as silly as this is, i actually think it brings up a good point. in a world where national boundaries are falling and nation-states are giving way to regional associations, leave it to scotland to demand independence.
the thing is i can't figure out what they want out of this, besides some vapid emotional attachment to some long dead cultural identity. because the scots need to protect their catholic faith. or their language?
the historic context of the anglo-scot fighting is generally over-simplified, to the point that people don't really get it. scotland was generally used as a conduit for papal interests. scottish independence was never a real option; they had the ability to chose between being vassals of the english or vassals of the pope. the pope was constantly seeking to punish the english. the catholic forces attacked repeatedly from the north. but all we ever hear about is how the scots have been colonized by the dastardly english, severely warping the entire discourse. papal propaganda is very widespread and seems to really capitalize on a certain level of historical ignorance.
i really don't think this is at all different. the french are prying scotland away, yet again. this really isn't a referendum on scottish independence (ffs, it's 2014), it's a referendum on whether scotland should integrate directly with the british or european economic and financial systems. to leave britain is to enter europe in a way that the british elite will never agree to.
Scotland isn't a catholic nation, the largest religion is the Church of Scotland which is Protestant.
deathtokoalas
scotland has historically been a part of the catholic alliance, which was usually dominated by a french emperor that was a puppet of the papacy.
ach. i was being facetious...
Stark Clark
The Scottish reformation was in 1560. The English reformation started in 1534, but was repealed in 1553 by queen Mary I, which caused a rockier road to reformation including the Rising of the Northern in 1569, which yes I realise was to put a Scottish catholic on the throne, but it was then her son who finally started to try finish reformation under the Stuarts in 1603 which led to the War of the Three Kingdoms and the English Civil War.
deathtokoalas
the franco-scottish alliance was the scottish alliance that preceded the anglo-scottish alliance, and took on pro-catholic and anti-english traits at various points during it's history, most prominently during the tudor period.
Stark Clark
The Franco-Scottish alliance ended in 1560 with the reformation during the Tudor period. Then the Stuarts inherited the English throne and finally but brutally and bloodily caused reformation in full in England.
deathtokoalas
right. that's the basis underlying the facetious nature of my comment.
i mean, what are you, an american or something? you seem to have no concept of irony or sarcasm.
REZOWNO
when you generalize countries to catholic or protestant you really are just using tribal logic at that point.
Stark Clark
That was not my intention and it feels like you are twisting my words, my only point was that the Church of Scotland is the dominant religion in Scotland. However a slim majority of Scots are actually atheist/agnostic/irreligious so if anything Scotland would be irreligious.
James Red
you can real off all your book knowledge about Scotland all you want but I who actually am Scottish and have lived here my entire life know that we are not a Catholic nation and that we do want independance to finally free us from the corrupt democracy that is Westminster! We make more money than the whole of the UK. We should be able to make our own decisions without requesting if its okay to English men way way down south.
deathtokoalas
do you really think it's the english that are stealing your money, rather than the bankers and shareholders not just in scotland but throughout the world? do you not think you might gain a thing or two in return for what you send out?
but, more to the point, how does taking the british out of the equation eliminate the corruption? why don't you realize the corruption is in the institution and will merely shift?
and has it crossed your mind that you may be better off working with the british to fight off the bankers and corporate managers than splitting yourselves in two, thereby making it easier to continue to beat you down?
if that's your answer, you're being divided and conquered.
but the scots are quite good at being conquered, aren't they?
Jordan Kay
I agree independence dosnt mean shit this day and age the global elite run it all.
wexfordam
Well all I know is the language was dieing out and they had to borrow or use irish phrasing to fill in gaps not 100% if that's a stupid rumour that people spread
deathtokoalas
that sounds like a false rumour. scots gaelic is a dialect of irish, and it is in irreversible decline, but it is not a lost or obscure language the way that, say, crimean gothic is. there's no deficit of source material and there are still several thousand extant speakers.....
....but they all live very far from the urban areas and the idea that the language is going to return to scotland as a spoken language is bluntly downright laughable. it's no longer spoken because it's lost it's utility. when a language loses it's utility, it becomes useless and ought to be forgotten. there's a place for museums and whatnot, but this idea of saving languages is just being conservative for the sake of being conservative. there's no benefit to anybody in it....
