Ive lived in one country my whole life (the USA) with the exception of a nine-month stay between 1993 and 1994 in Scotland. It was in Scotland that I really started thinking seriously about history - Scottish history, British history, European history - and THEN American history, which has become a lifes passion and profession. So I have some strong and mixed feelings about what may happen in just six days - the dismemberment of Great Britain and the creation of an independent Scotland. My hunch is that the referendum will lose in a close vote, much like Quebecs did in 1995. But I could be completely wrong, in either direction. What I find amazing is the paucity of sound argument in either direction, as if both sides are stuck in a kind of time warp. For the independence side its as if the 1980s are back, North Sea oil riches have just come on, Thatcher is still PM, and Scotland has no devolved parliament. For the union side its all about the greater glory of Victorian Britain and the Scottish Enlightenment inside an imperial Britain. Add in the benefits and woes of being a small nation within Europe and you have a debate that seems more like national catharsis than a calculated vote on a peoples future. My sense is that a yes vote will have more profound political consequences than economic. It will force the Labour and Liberal Democratic Parties in England to strike some kind of union in order to become a viable opposition to the Tories. Perhaps the biggest change within Scotland will be long-needed land reform, so that 432 people no longer own half the nations land as sporting estates. As a devotee of the great Scottish skeptic, David Hume, let me just say that the past is not necessarily the key to understanding the future. My own heart says Yes a thousand times. My head says Hmmm, I havent clue. I suspect a lot Scottish voters will be weighing history and heritage, politics and economics, pride and humiliation (the anti-independence arguments from within England have exhibited the tone-deaf patronization Scots have come to despise for centuries), confidence and trepidation.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 10:50:15 +0000
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