It is the hallmark of small town politics that local disputes and vested interest grow to obscure the larger picture. While all the parties in Scotland should raise themselves above this sub-parochial level in the interests of the nation, the scuffles over the Homecoming Scotland 2009 festival are not reassuring.

Let’s start with the controversies. There have – very late in the day – been three criticisms of this all-but-year-long celebration of Scotland.

• It has been highjacked by the SNP where it should be an all-party promotion
• It is a purely commercial enterprise aimed exclusively at the North American market
• It has been badly marketed by VisitScotland

The first charge:  hijacked by the SNP

In relation to the first criticism – of hijacking by the SNP – the first and crucial point is that once elected, any political party is translated into a government. It therefore needs to see itself and to be seen differently.

The second point is that, from an objective point of view, what the current Scottish Government picked up from its predecessor with this festival was little more than an unfocused idea. From its early origins, For Argyll is on the record as being highly critical of itslack of strategic planning and organisation.

The mooted event had no philosophy, no focus, no strategy. The criteria and arrangements for applications for project funding were unstable. For Argyll regarded it as an event bound to fail.

When the current Government was elected in 2007 it chose- surprisingly – to stick with the notion and to try to inject some vitality, structure and direction into it, even at what was a late stage for a national initiative.

Whatever the present shortcomings, there is no doubt that this was done. The setting of the goalposts in time – from Burn’s Night to St Andrew’s Day – does shape the imaginative focus. The energy in lifting the event off the floor has made a very real difference and created some sense of purpose.

If the event was to be saved, it has had to be Government driven. As a celebration of Scotland it may well sit more comfortably within the political phiosophy of the SNP – but that party did not originate the concept. In this context, accusations of ‘hikacking’ are little more than the wails of attention-seeking children in a schoolyard.

The second charge cluster:  too commercial, too single a focus on North America and too little focus culture

The second charge has been given specific voice over the last few days by the academic, Professor Tom Devine. He has revealed that he left the committee formed to oversee the event after a single meeting. He felt that it was too commercial in its purpose, too weakly focused on culture and limited largely to North America in its marketing. Today (26th January), Professor Devine has also sugested that it should deal with the dark side of Scottish history in its connection to slave trading.

Here there a few herds of sheep and goats to be separated.

Too commercial

Of course a national event of this order and type has a strong commercial basis. So does the Edinburgh Festival, the Edinburgh Tattoo and the Edinburgh Hogmanay celebrations. The success of these events in measured in hard foreign currency not cultural worth. That does not mean that such events are not potentially and actually hugely worthwhile experiences.

Too little ‘culture’

The very notion of ‘culture’ is the marshiest of all grounds to step on to and even Tom Devine would be hard put to come up with a definition which would not bring sniping and outrage around his ears.

Beyond that, Scotland’s world of culture and the arts has not recently shown itself fit to be involved in organising or conceptualising anything. The mess that is ‘Creative Scotland’ bears sore witness to this – from the Minister Linda Fabiani downwards. This includes the ferrets-in-a sack in-fighting of the two bodies whose merger has been proposed: the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen. Vested interest has ruled.

Too single a focus on North America

Pragmatically, the return on investment – a real consideration – is bound to be greater in the largest clusters of the Scottish diaspora – or scattering. But remember that in the last third of the last century and into the present, there is a new Scottish dispora driven by the oil industry. North America has unimaginably large clusters of first generation Scots centred on that industry. Of course this is a prime market for the potent notion of homecoming. But we don’t know whether these specific areas have indeed been targeted.

The third charge: poor marketing

Then there is the third accusation – of poor marketing. This cannot be defended.

Professor Devine’s charge of too single a focus on North America is compounded byNorth America too being left largely as a mareketing free zone. It is only in this last weekend that the ‘Caledonia’ video has had an outing of sorts on the television channels in North America. This late effort was then undermined by DVDs distributed for transmission failing to work.

This video is the single main plank in a feeble campaign. Points to be made about it include:

• The concept is unimaginative, lazy and poorly executed.
• Its nature is inescapably parochial – how many people, even in Scotland, outside a very specific fanbase , are going to have the least idea who the rugby players are?
• The quality of its production is unimpressive. With You Tube as an obvious dissemination target, highly skilled compression is crucial and VisitScotland does not seem to know this. Then many of the contributors were shot against green screens and very obviously superimposed on – poor – background footage. Who would have guessed that the klller setting for golfer Sam Torrance’s line is the unforgettable Ailsa Craig, or Paddy’s Milestone? Where exactly is it in the frame?

And then there was the distribution. It was only being shown in Scotland. While the quality problems would have been an incentive to keep our blushes close to home, it is a curious marketing focus for a ‘homecomng’ event.

Professor Devine’s vision of making contact with Caribbean nations directly connected to Scotland through the slave trade, with many bearing Scots names, is an imaginative, healing and inclusive one.

There really is no reason for anyone other than VisitScotland to defend VisitScotland. It is inept. It has achieved serious and expensive failures of many kinds and is a prime candidate for corporate euthanasia.

On the ground and from the ground

For Argyll is not pessimistic about the event. We have our own initiative for which we have sought no funding. It has involved us in making a wide range of contacts with people, businesses and communities abroad.

Some are now indeed coming to Scotland this year but our main purpose is to weave a web of contemporary connections potentially of mutual support and advantage.

We are interested in these connections for their own sake. We are providing contacts, information and business development ideas; and when our contacts come here we will meet them and support them.

Those contacts then become available to Scots abroad, a nugget of the known in a new place.

Homecoming Scotland 2009 will have plenty of quiet initiatives like ours that wouldn’t have happened without the imaginative prompt of this event. Together they will add up to the real legacy of the year.