Arts of Independence by Alexander Moffat and Alan Riach sampler

introduction
Why should we even lift our own hands to try to write in such a way
that these concerns are made more public? Why not just relax, go laissez-faire,
and what will be will be what will be?
Hugh MacDiarmid wrote in a letter of 27 November 1970:
I fear that so far as a very large part of our population is concerned the
process of Anglicisation has gone so far that they are just utterly hopeless.
However, as long as there are a hundred of us there is still hope.
There is still hope. There are far more than a hundred now. But the
challenge is immense. Despite every attempt of our writers and artists to
alert us to the distinctions of Scotland, our critical sense of their value has
been under-nourished and worn down for 300 years and more. We have
been ruled by authorities in London who care little or nothing for Scotland
and the people of Scotland. Many of us have learned not to care or set
value on our own, most vulnerable, arts. Our critical sense and self-esteem
has thereby been insulted and betrayed.
This critical sense is precisely what all our best writers and artists help
us not to betray. That is the liberty Scottish literature and the arts – like
literature and the arts in any country – insists upon and exemplifies. It is
with the arts that our hope resides and this is where it is to be renewed.
Before, during and after the Union, in an independent Scotland, their
work is never done.
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