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Scottish independence debate rattles across Europe fearing breakaway movements
British diplomats are working behind the scenes to dampen down concern in Europe that Scotland's independence debate could trigger breakaway movements across the continent, reports the Herald Scotland. Read full article
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Disclaimer & comment rulesLong Live Joseph Heredia
Jan 27th, 2012 - 02:53 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Long Live Catalan Republica
It is known all nation-states in Europe feature separatists regions and factious political wings, displaying the gamut of positions up to complete independence, and that for decades the central governments have tried to prevent or balk the dehiscing of this weakest link in European sovereignty, despite continuous propaganda and even agitprop depicting European countries as beacons of democracy and self-determination.
Jan 27th, 2012 - 03:12 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Some countries like Germany and France have foiled most internecine quarrels by ruthlessly oppressing local cultures and languages for over a century, supplanting these with the official government vernacular (Low German, Occitan), an indelible stain to their democratic reputations. Others like the UK and Spain have pursued manifold policies over the centuries, the most recent to slowly vouchsafe greater autonomy to places like Wales, Scotland, Galicia, Catalonia, etc. De facto however, these regions remain trammeled from genuine self-determination, their purview of interaction with the rest of the world amounting to the equivalent of a modern day, non-feudal suzerainty.
It will also be interesting to watch how such developments in Europe influence similar scenarios in the New World: Canada and Quebec, the United States and Texas/California, Brazil and Rio Grande do Sul/Santa Catarina, Mexico and Chiapas/Nuevo Leon, Chile and the Mapuche demesne/Mallaganes Region, Bolivia and Santa Cruz, among others.
One remarkable aspect of Argentina is that as the 7th largest nation in the world, it features no separatist movements. A citizen of La Quiaca, Iguazu Falls, Ushuaia, Mendoza, Mar del Plata, and El Calafate, as distant localities to one another as they are geographically (and from Buenos Aires), remain steadfast citizens and willingly so.
Thus it is difficult for me for example, to comprehend the forces that impel denizens within a country to conclude they must secede, and therefore muster the fervor to foment the implementation of lasting change.
Long Live Miguel Alsetegui
Jan 27th, 2012 - 03:48 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Long Live Basque Republica
I was told by an Argentina friend of mine who lives in B.A. that the rest of the country 'hate us and given the chance would break away for Argentina'.
Jan 27th, 2012 - 04:36 pm - Link - Report abuse 0This man is a very level headed person and a true friend to me.
ChrisR
Jan 27th, 2012 - 06:35 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Next time, please try not to be as obvious in your picaresque pursuits... No matter what the issue, your attempt and that of others to discredit Argentina and negatively portray her, even in circumstances where scant supporting argument is available (“a friend of mine who lives in BA says...”), borders on garishly affected nimiety. Not to mention it is so predictable I can used it to elicit a response like yours with admittedly facile tactics.
Even in this topic, where I deliberately laid out a gambit (“Argentina and separatist movements”, purposely and expressly hinting connotations of stability in Argentina as it compares to other parts of the globe), you predictably felt it necessary to nullify any perceived or fancied advantage Argentina may have here, and thus lunged into my “bait” with naive alacrity.
To use a friend's observation (one by the way which is nothing more than an age-old stereotyped truism about Argentine society, as old as the nation itself and thus a mere formality of parlance when meaning a foreigner; similar to an American southern stating “the South will rise again”), as an equivalent to the REAL separatist movements, and historical-cultural interests that suffuse the issue elsewhere especially Europe, is quaintly noted. :)
It really is not impressive to good debaters and observers of human nature, when people are driven to counter all discussions, any discussion, point by point by point in order to always and unequivocally emerge on a higher moral, intellectual, cultural, or figurative level. It’s just evocative of the impression that “he/she is trying too hard”.
As I have mentioned before, either it indicates childishness (in other words, puerile trolling and thus no depth beyond what is typed on screen), or it is subtle evidence to adduce a lack of self-confidence in one’s positions behind the veneer of impregnable self-assuredness.
Argentina is the 8th largest country i believe,
Jan 27th, 2012 - 08:06 pm - Link - Report abuse 0As for the euro corrupt elite,
they reap what they sow, its well known that the have cajoled and encouraged Scotland and other to break free, just to see the break up of the uk, as this would suit them, but it has backfired, and now they are all scared,
We think Scotland will remain in the UK, so the euro loonies can relax,
And Wales has been joined for over a thousand years, and are more English than welsh, this should have sorted decades ago,
(6)
Jan 28th, 2012 - 10:10 am - Link - Report abuse 0You say :
they reap what they sow..........
I say :
As in all totalitarian states ruled by force the value of knowing the truth is incalculable,just ask those who lived under Soviet,Nazi regimes to know the truth of that !.....
A bit of misty rain where you live, Think?
Jan 28th, 2012 - 10:22 am - Link - Report abuse 0@5 tobias,
Another one that doth protesteth too much.
Quite a rambling discourse in replying to ChrisR's brief statement.
Personally l would love to see Argentina break up into small manageable states.
They could expend all their energy fighting each other while we had a ringside seat!
l'm sure your other neighbours would like to see it too!
(8)
Jan 28th, 2012 - 11:26 am - Link - Report abuse 0You say :
A bit misty rain where I live......
I say :
Into this maelstrom chaos there has been interjected so many competing theories ,explanations,predictions,..etc..one can not be blamed for throwing their hands up in utter confusion as to what it all means and what the final outcome will be..!............
well to be honest,
Jan 28th, 2012 - 11:45 am - Link - Report abuse 0perhaps none of us today, will be around to see the final curtain fall,
depends on one belief's at the time,
but they do say, water moves, today in the north, next week down south
but will it bring the fishes with it ..
@lsolde
Jan 28th, 2012 - 02:45 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Because I was not responding to ChrisR's brief statement. I was addressing a different matter which in my original “ rambling discourse” I vaguely concealed.
Again, I deliberately brought up the reference of Argentina's lack of separatist movements to demonstrate the legerity in which people here will try to undermine even what is an objectively pellucid observation to prove, in order to nullify even the slightest of arguments which may be redolent of fine roses—but in Argentina's perceived favour!
Mildly astounding you remain purblind, and thus my original ulterior point still eludes you, even after I expressly elaborated on it in a subsequent and expatiated reply.
5 tobias
Jan 28th, 2012 - 03:16 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I do not remember how long you have been posting here, but (there is always a but) you seem not to have noticed many of your 'colleagues' saying exactly the same as my friend here on MercoPress. Also ElaineB, who has a wealth of experience in Argentina has come across exactly the same attitude.
Now I have to say that I know my Argentine friend very well and he has never betrayed my trust. I do not know you: guess who I believe?
@11 tobias,
Jan 28th, 2012 - 08:06 pm - Link - Report abuse 0As l said, a rambling discourse............................(2nd edition).
@9 Misty Think,
The outcome could be, well anything.
[9]
Jan 28th, 2012 - 08:34 pm - Link - Report abuse 0And anything could be miracles could it not.
For even miracles have a strange outcome.
.
Chris
Jan 29th, 2012 - 04:14 am - Link - Report abuse 0You can believe your friend of course. But may I humbly suggest that you, and perhaps Elaine and others here, are ingenuously misconstruing the anecdotes you have heard, and subsequently conceiving “innocent inferences” from them.
I would never deny Argentina has been a centripetal nation-state for far too long; 1/3 of the population living in the capital city is responsible for this concentration of power. That reality is irrefragable. A predictable concomitant of this scenario is a sentiment by the denizens of the “interior” that on too many an occasion their concerns are not properly addressed—at times even forgotten. This begets piqued temperaments within elements of the citizenry, naturally. If you are fortunate to travel in other regions of the world, you will encounter exactly the same sort of grievances between the inhabitants and their capital city.
So to reiterate: to fancy what is a wholly unremarkable, well-known phenomenon not just within Argentina but around the globe, as equivalent in significance and dynamism to the organized political secession movements in many countries in my hemisphere and yours, and adduce latent disunity in Argentina from it, is either naïveté or subreption.
There are no serious regional factions anywhere in the Argentine federation. In fact, there‘s even no “mock” secessionist outfits that I can recall learning of, even online where it would be so simple to set one up. And you would think in a country that holds the power of public demonstration so sacrosanct, to protest anything and everything, there would be ample space for them too.
It’s just not a feature of our society, to just break away based on mere regionalism. Nor is it to organize, foment, and proselytize for said goal. Hasn’t been for 150 years.
15 tobias
Jan 29th, 2012 - 01:11 pm - Link - Report abuse 0A very interesting, if somewhat lengthy, response.
Who knows what the future holds with the upcoming finacial pressures bound to regionalise disent?
That's easy to predict: If Argentina “survived” 2001, it will survive anything in the next 50 years. That economic depression was a 100 year event.
Jan 29th, 2012 - 10:44 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Commenting for this story is now closed.
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