26 June 2006

Cassandra calling

The Guardian editorial salutes Catalonia and Spain:
"From Pyrenees mountain heights to the streets of Barcelona and the shores of the Costa Brava, Catalonia is asserting itself with confidence, both politically and culturally. Ten days ago its people voted overwhelmingly for a new charter of autonomy, which will see their powers of self-government bolstered. Then, last week, its parliament moved to ban bullfighting, a cruel practice that has long fallen out of favour with most Catalans. But the repercussions of legislating against the blood sport are wider than animal welfare: they involve disowning a national symbol of Spain and refreshing the distinctiveness of the Catalan identity, which has roots going back to the Middle Ages.
The robustness of Catalan consciousness should be saluted. Only three decades have passed since Franco's regime, which not only denied the region a say in its own affairs, but punished people for speaking its language. For a time, the native tongue suffered, but today it is understood by almost all residents, and it is younger people who most often write it. It is to the credit of the Madrid government that it has the maturity to champion regional - diversity and autonomy; it is to the credit of Catalans that they embrace it in such numbers, dismissing the rejectionist pleas of both the old right and extreme separatists."

But in the same newspaper a former editor, Peter Preston, takes a more jaundiced view of Scotland and the UK:
"Ask yourself a simple question. Why, suddenly, did McConnell decide to back Trinidad and Tobago for the World Cup? Why, thereafter, did dozens of Scots stage tiny pro-Trinidad demos for English TV cameras, with a few vicious beatings thrown in? Because McConnell can't leave that space clear for Salmond.
So it is, inexorably, time for change - but to what? The Liberals are too regional and too mired in the status quo. The Cameron highlanders have barely marched from Notting Hill to Watford Gap yet. Thus the Nats have it. They are the only change available - set, on current form, to be the biggest single party and rule in Holyrood. They'll probably make an instant push for separation via referendum, because that's holy scripture. They'll probably call a vote against continuing union - and probably lose it. But nothing will happen quickly. There must, inevitably, be an appalling din while they toil through these motions.
Meanwhile, watch London's own parallel war dance unfolding: the goodbye Tony, hello Gordon tango. At much the same moment that Scotland is being asked to leave the UK by a Scottish political party just elected to dominance by Scots, a gruff son of the manse will be walking through No 10's door, inheritor of a disunited kingdom. Here's the fear, here the loathing."

"Appalling din" is probably right. And the cheerleaders of The Telegraph and The Daily Mail will be in the vanguard banging the drum, contributing sound and fury but little enlightenment. For it will be England that decides whether to cut its northern neighbour adrift, either deliberately or negligently.

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