Scottish Independence and my Separatist Dream

I stayed up until dawn the other night waiting for the final results of the Scottish election. I was hoping the Scottish National Party would sweep to power, and set the country on the road to independence.

So when the results were finally in I was happy.....but disappointed.

The Scottish National Party, which is pushing for a 2010 vote on independence, won 47 seats in the Scottish Parliament, one more than Labour -- and ending more than a half-century of Labour dominance in Scotland.

But it didn't get enough seats to hold a referendum on independence

"No matter who takes power, they are not going to have the kind of authority you need to rule the country. So they have won the election, but lost the country...."

They mugged the Scottish people with scare tactics. The election was a debacle.

But the bottom line is it looks as if I'm going to have to wait for a few more years for one of my most precious dreams to come true. The awesome day when they raise the flag of a free Scotland over Edinburgh Castle. While I party in the streets below.

Canada may be my country now. I love it more than any other country in the world. I don't want Quebec to separate unless it feels it absolutely has to. But back in the lonely place I came from squeezed between the highlands and the North Sea, I'm a Scottish separatist and always have been.









I can't really explain it. I mean I could but it would take too long. It's about history, and bad blood. It's about people driven from their homes, about a million battles, about lordy lords and lairds, about poverty, pain, and pride.

It's not that I'm anti-English. I'm half English myself. And it's not that Scotland is perfect. The real Scotland, not the tourist one, has a drunken violent streak. It has too many sectarian or regional quarrels....too many neds and chavs..... and too many knives. As well as a widespread culture of dependency, inferiority, and despair.

But I figure if Ireland can be a real country and a Celtic Tiger so can Scotland. And Scotland really is another country. Not only is it different geographically from England...not only does it have its own rich culture...but these days it has a different political culture. If Scotland seceded it would be a left of centre country, while England without Scotland would almost certainly be a centre-right one. Take the war in Iraq....

Britain's war in Iraq is an English war...it's always been unpopular in Scotland...but once again Scottish soldiers have paid heavily for it with their lives....just as they have so many times before. If Scotland became independent only the Scottish people could send their soldiers off to war. After so many dead soldiers wouldn't that be something?

Oh yeah.... there are so many reasons..... but in the end it's just a feeling that I have carried in my heart since I was a boy growing up in this isolated but beautiful place.














And the hope I now have that Scotland will rise again, cast off its culture of dependency, and become master of its own destiny. A small ,peaceful, progressive country modelled on Sweden and Norway...its neighbours on the other side of that angry sea.

That's why I'm disappointed. But at least the first major step has been taken. Scotland is closer to independence today than it was just a few days ago.

So guess I'll just have to put my faith in this party.... and be patient.




It didn't happen this time...but one day it will.

As Sebastien said in a little note he sent me today to cheer me up.

À la prochaine fois!

Alba Gu Brath! Scotland Forever!

Until the next time....