Today’s class was about the Scottish media, and
I found it very interesting because I’m kind of obsessed with that country. Our
guest, Ken Garner from Glasgow Caledonian University, is from England, but he’s
been living in Scotland for several years. This fact brought a very particular
point of view, maybe more objective, about Scotland’s situation and
characteristics.
I feel that the most important fact about the conference were the differences between England and Scotland, which are more evident when we talk about people's most genuine things, such as a nation's own media.
A while ago, a teacher asked us to write an
international analysis. I chose as a topic the independence process in Scotland,
and this was the result (it’s my own translation, so don’t expect a wonderful
article):
On the way to William Wallace’s legacy
Scotland’s Government is already planning the
before and the after the referendum for the independence, while Cameron’s tories are on the lookout
England had been ambitioning Caledonia –how
the Romans called it– from XIII century, when Sir William Wallace and his men
avoided the conquest during the Scottish Independence Wars. But those from the
South of the island didn’t give up until the Glorious Revolution. The Scottish
yield as the English threatened about blocking the commerce, and in 1707 the
United Kingdom of Great Britain was officially born.
Nowadays, the Scottish Government has set the
date for the referendum that will decide if the territory becomes independent
or not from the United Kingdom. The chosen period is in fall 2014, and the
voters will be over sixteen years old. The Scottish National Party (SNP) is
optimistic, even though the latest polls shown that only the 24% of the
population gives support to the independence, nine points less than the year
before.
The percentage of Scots that want more autonomy
is increasing, though, up to the 61% of the respondents. The truth is that
Scotland’s political competences are very limited, as most of the executive and
legislative power relapses on the English Parliament. This is what Alex
Salmond, Scotland’s Prime Minister, claimed to James Cameron, the United
Kingdom’s Prime Minister. But the tory
refused, and that was when Salmond put the independence on the table.
The celebration of this plebiscite got
formalized in an agreement between both parliaments, in which they testified
that the process was legally binding. Then, the volition of the Scottish
population, whichever it’ll be, it will be accomplished once they pronounce it.
The attitude of Cameron’s government can seem
curious, knowing their unionists condition. But the tories have always shown themselves as open-minded people about
this dialogue, because they had the conviction that the pro-independence party
would never reach the power in Scotland.
But they didn’t count on the SNP’s ability to
challenge the polls. In 2007, the party won the election against all
predictions, and in 2011 they gain an unexpected absolute majority. With this
background, Alex Salmond doesn’t discard the independence victory, but he admits
it is complicated. However, the percentage of “yes” at the referendum will give
political strength to the demand of autonomy for Scotland.
Cameron, on the other hand, appeals to the
feeling of a three-century alliance, and the uses the success of the last
Olympic Games as an example of union’s benefits. Why should you change
something that works?, is what Cameron may be asking to himself. Meanwhile, the
United Kingdom itself is thinking over its links with the European Union, and
is also thinking about making a consultation on this issue.
The Yugoslavian precedent, bloody and
uncontrolled, threatens the sovereigntist attempts, because it represents the
example to avoid. The English-Scottish case has an advantage versus Catalonia
or Québec: the United Kingdom doesn’t have a Constitution. This democratic
peculiarity would simplify the separation, which would be consolidated with a “simple”
legal modification.
Salmond has established that, if the
independentist vote wins, a Scottish Constitution will be written between 2014
and 2016. When it’s done, there will be an election on the new independent
Parliament. The essential points in that document would be a free educational
system, the right to have a home and that the country gets rid of any nuclear
implication. What is still uncertain is whether the new state would remain in the
European Union or not.