I AGREE whole-heartedly with all the points made by Alistair Ballantyne in his recent letter (May 20).
For me, however, it was his final comment which struck the loudest chord: “Seriously, how can anyone in the UK support this UK Government?”
I have a number of acquaintances and even family members (mostly of my own generation – but some a good deal younger) who make me scratch my head in amazement over their obdurate refusal to even contemplate accepting (or even listening to) arguments for Scottish independence. These are people I had judged with regard to other matters as reasonably intelligent.
Any attempt to draw their attention, however, to what are often proven facts about the deplorable actions of the current UK Government (as distinct from honeyed words) stimulates a reaction which is equivalent to sticking their fingers into their ears. I also find that they very quickly forget any details which are not being constantly mentioned in daily press or broadcast media.
I am not confident that I have a solution to the problem of how to get through to such people, but I do have some observations to offer which may be relevant.
(1) What we are observing is not a carefully thought-out position which is open to intellectual persuasion, but is a kind of social caste system, acquired by the equivalent of social class-conscious osmosis, and strongly linked to emotional feelings of social superiority. Even to expose themselves to evidence is to demote themselves (in their own eyes) to a lower and inferior caste grouping.
(2) They associate “nationalism” with the Third Reich because they have been told that that is the case over and over again. Very few are aware, however, that what Hitler, and his followers, called themselves, was actually “National Socialists”, so if they are determined to accept what that man said, they would actually despise “socialism”.
But of course they do not do that. Instead they ignore the fact that they are adopting a nomenclature invented by an inveterate liar, whose choice of name was yet another lie (to make himself sound more attractive, of course). He was actually a racist – pure and simple. What he was definitely not, was a member of the German nation. He was an Austrian. Many of the people he slaughtered in his concentration camps (e.g. Jews and Romani) were German national citizens.
What he worshipped, however, were what he wrongly thought were racial (i.e. genetic) characteristics. When travel was much more difficult than it is now, those of a single ethnic origin often lived within the boundaries a single geographical area. But that is not true now. Religion, which is often identified as an ethnic characteristic, is NOT associated with particular genes. All nations’ peoples are mongrel populations now and, for the sake of our own survival, we had better get used to that idea.
(3) I am too old now to be able to benefit from Scotland becoming an independent country, but I am as impatient as any other to see Scotland irretrievably on its way to that status. I have good friends who are English and who live there. I also have similar friends and family members elsewhere in Scotland and in more distant countries. I do not have any trouble staying in contact with them, nor did I have trouble before old age persuaded me to give up travelling. And they still have no trouble coming to see me.
I cannot understand why any intelligent person should imagine that by becoming independent we Scots would somehow make all of those contacts more distant or difficult. I think the converse is true – that we would become closer.
(4) Yesterday, I tried to buy certain things via the internet. Having had problems with unexpected surcharges before, I chose a company with a branch office in Glasgow, only to find at the last moment (after giving them all my card details, of course) that there was a surcharge of £120 on a package worth approximately £50. This apparently was due to “remote delivery”.
How can anyone with intelligence think that it is a good financial arrangement to leave the largest free-market in the world (which is 20 miles from the UK by sea), and to replace that with a trade deal with Australia some 12,000 miles away, on the other side of the world. This too, when we are swearing (hand on heart) to be trying to achieve net-zero carbon within a few years.
To those with their fingers still in their ears, I say despairingly – wake up, you idiots! Please!
Hugh Noble
Appin
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