The Birth of a Nation?

Got back from a brief trip to Scotland the other day, during which we had the privilege of visiting the Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh. It's easy to view countries as permanent entities, set in stone by the lines of a map. Clearly, though, this isn't the case. The lines are both arbitrary and ephemeral; nations are always being born and gobbled up, as shown by the recent creation of East Timor and Kosovo. Scotland has always been a tricky political entity, but these days they're pushing for full autonomy from England. Roughly 300 years ago, Scotland joined with England in order to centralize government, etc. in London, but now many Scots are looking to reverse that. Just last year, the Scotish National Party rose to power for the first time, and they are currently trying to forge a fully independent Scotland. But political will is just the tip of the iceberg; demonstrating that Scotland can be economically self-sufficient is a different issue.

It was fascinating to observe discussions about how Scotland should go about this. In today's world of continued specialization, the consensus seemed to be to focus on selected areas of expertise rather than to build new infrastructure behind brand new industries. For example, Scotland specializes in shipbuilding and renewable energy derives from tides and wind. They seem well positioned to make a contribution (and a lot of money) by marketing effective tidal energy technologies. Another vital industry is tourism, and our hosts were very interested to know what Americans thought of Scotland. All destinations have a few items associated with them. France, for example: berets, bread, and wine come to mind. Holland has wooden clogs, tulips, and windmills. Scotland is fortunate to be relatively well branded. Scotland evokes thoughts of kilts, Scotch, bagpipes, and Braveheart for most Americans, and this type of name recognition is rare. Whether or not such stereotypes should be propagated is another issue, but it certainly doesn't hurt tourism.

I came away from the visit feeling slightly indoctrinated (being hosted, by the Scottish National Party, we only got one side of the argument), but nonetheless impressed. Scotland has just 5 million people, and they have historically punched above their weight, so to speak, making many important contributions to the world. There's no reason to think this can't continue.