As I write this, Scots wait for the tally of the votes gathered today which might separate their nation from over three hundred years of union with England. Regardless of the outcome, in Scotland, what about Wales?
What about Spain’s Catalonia? The Basque country? What about Texas, for heaven sakes!
It seems like everyone wants to exalt their own culture. I’m not saying separation is necessarily a bad thing, but that the movement is happening, and that it is happening now is interesting. Freedom is in, conformity is out. Union is archaic, celebrating diversity is millennial.
My last name is Scotish (think of James Watt) and my ancestors on my father’s side came from Northern Ireland. In order to keep a hold on Ireland, Great Britain sent lowlanders from Scotland to the Northern part of Ireland and carved out the latest member of the United Kingdom, namely, Northern Ireland. On my mother’s side we are from the “Auld Sod” itself, County Galway, I ‘m told. And, other than the U.S., it’s the country with which I identify.
I wonder what they are talking about in Quebec today.