Controversial Writing in Scotland by Neil McGowan
I’ve been following the news this month with interest. As a writer in Scotland, I’ve been watching the introduction of the new Hate Crime bill and the (predictable) results.
If you’ve not seen the detail, basically, if you say or write something that someone perceives to be hateful, then they can report it (and you), with the maximum penalty being 7 years imprisonment.
As you can imagine, writers across Scotland have been viewing this with some consternation. I myself write quite dark, gritty psychological crime, and as such, I’ve written characters that run the gamut of the seedier side of life – violent, racist misogynists tend to feature quite a lot in crime fiction. In fact, I’d argue that part of the purpose of crime fiction is to explore the more unsavoury elements of society, and see what makes them tick – is it nature, or nurture, or a combination of both?
But writing characters like these doesn’t mean I agree with their views. I’ve written characters before whom I consider to be utterly repugnant, to the extent they’ve been hard to write. It doesn’t mean I stop trying, or that I try to ‘dumb it down’ for people – that, to me, would be cheating. I’m aiming for the literary equivalent of lifting a rock and shining a light on the unpleasant things scurrying about beneath. Do I always succeed? I wish! Do I always try my best to make things sound authentic. Yes, hand on heart, I do.
The issue with this new law is that someone could read something I’ve written and construe it as a hate crime. This in turn, has the potential to lead us as writers to censor our writing in an effort to make it palatable to everyone. And that’s not what I want to do when I write.
Thankfully, it seems like it’s already unworkable from day one – the amount of complaints that have gone in have been in the thousands, from those complaining about J K Rowling, to people complaining about football chants. Now, I can’t stand football, and even I know it’s a tradition (or an old charter, or something, to paraphrase Robert Rankin) to heckle the other side. Yet apparently this is hate speech…
The most amusing and ironic thing is the person with the most complaints is the first minister, the one who’s been touting this law – over a thousand complaints on day one due to a speech given in 2020 which some have construed as anti-white rhetoric.
Sigh, I feel like pointing out that 1984 was a work of fiction, not an instruction manual. As the ancient curse says, may we live in interesting times.
Comments
And how dreadful that it gives pause to writers, artists, comedians, actors, theatre and opera directors because, as you say, the law is so badly framed that someone could, say, denounce a production of Othello, for the nasty racist things that Iago - the evil anti-hero - says about his master. The law can’t possibly work, so you should just carry on writing as intended but it’s hard not to have it at the back of your mind. Which is terrible for freedom of thought, expression and art in general. Perhaps there’ll be a massive exodus of writers, artists and theatre people from Scotland.
Second attempt at commenting - trying not to be too intemperate!