UK IS NOT SCOT-FREE: WHY DID THE SCOTS HAVE TO TAKE 307 YEARS TO SAY THEY NEEDED THE ENGLISH FOR THEIR OWN SURVIVAL WHEN IT IS OBVIOUS THAT THEIR OWN IDENTITY HAD BEEN ERODED?

By Mansor Puteh

It didn’t take the Fijians, Kiribatis, Samoans and small Pacific Island countries and other former British colonies much to demand independence.

So why did the Scots have to take 307 not to realize their own folly?

The Fijians, Kiribatis and Samoans and other Pacific Islanders whose countries were once under the British rule did not think twice to wrest control of their own countries from Britain.

They knew what independence from Britain meant, as much as Gandhi who took India away from Britain and Tunku Abdul Rahman who quietly and using diplomacy to seek full control of the country from Britain.

Yet, the Scots did not think it necessary for them to do likewise, so that they can become masters of their own land.

Scotland had been in the United Kingdom for 307 years, so much so that most of them had become too lazy to think about Scotland as being an independent country other than a state in the Union, so that they could continue to allow the English to dominate them and to lead them to wherever they wanted to go to. Nowhere!

The majority of the Scots who had voted in the national independence referendum on 18 September should have known better. Fifty-five percent of the 4.2 million voters asked Scotland to remain in the Union.

Forty-four percent of the Scots tried to exert themselves so that Scotland could become independent. They knew what living in an independent country meant.

But not the fifty-five percent who were happy to be British and not Scottish, like they have not realized it yet how their own language has been marginalized and how many Scots have forgotten to speak in their national native language.

The English had taken full control of Scotland and the way of life of the people of five million,  without the Scots realizing this.

And they only comprise of three percent of the total population of the United Kingdom, so they have this much voice in the goings-on in Parliament and the Union, in exchange for the vast land that the Union can use which mostly meant, the use by the English to further their cause.

And all that they have to show the world of their Scottish heritage and culture are their kilts and bagpipe!

There is no real future for the Scots. Their language to has been replaced by English by the majority of the Scots who prefer to speak not in the Scottish language but in English.

The history of Scotland, too, has been swept under the carpet. And what is known of the ancient history of Scotland is from the English and sometimes Hollywood.

At least Fiji, Samoa and the other Pacific Island republics and kingdoms that we have today are on their own, they who can chart their own destiny with some who were once under British rule with the others under Spanish and even, French rule.

Even Australia which was a mere penal colony created by Britain opted to leave the Union to be their own country, independent from Britain.

And far-flung New Zealand too chose the same path, despite them being English as do the early Australians.

They too could have thought being under British rule and in the United Kingdom, they could benefit much.

But they did not think like that unlike the majority of the Scots who surrendered their life and soul and also land to the Union to allow the English to continue to dominate and control them.

Most of the Scots who had voted ‘No’, felt scared for not being allowed free access to England should Scotland become independent.

The English too were scared if Scotland became independent they would have to move their nuclear submarines to America.

There were some English chauvinists who created fears in the Scots by saying that their presence in England and especially in the major cities of Birmingham, Nottingham, Leeds, Liverpool and mostly London could be curtailed, if they are not citizens of the country anymore.

What more; if the borders of England and Scotland are restricted without the Scots and also English freedom to cross into each other’s country.

The English can skip Scotland, but the Scots thought they could not skip visiting England as much as they wished.

The Scots had all failed to realize that there is a whole world out there for them to partake in, beyond their borders with England.

And why can’t England just mind their own business?

Why couldn’t they just allow the Scots to face the world on their own, much like the Fijians, Samoans and other small Pacific Islands which were once under their control?

The main problem for the loss of Scotland to the United Kingdom in the recently-held Scottish Independence Referendum was due to the poor campaigning by the Scottish National Party and its leader Alex Salmand, who thought he had got the majority of the Scots to support the move.

Using some simple slogans alone could not do the trick. They would need to give the facts to the Scots to make them realize what they would lose and how much they would gain if they voted to remain in the Union or to leave it.

This they did not do. And now they are suffering for that.

Their main slogan, ‘Yes, Scotland!’ could be mistaken for their support to remain in the Union. ‘Yes, Scotland…in the UK!’ which had remained at the back of the minds of many Scots.

What they Scottish loyalists should have done was to conduct a campaign to bring the Scots back to their senses, without being too emotional about it, by asking what they could do on their own, without expecting the others to determine their cause.

They can create a new generation of Scots who excel in all fields. Those who had managed to become prominent all these 307 years just represent the possibilities that the many other Scots, too, could get, if they are allowed to exert their own identity as Scots and not as British.