FOREWORD
In December 2008, the then Minister for Culture, Europe and External Affairs, Linda Fabiani, announced the setting up of a Ministerial Working Group on the Traditional Arts.
This may have seemed a puzzling initiative at first glance. Scotland likes to present itself as a country striving to make its mark on a fast-moving world. A global outlook, innovation, the ability to accommodate rapid change, instant communication are seen as key attributes for success. Why would the government want to concern itself with traditions whose values would seem to be in marked contrast to those demanded by the contemporary world? The answer is that an emerging, self-confident Scotland needs a foundation from which to move out into the rest of the world. It needs to have confidence in its own identity and to recover and re-source (literally) ways of saying 'this is us' in among the chatter and throng of a crowded and sometimes amorphous scene.
Thus the cultural legacy of the Scottish people's past, its patrimony, becomes of the first importance. The traditional arts are an important part of that heritage, not least because they embody concepts of rootedness and continuity along with those of adaptation and change. It is not static, a dry, old collection of anachronisms and archaic, outdated practices. The arts of tradition - songs, music, dance, story - live continually. Every time they are re-animated they consolidate a link in a chain that snakes back centuries to the individuals and communities that made them and shaped them. They present an invitation to individuals and communities now to re-shape them in their own image and for their own use, and to offer up both the pedigree stock and its hybrids to future generations. And while they may share common features with the traditional arts of other cultures, they also embody things that are unique to us as Scots. They are ours to keep and ours to share, a patrimony for the Scottish people and the world.
The Working Group recognises also that modern Scotland is made up of a rich amalgam of cultures, each of which contributes its own traditions and arts to the national scene. While the report refers principally to the native Scottish traditions, its content and recommendations apply equally to the traditional arts of all cultures which make Scotland the place it is. However, government may wish to consider separately in more detail the special needs and circumstances of the traditional arts of our minority ethnic communities.
In this document we attempt to identify some of the key issues in the traditional arts today and to outline which parts of public life might best address those issues and take responsibility for them. Our remit was to make recommendations on optimum future support arrangements for Scotland's traditional arts. A particular emphasis of the remit was to look at the question of parity of esteem with other funded art-forms.
To that end we look at how government can help to bring national organisations to the table with traditional arts organisations, and how it can work with international organisations. We identify a key role for the UNESCO-inspired inventory of 'intangible cultural heritage' which asks for involvement from central government and local government; the Scottish government to promote and safeguard that heritage; and local government, working with organisations and practitioners on the ground, to identify aspects of the heritage and contribute to the inventory. We look at ways in which the general public can be made more aware of the great patrimony it is heir to, through access to information, education and performance. We examine ways in which the infrastructure of access can be supported and how activity at a local level can be networked to other local activity and to bigger networks which can make representations to government and national institutions. The picture that presents itself is of a great many opportunities that only require to be co-ordinated, of dots waiting to be joined. Recent initiatives such as the Working Group on Scots Language and the Donaldson Review of teacher training are important complements to this Working Group, for example.
The thread that runs through the document though is the question of esteem, and how Scotland might come to value better this living part of its cultural heritage made and re-made by the people themselves. In our opinion, the arts of our traditions: local, linguistic, literate and oral, are presently in good heart. We hope that the recommendations in this document consolidate that position and improve on it for the future.