What it is to be famous? A question I really want to ask of Andrew Marr....

What it is to be famous!

And what keeps your name and fame alive …..a question from one who isn’t famous! 

But one I really want to ask of Andrew Marr……

But as I say, since I’m not famous, so I wouldn’t know what keeps your name alive, but when a really famous person (no, not  reality tv, and not tv soap) I’m referring to  Prof Higgs, who does not own a mobile phone, said a former neighbour had pulled up in her car as he was returning from lunch in Edinburgh to tell him he was co-winner of the Nobel Prize…..now, that’s being famous. 

Stopped in the street!

Prof Higgs is quoted as saying…: "She congratulated me on the news and I said 'oh, what news?'" …. And after all these years, and knowing that the awards were coming round again…that’s also modesty! Oh, and he's just beginning to think of retiring.

http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/

On Thursday last week, Malala was awarded the EU's Sakharov human rights prize. Tho’ she had been tipped for the Nobel Peace Prize, that went instead to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the body overseeing the destruction of Syria's chemical arsenal.

By now, most of us will have heard of her, would recognise her name and probably her picture, too. A native of Pakistan's mountainous Swat Valley, Malala rose to prominence in 2009 after writing an anonymous blog for the BBC Urdu service about her life under Taliban rule and the lack of education for girls, which made her moderately famous. 

But for the wrong reasons, she’s now known as the girl that the Taliban failed to kill, and more recently, more positively, as the girl campaigning for girls’ education. All of which is combining to make her famous. And today we learn she's to be made an honorary Canadian citizen.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/

But what makes you famous, and even more so, keeps your name and fame alive? 

And let’s be honest, how many famous women from across the world, across the centuries can we all name beyond a few from yesterday's papers?

One of my personal heroes is Rigoberta Menchu Tum born in north western Guatemala. Now, she did win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992, 

For me it was seeing her here in Edinburgh, courtesy of SEAD,  listening to her speak, unaided, no prompts, no notes, but speaking calmly and confidently, re-telling her story:  her siblings and friends dying because of unsafe labour conditions and extreme poverty. 

Her own family’s extreme poverty prevented her from receiving any formal education, but in her teens, she began to protest against human-rights abuses by the military. Her mother, father, and brother were murdered, forcing her to flee. 

In Mexico, she spoke of the cruel treatment of the indigenous people in Guatemala, hoping she could make a difference.  

Eventually, her book, yes, she had a book published, two infact, but the first was translated as: I, Rigoberta Menchu, bringing her world fame and her role as a symbol of the brutality endured by native and marginalized people.

But will her name stay alive after she is not? It’s not unusual to be lost in history, and the mists of time.

http://latinamericanhistory.about.com/od/historyofcentralamerica/p/menchu.htm 

So am I alone in finding the irony in the fact that it is alleged that the first ‘English’ person, i.e non native to be born in the USA is recorded as a female: Virginia Dare in 1587, and less than 300 years later, we have female activists such Harriet Tubman, born 1820, born into slavery, who once she escaped, became a conductor on the 

 Underground Railroad. http://www.biography.com

Then there was Ida Wells-Barnet (born 1862 to enslaved parents) founding a newspaper, the Memphis Free Speech, publishing articles denouncing the outbreak of lynchings in the Southern USA, and that she, a woman worked almost to the end of her days promoting  civil rights and women's suffrage. Wells became one of the original founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. 

 http://www.factmonster.com 

And the irony of it all?After all, Virginia’s parents went there for a new life, a better life (does that sound familiar…were they migrants, escaping…something?), and then, the native ‘Americans’ suffered, followed by the enslavement and forced migration of Africans. Woman to woman, three hundred years…….those seeking freedom not found in their own home country set the scene for the decimation of  the original inhabitants and enslaved others.

All I’m saying is, famous people often get wiped from history. So should we try to keep fame famous? After all, it’s not their fault they get wiped from history…his story?

How could we try to keep some famous names alive and kicking either once the owners have become dearly departed, or better still when they’re still here? And where does Andrew Marr fit into all of this?

 Andrew William Stevenson Marr is a Scottish journalist and political commentator. He edited The Independent, and was political editor of BBC News......

 He's soooooooo famous, I don't need to add more here, surely!

Well, there was info circulated very recently that announced AM  is to present a programme that encapsulates the history of Scottish literature. So far, so good. But it’s called: The Men who Invented Scotland’. But hang on, is that fame? Being recognised by your initials? Or maybe  AM shares something with Prince Charles..the ears?

No one  denies that our literature here has in all probability been dominated by men. Domination though is not the same as a lack of female contributors. 

Men in the past, men in the present?My own favourites include Scott, Burns, Stevenson : you can see what I read as a child!!.

And then later, where would I have been without the likes of McILvanney, Kelman and the wonderful Gray? 

Is that fame…when just your surname is enough? 

For them? No, their fame if that is what it is, is built on quality, the ability to challenge, stimulate, provoke, enrage, enthral. 

Of course there were female writers, contributors. Margaret Elphinstone. And even earlier, Mary Brunton, who had a follower no less that Jane Austen. 

The lack of female writers ‘making it’ into the public domain is not a reflection on either women not writing, nor does it evidence women not being able to write. 

It is more a reflection of society’s view of women, and what they should and should not be doing.

And yes, those who did make it are easily & subsequently air brushed.  Remember Aphra Benn? Sorry perhaps that should be…who remembers Aphra Benn?

So what will the AM’s programme do if not perpetuate the myth of a lack of able, participating women in various arena, this time highlighting literature? If he is considering the past tense....invented Scotland....I just might have to acknowledge that yes, womens' contributions were more prolific and more to the fore, more tripping off the tongue and book shelves in the last century:  

Miss Jean Brodie. Jessie Kesson. OK, don’t all shout out at once..one’s a title, one’s an author…I know. But Liz Lochhead: she kept her head!, Janice Galloway, Ali Smith, A L Kennedy …see, initials only!

We’ve got a referendum coming up, we’re reinventing ourselves, our Scotland, all the time, 

So if it the men who invented Scotland, I hope we can find time to remember the women who’ve been ignored, passed over, forgotten, airbrushed out of .......our story…….

And just in case you’d like to consider some earlier writers, try….

Nobody's Story: The Vanishing Acts of Women Writers in the Marketplace, 1670 ...1820 ..By Catherine Gallagher.

Don’t be surprised if it’s not on a book shop bookshelf ..probably out of print!