When the Black Rain Falls

"Once the black rain falls in Scotland, Scotland will be free."

Some 300 years after a wandering Scottish mystic called "the Brahan Seer" made that Delphic statement, it is turning out to be almost literally true. The "black rain " is about to fall from a vast array of oil rigs in the North Sea. Not coincidentally, the country is undergoing the first widespread resurgence of nationalism in this century. One indicator of the new mood was the dramatic breakthrough scored in February's British elections by the Scottish National Party, a modest fringe group for most of its 40-year history. Claiming, among other things, that "it's Scotland's oil," the S.N.P. won 22% of the Scottish vote and seven seats in Parliament. Last week the Scottish Labor Party--a branch of the British Labor Party that holds a majority in Scotland--reversed a 16-year record of adamant opposition to home rule in favor of an elected assembly for Scotland and direct control over all its oil revenues. While the Conservatives do not go that far, some influential Tory strategists favor a stronger "Scottish identification." But politics is only one aspect of the emerging mood, as TIME Correspondent William McWhirter discovered on a tour of the country. His report:

There are no demonstrations, no underground armies of the night, no threats of violence in the air. Indeed, the nationalist campaign in Scotland is being conducted rather like a civilized divorce proceeding, as befits a people who pride themselves as much on what they repress as what they show. "You can't live day to day with your own rage," says Neil Kay, 25, a graduate student in economics at Stirling University and a Nationalist activist. "If we're going to do anything, we are going to do it by rational and reasonable methods."

The case for greater autonomy is gaining surprising strength. It is built upon both a Scottish sense of uniqueness and a fear that if affairs are left to drift, Scotland will be in deep trouble. Fishermen worry that with Britain's membership in the Common Market, they will be powerless to prevent incursions from European fleets. Residents of towns touched by the offshore oil boom are anxious about the soaring inflation brought on by, among other things, sudden prosperity, population growth and shortages of housing and services.

There are as well the grating frictions between two neighbors that were joined in 1707 under Queen Anne but are now in a distinctly unequal relationship. The Scots still sardonically call themselves England's "last colony," and their irritations range from their country's being described as one of England's "regions" to the hordes of wealthy Englishmen--dubbed "white settlers" by Scots--seeking cheap summer homes in the Highlands.

Greater Glory. The greatest obstacles to Scottish independence in the past have come from the Scots' own jaundiced view of themselves, as plain and prickly as the thistle, the Scots' emblem. For centuries they have resented their position as a nation of 5 million people with its own language, democratic tradition and legal system, but without so much as a single self-governing political body. "We have an entire nation that has been submerged into believing it is inferior," says Author Robert Shirley, 46, of Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University. Recalls Hugh MacDiarmid, the country's greatest living poet: "When I was in school, you were punished if you lapsed into the Scots dialect. You were never taught much more about your own country than, of course, what a great thing it was to have been handed over to the greater glory of England."

In characteristically understated and laconic fashion, the Scots about five years ago began to feel a new sense of confidence. "The Nationalists," says Edinburgh Journalist Chris Baur, "began meeting all over the country, gathering in groups of 15 or 20, just talking about policy and the issues and enjoying themselves." North Sea oil, with its promise of doubling the country's revenues from whisky (some $250 million annually in sales to the U.S. alone), ships, foodstuffs and tartan knits, became the Nationalists' crunching argument. With annual profits of $1.5 billion expected to flow in from the North Sea by 1980, the Nationalists argued that Scotland could manage without the economic support that Westminster has poured into the country since the mid-'60s.

The clamor for control--or at least a big share--of North Sea reserves was accompanied by a rising sense of cultural pride as, in the words of Scots Folklorist Hamish Henderson, "a civilization claws itself back to life." The blue and white Scottish flag is increasingly flown. The Drybrough brewery prints the flag on its export cans, while the brewer of Tennent's lager pushes the slogan: "It's good ... It's satisfying ... It's Scottish." Scots revel in the fact that the country's soccer team qualified for the World Cup final this year while England's did not.

Certainly much of the sentiment for independence is tied to the Scots' feeling that they would be better off without the dead weight of England's colossal problems. "England is bankrupt and has nowhere to go," says Robert Curran, 50, a recently returned emigre. "Our whisky alone could float the government." Many Scots resent the fact that they hold few influential positions in the south, while Englishmen control many of the best jobs in Scotland. Despite net emigration losses totaling nearly 20% of the population since the mid-'50s, the Scots suffer an unemployment rate twice as high as, and a standard of living 12% lower than, the rest of Britain. Despite the idyllic beauty of much of Scotland, cities like Glasgow are scarred by ugly slum districts.

Vehicle of Expression. The Scots view the English as wanton spendthrifts locked into an immutably snobbish class system. By contrast, they emphasize their own rough candor and their belief in a radical kind of social justice. "The only class accent in Scotland," says Poet Sorley Maclean, "is the English one."

Even so, it is a long way from national uniqueness to abolishing a centuries-old political union. In the words of Margot MacDonald, a Nationalist leader in Glasgow's Govan district, the movement is more a "vehicle of expression" than a fully articulated political organization. Though it is gaining recruits at a rate of 1,000 a month, the S.N.P. has not yet won over a majority of Scots. Instead of independence, many would be satisfied--and may indeed prefer --the formation of a Scottish parliament operating within the framework of continuing union with England. Most important, nobody can reasonably expect the British to abandon North Sea oil, which Westminster sees as the basis for solving its own economic woes.

Despite the unlikelihood that it will achieve its ultimate aims for some time to come--if ever--Scottish nationalism is being discussed, in this most empirical and skeptical of countries, as Scotland's first significant political movement of the past 50 years. At the very least, the movement has revitalized the Scots' sense of their own uniqueness. Poet MacDiarmid recalls a statement by Robert Louis Stevenson that "there are no adjacent peoples in the world so utterly and inalterably opposed to each other as the Scots and the English." To MacDiarmid the lesson to be drawn from Stevenson's insight is this: "All I want to do is widen the difference. Scotland must now play its part." Ever growing numbers of Scotsmen agree.

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