Edinburgh Festival move is deeply misguided

In the name of neutrality, the Edinburgh International Festival has placed a blanket ban on productions addressing the independence referendum at next year’s festival. The announcement by festival director Sir Jonathan Mills has unsurprisingly stunned people across Scotland; the unprecedented move will erase the presence of the most exciting event in Scotland’s modern constitutional history from a significant cultural stage. Rather than guaranteeing neutrality, this is an attack on public debate.

I’m most concerned by the festival director’s questionable understanding of neutrality. Though I’d posit that silencing a debate is in itself not neutral but a tacit endorsement of the status quo, Mills has exacerbated the issue by showing little aversion to focussing his programme on the centenary of World War I’s outbreak. The Scotsman reports that the commemoration, taking place in the same week as the start of the festival, will be used as “inspiration” for its programme. This is more significant than you might expect.

Earlier this month, a poll commissioned by the Imperial War Museum and think tank British Future observed a suspicion among men in Glasgow that the commemoration is intended to undermine the campaign for Scottish independence. An implicit theme at the planned commemoration – which Prime Minister David Cameron has likened to the Olympics and the Jubilee – will be the strength and achievement of imperial Britain. The same poll hinted that emphasising the Scottish contribution dulls the perceived Unionist tone.

That may be why Glasgow is set to be “the focus” of the centenary, with even the Queen appearing at a service in Glasgow Cathedral next August. The event will no doubt play down the role of conscription in bolstering the size of the British Army, and overlook the particular plight of thousands in Scotland who were forced to join the war despite making formal objections. The Jimmy Reid Foundation has rightly called for recognition of brave public figures in Glasgow who opposed the outbreak of the war, but they have so far been ignored.

The centenary is destined to be politicised in one way or another. The contentedness of Mills with its influence on his festival programme ought to ring alarm bells as a result – it seems to betray an understanding of the referendum as a minor political debate that can be swept under the rug, rather than something that will increasingly occupy the national consciousness until (and probably beyond) polling day. Various attitudes to the referendum will manifest in the rest of the programme. By rejecting explicit “referendum events”, Mills has sacrificed any hope of mandated balance.