Published in the Nikkei Asian Review 16/9/2014
Scotland’s referendum on independence has a message for countries far from Edinburgh Castle, current resting place of the Stone of Scone, the ancient symbol of Scottish nationhood. The message is that the world is not flat and that history has not ended, indeed cannot end.
Even in the case of a “no” vote, the subject is unlikely to go away. Support for Scottish independence is on the rise, especially amongst people in the 25-54 age group, and sooner or later there will be calls for another vote. The crucial question is why.
Scotland used to be poorer than England, but today there is little difference in GDP per head. Since the Scottish parliament was set up in 1997, there has been substantial devolution of powers. The education and legal systems have retained their distinct identities, as has much else in Scottish culture. So what more do the Scots want?
The answer – for a substantial number, at least – is agency. In other words, they don’t want to be told what to do by non-Scots. The Act of Union between England and Scotland is three hundred years old and it is more than four hundred years since the two countries had different monarchs. Even so, despite the effects of economic growth and modern communications, the Scots have retained a strong idea of their own separateness.
The “no” campaign has concentrated on the economic fall-out of independence – capital flight, administrative chaos and even, according to Deutsche Bank, a rerun of the depression. Examine the balance of risk and reward and you see huge downside and almost no upside. By contrast, the “yes” campaign appeals to tribal loyalty, as exemplified by the slogan, taken from the nationalist writer, Alasdair Gray, Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation. Here the risk-reward profile is the other way round – plenty of emotional upside and no downside.
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. In 1992, at the apogee of post-Cold War hubris, political scientist Francis Fukuyama published The End of History and the Last Man which argued that history was a directional process that had culminated in the victory of liberal capitalist democracy over competing systems. In 1999 journalist Thomas Friedman came up with “the golden arches theory of conflict prevention,” which claimed that countries where McDonald’s operated would never go to war with each other.
From the Fukuyama-Friedman perspective, emotional attachment to class, country or ethnic group is a retrograde phenomenon. When journalists describe a politician such as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as a “nationalist,” they imply not only that his motives are suspect, but that he is out of touch with the trends of the times. Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party, has shown that nationalism is alive and well in even the oldest and most stable of polities.
The most obvious effects will be on other separatist movements in Europe. Catalonia ceased to be an independent country at roughly the same time as Scotland and has similarly held on to its distinct identity through the centuries. A local referendum – illegal according to the Spanish government – is planned for later this year. Spain and its EU allies can be expected to fight the independence movement tooth and nail, but the Scottish precedent makes their position less tenable. The so far successful transformation of the former Yugoslavia, now a patchwork of autonomous small and medium-sized states, shows that starting from scratch need not be the nightmare experience predicted by the Scottish “no” campaign. Slovenia, with a population less than half Scotland’s, is a model of stability and prosperity.
The implications for the rest of the world are less comforting. Needless to say “the golden arches theory”, based on a shallow and reductive conception of human nature, has already been disproven on multiple occasions, the Ukraine crisis being merely the latest example.
The world contains innumerable potential territorial and ethnic conflicts. In fast-growing emerging countries the mechanisms for settling them in a consensual way – as in Scotland – are immature or non-existent. Even so, this century’s emerging market boom is predicated on the notion that, as Friedman also claimed, the world is “flattening” and commercial opportunities will inevitably drive political and social convergence. Evidence to the contrary – such as the debacle of the Arab spring – is plentiful.
Likewise, the leaders of strong centralized states assume that ethnic identity and the desire for self-determination will weaken over time, as the benefits of economic development become apparent. If Scotland is any guide, that may not happen. China’s Tibet and Uighur problems may persist for centuries to come, India’s Kashmir problem too.
Back in the land that brought the world whisky, golf and Trainspotting, the “yes” side has already won the moral victory. Panicked by the opinion polls, the Westminster establishment has offered significant last minute concessions – including a promise of “Home Rule”.
Which goes to show that even in a wealthy G8 country the urges of the limbic brain, the seat of our most basic emotions, are a match for cold economic calculations. To adapt Immanuel Kant, out of the crooked timber of humanity no flat thing was ever made.