One last post on the subject, then I promise it'll be back to pictures of the kids and other holiday snaps. Promise. I just need a good rant to clear my system.
I couldn't vote in the referendum. I'm good with that, it was part of what I loved about the campaign to build a better Scotland, not an ethnically pure Scotland. All good.
However, just because I moved to Canada, don't tell me shut up about it. Either because I say before hand what I would like to happen, or because I complain about the result because I don't like it. I care what happens there. I am invested in the outcome, and I can be disappointed if it doesn't turn out the way I had hoped. The process involved me, and motivated me, as it did many others in a way that other political processes have not, even without the additional factor of journalists asking what I thought. I don't deny I enjoyed that aspect, and it was an excellent experience for me, it did further sharpen my thoughts on the matter, and made me educate myself on what my opinion really was.
Do not belittle outsiders points of view. Sometimes you have to step away to get another perspective, or as the Bard put it:
O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ithers see us
Every family in Scotland, for every generation, going back about, oh, I don't know, 300 years or so, has had someone, or even multiple family members that have left, to find a better life. Be that to North America, Australasia, or even if it's just down to England. Why did they leave again?
To find a better life. My own father said to me, when I first told him of plans to come to Canada, that "there's nothing for you here". He himself had contemplated emigration to Australia when a young man. It's such a recurring trend, we have a
whole genre of
songs based upon it. Right now, there are over
1 million Scots, who were born in Scotland, that live elsewhere. 20% of the population has left. And that doesn't even cover those with Scottish parents, or ancestry. That is a larger percentage of the population than even New Zealand (14%), who are famous for leaving their islands.
Historically, these Scots emigrants went on to build things. Within the British Empire, yes I get that, but under that construct those that left flourished, an those that stayed, well, they just kept leaving. The emigrant Scots helped to build places like Canada, and New Zealand and the USA. Scottish thinkers, Scottish workers and Scottish philosophy perfused these places to make them what they are today. Of course, they did not do this alone, no man is an island, and no culture remains uninfluenced by those that surround it, but the roots are there.
So, all these Scots had to leave, to find something better, then when they got there, they built something better for themselves. My question is, why did they have to leave at all? If they had the will and the know how to make things the way they wanted, why did they have to leave to do it?
Yesterday, Scotland had a chance to change this trend. To put a cap on those that had to leave to find better, by building that better place underneath them, instead of having to run away to foreign climes to be able to do things their way. Not only to put a cap on emigration, but to maybe even reverse the trend. To have those Scots who left to come back, and of course, to welcome those from other countries who liked what they saw and want to stay. They had a chance to take control of their own destiny, and build a better Scotland based on social justice, and representative democracy. That didn't happen. Scots are just going to keep on leaving, and before you ask them to come back, ask the question, is there anything there for them?
