11/08/2014

Great War Nationalist Pish

There is an article on the Scotsman site which is both sick and interesting entitled Great War worst for Scots troops ‘a myth’

The sick part of the article is the way that the body count from the First World War is being used as an argument in the current referendum campaign; whatever the numbers surely both No and Yes campaigners should agree that the answer to the question How many Scots died in WW1? should be Too many and that coming to as accurate a figure as possible should be an academic exercise not a political one.

The interesting point about the article is that I have heard similar claims made about the percentage of Welsh dead in both the First and Second World Wars, and indeed in previous and subsequent wars; and I have heard these claims, as the article suggests, made in the context of Welsh nationalist “myth”; but the Welsh nationalist myth isn't part of the myth of "separation" or "independence"; but the myth that the Welsh / Scottish should be extra proud of being British because they have punched above their weight in Britain. This brings us back to the sick part of the article. For 100 years we are told that we should be extra proud of our nations' contribution to Britain; but as soon as that pride is taken out of a British context we are told, as they say in Scotland, that that proud contribution is just a load of old pish!



(Note the words in the sun!)

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