History
One prime mover in the formation of GUSNA was John MacCormick who had previously been involved in the Glasgow University Labour Club.
GUSNA was thrown into prominence in the early 1950s when a group of its members (including Ian Hamilton who would later become a well known Queen's Counsel) took the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1950. This caused a huge scandal amongst the British establishment and it wasn't until April 1951 that the stone was found by the authorities.
GUSNA has, almost since its inception, tried to play an active part in the life of Glasgow University with its members regularly being involved in the Students' Representative Council as well as regularly nominating candidates for the election of the Rectorship of the university. Notable GUSNA Rectorial candidates of the past have included Robert Cunninghame-Graham and John MacCormick (who with Ian Hamilton as his campaign manager was successful in being elected). More recent candidates have been Pat Kane, Dorothy-Grace Elder, Ian Hamilton and the noted writer and artist Alasdair Gray. GUSNA is a constituent member of the SNP Student Wing, the Federation of Student Nationalists (FSN) and played a leading role in the FSN's formation in the 1960s.
Prominent former members of GUSNA have included Winnie Ewing and Neil MacCormick MEP (son of John MacCormick). The current president is MÃ iri Keir.
Read more about this topic: Glasgow University Scottish Nationalist Association
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“Properly speaking, history is nothing but the crimes and misfortunes of the human race.”
—Pierre Bayle (1647–1706)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Tell me of the height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space, and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pronounce thee mad.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)