Posted on 04/05/2007 1:20:38 PM PDT by kronos77
The breakaway British region of Scotland could be among the beneficiaries of this week's expected UN recommendation that Kosovo be granted provisional independence from Serbia, leading in time to full sovereign status. If the plan backed by the US, Britain and Germany is formally accepted by the UN security council, it will be taken as an important international legal precedent by would-be separatist movements from Georgia to Moldova to Chechnya, and possibly also the Scottish National party.
...
Kosovo has been part of Serbia since the Middle Ages. By comparison, the Act of Union binding Scotland and England dates back a mere 300 years, to 1707. Serbs view Kosovo as integral to their history and nationhood. Most are adamantly opposed to a breakup, as shown by nationalist success in Sunday's election. But opinion polls suggest many English voters view the prospect of Scotland's secession with equanimity.
In contrast, Europe is facing the contested, potentially violent separation of Orthodox Christian Serbia from a 90% ethnic Albanian, Muslim southern province which, despite ongoing tensions, remains home to a significant, stubborn ethnic Serb minority. If in such unpromising circumstances Kosovo can gain the UN's blessing, self-determination and self-rule may become the new boom business for minorities everywhere - and the dismemberment of nations, rather than their unification, a new UN pastime.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Ping!
Sorry but Scotland would have to become a radical Muslim nation overnight before the international community will even consider allowing it to break free from Britian.
So sad and So true...
Far more likely would be the illegal immigrants in the Southwestern US demanding independence for their traditional homeland of Aztlan!
Hey, it worked for the illegal Albanian immigrants! They just have to figure a way to have NATO bomb Washington on Easter Sunday.
What’s supposed to keep the UN from threatening to bomb NY and Washington into rubble until we hand California and Texas over to Mexico according to this same formula??
I suppose if 90% of California or Texas wanted independence, our national situation would look very different.
As a California native, I would highly recommend giving us independence. Trust me, the rest of the country would be much better for it.
When two kinds of tunnel vision — people who are only thinking about the Balkans and people who are only thinking about Scotland — meet, it can be a beautiful thing.
Can the U.S. keep San Diego, the Central Valley, and the eastern deserts? The Navy needs a warm weather Pacific port, and it would be a shame to have the agricultural production of the Central Valley be separated from the rest of the country by a national border.
The only “states” the UN won’t ignore are those founded on jihad ideologies disguised as nationalist movements. This naturally means Kosovo, “Palestine”, Chechnya, Mindano (Phillipines) Souther Thailand and Kashmir. Tibet, Biafra, Kabyle, Darfur, Republic of Srpska, Bali, South Vietnam, and Southern Sudan can all just forget about it.
And the average westerner who knows everything about the supposed need for a free Kosovo, “Palestine” or Chechnya probably knows nothing about any of the other states mentioned.
Scotland is considerably more pro-European Union than is England, and further left politically as well. I understand a substantial majority of the English want Scottish independence, more so than do the Scots themselves. An England without a Scotland or a Wales would be more conservative and would be more aligned with America, Australia, etc., than with the European Union. However, an independent England aligned with England would have to deal with three neighbors (Scotland, Ireland, and Wales) that may fall into the Franco-German orbit.
Scotland, Ireland, and Wales combined have a population only slightly larger than that of Belgium. Of those, Ireland has no truck with German or French social capitalism whatever and is as close to the U.S. as Britain is. Scotland can’t do much harm, and Wales barely wanted its Assembly, much less independence.
:)
The Scots will start this, and it will never end.
The Scots.
The English.
The Welsh.
The Manx.
The Basques.
The Catalans.
The Britons.
The Walloons.
The Flemish.
The Frisians.
The Corsicans.
The Scania.
The Northern Italian League.
The Hungarians in Vojvodina and Romania.
The Albanians in Macedonia.
The Abkhazians.
The Dagestanis.
The Ossetians.
The Aland Islands.
The Nagorno Karabakh.
The Russian ethnic community of East Ukraine and Crimea.
Did I miss any?
Hungarians in Slovakia
Bulgarians in Serbia
Serbs in Albania
Greeks in Albania
Albanians in Greece
Serbs in Hungary and Romania
Romanians in Serbia
Ruthenians in Serbia
Slovaks in Serbia
And so on. Perfect recipe for the First plague : turn water into blood
Hmmmm... the Hungarians in (southern) Slovakia?
I don’t think a comparison can be made. Kosovo and Scotland are nothing alike. The fact that the Union is only 300 years old and that Kosovo has been Serbian far longer than that isn’t really relevant, and doesn’t even begin to touch the crux of the matter. There are other far more significant differences.
There is no “Kosovar” nation, or a separate “Kosovar” ethnic group, whereas the Scottish nation does exist; Scotland is a nation-state. Kosovo has never been a country, or a state, and it had no borders until 1945 when the Communists staged the violent takeover of Serbia (and Yugoslavia). Until 1945, Kosovo was just a place on the map; like the Death Valley or the Midlands. Scotland, in turn, had been a separate political entity prior to the Act of Union.
Scotland holds no special place in English history or the English psyche, the collective memory of the English nation, et cetera. Scotland is not the birthplace of the English nation. Kosovo is central to the Serbian nation, to Serbian Orthodox Christianity, to the Serbian national identity and the Serbs’ history...
Kosovo is home to over 1,500 churches and monasteries, some of which date back to the early 13th century and the establishment of the Serbian Orthodox Church itself (1219). The Serbs inhabited Kosovo while they were still pagan and before Serbia even came into existence. The Serbs settled Kosovo not long after the fall of the Roman Empire (~150 years).
Kosovo has been an integral part of the Serbian state for centuries. Prior to the establishment of Serbia, Kosovo had belonged to various Serbian princes and kings and had changed hands – but had always remained Serbian. Since the 1100s, Serbia’s borders have shifted over time, but Kosovo has always remained within them. The only times when Kosovo was not in Serbia was when Serbia did not exist as a state (during the Islamic occupation) and during WWII when the Nazis handed it over to the Albanian Islamofascists and Nazi collaborators.
Scotland never had to battle the Ottoman Islamic hordes, whereas Serbia – and Kosovo – spent 500 years under Islamic occupation following the draw at the Field of Blackbirds (Kosovo Polye, June 28, 1389) and the subsequent fall of all Serbian lands into the hands of the Mohammedans (1457). The aforementioned churches and monasteries of Kosovo kept Serbian culture, faith and identity alive for half a millennium. This fact alone explains why Kosovo means so much to the Serbs. Kosovo is the Serbs.
Slovakia have minoritz of 500,000 Hungarisans in Southern Slovakia.
During voting on Aktisaari plan, all Slovak parties rejected it EXCEPT parties of Hungarian minoritz.
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