Motion S1M-03989.1: Michael Russell, South of Scotland, Scottish National Party, Date Lodged: 10/03/2003

UNESCO World Book Day 6 March 2003

As an amendment to motion S1M-3989 in the name of Ms Wendy Alexander (UNESCO World Book Day 6 March 2003), leave out from "the greatest" to end and insert "whose literary contribution to world culture was immense; further notes the immense contribution of other great writers from these islands who are almost too numerous to mention but who, in terms of international significance, must include Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Oscar Wilde, Seamus Heaney, W B Yeats, Dylan Thomas, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens and a vast number of others living and dead; celebrates all those who wrote, and continue to write, in the different languages of these islands and in many different genres; particularly remembers Sorley MacLean, one of the great European poets of the 20th century, who wrote in Gaelic, and Hugh MacDairmid, who wrote in Scots as well as in English; welcomes the contribution that World Book Day makes to an understanding of the importance of literature to our cultures and the way in which it can foster an appreciation of other perspectives on our world and thereby develop an international outlook in children as well as in adults; congratulates those modern Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish writers who were mentioned in the various shortlists compiled for World Book Day and, in particular, Matthew Fitt, whose ground-breaking novel in Scots featured on the BBC Radio 4 shortlist and Des Dillon, whose novel Me and Ma Gal was voted the book that said most about Scotland in the actual World Book Day poll, and encourages all those involved in politics, education and culture in Scotland to maintain and develop a generous and wide-ranging view of literature and resist any narrow, ill-informed and ideological perspectives which can only distort true critical appreciation of creativity."