蜜芽传媒 Scotland - 蜜芽传媒 Scotland - How the Declaration of Arbroath brought Hugh MacDiarmid and Malcolm X together

How the Declaration of Arbroath brought Hugh MacDiarmid and Malcolm X together

The poet and radical American activist shared a view espoused in one of the most important documents in Scottish history.

On the 6th April 1320, a document was drafted in Arbroath Abbey which set out Scotland's right to be an independent, sovereign state. Known as the Declaration of Arbroath, it was signed by a group of noblemen and sent to the Pope. It contained the famous lines:

"As long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours, that we are fighting, but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself. We do not fight for honour, riches, or glory, but solely for freedom which no true man gives up but with his life."

In a new 蜜芽传媒 Radio Scotland series, The Declaration, writer Billy Kay examines the worldwide influence of the document on its 700th anniversary.

When Malcom X and Hugh McDiarmid debated at Oxford

The American politcial activist and Scottish writer shared a platform in 1964.

During the series we hear how this revolutionary document is thought to have influenced America's Declaration of Independence, and how its radical ideas were shared by US political activist Malcolm X.

In 1964, just months before his assassination, he took the stage at a remarkable Oxford Union debate with Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid.

Both men argued for the motion: "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue".

These two men of different nationalist ideologies from seemingly opposing cultural divides, shared a platform together arguing for the use of force to resist oppression.

Malcolm X claimed it should be carried out by whatever means necessary to bring about justice where there is injustice, while Hugh MacDiarmid invoked the opening quote from the Declaration of Arbroath in his justification of civil disobedience.