One article: Two titles. Scotch whiskey: Worthy of cultural protection; Scottish people: Not worthy of cultural protection

Written by John (the other John).

The European Union has registered Scotch Whiskey with a “Geographical Indication” (GI) within the EU, which grants it a special form of intellectual property rights that is applied to products that have unique characteristics and a reputation associated with their origin.  As a GI, Scotch Whisky is protected from misuse, imitation, evocation and any other commercial practice to mislead consumers. What this means in layperson language is that Scotch Whiskey has unique characteristics that make it uniquely Scottish, and thus its cultural distinctness must be protected from being “diluted” with imitation non-Scottish products which will litter the good name of Scotch Whiskey. (Similarly, this GI registration has been granted to other EU commercial products to protect them from having a “mutt-effect” or that of “bastardizing” the uniqueness of European commercial products, which otherwise would be a tremendous loss in corporate profits and government tax revenue; two things that must be prevented at all costs).

That being said, the EU does not grant the same GI status for the Scottish people (or any other ethnic European people), by protecting them and their culture/history/language/religion/etc… from “misuse, imitation, evocation…” by non-European peoples, which effect is to dilute/minimize who we are as a unique people. (For instance, in many cities, you can find more mosques than Churches; more halal eating establishments than local European cuisine). Where is our GI status? We likely will never have this designation, as we are not marketable and valuable as commercial products. The only thing that matters is money (and blood money when necessary); we ethnic Europeans as humans do not matter. The only designation the EU has given us is: shut-up, spend your money, and pay your taxes.