Scotland - Belarus
• scotsman.com: Time to liquidate Scotland and sell off her assets, says expat historian
“The idea that Scotland might one day ‘be a nation again’ should simply be dropped. We had our chance, when everyone else in Europe had it, in the 19th and 20th centuries. But we calculated that the Union and the Empire were a better bet than independence. Well, live with it.” - PROF NIALL FERGUSON
An expatriate Scottish historian provoked fury among Scots by calling for the land of his birth to be put into “liquidation” because it had become “the Belarus of the West.”
I must disagree with professor Ferguson as for the key statement of his argument. I think Belarus is better off than Scotland. Yes, it has many more economical problems, much more serious social problems, but the most important thing is that Belarus is an independent country.
Yes, there’s a still a big risk of ever-growing Russian imperial ambitions, stregthening wave of Russification, and Russian blackmailing with the gas prices, so Belarus’ independence is not safe. Besides, it is not in very safe hands of an authoritarian collective farm director.
But we do have it. Scotland doesn’t. In that respect the comparison of Harvard professor that Scotland is “the Belarus of the West” is flawed.
But, nevertheless, there are many historical parallels between the two nations:
• AULD GUID WHITE RUCE (White Russia) — the amazing parallels between Belarus and Scotland
April 25th, 2006 at 7:34 am
Interesting - i thought about it just a few days ago when i translated http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_language for the Hebrew Wikipedia.
I love cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity. The English explicitly tried to kill the diversity of the British Isles by forcing Welsh, Cornish, Scottish and Irish children to speak only English and practically succeeded. I have endless respect respect for Russian culture, but i hope that forced Russification will fail in Belarus and the ethnic regions of Russia. For the benefit of all humanity it’s important that all those cultures and languages survive.
April 25th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
The whole Russification that is in progress has little to do with Russia itself. Rather, its the dream / ambition of one persion. Well ok mebe a handfull of people then… I’m not entirely sure as of who are all responsible for this process. I suppose the phrase “authoritarian collective farm director” describes what Im trying to say pretty well :)
April 25th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
Actually i think that Luka doesn’t do much to Russify Belarus by force! It seems to me that many people just don’t really care what language to speak and they choose the more prestigious one themselves.
Yes, i know that he’s website is in Russian.
Yes, i know that he held a dubious referendum on the status of Russian language, but maybe people really didn’t mind that Russian will be equal and didn’t think that Belarusian will be hurt so badly as a result.
Yes, i know that he closed the last Belarusian school in Minsk, but its students and teachers were politically active against his regime, so it’s quite possible that the language wasn’t the only issue there.
Still, as Orwell said - “the hope lies in the proles”. If the people want to save the language, they should just speak it and not blame the government.
April 25th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
What can I say to that, Aharoni? That’s our Scottish-Belarusian reality.
X: “I hate being Belarusian. We’re the lowest of the fucking low, the scum of the earth, the most wretched, servile, miserable, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some people hate the Russians, but I don’t. They’re just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. We can’t even pick a decent culture to be colonized by. We are ruled by effete arseholes. It’s a shite state of affairs and all the fresh air in the world will not make any fucking difference.”
Do you recognize the quote? ;))
April 25th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
“Do you recognize the quote? ;))” :
Lol… some of the words and phrases remind me of someone I know… Or used to… she spoke just like that. Do know the answer, wonder if aharoni does also :)
April 25th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
> Do know the answer
Without googling it? ;)
April 25th, 2006 at 7:17 pm
I do know the answer without googling, knew it at “lowest of the fucking low”.
April 25th, 2006 at 11:01 pm
Administrator “Without googling it? ;) “:
Hehe well I imagined it had something to do with something you wrote recently. Honestly, I have never seen trainspotting but I do remember some article you posted about it. But that’s where my memory ends… have very bad memory :(
April 26th, 2006 at 12:07 am
I remember that moment from Trainspotting very well as the enthusiastic friend takes his less than enthusiastic friends out into the wilds of Scotland. Very funny. (The people I watched it with, neither Scottish nor English, assumed that I, as an Englishman, would be massively offended by it!)
As you say, the big difference between Scotland and Belarus is that Belarus is independent and Scotland isn’t.
April 27th, 2006 at 1:55 pm
P.S. Btw, this entry sparkled a discussion elsewhere. Here are some comments from the people who didn’t appreciate the parallels. ;)
dsgood (2006-04-26 02:40 am)
On the other hand: Lowland Scotland has more in common culturally with England than with the Highlands. And some of the islands used to be culturally Scandinavian.
I don’t think Belarus has any equivalent of the Highlands, the Islands, or the Scottish Border.
rfmcdpei (2006-04-26 06:50)
The formerly Polish and Polonized west, perhaps?
rdi (2006-04-26 02:42 pm)
Dunno…it only seems to be folk from Belurus, and one bitter expat, who think so. It’s not as if Scotland disppeared off the map after 1707, whereas Belarus was pretty much invisible for the last couple of hundred years.
Also, the Scots invented the modern world. What’s Belarus done lately? :-)
rfmcdpei (2006-04-26 06:51 pm)
Perhaps, though I might argue that they do share certain traits, Belarus simply exaggerating them. There was North Britain, after all.
rdi (2006-04-26 07:35 pm)
Yes, but the only place I’ve *ever* seen that used was in an Oscar Wilde play. No Scotsman’s ever had to explain that they were from “North Britain”.
Personally I always thougt Scotland and Canada had much more in common: small resource-rich, capital-poor nations with a large culturally dominant neighbour with a history of military and economic aggression.
ajnovak (2006-04-26 09:58 pm)
Not to mention that more people speak Scotch Gaelic in Nova Scotia than they do in Scotland!
Do you like spend all day surfing blogs looking for the absolute most obscure comparisons you can possibly find? lol, because this is a real candidate.
April 27th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
Bitter expat, eh?
April 27th, 2006 at 2:20 pm
Aharoni: I think they were refering to Niall Ferguson, a well-known and widely published British historian, professor from Harvard, a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
April 27th, 2006 at 11:30 pm
“Do you like spend all day surfing blogs looking for the absolute most obscure comparisons you can possibly find?”
Lol what ajnovak wrote there made me chuckle for a bit :)
June 27th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
[…] About two months ago Br23, who as the regular readers of this blog would know is going through rough times now, posted an entry on his blog, which referred to the famous British historian Niall Ferguson and his view of Scotland as “the Belarus of the West” (in an article published earlier, Ferguson called to liquidate Scotland and sell off its assets as soon as possible). […]
June 27th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
[…] About two months ago Br23, who as the regular readers of this blog would know is going through rough times now, posted an entry on his blog, which referred to the famous British historian Niall Ferguson and his view of Scotland as “the Belarus of the West” (in an article published earlier, Ferguson called to liquidate Scotland and sell off its assets as soon as possible). […]
January 1st, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Very good site! ultram, [url=http://ultram-onli.blogspot.com]ultram[/url].
September 24th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Mmmm. I’ve just accidentally found this blog (looking for an Under 17 football score from tonight - think Scotland won - sorry Belarus) - anyway. This is all very well, but I think that Niall Ferguson might find that within 10 years Scotland is an Independent country anyway. The tide is turning, and opinions are changing. Hell, the English actaully think it’s a good idea too (now that they have a hightened sense of their own national identity).
Don’t write Scotland or the Scots off yet.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
[…] About two months ago Br23, who as the regular readers of this blog would know is going through rough times now, posted an entry on his blog, which referred to the famous British historian Niall Ferguson and his view of Scotland as ?the Belarus of the West? (in an article published earlier, Ferguson called to liquidate Scotland and sell off its assets as soon as possible). […]
February 1st, 2008 at 6:35 am
Thanks for sharing
February 7th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting! Look for some my links:
March 24th, 2008 at 2:55 am
I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well.
August 13th, 2008 at 5:11 am
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you down the road!