How Catalonia is not Scotland (First published on the 5/October/2017)
I have come to visit the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, an elegant, relaxed and welcoming city of the world heritage, which has left me impressed by the tranquility and civility of the Scottish political process in comparison with the disaster that has come to characterize the Catalan issue in Spain.
In the impressive and historic Edinburgh Castle, one of the most popular tourist attractions in Scotland, there is a sense of cultural identity that is British and Scottish.
Visiting it I remembered the slogan “Better Together”, which the Unionists used successfully to win the “no” in the last legal referendum on Scottish independence.
New tensions between the ruling Scottish nationalist party in the region and the conservative government in London have been sown by the majority vote of the United Kingdom in favor of Brexit.
But Scottish nationalist demands remain within the law and are channeled through political discourse and negotiation, and are not characterized by civil disobedience, unilateralism and repression.
While the figures of two of the most famous Scottish nationalist heroes of William Wallace and Robert Bruce, are at the entrance to Edinburgh Castle (although none of them has lived there), there is also a huge reverence in the same place. the most recent memory of Scottish soldiers in regiments of the Royal House that died for the king and the fatherland in two world wars.
Once again I could not stop reflecting on how the root of the Catalan and Spanish problems is the absence of a consensual, shared and binding historical narrative, and how distant the wars of Scotland appear with England compared to the opening in Catalonia of old wounds and prejudices of the Spanish Civil War and Francoism ..
In Edinburgh, our guide spoke English with a distinctive Scottish accent (in Scotland, unlike Catalonia, where the majority speaks Catalan, only a small minority of Scots, less than 2 percent of the population speaks Gaelic).
However, the guide showed his different Scottish roots dressed in a kilt and showing a mischievous brightness in his eye by telling us in detail the Scottish violence used against the English and vice versa in the past battles to conquer the castle dating from medieval times. .
The current political reality is still defined by the “no”, the result of a referendum on independence, whose terms were discussed democratically and peacefully by the British Prime Minister David Cameron and the leader of the SNP and the leader of the Scottish nationalist party Alex Salmond.
The Scots, who voted by majority to remain within the EU, are now uncomfortable with Brexit but are not pushing for another independence referendum yet and neither is London in a hurry to grant them the privilege.
Meanwhile, a consensual historical narrative is found in the Royal Palace inside the Edinburgh Castle where the Stone of Destiny is. So that we do not forget, before the mythical stone returned to its place of natural rest, this ancient symbol of Scottish national identity was stolen by King Edward Ist of England to reinforce his own throne, provoking the fury of the Scots. From then on it was used in the coronation ceremonies of the monarchs of England and Great Britain.
But in 1996 Queen Elizabeth, in an act of reconciliation, agreed that the Stone would return to Scotland, with the agreement that it would be temporarily returned to London to be used when crowning her successor.
For now Queen Elizabeth, thanks to this and other gestures of friendship, remains a highly respected figure in Scotland for a broad spectrum of political opinion as in England, in contrast to the challenge that King Philip of Spain faces in earning respect. and the loyalty of the pro-independents and republican Catalans who do not want anything to do with a Bourbon monarchy.
It should be noted that the Scots had to be seduced in a certain way to reach an agreement with the British state. At the coronation in 1952, there were Scots who opposed her because Elizabeth was crowned 11 despite no Elizabeth before she had ruled as Queen of the Scots. It is worth remembering here that James VI of Scotland, became James I of England in the 1603 union of the crowns. When his line of inheritance was replaced by William of Orange, he was seen by many Protestant Scots, though less enthusiastic by Catholics.
In fact, William never visited Scotland, nor his successor Queen Anne, during his reign the union of the English and Scottish parliaments came in 1707. King George 1V visited Scotland 1822 more than one hundred years after the Act of Union between the two monarchies .
King George was unpopular in London. But his visit to Scotland, organized by the much-admired romantic Scottish poet and historical novelist Sir Walter Scott, was a great success. While on the terrace of Edinburgh Castle, the king said: “I must make my people happy.” The historian Sir John Plumb later commented that the Hanoverian king George showed the way in which the monarchy must continue to survive in a democratic era.
It was Queen Victoria who, during her long imperial reign, built a special bond with the Scots. She loved Balmoral, the Scottish castle bought for her by her husband Prince Albert and enjoyed by his successors. Once widowed, she scandalized part of the London society developing a close romantic friendship with her personal companion, a Scottish mountaineer named John Brown, a story immortalized in the movie Mrs. Brown.
Among the children of Queen Elizabeth, it is Princess Anne who is most often identified with Scotland. A regular and enthusiastic visitor and patron of Scottish sports and arts, she is well known for her support of the Scottish rugby team and happily sings the Scottish national anthem when she attends international games. She appeals to the common Scots as the most ordinary of the Royals, a candidate for the unofficial title of Princess of the Scots.
If many Scots maintain some ambivalence towards the British monarchy, they have not rebelled against it nor do they have plans to declare any unilateral declaration of independence. Monarchy was not a problem in the legitimate referendum of Scotland, even though the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) had many supporters in favor of a Republic particularly among working-class Catholics.
If many Scots maintain some ambivalence towards the British monarchy, they have not rebelled against it nor do they have plans to declare any unilateral declaration of independence. Monarchy was not a problem in the legitimate referendum of Scotland, even though the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) had many supporters in favor of a Republic particularly among working-class Catholics.
The current policy of the SNP is that the queen would remain head of state in an independent Scotland, although she would probably be called Queen of the Scots to underline the idea that sovereignty belongs to the Scottish people. Significantly, the song of the poet Robert Burns to the brotherhood counted on the agreement of the Queen, and was sung in its inauguration of the Scottish Parliament in 1999.
Although there are Republicans in the SNP, and indeed not so long ago since the party favored the idea of a Scottish republic, the current policy is that the queen would remain head of state in an independent Scotland. (She would probably be renamed Queen of Scotland to reflect the nationalist view that sovereignty belongs to the “Scottish people”).
“The good thing about not having a written constitution is that we get confused, we compromise and we adapt,” said a friend from Scotland, journalist Robert Powell. In other words, giving and receiving in politics and statistics is what matters in a decent democracy.
Robert and I visited the new building of the Scottish Parliament together. It was designed as a “democratic space open to ideas and growing out of the earth”, by the Catalan Enric Miralles, who died of a brain tumor in 2000 four years before the inauguration of his masterpiece.
Built from a mixture of steel, oak and granite, and inspired by the local landscape and the raised ships off the coast of Scotland, the complex building was hailed at the opening as one of the most innovative designs in Britain.
Although the threat of terrorism has since meant an increase in security, it is more accessible to the public than the traditional Houses of Parliament in Westminster, its less crowded members.
The Scottish parliament was half empty and immersed in a relatively uncontriversial debate on a question of equal pay when we visited it, in stark contrast to the volatile atmosphere that has characterized the Catalan parliament lately, where the independentist parties in the regional government have openly challenged the Spanish Constitution.
Scottish people like to see themselves as more egalitarian than English and nationalists believe they could build a better and fairer society if they were independent. But there are no signs of insurrection against the British State, as some of the most radical elements of Catalonia show in their confrontation with Madrid.
The decentralized Scottish parliament is at the end of the avenue known as the Royal Mile and next to the Palace of Holyrood where the Queen is installed every yearorganizing dinners and a party in the garden as a way to maintain a closer contact with all her subjects. He also spends his holidays at Balmoral Castle, the Scottish family home where Royal since it was purchased for Queen Victoria by Prince Albert in 1852.
A great deal of pomp and circumstance surrounds the real presence in Scotland from the military regiments to the Company of Archers (the Queen’s official bodyguard in Scotland), but the important thing is that the British royal family in its modern phase has developed an important political activity, cultural and social commitment with the Scottish people that seems to have neutralized the historical antagonisms between London and one of its regions instead of inflaming them. For their part, the Scottish nationalists and the British government have behaved with a democratic ethos that is struggling to prevail in Catalonia.
