With the the 60th Anniversary of the partition of India being "celebrated" (how they can celebrate an event marred by such tribal violence and near genocide I don't know... hey let's celebrate the Holocaust!) we in Britain get the beginnings of our partition as planned by the SNP in Scotland.
Nationalism is one of the great evils of the 20th Century, the breakdown of the empires into nationstates was the beginning of the waves of genocide that have torn this world apart. They started with the Russian pogroms against the Jews and the Turkish killings of Armenians and Greeks during and just after the First World War and still haven't ended nearly a century later (Hey Darfur! Let's have a Sudan nationstate for the Sudanese and get rid of anyone different!).
We must not allow the feelings of ill will between the "English" and the "Scottish" to lead to a break up of our country. Why? Because history has shown that said ill will only increases with a partition and can take decades to heal. Just look at India and Pakistan, the Balkans etc. etc.
Let us try to live together in our multinational country filled with vibrance and cultural diversity rather than pidgeonhole ourselves into bland, national units in a biege nationstate.
3 comments:
This is not an easy question of course. It would benefit England financially if Scotland and Wales had their own independence. However the question is more than just a financial one. If they vote for independence what can we do but let them go. We can not send in an army of occupation. We did that in Northern Ireland and have paid a very heavy cost for that and we are doing it again in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Oh I'm not proposing forcing anyone to remain in the Union. Democracy is the best system we have and if a majority want independence so be it.
What I am saying is that history has shown that when such unions break down violence and/or hatred usually fills the gaps. And I'm not talking officially sanctioned violence, I'm talking grassroots attacks (mob violence).
I know it sounds mad to even think that the Scottish and English could come to blows in this day and age.
But then again that's probably what they thought about the Croats, Bosniaks and Serbs.
What you say is true. I used to live in Bristol and some times I would go over to Newport or Cardiff. Sitting in a pub listening I would hear anti English expressions. Deep down the Welsh have a racial antipathy to the English that comes out in sports matches, but it is there on both sides, just under the surface. It could always break out into violence given the right situation to set it off.
Post a Comment