In a few days time Scotland will vote on whether or
not to remain in the union. That’s the
‘United Kingdom’. Put another way,
Scots will be asked whether they want to separate. It is predicted that the vote would be
close. Interestingly, the two major
parties in Britain, Conservative and Labour, are in agreement on the
issue. Prime Minister David Cameron and
Labour leader Ed Miliband have dropped all other matters to go campaign in Scotland. They want Scotland to remain as part of the
United Kingdom.
Well, it’s up to people in that part of the world to
figure out what’s best for them. What
interests us is a lovely claim made by Cameron:
‘The United Kingdom is a precious and special
country. That is what is at stake. So let no one in Scotland be in any doubt: we
desperately want you to stay; we do not want this family of nations to be
ripped apart.’
Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, a David Cameron
better endowed with that rare commodity called integrity and equally empowered
by a solid understanding of history, was heard muttering to himself. This is what he said.
I
am a subject. That’s less than citizen
of course, but still. I am a subject and
one that loves his native land. For me,
no country is more special than mine.
That’s because I was born here.
Now had I been born in Somalia, I would probably say ‘no place on earth
is more beautiful’. But I was born in
what’s called the United Kingdom and that’s special to me.
Special,
yes, and precious too, for the very same reasons. But I know history and I am no liar (at least
not in this particular universe I am resident in at the moment). So even as I say ‘precious’ I can’t help not
hearing a thousand voices from all parts of the world and from decades gone by
screaming in my ear, ‘pernicious’. I
know the history of my country and I know how it became wealthy. I know at what cost we obtained our comfy
lifestyles and I know who had to pay (not I and not my ancestors).
I hear those voices and I get
tongue-tied about the union. I mean, how
can I talk about the integrity of the union when I know how Britain with guns,
deceit and even Bible, moved to tear apart countries, communities and
families? Did I use the past tense? Sorry.
It’s not history. It’s
as-we-speak unfolding. No other nation
(well, the USA is admittedly giving us a run for our money) has played with map
and boundary as Britain has. It was and
is as though we loved nothing more that destroying cultures and fracturing
communities. Indeed it was as though we
operated on the following lines ‘we desperately want you to get the hell out of
wherever the hell you happen to be – we would like nothing more than seeing
your families ripped apart.’
We
did the ‘divide and rule’ number, but we don’t think that goose-sauce is the
same as gander-sauce if you know what I mean.
We don’t want to be divided and ruled.
We don’t want to be sold as slaves.
We don’t want someone to draw arbitrary lines and turn the British Isles
into a dozen countries in ways that leaves communities stranded in different
‘countries’ paving the way for ‘ethnic fratricide’ somewhere down the
line. We don’t want to be turned into so
many ‘minorities’ and have ‘majorities’ elsewhere booing us the way our
blue-blooded subject booed Moeen Ali the other day.
My
country is special to me, but history says that we would be shortlisted for the
dubious prize of the most uncivilized people the world has ever known. We are bunch of savages who had no qualms
about marrying Bible to Gun and using both to subjugate people, plunder their
lands, desecrate their temples, dispossess them and if necessary slaughter them
in their thousands.
We
want Scotland to remain in the union, but the truth is, given what England was,
is and intends to be, and what the ‘union’ does as boot-licker of the USA in
many parts of the world, we cannot blame Scotland for voting ‘yes’…’yes, we
want to do stuff our way in the by ourselves, with ourselves and for ourselves
manner’.
P.S. All this in a parallel universe called 'Humility'.
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