“Clouds and doubts” more than
“Tunes of Glory”: that’s what Scotland feels like today.
The quarrels enlivened by the actors of Ronald Neame’s movie,
splendidly shot in the stormy Highlands, have become the peculiar way
of life of the Scottish people, now of interest even for the most
recent geopsychological studies.
Is there really a connection
between the fickleness of the weather and the bizarre results of the
last two national referendums? Is there something about landform
behind the defeat of the Scottish independent movement, whose goal to
separate Scotland from the United Kingdom was mortified on September
2014 by a 55% of votes for the Union? And how the architectural
diversities between Scotland and England influenced June 2016’s
referendum, finally sanctioning Brexit with 51.9% of the votes?
These
are some of the questions posed by a Berliner contributor of the
Guardian, noting something that makes any European feeling more at
home in Edinburgh than in London: in Scotland people prefer to live
in flats on different floors, as it’s used in Europe, while in
England single houses built one near the other still prevail. It’s a
“visibly conspicuous facet of Scotland’s distinctiveness, which
gives it a stronger affinity with continental Europe” confirms
Robert Hodgart, an urban geographer and retired lecturer at the
University of Edinburgh.
To leave behind the political impasse
they’re in, Scottish people maybe should go walking in their country
again, trying to observe it through more empathic eyes. Misty, damp
valleys, infinite fields; millenary woods and cliffs on the stormy
sea: the key to understand the soul and the future of Scotland is
there.
The fighting, and torn, nature of the Scots is the
result of Scotland’s typical tough weather, of its evocative
landscapes nurturing a unique collective imagination, of the shivers
that spending a night at the ruins of the isle of Skye gives, of the
emotions of a day spent among the alleys made of grey stones in
Aberdeen. All true, clear feelings fleeing away like a dim light in
the storm.
