Scotland’s butterfly

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Scotland’s butterfly didn’t quite fly high enough yesterday. 55% voted No to the question “Should Scotland be an independent country?”

Andrew Mac via Bella Caledonia
Andrew Mac via Bella Caledonia

I voted Yes – if anyone is remotely interested in the reasons why, I explained in my other blog, Adventures of a retired librarian.

Christine de Luca’s poem The morning after, which was written especially for the Referendum and is available in full on the Scottish Poetry Library site, ends with some comfort:

We’re a citizenry of bonnie fighters,
a gathered folk; a culture that imparts,
inspires, demands a rare devotion,
no back-tracking; that each should work
and play our several parts to bring about
the best in Scotland, an open heart.

So, life goes on. To the next adventure!

Scotland, UK

8 Comments »

  1. I’ve been very busy this week and meant to check if you had written anything about this earlier. United States news sources do an absolutely horrible job of covering other parts of the world! I do know that far too many people in this country vote based on fear and far too few take time to actually learn about the issues. It seems that it might be a worldwide phenomenon.

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    • I think it is, Donna. It’s noticeable that the age group which voted most heavily for No was the oldest group, 65+. The mainstream media were very biased towards No and this is the age group that is most likely to get all its news from there, which could be misleading. E.g. when a journalist claimed that the First Minister did not answer his question, YouTube showed a 7 minute reply! There’s now a lot of scrambling at Westminster to work out what to do about the back-of-an envelope promises they made when the polls turned (briefly) to yes. Interesting times!

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  2. I thought for sure the vote would have been YES and i was surprised not only in the NO vote but by the percentage. You are both probably correct that fear dictated people’s thoughts

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  3. I was disappointed in the No vote. It seemed like everyone was worried about what *might* happen and wasn’t brave enough to give Yes a chance. Ireland has survived as its own country for how long now, with the exception of Northern Ireland, of course. Maybe it’s just my Scottish ancestry talking, but I really wanted to see Scotland do the same. My mother has traced our line all the way back to King Robert the Bruce. Scotland was free once. I’d like to see it that way again.

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    • Thank you, Lori, I appreciate those thoughts. I definitely think it was fear that held people back. Many small countries thrive and I think we could have too, but not this time. That’s an impressive lineage you have!

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      • Thanks. I’m sure it didn’t help that England did everything they could to discourage the split with all their gloom and doom predictions about the difficulty of independence and how Scotland couldn’t support itself and might have problems joining the EU, etc., etc. If there hadn’t been so much negativity on their end, things might have turned out differently.

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