UNESCO Chair Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts (RILA)

On Monday 24th January Glasgow Afghan United celebrated Burns Night and Mawlana Jalal ad-Din Mohammad Balkhi, acknowledging the bonds between Scotland and Afghanistan and bringing people together to find out about our multicultural heritage in Scotland.  

Over 200 people joined the online event. The programme included a welcome and opening remarks by: 

• Lord Provost Philip Braat RN, City of Glasgow 
• The Right Honourable Nicola Sturgeon MSP - First Minister of Scotland  
• HE Masoud Andarabi, Former Minister of Interior/DG NDS Afghanistan  
• Anas Sarwar MSP, Leader of the Scottish Labour Party  

And The Immortal Memory of Robert Burns by UNESCO Chair, Professor Alison Phipps: “There was a lad was born in Kyle”   

Read Alison’s contribution below and view the Facebook Live event recording at https://www.facebook.com/GlasgowAfghanUnited  

Immortal Memory of Robert Burns  

There was a lad born in Kyle goes the first line of one of the most sung songs in Scotland - the tune is traditional as is the course, the verse is Burn’s own celebration of his birthday. Rantin Rovin Robin.  

In it Burns imagines the day he himself was born.   

And what a day – ‘cold Januar wind.’   

Robin. The diminutive, affectionate nick name. We also know him has Robbie; as Rabbie; and, on Sunday’s as Robert Burns.

Robin - a roving’ boy; ranting’. robin’  

This chap will dearly like our kin’
  
So leeze me on thee, Robin - blessing on you Robin.  

Robin was a rovin boy
 Rantin, rovin, rantin, rovin
 Robin was a rovin boy 
Rantin, rovin Robin  

Rant - to romp, to behave in a wild dissolute manner; also to play a lovely tune; to make a great valuable (loud) fuss; to blaze and burn if a fire.   

And in this age of ranting and roving these words are both an apt description of Burn’s life travelling Scotland collecting excise duties and visiting lovers and friends AND of our common human experience.   

Ranting. A guid rant on paper or with a friend is part of an established, collective Scots tradition - we’ve many a song that rants, in the sense of making a voluble fuss about injustice - that publicly and for all to hear, or with poetry and the energy of the dance will say for all to hear that how things are, is wrong. Is un just. 

And how Burns ranted:- about the plight of human beings and of nature of slavery and loss of freedom. If Burns were alive today I’ve no doubt he’d be ranting - ranting about the situation in Afghanistan; ranting about the failure of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; ranting about the Nationality and Borders Bill; ranting about the destitution of those seeking asylum. Ranting about the inability of some leaders to know the difference between truth and lies.   

Rovin’ – to move about freely; to go unchecked.:- And Burns roved too - he moved around the country. Roving has such a carefree air to it. Spring in the air and a spring in the step and you can hop across the land. And so it is that people have travelled and moved for millennia; freely. Making sure they and their families can be safe. These days we call such movement in academic times ‘migration’ and the word has been turned into a threat as well as a promise and a whole series of border controls, but rovin’ - ranting’ rovin’ Robin is the image we have of Burns as he moves across the land, freely.  

Of late we’ve had to cease our rovin’. Even from one local authority to another or one land to another. We’ve tasted the bitterness of life when such rovin’ is curtailed by a pandemic but also many of us have experienced the loss that those seeking asylum experience where loved ones are far, far away.   

So as we think of what in 2022 we might wish to immortalise from Burn’s life; and turn to his own words celebrating his own birthday and imagining freedom of speech - ranting - and freedom of movement - rovin’. We come to the secular sacred ground of what are fundamental Human Rights. The Right to Freedom of Speech and the Right to Freedom of Movement – values central to the United Nations work which unpins the work of the UNESCO RILA Chair at the University of Glasgow, which I hold.   

So lets keep immortalising ranting and rovin and remember the words of Rumi - where we also, as with the name Robin, hear a thing with feathers  - as the poet Emily Dickinson said of hope - in his words  

Rumi   

“You were born with potential. 
  
You were born with goodness and trust.   
You were born with ideals and dreams.   
You were born with greatness. 
  
You were born with wings. 
  
You are not meant for crawling, so don't. 
  
You have wings. 
  
Learn to use them and fly.”  

There was a lad born in Kyle.  
Rantin’, Rovin’ Robin. 

The Immortal Memory of Robert Burns 

---

First published: 24 January 2022