Yes it may be cliché Scottish music, but Amazing Grace is the only bagpipe music that I could find with a Creative Commons licence, and I did like a bit of bagpipe music when I lived in Scotland a long time ago. A couple of months ago I was on a trip to Scotland where all the talk was about the Scottish referendum so I thought I would talk to a few people about it, but would they talk to me?
We had a phenomenal response to our stereotype fortnight on the Facebook page. Thank you to all those of you who liked us and thanks especially to Henrik who was our 400th liker. And yes it really is complete coincidence that Henrik is based in Denmark!
Coming up in mid-November we’ll have a polychronic and monochromic fortnight – Poly what? It’s all about your perception of time and how you use it and if you’re not sure what that is all about and how it relates to intercultural communication then head on over to our Facebook site from November 17th.
So back to Scotland. It’s rare that a new country is born peacefully. I can think of the division of Czeckoslovakia in my lifetime and very few other examples. But when the Scottish National Party won a landslide victory in the devolved Scottish parliament in 2011, they had a mandate to run a referendum of whether the people of Scotland wanted Scotland to become independent and so on September 18th the vote was held. In case you don’t know the result I’ll let you know at the end! But while we were in Scotland there was no getting away from the referendum with posters everywhere and people trying to sway you on the street corners and in private homes the topic came up pretty much wherever we went.
absolutely new
One of the most noticeable aspects of the referendum was who was allowed to vote. So let’s start with absolutely new to Scotland, the whole reason I was in Scotland, my daughter, Gwen Fox, who was moving there to start her studies at Aberdeen University.
absolutely young
And next we’ll talk to Huw Mitchell who at 17 has the vote.
absolutely no doubt
One man who was in absolutely no doubt is Ewan McIntosh, as he explained to a group of Norwegian High School students that had contacted him as part of their studies of European politics.
We heard more about this question of voting with your head or your heart from Ian Frances who works in Aberdeen.
And finally I talked to Huw’s mother, Philippa about why she was keeping absolutely quiet about her views.
Is a country the same as a culture? Does Scotland have a culture so different that it should be separate from the rest of Britain? Do nation states even matter any more? I’m afraid we haven’t touched on any of those questions but there was a very interesting article about how fragile the idea of a nation state is in the New Scientist (summary only) recently.
Thanks to Gwen Fox, Huw Mitchell, Philippa Mitchell, Ian Francis and Ewan McIntosh for contributing to the show. ….
Oh the result? In the end it was tight but the No’s won, so Scotland remains a part of the United Kingdom.
So, don’t forget to like us on Facebook and stay tuned! We’ll play you out with medieval music, by German band Strang, playing Dance Dame Jolie.
The next show will be coming to you from Germany with Laurent Borgmann on December 5th so until then, stay tuned!
The host of this show is: Anne Fox
Picture credit: Scottish Government
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