Thursday, 4 September 2014

The debate about independence for Scotland

is one I am following with interest. I have been, and will be, careful not to express an opinion about it - for two reasons. One is that I know people on both sides of the debate and do not wish to upset them. The other is that it really is not my business in the sense that I do not have a vote in the referendum.
That said, my ancestors were Scots. What is more most of them were Gaelic speaking Scots from the north. My extended clan tree includes crofters, sailors, dominies (teachers), engineers, shopkeepers, doctors and lawyers.
I wonder what these people, if they were still alive, would make of the present debate?
My paternal great-grandparents spoke Gaelic but they also spoke English. My great-grandfather was a sailor but also a marine cartographer. Where he trained to do the latter is a mystery. He may even have been self-taught. His maps were certainly accurate. They were, until computerisation took place, the basis for all other maps of a large area of the state. I wonder what a man who needed to be so concerned with accuracy would have thought of the arguments being put forward?
My great-grandmother was, from all accounts, an untrained but able social worker of sorts. She was also something of an entrepreneur and a business woman. How would she have reacted to the notion of "independence"?
Of course, even if the vote is "yes" Scotland will not really be independent. No country is independent. All countries depend on other countries. Even North Korea, possibly the most isolated country in the world, depends on other countries - particularly China.
There is apparently some evidence to suggest that there is a divide in the debate between those who are Scots-born and those who are incomers. If so, that would not surprise me. It does make me wonder what those of Scottish ancestry abroad would think of the debate and which way they would vote.

2 comments:

Helen Devries said...

As a Scot living abroad...I'd be voting for independence.
A chance to make the campaign for indepedence come to life and break the party system which has seen democratic institutions become the slaves of the finacial and media moguls.

Gillian Philip said...

Nice blog Cat, and balanced, but where did you hear the divide is between native Scots and incomers? Who's saying that? Because there's no evidence for that at all. And it's worrying if that's being said.