Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

“My Dream for Eigg” by Deborah Collcutt. March 24, 1995, Daily Express. 

Schellenberg sold the island at a great profit for £1.6 million to Marlin Eckard Maruma, a German ‘professor’ in Architecture and renowned artist. He later sold his paintings for hundreds of thousands of pounds to rich Arabs.

The first great irony is that Schellenberg defended his attempted theft of Eigg cultural artefacts by labelling the islanders as “hippies”. Ironically he then sold the island to a “hippy”, who was also a “pot smoker”, for all we know. But in the above article, Marlin Eckhard Maruma says that despite his long hair he is no hippie. 

In the article, he promises to propel Eigg into the green 21st century by using wave, wind, and solar power to generate electricity, so the islanders would no longer need to use their fossil fuel-driven electricity generators. When I stayed at Laig Farm around 2007, some ten years later, the farm was still using a fossil-fuel driven generator; he was obviously not very successful in this endeavour. Perhaps he had too many pipe dreams (‘pot dreams’).

To cut a long story short, Maruma has never been awarded a professorship, for which he was investigated. He didn’t seem to sell any paintings; basically, no one knew of the artist Maruma. Moreover, he seemed to have more debts than capital and income. The money to buy the island was borrowed under false pretenses, by overvaluing his assets (his paintings). This tactic seems to remind us of other scammers and crooks, such as Donald Hoover and family who have been investigated for overvaluing their properties in order to obtain bank loans. 

Time would show that Maruma was unable to keep his word, pay wages, or look after his island tenants. “Despite promises to invest £15 million in the island, Maruma failed to cough up a few bob to pay his workers, and told them to sell cattle.”

In other words, Maruma had promised to offer secure tenures, provide employment, and improve living conditions. Of course, the mistreated Eigg people were perhaps a little naïve when they welcomed this ‘saviour’ with open arms. However, Maruma was a man of straw – which is perhaps an insult to haystacks; he didn’t live up to any of these promises. It didn’t take long for the islanders to run out of patience. He couldn’t even pay wages let alone rejuvenate the island by investments of £15 million.  

Without going into a thorough investigation of the mismanagement of Eigg, it seems that the real culprit is not so much this or that laird but Scottish Law. This law has facilitated the oppression of ordinary people for centuries in matters concerned with land ownership, the rights of tenants, the rights of crofters and the rights of ordinary people living on the land. 

As one commentator points out:

So why do Scots suffer this obscene nonsense from absentee foreign landlords?

Why does this country allow vast swathes of its most beautiful land and the folk who inhabit it to be bought and sold like thieves gold?

Are we slaves? Are we serfs suffering the feudalism of the dark ages, that whole communities can be bought and sold like this?

All Scots should have the right to buy their houses and a bit of land, so they don’t have to bow and scrape to these rich egocentrics any more.

And the law should be changed to ban anyone – be they English, German, Indian or Swahili – who fancies buying our country – and the lives of our people – to use as a mere plaything.