Jump to content

Recommended Posts

and why is there always talk of shetlanders being shetlanders and not scottish?

 

you are both!! just like aberdonians are scottish!! invernesians are scottish the list goes on! shetland is not that uniquie!!

 

Its probably a personal thing. I feel no connection or affinity with Scotland any more than England, Ireland or Wales, it wouldn't matter which we were "officially" hooked up to, its just not there. Scots culture, and for the most part their history as well is irrelevant to me. I can't say I feel particularly "British" either, but if I have to pick a label of some sort, that's the only one I could pick on a national level. I don't feel any more affinity to Scandinavia either though, we've been too long gone from their direct influence, just the same as we've been too short included in Scottish influence to be able to feel either is a natural "home".

 

Historically we have connections with Scandinavia, Germany, The Netherlands, Scotland, Britain and France to only name the main players, and that is both the problem and the explanation. We are too much of any one of them to be able to just throw our lot in with any of them and feel comfortable and at home, the strength, to some of us at least, of connection to the others is still too strong. Wherever we are, unless we stand alone, we'll always feel like the adopted kid in the family.

 

It is changing though, and changing rapidly. For the last 100-150 years the Scottish/British influence and mutual exchange has grown steadily, to the exclusion of other influences, the most recent 40 years of those its been moving like a bat out of hell. Obviously different people feel it differently, for yourself the assilimation is complete, or virtually so, but for some of us, the division is still very clear and felt. Another couple of generations and/or 40 years continuation of the present though, and it'll be barely noticable by anyone. We're a people and culture in transition, from a unique one that had endured and very slowly evolved over a number of centuries, to one that is trying to assilimate completely in to another in less than two centuries.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is pie in the sky.

Spain wants Gibraltar back. Britain does not want to give it back.

Spain does not get Gibraltar back. The end.

 

Norway does not want Shetland "back". Britain does not want to give it back. Norway does not get Shetland back. The end.

 

Argentina wants the Falklands back.... etc.

 

Kavi Ugl says:

"we, as a community, are not prepared to stand up and do anything about it..."

I think that the reason for this is simple: "the community" is happy with the way things are.

I don't know many Shetlanders who are pining for the fjords.

 

I am pretty confident that if there was shown to be a wish in Shetland to go back to Norway Norway would welcome us with open arms. You say Britain doesn't want to give us back. I wonder why?. Exactly, for one reason and one reason only - oil.

 

This is the difference between Britain and Norway. Britain "wants" Shetland for one reason and one reason only - oil. Norway on the other hand, whilst aware of the natural resources, would actually consider/s Shetland as a part of the overall country.

 

It is true that Norway has higher costs and living expenses but I would rather have that and be living in a vibrant and prosperous place than be living in a terminally ill, and facing a slow painful death place. And that's what Shetland is facing.

 

I actually know Shetlanders who are living and working in Norway and they report that there is no comparisson to life in Shetland.

 

It's is one half true that Shetlanders are content with their lot but that's only because of the oil/Charitable Trust/SIC money that has been sloshing around. It created a false sense of well-being that has lasted for 20-30 years but now the financial chickens are coming home to roost and the true state of Shetland is becoming clearer. And what's the one and only answer that this community has for it?. An abortion of a windfarm that will destroy the very land under our feet and the lives of those unfortunate enough to be living in it's shadow. As Ghostrider has said previously, it's the/a final throw of the dice.....

 

The other half holds true that many Shetlanders privately hate what's happening/happened to Shetland but understand, as I'm finding, that it's more than your life is worth to come out and say it.

 

You can argue about how "British" or whatever Shetland is until the cows come home but the simple fact is we have a choice to make - stay where/as we are and die or change and survive....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I am pretty confident that if there was shown to be a wish in Shetland to go back to Norway Norway would welcome us with open arms. You say Britain doesn't want to give us back. I wonder why?. Exactly, for one reason and one reason only - oil.

 

Why do you think Norway wants Shetland back (I'm not saying they do btw), I'm guessing natural resources and not some long standing wish to have a set of islands back that stopped being under its control some 500 odd years ago.

 

This is the difference between Britain and Norway. Britain "wants" Shetland for one reason and one reason only - oil. Norway on the other hand, whilst aware of the natural resources, would actually consider/s Shetland as a part of the overall country.

 

If that were the case why isn't it making stronger representations to have it returned, when I was in Norway nobody said anything about Shetland, even after mentioning thats where I come from. They didn't seem to view it as a priority.

 

The other half holds true that many Shetlanders privately hate what's happening/happened to Shetland but understand, as I'm finding, that it's more than your life is worth to come out and say it.

 

I do agree with some of what you say, Shetland should be prioritising care to those who've lived on the isles all their days over anyone who has just turned up. The isles should also be prioritising housing for those who've been longest on the list and not folk who've just turned up with a need for housing. That applies to all regions though, I don't see why anyone moving into any area should jump ahead of a family that has lived in an area their whole life.

 

The Norway stuff though I just don't see it, I don't know anyone on the isles that mentions their love of Norway and their want for the isles to return to Norwegian control.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is pie in the sky.

Spain wants Gibraltar back. Britain does not want to give it back.

Spain does not get Gibraltar back. The end.

 

Norway does not want Shetland "back". Britain does not want to give it back. Norway does not get Shetland back. The end.

 

Argentina wants the Falklands back.... etc.

 

Kavi Ugl says:

"we, as a community, are not prepared to stand up and do anything about it..."

I think that the reason for this is simple: "the community" is happy with the way things are.

I don't know many Shetlanders who are pining for the fjords.

 

I am pretty confident that if there was shown to be a wish in Shetland to go back to Norway Norway would welcome us with open arms. You say Britain doesn't want to give us back. I wonder why?. Exactly, for one reason and one reason only - oil.

 

This is the difference between Britain and Norway. Britain "wants" Shetland for one reason and one reason only - oil. Norway on the other hand, whilst aware of the natural resources, would actually consider/s Shetland as a part of the overall country.

 

It is true that Norway has higher costs and living expenses but I would rather have that and be living in a vibrant and prosperous place than be living in a terminally ill, and facing a slow painful death place. And that's what Shetland is facing.

 

I actually know Shetlanders who are living and working in Norway and they report that there is no comparisson to life in Shetland.

 

It's is one half true that Shetlanders are content with their lot but that's only because of the oil/Charitable Trust/SIC money that has been sloshing around. It created a false sense of well-being that has lasted for 20-30 years but now the financial chickens are coming home to roost and the true state of Shetland is becoming clearer. And what's the one and only answer that this community has for it?. An abortion of a windfarm that will destroy the very land under our feet and the lives of those unfortunate enough to be living in it's shadow. As Ghostrider has said previously, it's the/a final throw of the dice.....

 

The other half holds true that many Shetlanders privately hate what's happening/happened to Shetland but understand, as I'm finding, that it's more than your life is worth to come out and say it.

 

You can argue about how "British" or whatever Shetland is until the cows come home but the simple fact is we have a choice to make - stay where/as we are and die or change and survive....

 

So if this was to go ahead as you say, let's have a look through your heavily rose-tinted spectacles and see how different life would be for the average Shetlander:

 

We'd still have to go on a 12 hour ferry journey to get to the nearest city, which is still not the capital of the country and would still require an (expensive) onward journey to get to a major transport hub. If you didn't take the ferry then it would be a 1 hour flight, again probably to Bergen, with no Air Discount Scheme to keep the costs down and again an onward connection to anywhere else you wanted to go.

 

You would be arriving in your adopted 'home' country and into a land where very, very few Shetlanders speak anything more than a few words of their now 'home' language - quite a unique situation for the developed world. So would Norwegian become compulsory in the Norwegian education curriculum that all the bairns would now have to complete? As it is not one of the wider spoken world languages like French or Spanish, it would put the children at a fair disadvantage for going anywhere else in the world other than Norway if this was the main second language learned.

 

Back home, there would still need to be some local authority, and sadly it would probably be a continuation of the existing one who will continue to make appaling decisions with the same oil reserve money that they are busy squandering today. Oslo would show as much interest in these windswept scattering of rocks in the North Sea as you claim Edinburgh do at the moment.

 

Now that we are no longer part of Britain and the EU, they may well be quite within their rights to ask for repayment of all the money they have ploughed into the place over the past decades since you've decided we're too good for them, which would leave us with even less cash.

We wouldn't be part of the NHS anymore, so would have to pay higher taxes to cover health care (along with everything else), and the cost of living which is already proportionally higher than the rest of Britain, which we used to be part of, so we would be even more out of pocket than we already are.

 

Would we have to change all road signs into Norwegian (which only a handful of folk understand), drive on the right and buy left hand drive cars to comply with the rules of the new country, or would we perhaps elect to keep the bits of British life that would be too difficult to change, and cherry-pick the nice bits to keep this Utopia alive?

 

We would all have more time to work on our crofts and go fishing about the night, because TV and radio would all again be in an unfamiliar tongue to us, but hopefully The Shetland Times will remain in English (spit spit) so we can at least get a weekly grasp of what's going on, and maybe a translation of what the politicians in Oslo are doing to make life better or worse for us, but probably better since they care so much about us.....

 

Still, on the bright side, although we'd be broke from paying higher taxes, buying new left hand drive cars and shelling out more for transport, tearing our hair out trying to understand the new native foreign language and still left with the Hjaltland Øy Råd running the place, at least we'd have the warm fuzzy feeling in our bellies that we think Norway want us more than those horrible Brits because of some thing that happened 500 odd years ago that sounds quite good....doesn't it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, that's okay then. I never said it would be perfection, but what I've tried to say is that as things stand and because of where we are Shetland will eventually fade and die.

 

Infact, it's happening as we write - the only thing that's slowing it down is the SIC and oil and gas(SVT). Once they've gone we'll have very little to fall back on. The one thing we could have had - the fishing industry - will be gone by then.

 

Infact, the truth is there's no real oil industy in Shetland - just the SVT. Where are the hive of activity oil bases?. It's all being run from Peterhead, Scrabster and Aberdeen. Most days when you look at/pass the Greenhead base it's lieing empty!.

 

I hear a lot of fuming and arguments against returning to Norway(or even home rule) but I hear nothing about what you're going to do to keep Shetland alive....

 

So, let's hear some suggestions about how you're going to fend off the EU and save and re-build (what's left of)the Shetland fishing industry, or what plans you have for Shetland post oil and gas, or how you're going to inject new life into Shetland.....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What a load of nonsense from this freeloader who I'm sure we all hoped had gone on another sailing expedition (one way this time!) . He has nothing to lose and seems to revel in upsetting people. He'll have his day in court but let's not kid ouselves that the the court sees this guy as anything other than one of life's inconveniences.

 

PT

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest SJP17

Lighten up Kavi !

 

Please ease up on the doom mongering , maybe you should move to hollywood i reckon you could write some good disaster movie scripts :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11000 !

 

There is more chance of you winning the euro millions than the population going that low !

 

Not a chance in my opinion

 

It was at 17,300 in 1971 before oil came, and that was with quite bouyant fishing and agriculture industries. Remove oil/gas as a factor, and what are you left with. Nothing! What will be here to "keep" anyone, and don't say VE, as that is nothing more than a pie in the sky scheme that only exists in the minds of a few and on paper. *If* it eventually arrives (in anything similar to its currently planned form), and if it is actually profitable, then its a factor, but not before. And while it *may* provide some income from profits to the CT, it will provide damn few jobs once completed and producing (if it ever gets that far).

 

If there's no oil/gas activity, little fishing, and minimal agriculture, there's nothing actually here to give anybody a reson that they "must" stay here, that's not to say people still won't choose to stay here, but it won't be because the local natural resources are vital to their activities, it'll be because they "want to". As such they will be a very unstable and largely transient population which is likely to fluctuate significantly. I'll be very surprised if by then the core population can even reach 11,000.

 

In the same way as the smaller isle of Shetland have suffered a steady depopulation over the last century or so, as they either became unviable or the folk there demanded a better lifestyle that could only be supported by being part of a greater landmass and population. Shetland as a whole will inevitably in time succumb to the same phenomenon.

 

If you want to see an example of what is IMHO likely to become in 50 or a 100 years, take a look at the history of Papa Stour over the last 50 years. We're now at the same stage as they were at circa 1970 when they put that Ad in a south paper inviting folk to come and stay. Sandy & Co. opened the door on that one a few years back.

 

40 years on, Papa Stour is....well, look at it. Chances are the mainland of Shetland will look somewhat similar in around 2050 or so.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is the difference between Britain and Norway. Britain "wants" Shetland for one reason and one reason only - oil. Norway on the other hand, whilst aware of the natural resources, would actually consider/s Shetland as a part of the overall country.

I think this analysis is remarkably trivialised and way off the mark. The oil issue is without doubt paramount, but typically one of the main reasons states object to having parts of their domain secede is the wish to avoid the resulting emasculation and dent to national pride. I think that applies particularly so in the case of the UK. As for why Norway doesn't seem to be commenting much on the idea of a renewed westward expansion of their empire? I'd suggest it is because they are sensible enough to realise that such an idea is dead in the water.

 

It's is one half true that Shetlanders are content with their lot but that's only because of the oil/Charitable Trust/SIC money that has been sloshing around. It created a false sense of well-being that has lasted for 20-30 years

If that is true for Shetland, and I'd agree it is so, it is many times more true for Norway itself. Of all the states on the planet, Norway is well up the list of those whose economic success is down to a lucky discovery of free treasure waiting to be pumped ashore. You moan about the damaging effects on Shetland's society due to the Sullom generation's affluence. Fair comment I'd say, but it is also very true of what has happened to the Norskies. Norskies today are very different to the pre-oil Norskies. Much smugger and in many cases appearing to live on a different planet.

 

Maybe if Norway had not had its oil boom they would be petitioning to get back in the Kalmar Union.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What a load of nonsense from this freeloader who I'm sure we all hoped had gone on another sailing expedition (one way this time!) . He has nothing to lose and seems to revel in upsetting people. He'll have his day in court but let's not kid ouselves that the the court sees this guy as anything other than one of life's inconveniences.

 

PT

What evidence have you that Stuart is a "Freeloader"? I thought he was a pensioner? I feel sorry for you that you have the misguided impression that the courts are the be all and end all in this world. As I have said before He is standing up for his beliefs and misguided or not he has the right to challenge authority if he so wishes, as have all of us if we had the guts to do so, most of us are simply following like sheep baaaaaaaa.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Instead of critisising me, why not come forward with some suggestions like I asked for?!.

 

Alas, I don't consider myself qualified in socio-economics, geo-politics or astrology to give the definite answer to the problem, but that doesn't mean I can't comment on and criticise an idea that I perceive to be deeply flawed.

 

I do think that having local control of the fishing industry outwith the CFP is a must, as well as developing renewable energies like tidal and wave, and also wind - but absolutely not on the scale of VE - more like a series of smaller community owned developments with a view to energy self-sufficiency rather than spending vast sums of money in a project that has a reasonable chance of failing to provide the return that is hoped for and forecast. If the council were so sure about the optimistic forecast from VE would they be closing schools, cutting back investment and restructuring jobs if this massive rotating goose was only a few years away from laying its golden egg?

 

There is no easy answer, but I do think you are painting a very negative picture Kavi Ugl. In the second decade of the 21st century we should be focusing our energies on integration, rather than independence, severance and an inward looking parochial view of where we are and where we are going.

 

Shetland will survive the same way that it has since humans first set foot on it - by adapting and changing to the internal and external changes that affect it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If there's no oil/gas activity, little fishing, and minimal agriculture, there's nothing actually here to give anybody a reson that they "must" stay here, that's not to say people still won't choose to stay here, but it won't be because the local natural resources are vital to their activities, it'll be because they "want to". As such they will be a very unstable and largely transient population which is likely to fluctuate significantly. I'll be very surprised if by then the core population can even reach 11,000.

 

I would say the population and general social situation in Shetland in 100 will be very much dependent on the situation elsewhere, and we will have to see what Peak Oil, a changing climate and a fragile global economy bring in order to know that. If Shetland's in a slump and everywhere else is flourishing then of course we'll see mass depopulation. But if the rest of Britain/Europe is also struggling (and there are many who believe it will be even worse than struggling) then Shetland will probably be in a better position, at least population-wise. There will certainly be fewer reasons to leave.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest SJP17

I guess we will have to wait till 2050 and see what happens ?

 

Theres probably a fair chance ill be pushing up the daisies by then so to be quite honest im not sitting worrying about it !

 

Oh by the way the population in 1792 was around 21000 , so i think your worst case scenario outlook is way off the mark.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...