Brigadoomed

Scotland Goes Next Level Orwellian

Och, Scotland: the land of bagpipes, kilts, haggis, and…the Hate Monster. No, no, not the Loch Ness Monster. “Nessie” is soooo last century. No, me wee laddie/lassie/other, you heard me correctly: the Hate Monster. If nothing else in our current cultural hellscape makes your skin crawl, the Hate Monster will do it. Police Scotland took him off their website after massive public ridicule, but the internet is forever; he’s still with us. At least I think he’s a he…could be a she…or are they a they? I dunno. Please—no one report me for misgendering Hate Monster! According to a new Scottish law, I could serve seven years in prison for it.

The Hate Monster

I held back publication of this post for a week, because the Scottish shit show that has played out in the media following the commencement of the Hate Crime and Public Order Act on April 1, has grown more and more grotesque. April Fool’s Day, indeed—for an ill-conceived, draconian and bitterly unpopular law. It outlines vaguely defined crimes, via speech or other forms of expression, which a “reasonable person” might interpret as “stirring up hate” against a specific group, such as race, sexuality, religion, trans identity. Assessing what crimes qualify as hate crimes leaves a great deal to interpretation, particularly by the police, who are charged with investigating every single report and complaint lodged. Reporting stations have been set up, where individuals can bring accusations against others anonymously. Under the new law, a random person might overhear someone saying something they find hateful, and even if they’re not involved in the conversation or situation they’re eavesdropping on, and the person to whom the speech was directed takes no offense whatsoever, the busybody bystander has the right to file a report with police against the “hate speaker.” People can be reported for things they say in the privacy of their own homes—by their own children or other family members. And here’s the real kicker: once the police have followed up on a complaint, if it’s determined that no actual crime was committed, the complaint labeling the accused “hateful” is still kept on file, and could be damaging if employers and government agencies access these records, and judge that person’s character accordingly. They didn’t do anything criminal, but some rando who should mind their own damn business has condemned them to the stigma of inclusion on a government “hater” list. Shades of the McCarthy blacklist. Orwellian times a thousand.

It should surprise no one that since April 1, there’ve been thousands of hate crime reports flooding Police Scotland. Many of those complaints have been lodged against Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf himself, the author and champion of the new legislation, citing a 2020 speech—or rather, rant—Yousaf gave in Parliament, indicting the Scottish government as white supremacist by listing each and every minister and government official he’s encountered, followed by the word white—spat out with palpable contempt. I’ve viewed the speech a couple times, and yeah, the man is seething with resentment and hatred. Yousaf ends his litany with: “That’s not good enough.” Well, sir, you do realize you reside in a country that’s 96% white? While the government could, of course, redouble its efforts to seek out qualified candidates of color, its overwhelmingly white composition is representative of its population, which is overwhelmingly white! While it may not be the thing to say these days, the fact is that unlike in the US, white people are the indigenous people of Scotland.

Yeah, I bet there’s been some shitty racist and exclusionary behavior in some communities with the influx of immigrants arriving from unfamiliar foreign cultures. This new reality, and the hostilities it can inspire in certain suspicious or prejudiced individuals, happens in every country and every community that experiences these sudden changes, which can feel threatening to their accustomed way of life. And yeah, some douchebags resort to racist behavior, rhetoric, and bullying, and these should be condemned, policed and prosecuted. But this Hate Crime Act monstrosity? It goes intrusively, abusively, way too far.

Of course, there’s much speculation about what the long term ramifications will be, but what seems inevitable is a ratcheting up of censorship and de-platforming, and a crackdown on all forms of creative expression; for example, stand up comedy. The Edinburgh Fringe, one of the most significant festivals of comedy, theatre and performance in the world, and a major showcase for stand-up comics from around the globe, annually brings over 200,000,000 pounds into the Scottish economy. These hate laws could have a chilling effect on participation, audiences and sponsors, completely scuttling the Fringe—with the likelihood of a daily debacle of protests, cancellations, and a slew of arrests of allegedly “hateful” comedians that would make the police suppression of Lenny Bruce look like a church social. But the destruction of high profile events like the Fringe, and the devastating derision of powerful celebrities like JK Rowling are the least of Scotland’s problems. The law will foment an environment in which neighbors report on neighbors, people are tempted to weaponize the law against their enemies, and communities fracture as free speech is silenced and a soviet style paranoia takes over.

Folks my age and older will remember the classic ‘60s TV show Bewitched. The sitcom, about a businessman named Darrin who marries a witch, Samantha, and moves into a typical middle class American suburb, makes comedy out of the couple’s efforts to keep Samantha’s magical hijinks and her witchy identity secret. Enter the quintessential archetype of the nosy neighbor, in the character of Gladys Kravitz. Forever snooping and spying on Samantha and Darrin, Gladys is what the Scots would call a clipe (snitch); but her attempts to expose her supernaturally gifted neighbor always get thwarted by the end of each episode. Scotland’s Hate Crime law is about to spawn an entire army of clipes, thousands of Gladys Kravitzes—or would they be Gladys MacKravitzes?

Gladys MacKravitz, nosy neighbor…and friend

Has Scotland seen a massive surge in hatred in the past four years? Is there a hate emergency that requires urgent, draconian legislation to stop its unchecked rampage through the highlands and lowlands? According to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service statistics, between 2022 and 2023 there were 5,738 hate crimes charged, down 2% from the previous year. I was unable to ascertain how many of those charges resulted in conviction. The stats show that the majority of hate crimes charged, 62%, were alleged to be racially motivated, yet interestingly, although the media chatter has almost entirely focused on hate crimes of anti-transgender bias, in 2022-23, only 1% of such hate crimes were charged; 55 in total. This, to me, doesn’t indicate some out of control wave of anti-trans hate, despite the massive spotlight on the issue, thanks to JK Rowling’s genius tweets and the protests of other women’s rights activists, demanding equal protection against misogynistic hate crimes.

It seems to me, as an outside observer, that Humza Yousaf’s objective is to crack down on race related crimes and racist rhetoric. As a man of color and a Muslim, he must see the growing tension in England and other countries, where there’s been an unchecked flood of immigration from Muslim countries. As Douglas Murray often points out, the lack of assimilation into the culture central to white indigenous Britons suggests that these immigrants are, in essence, “colonizing” the UK and overwhelming its major cities. This reality is bound to create racial tension in many communities. Is this why the Hate Monster’s message targeted young white men 18-30, using their lingo and a working class Scots accent, in a feeble effort to shame discontented youth, who apparently pose some imminent threat of hate related crime? It didn’t work.

Despite Yousef’s rancor at the homogenous racial makeup of the Scottish government, it doesn’t seem odd to me that a majority white country has a majority white government. Comprised of 9 secretaries, 18 ministers and 129 members of Parliament, the highest level positions total 156. Yousaf claims that apart from his position as First Minister, every other significant position is held by a white person. This is where we run into trouble when we adopt progressive mandates like equality of outcome. In a country whose population is 96% white, with 4% of citizens identifying as non-white, I would hope that equality of opportunity exists, whereby anyone who wishes to pursue government office has the right to do so despite race, gender, etc. Yousaf has the power to appoint to his cabinet people of color and other marginalized identities, just as his disgraced former superior Nicola Sturgeon appointed Yousaf.

Maybe I don’t know how best to evaluate this, but I do feel a bit perplexed by his indictment of the government in that infamous screed about whites. The Scottish government should, and I hope does, represent all Scots, including naturalized citizens like Yousaf’s Pakistani immigrant parents—but does that commitment require arbitrary peppering of the government with brown faces? Doesn’t Humza Yousaf, with his elite portfolio of high level government appointments, crowned by his elevation to First Minister, prove that in a white dominated country, he and others like him can, and do, achieve success? Is he some exceptional case, or a token diversity hire? It’s hard to believe that he’s so unreflective that he can stand before the government and the public, in the highest position in the land, spitting ire about injustice against brown folks seeking high office in Scotland. Um, hello??

It’s not the insipid, semi-psychotherapeutic babbling brogue of the Hate Monster, but the law itself which is the real problem for Scotland—and, I suspect, soon, the rest of the UK. Since the April 1 commencement of the new law, there’ve been close to 6000 hate crimes reported to police (more than in the entire previous year) with aggressive trans activists calling for JK Rowling’s arrest. I do love her for being ahead of them all, brilliantly gaming the whole thing by challenging the police to arrest her first. What’s fascinating is that there were significantly more complaints lodged against Yousaf, citing that 2020 anti-white rant. One has to imagine that many of the people flooding the phone lines at Police Scotland last week did so to protest the new law, defying possible penalties for“vexatious” complaints. Do the police have the personnel to follow up on all of these calls as they’ve pledged to do? Aren’t there actual crimes that authorities should be dealing with—like, for example, the out of control drug related crime problem in Scotland? It seems to me that while “Defund the Police” was a ludicrous and damaging campaign in our country, hurting the very people who need more police presence in their communities not less, Scotland could do with a bit of police defunding—if this is the kind of insanity being prioritized.