I was slightly perplexed to see this comment appear:
I am assuming you would not agree that Latvia and Russia, for example, are “better together”?Clearly not, but you cannot compare a brutal occupation and a mutually beneficial, legitimate union. Perhaps a little history lesson is in order.
Let's have a look at the recent history of Latvia from Britannica.com:
The uncompromising effort of the regime to transform the country into a typical Soviet bailiwick compounded the devastation of the war. Severe political repression accompanied radical socioeconomic change. Extreme Russification numbed national cultural life. Several waves of mass deportation—of at least 140,000 people—to northern Russia and Siberia occurred, most notably in 1949 in connection with a campaign to collectivize agriculture.It's hardly the same thing as a union entered into peacefully and mutually and which has served Scotland well.
From Better Together's Facebook yesterday:
It is 306 years today since the Act of Union came into effect. Over those three centuries we have achieved so much together. Our thinkers and inventors created the modern world. Our writers and artists have inspired billions across the globe. We fought together to defeat fascism. We have married, traded, shared failures and triumphs, all together. We can make history again next year by renewing the world's most successful union.The UK isn't perfect. We need proper home rule in Scotland and a fairer voting system and wider political reform at UK level wouldn't go amiss. It's the best option for us now, though, by a long way. If you believe in independence of course you are not going to see it that way. That's fine. But please don't spread the idea that we are unwillingly occupied by some sort of repressive regime, because that's just ridiculous.
5 comments:
You can't sensibly compare Scotland to Cyprus. But that doesn't stop George Osborne doing just that.
Is he a Tory or a LibDem, by the way? I can never tell which is which.
Thanks for this! As someone directly involved in the independence struggle for Lithuania in the early 1990's Ive been wondering if I could comment on the Scottish debates...
Basically Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia never recognised the legality of their incorporation into the USSR in 1940. All three 'resumed independence' and repudiated (for example) all successor shared debts. It was independence come hell or high water. A much simpler process that dissolving an Union which has many amicably created shared resources to untangle.
Some nationalists do indeed need to get a grip, but I think you might want to shy away from re-writing history too much here.
Scotland was not a democracy in 1707, the people were not consulted on this 'mutual' merger. Their 'representatives' were not elected by them. There were riots in the streets, petitions sent from every burgh against the Union. So the 'mutual' has very little truth here.
Furthermore it certainly wasn't peaceful. Aswell as the rioting there's the small matter of a major uprising a mere 8 years later in 1715. A complicated event with many factors and motivtions involved but their motto was "Prosperity to Scotland and No Union". The Earl of Mar rallied for "the relief of our native country from oppression and a foreign yoke too heavy for us or our posterity to bear." There was undoubtably a 'nationalist' element to the risings.
Add to that the 'pacification' of the highlands and it was not a case of happy families from the get-go now was it?
Obviously this is of very little relevance to the modern case for independence or against it, as do the deprevations of the Soviet Union. A more telling question would be why shouldn't Latvia rejoin with Russia? I'm sure they have lots of family living across the border they're tearing their hair out over being 'foreign'...
If Better Together are going to take such a misty-eyed romantic (And more importantly, historically dubious) view of the past then surely they're due the same ridicule Scottish Nationalists get for their romanticism?
I does not make sense to imply that you are only entitled to independence if you have been persecuted.
That is just another version of the type of person (typically Labour) who favour Irish but not Scottish independence, and who claim that the Irish really cared about it because there was a lot of fighting, but the Scots don't.
The Irish are therefore somehow then deemed to be entitled but the Scots not.
It is perverted thinking.
Just Caron being a bigot as usual.
Have rapes increased worldwide since Latvian independence?
Or does that only apply to Scotland?
Do the libdems still support the Trump plans or not? They seemed rather keen on them before turning 180 degrees just to attack the SNP.
Stinking snivelling hypocrite writes pish as usual.
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