Happenings · 5:51am Sep 19th, 2014
Not even slightly pony- or writing-related, for which I apologise.
But it's been a hell of a day so far, which is impressive considering we're not even seven hours in as I type this. Most people who follow me or stumble across this could be forgiven for not knowing what's been going on in Scotland lately. Long story short, we were holding a referendum on independence from the rest of the UK. There were a lot of good reasons - or at least, reasons that convinced me - to go for it: increased democratic accountability in our halls of power, control over our own resources, separation from an increasingly myopic and callous political establishment in Westminster. The list goes on.
The results are in. 45 percent for independence, 55 against. Not everyone was convinced.
It's not the end of the road. Promises were made by the UK's leading politicians in the last desperate week when it looked like we might win this, promises of power and further devolution that we can damn well hold them to. The road to independence hasn't ended. We can move on, learn from the past, and do better next time.
In the meantime, still some amount of emotional frazzlement and sleep deprivation in these quarters. I should catch up on the latter one of those, and hope that sober wakefulness doesn't leave this looking like too much inarticulate mince.
Be decent to one another, all. We'll have to do a lot of that here soon enough.
So Scotland is still British, for now. Guess the army base near my hometown won't be getting smaller after all.
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Politically, for now. Geographically, only until my ingenious plan of sawing along the border and using whales to tow the whole landmass towards the Caribbean can take effect.
What's your hometown?
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Strength, or a somewhat morose facade thereof, is being maintained.
There were a few stirrings from Americans in social media about it. I wouldn't be surprised if awareness and overall interest were generally higher in those US states whcih have more of a secessionist tendency of their own. (I'm assuming Michigan doesn't have an especially large independence movement, correct me if I'm wrong.)
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Medicine Hat in Alberta, not far from the Suffield military base. It's periodically flooded with British soldiers that train out on a large patch of land they share with an oil company. From meeting the soldiers when they come into town I've met a decent number of Scots. I've also learned that they really hate being mistaken for English, even more than the Australians do.
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Heh. It's a matter on which we can get a bit prickly, no denying that.
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I recommend a good war, followed by reverse-annexation. That'll sort it all out nicely.
Although upon looking at the Wikipedia article for it and all the excellent things I like therein ... a sparse population? Long winters? Scandinavian influence? Pasties? My list of potential emigration options has just increased by one, and I now feel compelled to defend this region's honour.
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In my professional capacity as someone who has occasion to regularly head into the Highlands here, I'm grudgingly nodding my head at pictures of the place and saying, "Well, it's not bad, I suppose."
michpics.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/laek-of-the-clouds-by-neil-weaver.jpeg?w=500&h=333
Emigration's unlikely to ever be seriously on the cards. Too much hope for this particular little bit of geography to improve and rise to ever really want to leave it. But yeah, definitely much worse places to go.
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Short-term fallout? A great amount of confusion, bitterness, diminished spirits, and some amount of awkwardness around family reunions. There was a lot of high spirits riding on this and a lot of optimism and political engagement, and a few rifts have been opened. Hopefully, we can bounce back from that in short order.
Long-term? Depends entirely on what Westminster does. On the one hand, it would be flat-out stupid of them to not try and mollify half the Scottish electorate or bring about some degree of greater federalisation in the UK. If they break their promises or, gods forbid, try to punish us in some fashion, then a future referendum on the same issue is all but a certainty.
On the other hand ... nobody ever made much betting on the competence of our government. And while the various party leaders did join ranks to promise more powers to Scotland if we voted to remain in the UK, there's a significant amount of people and members of Parliament from the rest of the UK that would begrudge Scotland getting any more what they perceive as favouritism.
Honestly, I don't know. I hope some sort of meaningful change is on the horizon, at least, even if it isn't what nearly half of us wanted.