Indyref 2: This time it's personal.

[ddt]

By that logic, shouldn't Afro-Eurasia be one political entity?

That's been many a ruler's ambition, from Darius I to Hitler.

 

[Blue Bubble]

Yes, absolutely. I see it that way because of the way it spilled over into Scottish society and specifically the society I grew up in. I got seriously tired of people trying to make it all about religion when it clearly wasn't. It was ethnic dislike between a group of "native" Scots descent (i.e. somewhat less recent immigrants) and those descended from the Irish who arrived in Scotland at the time of the famine.

The people marching down the street with their flutes and their orange sashes aren't religious. They're anti-Irish bigots pure and simple. My ethnicity is on their side and I say nuke them from orbit it's the only way. My mother would say, "that's a right Catholic name that" and I'd reply, you mean an Irish name, Mum. I think she began to get it in the end.

So I see the same muddying of the waters in Ireland. It's always portrayed as a religious conflict as if a single one of the knuckle-dragging Neanderthals was concerned about transubstantiation or the immaculate conception or original sin or the need for mediation in confession or the veneration of the Virgin Mary. None of them has the faintest idea what these concepts are. It's probably less religious than the conflict in Israel/Palestine. It's ethnic/political, pure and simple.

And in spite of being of Scots protestant stock myself, my natural sympathies lie with the Irish nationalists who have reaped the consequences of generations of deliberate "plantation" of other ethnicities into their land, not as peaceful settlers intending to integrate, or even as "honest" invaders, but as colonists intending to outnumber and outvote and crowd out the native people.

And it's been happening for a long time. Robert the Bruce was at it. Sorry and all that.

Exactly this ... absolutely spot on. This very much mimics my experience growing up in West Lothian (Rolfe and I are of similar age).

 

[Planigale]

You would have thought that given all that's happened and is happening, Westminster might think to learn something, but apparently not. We're currently being told that all rules will be bent and completely new ones written to prevent a "hard border" between Northern Ireland and Ireland after Brexit. Scotland says, well if you can do that then you can use the same rules to avoid a hard border between an independent Scotland in the EU and post-Brexit England.

Oh no, comes the reply, we're doing this special rules thing for Ireland because of all the guns but since Scotland hasn't used guns then you can't have the same rules. (At the same time, of course, as dementedly characterising the overwhelmingly peaceful and cheerful referendum campaign of 2014 as divisive and confrontational.)

And then when we consider the possibility of Scottish independence, these very same people who delivered partition to Ireland (and India and Palestine and I don't know but whose fault was Cyprus let me guess) and you'd think should maybe have learned a bit, are only too eager to invent almost wholly imaginary separatist campaigns in Orkney and Shetland and bellow at the Scottish people (whom they're telling independence is too risky and an absolultely terrible idea all round) that they should immediately cut Orkney and Shetland loose because apparently three men and a dog can be found there who say they maybe fancy independence for the Northern Isles.

And they cap that with suggesting that if the Borders doesn't vote Yes in an independence referendum they'll just annexe that bit on to England.

I don't condone violence of any sort, but when you're on the other side of Westminster machinations and they're positively and almost explicitly telling you that the only way to achieve anything is to take up arms, I can see where the guy was coming from.

I suggest you read some history. The partition of India and Pakistan was driven by the independence campaigners, particularly Jinnah, while Britain might have been able to ameliorate the massacres that followed, partition was not a British action. The partition of Cyprus was not a British act. If you make so many factual errors it call in to question the rest of what you write.

The partition of Ireland was Britain's responsibility, but may have been the least bloody option and following the Irish Civil war, I suspect both the UK and the Irish Free State chose the easy option.

There are parallels one could make between Brexit and the Irish civil war.

ETA
The partition of Palestine was of course a UN act.

 

[Planigale]

Rolfe,

Wow! Thanks for taking the time to help me get some facts nailed down. Most people in the States are pretty ignorant about what happened in Ireland, and even more ignorant about what is happening in Scotland. I had a brother that spent 3 years at Eden Kyle (Holy Loch Naval Base) and yet he's utterly ignorant about Scotland. Yep...after three years living in Scotland, this is all he can tell me: people are nice; it's cold; it's wet; it very green; summer days are long; winter days are short. Strange, huh?

Any ways, I find the Irish quest for re-unification to be fascinating because it tells me so much about Ireland and the UK that I didn't know. It tells me a lot about the structure and workings of Empire - it's violence, it's propaganda, it's imperialistic mindset, etc... - and that's fascinating to me.

Again. Thank you for taking the time to smarten me up.

You could take as a parallel that Canada is to Northern Ireland as the USA is to the Republic of Ireland. That Britain is to blame for the partition of North America.
Like all analogies it clearly falls down in the detail.

 

[Rolfe]

Here we go again.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/...o_sectarianise_Scottish_politics_/?ref=twtrec

And no, it's not a side-track. It's taking into account that the same poisonous divisions were imported into Scotland and also affect society there.

 

[abaddon]

You would have thought that given all that's happened and is happening, Westminster might think to learn something, but apparently not. We're currently being told that all rules will be bent and completely new ones written to prevent a "hard border" between Northern Ireland and Ireland after Brexit. Scotland says, well if you can do that then you can use the same rules to avoid a hard border between an independent Scotland in the EU and post-Brexit England.

Oh no, comes the reply, we're doing this special rules thing for Ireland because of all the guns but since Scotland hasn't used guns then you can't have the same rules. (At the same time, of course, as dementedly characterising the overwhelmingly peaceful and cheerful referendum campaign of 2014 as divisive and confrontational.)

And then when we consider the possibility of Scottish independence, these very same people who delivered partition to Ireland (and India and Palestine and I don't know but whose fault was Cyprus let me guess) and you'd think should maybe have learned a bit, are only too eager to invent almost wholly imaginary separatist campaigns in Orkney and Shetland and bellow at the Scottish people (whom they're telling independence is too risky and an absolultely terrible idea all round) that they should immediately cut Orkney and Shetland loose because apparently three men and a dog can be found there who say they maybe fancy independence for the Northern Isles.

And they cap that with suggesting that if the Borders doesn't vote Yes in an independence referendum they'll just annexe that bit on to England.

I don't condone violence of any sort, but when you're on the other side of Westminster machinations and they're positively and almost explicitly telling you that the only way to achieve anything is to take up arms, I can see where the guy was coming from.

"Rule Brittania, Brittania waives the rules"

 

[Planigale]

By that logic, shouldn't Afro-Eurasia be one political entity?

Hopefully one day it will be.

 

[Craig B]

Hopefully one day it will be.

You can't logically stop there, but must be promoting a single world government. No wonder you're not too keen on Scottish self determination.

 

[Planigale]

You can't logically stop there, but must be promoting a single world government. No wonder you're not too keen on Scottish self determination.

Yes. I am quite happy to promote a single world political organisation with the maximal subsidiarity.

I do think that trying to divide the world into smaller competing tribes is retrogressive.

That is why I opposed Brexit.

Did you support Brexit? The arguments for Scottish independence, for autonomy of a people, that they should not be part of a larger group, that they are somehow different from the others, seem to parallel many of the arguments for Brexit.

 

[Craig B]

Yes. I am quite happy to promote a single world political organisation with the maximal subsidiarity.

I do think that trying to divide the world into smaller competing tribes is retrogressive.

That is why I opposed Brexit.

Did you support Brexit? The arguments for Scottish independence, for autonomy of a people, that they should not be part of a larger group, that they are somehow different from the others, seem to parallel many of the arguments for Brexit.

The arguments for autonomy are not that people shouldn't be part of a larger group, but that not all larger groups are appropriate.

Was it not reasonable for the Baltic Republics to secede from the USSR? The USSR's claim on them was illegitimate and oppressive. In renouncing it, the Balts were asserting no different and special status for themselves, and were in no way rejecting association with other peoples. They left the USSR, but joined the EU, because they preferred the terms of association they have had with that group.

So it is with autonomists in Scotland, and I imagine Ireland too, as regards the United Kingdom and the EU.

 

[Planigale]

The arguments for autonomy are not that people shouldn't be part of a larger group, but that not all larger groups are appropriate.

Was it not reasonable for the Baltic Republics to secede from the USSR? The USSR's claim on them was illegitimate and oppressive. In renouncing it, the Balts were asserting no different and special status for themselves, and were in no way rejecting association with other peoples. They left the USSR, but joined the EU, because they preferred the terms of association they have had with that group.

So it is with autonomists in Scotland, and I imagine Ireland too, as regards the United Kingdom and the EU.

So you feel that Scotland that entered voluntarily into a union with England to form the United Kingdom, and has been part of the consequent single nation state for 300 years is equivalent to the situation of e.g. Lithuania within the USSR?

I appreciate that these things are subjective feelings. If you feel that there is the equivalent of the KGB that arrests Scottish Nationalists and that there are labour camps on Dartmoor where whole families are transported to then I accept those are your beliefs. If that is where you come from then I can understand your belief in the need for an independent Scottish nation where you can express your beliefs without being locked up in an insane asylum.

 

[ddt]

I suggest you read some history. The partition of India and Pakistan was driven by the independence campaigners, particularly Jinnah, while Britain might have been able to ameliorate the massacres that followed, partition was not a British action. The partition of Cyprus was not a British act. If you make so many factual errors it call in to question the rest of what you write.

Arguably, British colonial rule has exacerbated the rising tensions between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

The partition of Palestine was of course a UN act.

You've never heard of the Balfour declaration? Or the Hussein-McMahon correspondence, for that matter?

 

[Craig B]

So you feel that Scotland that entered voluntarily into a union with England to form the United Kingdom, and has been part of the consequent single nation state for 300 years is equivalent to the situation of e.g. Lithuania within the USSR?

I appreciate that these things are subjective feelings. If you feel that there is the equivalent of the KGB that arrests Scottish Nationalists and that there are labour camps on Dartmoor where whole families are transported to then I accept those are your beliefs. If that is where you come from then I can understand your belief in the need for an independent Scottish nation where you can express your beliefs without being locked up in an insane asylum.

What an insulting and unjustified response to my considered remarks! I will let it stand without formal complaint, but I am surprised that you have such an abusive reaction to my observation that the Baltic peoples had good cause to expect better conditions from the EU than they had had from the USSR, and therefore their transfer of association was understandable. And that Scottish autonomists were assuming no special status for themselves by seeking to leave the British Union for the purpose of remaining in the EU. Also that the same applied to Irish nationalists seeking reunification of their country as an EU member state.

However, at least you have explained your enthusiasm for World government in the clearest terms. Independent small countries are places where people say crazy things "without being locked up in an insane asylum". May I take it that being locked up in insane asylums will be a more normal procedure in the One World State?

Factually, Scotland did not voluntarily enter a union with England. Scotland was even less of a democracy than England in 1707, and its people were never asked for their consent, but it was at the time well known that they would have refused it.

Black be the day that e’er to England’s ground,
Scotland was eikit by the Union’s bond!​

Second factual point. The United Kingdom was not formed by the union of Scotland and England. That union is called "Great Britain". The UK was created when GB was united with Ireland in 1801. The Irish people weren't consulted about that either, and continually agitated and rebelled, until at length the union was dissolved through the establishment of an "Irish Free State", following several years of carnage, insurrection, and the partition of the country.

 

[Planigale]

What an insulting and unjustified response to my considered remarks! I will let it stand without formal complaint, but I am surprised that you have such an abusive reaction to my observation that the Baltic peoples had good cause to expect better conditions from the EU than they had had from the USSR, and therefore their transfer of association was understandable. And that Scottish autonomists were assuming no special status for themselves by seeking to leave the British Union for the purpose of remaining in the EU. Also that the same applied to Irish nationalists seeking reunification of their country as an EU member state.

However, at least you have explained your enthusiasm for World government in the clearest terms. Independent small countries are places where people say crazy things "without being locked up in an insane asylum". May I take it that being locked up in insane asylums will be a more normal procedure in the One World State?

Factually, Scotland did not voluntarily enter a union with England. Scotland was even less of a democracy than England in 1707, and its people were never asked for their consent, but it was at the time well known that they would have refused it.

Black be the day that e’er to England’s ground,
Scotland was eikit by the Union’s bond!​

Second factual point. The United Kingdom was not formed by the union of Scotland and England. That union is called "Great Britain". The UK was created when GB was united with Ireland in 1801. The Irish people weren't consulted about that either, and continually agitated and rebelled, until at length the union was dissolved through the establishment of an "Irish Free State", following several years of carnage, insurrection, and the partition of the country.

The highlighted of course refers to the practice of declaring dissidents mad in the USSR. You had invoked the parallel with the USSR not me.

I stand corrected about the formal accession of the UK as a title for at the nation.

I take it then you are opposed to Scotland being part of an EU with an agenda of an ever closer union. That in your view a Scotland as part of the EU would follow the policies of the UK in minimising integration, opposing a single defence and foreign policy, and a move to EU citizenship, a common currency and fiscal policy?

 

[Craig B]

The highlighted of course refers to the practice of declaring dissidents mad in the USSR. You had invoked the parallel with the USSR not me.

I stand corrected about the formal accession of the UK as a title for at the nation.

I take it then you are opposed to Scotland being part of an EU with an agenda of an ever closer union. That in your view a Scotland as part of the EU would follow the policies of the UK in minimising integration, opposing a single defence and foreign policy, and a move to EU citizenship, a common currency and fiscal policy?

Why bother with trivial details of that kind? Once you have given your assessment that

... If that is where you come from then I can understand your belief in the need for an independent Scottish nation where you can express your beliefs without being locked up in an insane asylum.​

it seems somewhat anticlimactic to add "But before you get banged up in the madhouse, may I have your opinion on the EU single defence policy?"

 

[Planigale]

For our non-British readers. The discussion of colonialism and post colonialism is relevant.

The origin of the concepts of England and Scotland lie with the occupation and colonisation of Britain by the Romans. Prior to Roman occupation there was no cultural distinction within the island of Great Britain. Scotland was essentially defined by being north of the northern boundary of the Roman empire. This lay variably between the Antonine wall a little to the north and Hadrian's wall a little to the south of the current boundary. England was defined by being that part of Britain that was a Roman colony. The Roman colony ceased about 400. The kingdom of England re-emerged about 900. The kingdom of Scotland emerged about 900 in the North East and came to rule what would be recognised as the current geography by 1200 at the latest. So separate kingdoms in essence existed between 900 and 1700, and a single political entity between 1700 and now.

Scotland was never occupied or colonised by England with reference to the formation of the Kingdom of Great Britain which was a union agreed between parliaments about 1700 (the crowns having become united about 1600 with the Scottish King succeeding to the crown of England). As mentioned above parliaments at this time did not meet modern standards of democratic representation, but the practice of parliaments acting when they do not have a clear support of the majority of the population is not unknown even today.

What is interesting is that two thousand years later the politics of Great Britain are being defined by the consequences of border setting by a colonial power in the same way as e.g. African countries are having to do following the actions of the European colonial powers in the nineteenth century.

(NB all dates are to the nearest century and are not intended to be exact)

 

[Planigale]

Why bother with trivial details of that kind? Once you have given your assessment that

... If that is where you come from then I can understand your belief in the need for an independent Scottish nation where you can express your beliefs without being locked up in an insane asylum.​

it seems somewhat anticlimactic to add "But before you get banged up in the madhouse, may I have your opinion on the EU single defence policy?"

You suggested that there was a parallel between Scotland and the UK and the Baltic states and the USSR. Not me.

 

[Planigale]

Can I make it clear that I think that the posters here who are pro-Scottish independence are honourable people expressing deeply held beliefs deserving of respect. Craig B, AGG, and especially Rolfe (who I admire for the hard work and determination to reveal the truth about Lockerbie), are all intelligent people that make sensible posts. Discussing the topic of IndyRef and asking questions is surely what this forum is about.

 

[Craig B]

You suggested that there was a parallel between Scotland and the UK and the Baltic states and the USSR. Not me.

What did I say about them and the USSR that makes you think I should be forcibly consigned to amadhouse?

 

[Craig B]

Posted in error.