Small Countries For World Peace

29th June 2018

I have received a lot of flack in the face of my push for Scottish independence.The argument goes that, the world needs to pull together rather than splintering off into smaller parts. Surely in the face of global chaos, my opponents argue, we should be calling for unity.

But this is definitely one of those cases of perspective, like those drawings that you can look at in two completely different ways:

Are you looking at a duck or a rabbit?

In the case of Scottish Independence, as in the case of Indian Independence (1947) or Norwegian Independence (1905) or even American Independence,(1776)  you have to look at the picture in a different way.  What changes your perspective here is  history. No one would argue that America would have been "Better Together" with Britain, or that Iceland (1944), which is doing very nicely governing itself, should have stayed tethered to  Denmark. Or for an example closer to home, Ireland (1921) the fastest growing economy in Europe, should have remained in the UK. In all these cases, history has proven that the country in question does very well on its own, and so it will be with Scotland. In fact, Scotland, without its revenue draining off to the south, will do better than most, because it is a resource-rich country with many innovative minds as a sort national characteristic ( think, penicillin, steam engine, television, telephone, road Tarmac, bicycle, insulin, telegraphs....the list goes on)

Of all the 62 countries that have sought separation from Britain alone, not one has asked to be allowed back in. The story of these smaller independent countries (not counting USA anymore, since it became its own empire-building conglomerate) is that they settle into secure little nations with low crime, low unemployment, that look after their people and don't go around causing any harm to other countries. From this perspective, you could look at the quest  for independence as a stride towards world peace, and the more smaller countries you can make out of large conglomerates like USA and USSR and The British Empire, the better things will be for everyone. You could look at Scottish independence as a rabbit and not a quacking duck. The choice is yours.