There is truly nothing more astonishing in this world than a British nationalist politician who is completely oblivious of his own nation’s history of imperial misdeeds and crimes around the globe. Or worse, actually believes that such things are worthy of veneration because they were committed by the nation of Britain and are therefore above approach (oh lucky slaves and occupied peoples who in lived in that part of the atlas coloured pink!). It’s like waking up in some bizarre parallel universe where the Third Reich won WWII and sixty years later its leaders look back with pride on those halcyon days or where Joseph Stalin had gone on to win the Nobel Prize for Peace (a not entirely inconceivable idea, admittedly, given the list of those who actually did win the honour). So we have the less than edifying spectacle of a former, nominally left-wing British government minister and NATO make-an’-shaker, nouveau aristo George Robertson, beating the war drums like a thing possessed in relation to Scotland’s upcoming referendum on independence. From the Guardian newspaper:
“Lord Robertson, the former defence secretary and Nato chief, has claimed that Scottish independence would have a “cataclysmic” effect on European and global stability by undermining the UK on the world stage.
A former secretary general of Nato, Robertson said the “loudest cheers” after a yes vote would come from the west’s enemies and other “forces of darkness”.
“What could possibly justify giving the dictators, the persecutors, the oppressors, the annexers, the aggressors and the adventurers across the planet the biggest pre-Christmas present of their lives by tearing the United Kingdom apart?” Robertson told the Brookings Institute on onday.”
The forces of darkness?! This is politics and democracy reduced to the level of Star Wars. British Unionism as an ideology has finally sunk to the level of Tea Party-style insanity. And it’s showing.
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
Athbhlagáladh é seo ar Bampots Utd Caint:
GLASGOW CELTIC FC FANS SAY YES HAIL HAIL TAL
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Athbhlagáladh é seo ar da Zenà Caint:
Do MAD comics exist any more ?
Back to the drawing board
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He is partially right – 99% of the Scottish people do not have their own language – they speak English and will most likely continue to do so after independence – just like the Irish.
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Yes, but that hardly equates to having no language or culture of their own. Scotland has its own indigenous Gaelic language and culture, and via Scottish English it has a culture recognisably different from England’s.
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Scotland has its own indigenous Gaelic language and culture
——————
Less than 1% of the Scottish people are able to access to them.
The rest have lost the link to their past.
They can only access to more or less watered-down translations and interpretations.
Which is not even close to the real thing – it’s like watching American movies.about ancient Rome or Greece where everyone speaks English.
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I’m not disagreeing. However that could just as easily have been Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia. Another fifty years of Soviet hegemony, Russification and cultural oppression and the Russians would be arguing: Latvians, what Latvians? Sure they are just like us.
Look at how the Russians view Ukraine.
That certainly doesn’t justify Robertson’s “rivers of blood” speech, though.
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Leaving aside Gaelic (which is not to underestimate its importance!) the linguistic situation in Scotland is not unlike that in Norway when it was still part of Denmark — a variety of rural dialects, and in the towns a whole range of registers varying from very Scottish/Norwegian to simply English/Danish with an accent and a few special local words. After indepencence the Norwegians decided they needed their own language, but by starting from both ends of the spectrum they ended up with two! The same could easily happen in an independent Scotland. Ultimately what constitutes a separate language has more to do with politics and feelings of identity than any strictly linguistic criteria.
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How much of this can you follow, Jānis? 🙂
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A lot of truth to that, and the case of Bokmål and Nynorsk (not to mention Riksmål and Høgnorsk) is an odd one. The failure of the hybrid Samnorsk seems to have left Norway in a very funny way language-wise. Yet to they seem to cope with no problem, people simply being flexible.
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Take no heed of robertson;hes more in tune with the dodgy going- ons in corrupt organisations and institutes like nato and the bbc. I wonder did he know that dodgy top of the pops presenter????
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😉
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Thinking of the English taking on the Forces of Darkness maybe this is a bit closer than Star Wars.
Actually what brought this to mind was the phrase “A Red Day!” Latha Derg! Latha Cliadhamh! Bàs! Bàs! — LOL!
(Except you don’t “fire” arrows, unless they’re fire-arrows I suppose, and no way can you get a horse to charge a row of spikes … but it’s all fantacy like the mad lord’s visions of the British Empire. Anyway the music is terrific!)
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Great clip. Sometimes a bit of fantasy does no harm in any national myth once people are aware of the truth behind it all. There is a great essay on the importance of national myths in building a society’s view of itself somewhere with reference to the Swedish and Danish models of social-democracy and communalism that I must find. It articulates the positive role myths can play in encouraging people conform to what are perceived as a society’s virtuous points or traits.
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If you wander around the YouTube links you can find the French, Spanish and Italian (dubbed) versions of that clip (and possibly more?) I don’t know about you, but the whole character of the action was subtly changed when done in French, and changed again in Spanish. However I couldn’t take it seriously in Italian, too much silly opera and hystrionic dictators?? Wonder how it would go in one of our languages?
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