Re: <nettime> Guardian > Irvine Welsh > Labour risks failing the English -- just like it did the Scottish Did

[Flick Harrison <flick@flickharrison.com>]

   "What gave me, and many on the left, the biggest problem with Scottish
     independence, was the idea that we were running out on our English
     comrades, leaving them to the mercy of a built-in Tory power block. "

   Reading as a Canadian, this hits home.  Losing the Quebec /
   sovereignist left in the bigger Canadian picture would be a disaster,
   and a Quebec separation would add the nightmare of a physically-split
   have-not Maritimes, ripe for nothing so much as US absorption (although
   some radical leftists out there dream of independence as well,
   conservatives seem to have the upper hand even in harnessing the
   independence spirit).  The idea of an independent Quebec also raises
   the hackles of the conservative west which rattles its oil-powered
   sabres about creating an independent conservative nation in response.

   Moreover, the Quebec independence movement was always stuck in a
   quandary between recognizing their own colonization by the English
   (-Canadians and -Americans), without acknowledging their own identity
   as a colonizing force as well. The question of Aboriginal secession
   from a separate Quebec is enough to get tempers flaring in any
   discussion of Quebec sovereignty.  I think Scotland lacks this
   complexity.

   Now Quebec's left has moved in the opposite direction from Scotland's,
   especially after the racist "reasonable accommodation" debate revealed
   that the rural elements of the Parti Quebecois were actually extremely
   Xenophobic.  With their "Charter of Values" they chased a muslim MLA
   out of their caucus and alienated the multicultural elements in their
   party, small as they were.  Quebec has now moved to a Liberal
   government provincially and abandoned the Bloc Quebecois for the
   (sort-of-like-Labour) NDP federally, which, as I said, is the opposite
   of what's happened in Scotland.  The left is actually having some great
   success fighting tuition raises, etc, so it's not like the fight's gone
   out of them.
   --
   * WHERE'S MY ARTICLE,
   WORLD? http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Flick_Harrison
   * FLICK's WEBSITE:
   http://www.flickharrison.com

   Zero for Conduct

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