Triumph for Robert Bruce?

You can't hike through Scotland, I discovered last summer, without learning to love the Scots. But I do have to admit that, for the casual two-week hiker like myself, it's difficult to distinguish the Scots from the English. Aside from the fact that the Scots speak English that's easier to understand than that spoken by the English themselves. (The Gaelic? Um, let's not talk about that.)

All the more reason to be mildly suprised that the Scottish independence movement seems to be moving ahead full steam. A referendum on independence will be held in 2014, although there's a bit of a tussle as to whether the referendum will be drafted and scheduled by the British government in London, or by the Scottish "devolved" government in Edinburgh.

Why independence? Various economic and cultural rationales are put forth, but the real reason seems to be that the Scots have never got over the sense of being oppressed by the English, both before and after the two kingdoms were united in 1707. (James VI of Scotland had ruled that country for 36 years before also becoming James I of England in 1606, but the two nations weren't formally united for another century.¹) Little incidents like the Massacre of Glencoe, discussed with such relish in this blog last summer, seem to have left a bad taste in a sizable number of contemporary Scottish mouths.

"I'd have a brick wall across the border," the Associated Press reported a Scots woman as exclaiming. At least it's a shorter border than that running from Tijuana to the Rio Grande.

Europe's a funny place. Wonderful, but funny. The trend since World War II has been clearly centripetal -- from the European Coal and Steel Community of the 1940's, to the six-nation European Economic Community in 1958, to the ever-growing and ever more centralized European Community of today -- reinforced by the Schengen agreement, eliminating passport controls between signatory nations, and the Euro zone, adopting the euro as a common currency.

The independence and borders of individual nations in Europe seem increasingly irrelevant, at least to the outsider. But national sensitivities obviously still set emotional chords vibrating within various European countries. Scotland seeks independence from England. The Flemish and Walloons hardly speak to each other, leaving the future of Belgium in doubt. The Basques want to break away from Spain, and the Catalans are, at minimum, a bit touchy. North and south Italy are virtually two different states already. Greece won't even allow the Macedonians to call themselves Macedonians. And Kosovo? Let's not go there.

As the government in Brussels becomes ever more powerful -- which it will, despite current economic problems -- I suppose it's become safer for the constitutent countries to indulge themselves by working out some of their old disputes under the EC umbrella. If it were still every European nation for itself, with a credible external threat from, say, Russia, or from a newly aggressive Germany, Scotland might not be quite so eager to shed its partnership in the United Kingdom.

Separatism in Europe reinspires my own dreams for that long mooted breakaway nation of Cascadia -- a federal union of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. It will never happen, of course. The world would not tolerate a single country's existing with such a monopoly of rational, liberal thought and politics; extraordinary natural beauty; economic self-suffiency; superlative education and literacy; and widespread human warmth and friendliness among its citizens. Such a star -- a supernova, really -- would so dazzle the eye as to render all other stars in the firmament next to invisible.

The world couldn't handle it. Meanwhile, however, best wishes to our friends in Scotland and England. We love both your countries, jointly and severally, and hope everything works out amicably between you.
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¹Under the independence proposal being discussed, Scotland would return to its status pre-1707, but post-1606. Elizabeth II would remain queen and head of state, as she is also for Canada, Australia and New Zealand.