Today is the day Scott's go to the polls. The Scottish Referendum brings up some mixed feelings for me. As a person of Scottish decent, I have been watching what is going on. Now, I don't live there, and truth be told, never visited but always wanted to, just never had the opportunity. Because of this, the outcome really won't affect me directly, but here are my two cents anyway.
The Scottish part of my heritage hails from the Isle of Lewis. As anyone of Scottish decent can tell you there is no love lost between the Scottish and English. Century's of bitter fighting between the two country's and still after all these years there is still animosity between the two. With that in mind the swell of Scottish pride to be its own independent country again makes sense. Lord knows there is no one more proud or stubborn than a Scotsman.
That being said, as a Canadian of french decent on the other side, I have seen what this type of infighting can do to a country. We here in Canada are no strangers to referendums. While there are real issues at the heart of them, they tend to boil down into political posturing and rhetoric, wasting huge amounts of money on both sides and rarely address any of the problems that stirred things up in the first place.
Another thought is that I have to wonder if this is the right move for Scotland. As the rest of Europe is slowly coming together, one can see a time in the not to distant future where there is possibly a "United Europe", and one could also imagine that someday a United Earth government. So as we ever so slowly move in this unifying direction, it seems that breaking away is going in the wrong way.
Whatever the outcome, there will be some history made today. A union over three hundred years old will either survive or unravel, but in the end there will still be two old neighbours living next door to each other.
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| G'un robh math agad! (good luck) |
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