"Identity, personal or national, isn't merely something you have like a passport. It's also something you rediscover daily like a strange country. Its core isn't something like a mountain. It is something molten, like magma."
Hugh McIlvanney (I presume *the* Hugh McIlvanney, doyen of football journalism and writing) quoted in the chapter contributed by Kevin Williamson to the recently published book, "Breaking Up Britain".
Having now completed the book I must say, bearing in mind my previous caveat (ie it wasn't obviously written for the benefit of pro-Union readers), that I found it overall disappointing. Out of the 17 different contributions, perhaps 5 of the writers (Arthur Aughey, Charlotte Williams, Salma Yaqoob and Michael Kenny & Guy Lodge) pushed the argument beyond the normal parameters; the remaining 75% didn't really impress me that much in terms of anything particularly new or innovative they had to say. When I've got a bit more time, I'll attempt a more in depth review of the book as a whole and specifically of Aughey's, Yaqoob's, Kenny's and Lodge's pieces.
1 comment:
Arthur Aughey's contribution was very good, and in particular the Welsh contributions, (I think one was called "Greening the Dragon"). They were certainly worth reading. Some of the others were more worthy of buzzword bingo, or as Shakespeare would have it "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".
Salma Yaqoob's contribution struck me as openly racist to English people, something that by contrast Gerry Adams was very careful to avoid.
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