Cover Article: "Sons of Scotland"
On the turmoils and toils that forged freedom for the Scottish Spirit

Article by Garth Duncan.

When I asked Garth Duncan to write the Cover Article for our Sons of Scotland issue, he gladly accepted. It would be easy to write about the usual elements of Scotland's culture, history, and about her swords. But tried as he might, each attempt refused to take form like steel resisting a smith's blows. But finally one night, when he pondered what the Spirit of Scotland was about, the revelation seized him like a fist - a voice of history refusing to be silenced. It gripped him with so much passion that tears fell upon each page has he wrote.

When he read it to me several nights later, I could not help but fight back my own tears amid a sea of rememberance of Scotland's long dead sons and daughters.

We must never forget that the price of freedom that they paid. Its cost is so great it has costed many lives, even today. We must never - ever - forget.

And with that said, as Editor of SFMO I am proud to present to you Garth Duncan's article.

- Adrian Ko

The sight of a beautiful sword gives my soul a kind of enthusiastically innocent strength - the symbol of an ancient covenant that if I am vigilant, I and my children will be free.

A symbol of the very real, dirty, sweaty struggle - not just in the past, but now.

Scotland who defended her independence by sword for millenia was humiliated in the night by her own sworn servants. And in 1707, politicians sold for guineas what Scotland's sons and daughters had preserved for thousands of years with their fortunes, their blood and the lives of heroes - all lost in a moment by a greedy few.

Does this sound familiar?

These lessons are not for lamenting over in armchairs, tearfuly toasting our noble dead. This is a live continuing history which we are part of.

What will you tell the heroes when at long last you meet and they ask, "Oh! You did toast us and march in parades, how thoughtful! But what did you do with the gift we gave you? What safety or trinkets did you trade for your legacy of freedom? How many scoundrels did you put out of office, and did you foster liberty for the next generation?"

Don't laugh, for as sure as you are reading this, we will all one day owe an accounting.

The sword makes apologies to no-one for its gleaming romantic images of chivalry, honor and self-imposed responsibility. But today, so many frightened and weak-minded souls laugh at the romantic ideas of freedom, honor and sovereign responsibility. Laugh all you want and perhaps you won't notice the broken chains of slavery being mended.

The Parliament in London since 1707 has used ridicule and humiliation to keep its servants. Every year that there was a vote for home rule, London would start laughing at the Scots for thinking that they could possibly be responsible for themselves. This laughter masked a terrified bunch who have, for generations benefited from the industrious Scots.

Unfortunatley, the honest Scot - who hates more than anything to be laughed at - would start laughing along with London as to not want to be the brunt of yet another joke and thus lose heart, and sheathe the ancient sword and give up again the romantic idea of independence.

Until last year.

Who knows what brought the Scots together to ignore the leers - possibly just a simple reminder from a dead hero in the form of a Hollywood actor?

Whatever it was, it prompted the Scotland's Sons and Daughters to unsheath that beautiful shining thing and the sight of it made the liars quiet - not just quiet but they returned a few things which they had borrowed:

• The Stone of Destiny - a Scottish treasure without upon which even today in Britain no true king or queen can be made.)
• Scotland's Parliament and Sovereignty .

And for those who haven't gotten it yet, I'm not just talking about Scotland.

I am at present living in the People's Republic of Santa Cruz, but I take my sword out almost every day.

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