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Jan 2020
12:54pm, 15 Jan 2020
15,766 posts
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Bazoaxe
The only Scots who will feel British are rangers fans and that’s for sure ntiteky different reasons.
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Jan 2020
1:03pm, 15 Jan 2020
5,815 posts
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Northern Exile
Not true. I have any number of Scottish friends who are staunchly British. Proud to be Scottish too? Of course.
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Jan 2020
1:04pm, 15 Jan 2020
820 posts
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Ally-C
I tried to think of any no voters I know who would describe themselves as British not Scottish, I couldn’t.
Perhaps those who I’ve known in the past who support a football team mentioned above might.
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Jan 2020
1:13pm, 15 Jan 2020
15,669 posts
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Chrisull
Going back to larks old comment about stability and the countries on the map,
The former Czechoslovakia split in very different circumstances to Serbia/Croatia and East Germany/West Germany. The "Velvet Divorce" (following the Velvet Revolution, so called partly because of its lack of bloodshed and animosity), was done to prevent any violent incident. The attempt to hold the smaller former Yugoslavia states together led to war and there were hints that a similar attempt to hold the Czechs and Slovaks together might go the same way. So the split was agreed to maintain stability.
You could argue England and Scotland made end up as separate countries eventually for the same reasons, to maintain stability - not because they are inherently unstable.
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Jan 2020
1:18pm, 15 Jan 2020
821 posts
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Ally-C
Going off at a tangent here, but Jess Phillips’ tour of Scotland seems to have went down like a lead balloon.
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Jan 2020
1:18pm, 15 Jan 2020
10,033 posts
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larkim
Absolutely Chris - if independence was achieved, I'd sincerely hope that it was peaceful on all sides.
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Jan 2020
1:26pm, 15 Jan 2020
11,846 posts
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Cerrertonia
The velvet divorce was an odd one, in that a majority of both Czechs and Slovaks were against the split at the time, and even 25+ years later, a majority still think it was a mistake.
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Jan 2020
1:26pm, 15 Jan 2020
2,530 posts
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J2R
Chrisull, the war in Yugoslavia actually started a couple of years after the Velvet Revolution, so it cannot really have been seen by Czechoslovakia as a warning. In the case of Yugoslavia, the former Communist leaders saw the only way their hold on power would remain is if they espoused a kind of aggressive ethno-nationalism. Where else have we seen dangerous unprincipled demagogues turning to rabid nationalism in an attempt to consolidate support?
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Jan 2020
1:34pm, 15 Jan 2020
3,474 posts
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mr d
I'm only half English, but always think I'm English rather than British.
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Jan 2020
1:35pm, 15 Jan 2020
2,531 posts
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J2R
Cerrertonia, my memory from the time (which may be wrong) was that Slovakia was the one pushing for independence because of populist nationalism, which many Czechs were puzzled by, as what became the Czech republic was much the wealthier area, largely subsidising Slovakia. It was rather like as if East Germany had wanted to break away from a united Germany. And, if I recall correctly (which, as I have said, I may not), they immediately reaped what they sowed, because Hungarian nationalists within Slovakia started agitating for an ethnically Hungarian area of the country to secede and be reunited with Hungary.
Incidentally, I would always recommend looking into a bit of central and eastern European history for anyone who sees the world in simple clear-cut ways as a set of neat countries, as if thus defined by God. Boundaries move all the time, new countries form and disappear again, countries swell in size and then dwindle. The notion of what constitutes a country is far from straighforward.
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Fantasy General Election
Jul 2024
