- (february 2012)
The continuing disintegration of the British Empire.
Scotland will soon vote on independence. There are many reasons why it should
vote to secede from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,
but one in particular: you don't want to be on the wrong side of history.
England still thinks like the old empire, but its efforts to carve an identity
in a world that is soon to be ruled by billion-people countries feel
pathetically out of touch with reality.
The British Empire started disintegrating after World War II, as one after
the other all its colonies declared independence (except some remote islands).
The British Empire was instrumental in dismantling the Ottoman Empire (at the
end of World War I) and the Soviet Union (during the Cold War) and in preventing
the establishment of the Third Reich of Germany (with World War II), but each
and every instance of its opposition to an enemy empire laid the foundations
for the demise of its own empire: why was the Ottoman Empire bad, the Third
Reich bad and the Soviet Union bad for their subjects and not the British
Empire for India and Africa?
Dismantling the Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe is having the
same delayed influence on Britain's own shores: why is Yugoslavia entitled to
split in its member states but not Britain? why is even tiny Kosovo entitled
to independence but not Scotland? wasn't the break-up of Czechoslovakya
peaceful and orderly and didn't it end up benefiting mostly Slovakia?
The precedents were set by Britain itself.
Scotland would gain one thing from the dissolution of the "united kingdom":
a chance to become more integrated in European affairs. England is just
incapable of integrating with the European Union in any serious manner.
An independent Scotland would be much more likely to become an active part
of Europe and even to adopt the euro, leaving England to drown in its
anti-European paranoia.
The future, for those who missed the news, is not the British Empire but
the European Union. Scotland's choice is really between the past and the
future. If there is one reason to vote for independence, it's the chance
to become more European and less British.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2012 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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