Will Scotland
become an independent nation? The question’s on everyone’s lips. Politicians
and businessmen work it back and forth every day hoping to coax some emotion
(translation: votes) from an indifferent public. The vote in September is
likely to be close.
It’s worth reminding ourselves that SNP --- the party leading the charge for independence, is the Scottish National Party. However the N might as well stand for Nationalistic.
Nationalism and its
cousin Patriotism are in vogue these days. The United Kingdom Independence
Party (UKIP) along with the vanguard of the Conservative Party are out flying the Union Jack and trying to get people steamed up
about putting Britain
first, getting out of the European Union and all its nefarious regulations. Send home all those Polish plumbers, bus drivers and doctors who are
stealing our jobs. After the Scottish Referendum, we may well face a referendum on whether to leave the EU. It's the same basic question.
I hate nationalism and patriotism in all
their manifestations. The idea that human beings of one country are in some way
superior to others is a dangerous illusion that has built oppressive empires
and given rise to more wars and suffering than any other idea. Right now blood
is being spilled in the Ukraine
over it. Europe owes its long peace after WWII to an
overall softening of nationalism, the recognition that countries have more to
gain by focusing on their common humanity than their differences. Cultural
differences? They’re just that --- cultural, acquired over the years through
repetition, passed on as traditions, but they are essentially acquired
behaviours. They do not make us fundamentally different. We all suffer when
bereaved, fear death and pray to our God (or gods) when we feel insufficient.
We are all capable of love.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Scotland :
the land, the people, the mists, folklore, ghosts, the music, dances. I
wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. But the idea of putting Scotland in a box
and drawing borders around it, emphasizing a false division with the rest of
the UK reminds me too much of the unfortunate division of Ireland into two
pieces and its consequences. Let’s not fool ourselves. Scottish Independence
(if it happens) will stoke a great deal of resentment on both sides of the new
border. After it’s done, a new sense of alienation will linger between the two
“nations.” The division of the UK
will be a messy divorce with a nasty aftermath.
The Scots feel, with some justification, that they do not
get a fair share of the goods from Westminster .
But so do the Cornish, the Welsh, the Yorkish and the Northern Irish. In fact
everyone outside Greater London gets paltry treatment. Let’s face it, that’s where the bulk of the
votes are so that’s where the biggest spending is, on housing, theatre, music,
transport etc. The problem can be solved, but do we really want to try to do it
by chopping up the UK ? The battle of Bannockburn ,
when Scotland
threw off the English yoke happened 700 years ago. We can’t go back to those
days. Both psychologically and as a nation, we’ve come a long way since then.
