Close to Home: Scotland, my dividednative land

The world has not been turned upside down; at least not the world I knew growing up in middle-class Liberton on the southside of Edinburgh in the 1940s and ’50s.

I’ve just come back from that world 52 years after my departure to these United States.

My wife, Barbara, and I just spent two weeks with assorted Mackenzies, MacDonalds, MacIvers and Somervilles in Edinburgh and the Outer (and I mean “outer”) Hebrides. So these observations are freshly formed.

The “No” and “Yes” banners and signs across the capital city and Highlands could scarcely be ignored. (Full disclosure requires readers to know I was a strong “yes” supporter.)

But as we met in our “clan” festivities at our “Do at the Zoo” (Edinburgh Zoo that is) and in the township of Laxay on the Island of Lewis, the political divide - resolved (or so it would seem) Thursday by a national vote against independence - was studiously avoided.

Our families and friends reflected the split so frequently referred to in both analytical and anecdotal reporting. My contemporaries tended strongly to resist change and be “noes.” Remember they are all residents, and, as we local electeds well know, they vote.

And then there are nieces, nephews and cousins who did not grow up in post-World War II Great Britain. They were not fed the constant barrage of British Empire/Commonwealth propaganda and how we won the war with help from the Yanks.

Rather they are of a generation where the concepts of empire and commonwealth have less meaning and where, since 1999, they themselves, in some cases, have been actively involved in the implementation of a devolved government - a Scottish government and a Scottish Parliament.

Now I’m treading on dangerous ground here.

In these days of social media, I became Facebook friends with my younger Outer Hebridean cousins long before I met them in Laxay three weeks ago. So what I write here is instantly available. (Being a somewhat cautious brother, uncle and cousin, I did check in with my niece Polly’s husband, Ian, a literate and politically astute dude. He gently reminded me to be wary of assertions written from afar on the basis of my short annual trips home to Edinburgh and the “Do at the Zoo” where we all assembled so amicably.)

So did the result turn on “posh” versus “unposh” voter turnout? Were the 16- to 17-year-olds really 60 percent “noes”? Did all my school and university contemporaries vote no? Did Andy Murray’s last minute “yes” turn the tide?

Of this I know full well, residents of Scotland - “my own, my native land” were fully engaged, were full of passion and finally have answered the call voter by voter, Scot by Scot, “Shall Scotland be an Independent country?”

Evidently not. The margin is a narrow but definite 55 percent to 45 percent. The turnout of 84 percent nationwide tells the tale of involvement.

So where does Scotland stand now? Will the Nabobs of Westminster fulfill their promises of maximum devolution to the existing Scottish parliament?

Let’s hope in the aftermath of Sept. 18, 2014, as passions cool, that rational discussions will occur between the Scottish government and the United Kingdom government on new constitutional arrangements that reflect promises made in the effort to maintain a United Kingdom.

Since 1999, a Parliament has met in Edinburgh. I was there with my brother, Angus, and his wife, Rosi, when that historic event occurred for the first time in 294 years. It was a happy time, but, on Thursday, we were on opposite sides of the vote. Yes for me, but no for them. They voted as residents. And they will continue to live in a United Kingdom. Will it be in a Scotland where greater powers have been readily devolved?

If that is so, then this magnificent display of Scottish civic involvement will not have been in vain.

But I have my doubts. Alex Salmond, the leader of the “Yes” campaign and Scotland’s first minister, has resigned. And it would appear that a trail of broken promises is already started with U.K. Labour Party Leader Ed Miliband’s disavowment of pre-referendum devolution promises.

Stay tuned.

Jake Mackenzie, a native of Scotland, is a Rohnert Park city councilman.