I know the psychology of group treachery has never been fully researched. There are studies by the score of individual traitors. But what exactly is a traitor? Scotland's greatest patriot, Wallace, defiantly and rightly denied the treason charge. He had never given allegiance to the English. England was Scotland's enemy, and he was a Scot. But that argument carried no weight with the English king. Then, as now, to the English anyone who does not support England - who refuses to be an imitation Englishman - is a traitor. The English, of course, are not alone in thinking along such lines. The revolutionary Breton is a traitor to France; the Basque freedom fighter is a terrorist traitor to Spain; and two thousand years ago any Jew who did not accept the Roman law was a traitor to Rome. Yet today any Palestinian who fights the Jews is a traitor to Israel. It's a wonderful world!

But the English carry their charges to a greater degree than any of the other imperialists. The English - following the Roman example - consider that they are conferring a tremendous honour on the barbaric Celts whenever they care ot offer citizenship. Anyone who refuses to accept is immediately proclaimed a traitor to England - or "Britain", whatever "Britain" may be.

That brings me to quote a few individual cases. Was Roger Casement a traitor? Of course he was. He was an Irishman who had sworn allegiance to the English crown and had even gone so far as to accept a knighthood from the king of England. So he was, to that extent, a traitor to his native Ireland. But when he came to his senses and supported the cause of his countrymen against England he spurned his knighthood, flung back his so-called honours, and publicly proclaimed that from then onwards he was in every sense an Irishman who intended to fight in any and every way for his country's independence. As everyone knows - or ought to know - the English executed him for his courage. He died a true patriot to Ireland. Maclean, Burgess and Blunt were certainly all traitors to England; but they were more than merely traitors and simple political fools. As homosexuals, Maclean and Burgess suffered from the then prevailing strong antipathy to their kind. They may only in the beginning have been rebelling against the 'respectable' society that, to a certain extent, rejected them. It is also possible - and I am prepared to have this theory laughed at, and I may even laugh at it myself - that Maclean was, in some strange way, reverting subconsciously to his distant Scottish Jacobite background with its detestation of all things English.

Philby was a traitor. But he was a Communist, and as such he regarded himself as an Idealist; his ideal was the overthrow of Capitalism. So he turned to the USSR. Given his "idealism" and his stupidity, there was maybe some excuse for him. Fuchs was another idealist, but with a vastly different background. He was by birth and ancestry a German, by naturalisation an Englishman, and he had long lived in America. He was a man without roots; and he quite honestly believed - as more intelligent people everywhere believe - that nuclear war is an abomination. Unfortunately, he followed the wrong pathway, and we have Fuchs to thank for the ghastly position the world is in today. Fuchs thought that by passing to Russia the secrets he possessed he was making the 'inevitable' holocaust an impossibility. It has, of course, brought it all the nearer. Yet we cannot get away from the fact that the man was an idealist; he was also a fool. Most idealists are fools in some degree. Yet despite all that, it cannot be denied that the idealist is the highest type of man or woman. Even idealist cranks are far superior to political opportunists or military madmen.

Back to Scotland and the anti-Scottish propaganda exercise of a few years back, which would deny Scotland even the mildest form of devolution. Every one of the few truly patriotic Scots - and that does not mean every proclaimed Nationalist - is prepared to accept some form of devolution as the means to a greater end: the end being, of course, complete independence. But the sub-Scots - England's slaves - with their warped minds and their personal greeds, their craving for titles and their ambitions for high office - are determined to prevent Scotland from ever regaining any measure of freedom. An independent Scotland would put them at the end of the queue. In the meantime it seems almost impossible - short of violence - to confound these people, who have only one aim. To suit their own ends they will sink to the lowest depths in the hope of dragging Scotland still lower, with the greatest hope that they will eventually rise above the morass.

That we are a nation of rogues and fools is only too apparent; and it is also apparent that, like all fools, we are a complacent people. So we are - up to a point! But history has proved that - if driven hard enough - we are as violent a nation as any in Europe, and probably more so than most. It is all very well for the self-seeking rogues and the place-makers to sneer at our aspirations - they even have the audacity to sneer at our once glorious Celtic past. But our past and our future are ours. A nation is not merely land and water: it is men and women and all that has gone before them in their own very particular corner of the earth. Despite everything, the ancient fires still smoulder in Scotland. The odd spark may fly harmlessly away; but blow on the spark, kindle the right kind of flame, and the flame will spread like wildfire. The traitors - backed by England's military power - know all that. They know our country's history as well as any patriot knows it. They know too - and better than most - the history not only of our distant past but of yesteryear. They know that today, half a dozen 'violent' Nationalists are in jail; and they know that at large there must be among the fools thousands of potentially very violent men and women. There comes a time when words are not enough.

Ronald MacDonald Douglas, 1992
These arguments are, in the main, derived from some of the author's articles which appeared originally in 'Catalyst' Magazine (The 1320 Club, Edinburgh) and 'The Irish Book' (Talbot Press, Dublin) and reprinted from the Siol nan Gaidheal magazine, 1992.