It made me wonder what purpose further dividing of the world serves other than to introduce nationalism and protect primitive identities promoted by the politicians and media.
We're all humans. Do we need another line between groups of us?
Actually, one of the reasons I voted "Yes" is because I'm in favour of the EU - I'd far rather have been part of an independent Scotland that wanted to be part of the EU (even if there might have been a bit of a fuss about getting back in) rather than a part of the UK that seems destined to leave.
I don't think you should see UK exit from the EU as a dead cert. That debate has hardly even begun. Of course right now it's being driven by the Euroskeptics because a referendum date hasn't even been set and they're the ones agitating for it. But as this referendum shows, sentiment can change a lot in the runup to a vote.
There are lots of people who do not want to see the UK leave the EU, although I guess most of them would be in favour of a rebalancing of powers. Those people will presumably/hopefully learn lessons from the iScotland campaign and base the "no to leaving" campaign on positivity rather than simply listing all the problems the UK would face on its own. If the no campaign can seize the positive moral ground AND it has lots of economic arguments on its side, it should force the yes side into simply being negative about the EU and well, Salmond has shown everyone the power of positivity (even over reason).
The UK had the legal right to ask the EU what the status of an independent Scotland would be within the EU.
It's my belief that the EU would not eject 5 million citizens unless they asked to leave.
The UK government did not ask the question. I suggest this is because they have the same belief, and didn't want there to be clarity in the answer.
I don't think they'd refuse Scotland outright. But I do think there'd be a lot of "so you want to remain in the EU? well, what are you going to bring to the table?" discussions, with major pressure for accepting Schengen and accepting the Euro, and otherwise giving up most of the concessions the UK have.
Citizenship and self-determination are absolute fundamentals of the EU. I understand why there is pressure - particularly from Spain - to obfuscate this, but I very much doubt that the EU would be constitutionally able or willing to force a new country to jump through the hoops of rejoining.
I've seen quite the opposite. A lot of people here have openly said we'd love to work and trade closely with England - we just want our policies to reflect our differing political leanings.
The line already exists - it's there in the left of center, socialist culture we have in Scotland. Unfortunately as Westminster slowly drifts further right, we find ourselves (Scots) even less well represented.
I have, however, seen a real anti-Scottish sentiment from a very small proportion of English press and media. I know that's absolutely not representative of the English population, but it was disturbing nonetheless.
There are horrible people on both sides. Let's not let that color our opinions.
I'm an expat Ukrainian, for example, and what I've seen since the Maidan events last year, was an explosion of hostility from all my friends, who considered themselves Russian or of Russian heritage. Somehow the idea, that my home country could decide for itself, without constantly praising the benevolent, though kleptocratic overlords, that Kremlin considers themselves to be, was offensive to my Russian friends.
That made it very clear to me, what deep, cultural gaps might exist between people, even if they seemingly get along well most of the time.
The Kremlin overlords got opportunistically into the game when new Ukraine government started assault on basic rights of Russian minority, like language. That has got angry a lot of Russians everywhere, even the ones who daydreams about Putin slipping on a banana peel. I ultimately formed my opinion when i saw (on western news sources) Ukrainian government forces (majority are volunteers from Western Ukraine - a lot of ancient hate toward East/Russia) shelling civilian cities - that clearly shown what new Kiev government thinks about the people and the region (i hate to say it, yet i'm starting to think that by taking over Crimea (i personally was really against it at the time), Putin, as a side-effect, saved people there from the fate of people in Donetsk/Luhansk).
Maidan was anti-oligarh, anti-corruption uprising which was skillfully channeled (by the regime of corrupt oligarhs to payback the debt to nationalist forces who supported them and to divert the attention from the fact that the oligarhs got even more power in Ukraine after Maidan - starting with the new Ukraine president, Poroshenko) into ethnic conflict with Russian minority assigned the role of the scape-goat.
1. The idea, that the basic rights of Russians and the Russian speaking minority are somehow violated in Ukraine right now is false. The only attempt by the government to do anything language-wise, was to instante Ukrainian as the only official language, meaning, that it would be the language of all the __public offices__, like the mayor's office or schools. This is the same as in the vast majority of countries. For example, there is a large Russian minority in Germany, but the official language is still German, but nobody is complaining about that, for some reason. You certainly don't see the Russian foreign ministry harassing their largest (and overpriced) energy market due to some "trivial" issues, like their minorities.
Secondly, having partaken in some local "Maidans", I can say, that I've seen as much Russians there as Ukrainians. Although the Kremlin (as well as some very dodgy parties in Ukraine) are hell-bent of framing this as an ethnic conflict, it is not.
2. I think it is wrong to think, that any war, especially such as in the East of Ukraine right now, can be fought without damaging civilan sites. The deathcount now is somewhere around 3 thousand people, most of them military personell and about 1/3 of that civilians. For comparison, the death toll of civilians only in Russia, during the second Chechen campaign was 200k people. Does that mean that the Russian government hates their citizens in Chechnya?
Furthermore, there is a lot of humanitarian effort in Ukraine, governmental and private, to help the people in that region. A lot of people have fled: some to Russia and a lot to western Ukraine and Kiev. But the reporting on that is quite thin outside of Ukraine.
That's it. Back to talking about Scotland and the UK.
>Furthermore, there is a lot of humanitarian effort in Ukraine, governmental and private, to help the people in that region.
Kiev government's refusal to pay pensions to old and disabled people in Donetsk/Luhansk - such a low blow. "Humanitarian effort", yep... (http://www.62.ua/news/621938 - site of Ukraine nationalists in Donetsk)
The website you've linked is the website of Donetsk city and not of Ukrainian nationalists. You are chosing your facts indeed.
the way it was happening before September. If you read the story - it was just a political decision to stop paying. It happened right after the decision about "special status" and public declarations of Kiev politicians about "no money to separatists".
Now, those local administrations are controled by criminal groups. If they were OK with violating the country's law and constitution, why wouldn't they be OK with skimming or even taking the pensions?
I'm not saying, that this decision is fair. Nor am I saying, that the civilians in Ukraine's east are treated fairly. But it must be clear, that the fault is solely with those idiots with machine guns and heavy weaponry spounting nonsense about "Novorossia". None of the crap the Donbass people are going through was in place, when the new government formed. It is only when the Russians sponsered criminals started enforcing their own rules the shit hit the fan.
Furthermore, the article says, that the pensions will be payed on government controlled territory. You must agree, that "paying pensions in a safe environment without any fighting" and "not paying" are different things.
in the modern world even a small state comes with a "magical" powers not available to any other, even if it is much bigger, group of people or organization. Thus a Yes or No for independence means "do we want to wield such powers" or "do we want somebody wielding such powers upon us".