En Passant: Global Village? We’re on our own

DORIS returned last week from the Old Country, leaving it intact. It is probably unnecessary for me to say so but the reason Scotland voted as to whether or not to leave the United Kingdom, to become an independent and autonomous state on its own, had nothing to do with Doris visiting her ailing and elderly mother in Worcestershire.

The Scots voted “No” to leaving the onion… sorry, not onion, I mean Union, the Scots voted “No” to leaving the Union, and without knowing anything about it I have to say that I think it’s for the best. I don’t know what the Scottish nationalists, or isolationists, or separatists thought would be achieved – if it was just to get the revenue from the North Sea oil, then that seems to be short sighted. Man does not live by oil alone, trust me.

And if it was such a good idea that Scotland become an independent country, then tell me, why did the Royal Bank of Scotland say that if it happened then the bank would move south of the border to England? The Scots have a reputation of being, how can I put it, careful with their money, so it stands to reason that their bank would be as canny as any financial institution. The bank obviously thought it was a bad idea financially.

Besides, imagine it, what would (apart from the oil) keep Scotland’s economy ticking over? The only things I can think of are whisky and tourism and postcards of the Loch Ness monster. I’ve been to Scotland three times and I can vouch for the whisky, but I have few recollections of other burgeoning industries. It apparently rains a lot there, but you can hardly collect the rain and export it to England where they get enough of their own.

Doris brought back a few English newspapers for me, and they make interesting reading. There’s obviously a lot about Scotland’s referendum (they hadn’t voted yet), lots of football news on the sports pages, and I notice that their harder news is mixed in with the softer stuff, whereas in South Africa we tend to sectionalise our newspapers.

In some papers there is not a mention anywhere that I can see of us here in South Africa – no EFF, no Nkandla, and in the one paper just one reference to South Africa. It is in an article about a Scottish separatist, one Alex Salmond, who apparently compared Scotland’s “struggle” for independence to the struggle against apartheid. This, it seems to me, simply proves that even if Scotland can produce an alcoholic beverage as fine as whisky, it doesn’t mean that it can’t also produce its share of the world’s morons.

Oscar Pistorius gets some space in the one newspaper, and I found the British newspaper’s view a lot different to that reflected in our South African papers. They seems to be a lot more opinionated, and in one article threw a totally different (and disturbing) light on the character called Oscar Pistorius.

And did you know, if you’re thinking of emigrating, and you have a flock of kids, that the happiest place for children in Britain, the best place to grow up in, is the city of Norwich. And apparently English parents have just as much reservation about talking to their kids about sex as we do, and tend not to.

You might be pleased to learn that when it comes to energy bills, we are not the only ones being ripped off. The one front page headline blares out, “MILLIONS GET ENERGY BILL REFUND”. Apparently, unlike us with just Eskom, there are a “big six energy firms” in England and they’ve been sitting on 153-million pounds that is owed to million of households. The firms have now been ordered to pay it out.

But overall, you know, if you read these newspapers, you get the feeling that although people talk about the world being a Global Village, the concerns of the residents of Britain are all their own, as our concerns are ours. The British don’t give a toss about the fact that the last crime figures for South Africa show that over 17,000 people were murdered in the one year. 17,000 THOUSAND! That’s 327 PER WEEK! That’s 46 PER DAY, every day for a whole year!

And yet, you know, September is Heritage Month which culminates this week Wednesday, September 24, with Heritage Day. On this day we are supposed to celebrate our heritage, and heritage is defined as 1. something inherited at birth; 2. anything that has been transmitted from the past or handed down by tradition; 3. in law, any property, especially land, that by law has descended or may descend to an heir.

It occurred to me that as we celebrate our heritage this month, we today are building the heritage of tomorrow. For 17,000 reasons I find that a dismal prospect.