May 2021 Elections in a dis-United Kingdom. Scottish Independence now more likely?

 

May 2021 Elections in UK have been curious and - in a strange way - a call for stability. The voters in London, Manchester, Liverpool, North-West England, Wales and Scotland have all voted to keep the people who are managing the pandemic, to "build back better" (as the Americans say). Journalists are calling these the "Thank You" elections. The SNP held Scotland, Labour held Wales, most elected mayors (London, Manchester, etc) were re-elected .... and when journalists like Andrew Marr (this Sunday morning) obsess about the likelihood of a second Scottish referendum on Independence, they join the SNP obsession. Yet that was NOT the main subject of this election. Andrew Marr succeeded in making the appalling Conservative Michael Gove sound quite reasonable.

                                         New Statesman photo of Scottish support for the EU

Brexit Gove (from Aberdeen) pointed out that the total number of votes cast across Scotland for parties NOT pushing a referendum (Conservative, Labour, Liberal) was larger than the number of votes cast for SNP and Greens who support a second referendum. Even though the Scottish National Party won a large mandate. 'First Past the Post' is not the best form of democracy.  Meanwhile Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's Chief Minister, has decreed that the EU flag will continue to fly in Scotland. Good decision!

Nicola Sturgeon is Britain's most impressive politician: but my admiration for her does not mean that I  agree with her on all decisions. Scotland's (and Britain's) experience with referendums was not happy. Referendums are so divisive, they are bad. Independence may or may not be a good idea for Scotland; but a referendum would be terrible!  Families were bitterly divided last time, friendships became strained, husbands and wives were unable to talk over breakfast because the binary Yes-No choice overwhelmed so many vast complications involved in the idea of separating the Union. "Yes...but" or "No, but..." discussions were eliminated.  And yet .... I would be Scottish and European .....

I would rather be dancing than voting. Maybe we shall dance before the end of May.... 

..... dancing out of doors, but I plan to wear the kilt.

 

Napoleon Bonaparte was an irredeemable racist, sexist, and despot - good that he died (200 years ago).

 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, emperor and racist

May 5th 1821 Boney died: the world heaved a sigh of relief. 

Napoleon Bonaparte: “an irredeemable racist, sexist, and despot”

writes Professor Marlene L. Daut of UVA Charlottesville in her article for the New York Times.

  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/opinion/france-year-of-napoleon.html

“La France est le seul pays qui avait réinstallé l’esclavage après l’avoir aboli.”

 France is the only country that ever re-introduced slavery after its abolition.

ALTHOUGH we should not forget that slavery continued in USA after abolition (and its effects still continue) ; nor that Britain and others supported apartheid in South Africa ; nor that French, British, Portuguese, Belgian and Spanish colonialism was a form of slavery, often including sexual abuse, war crimes and genocide ; nor that Arab nations today practice slavery in many different forms.

 So here are two very different men: Toussaint Louverture led the Haitian Revolution of 1791, then allied with Revolutionary France when the French abolished slavery in 1794; and who died in 1803 in a French prison after Bonaparte sent an army in 1802 to conquer Haiti and re-establish slavery. Boney is the one in the hat.

We do NOT celebrate Boney. Want a happy life?  Then you do not want another Bonaparte!

Everyone knows that Bonaparte was a general who crowned himself Emperor, eliminating the French Republic.

Why do French Republicans and democrats worship a man who made himself Emperor?

General Bonaparte made war on all his neighbors, selling Louisiana to Jefferson to pay for his warmongering in Europe. First the Russians beat him …. then finally Boney “met his Waterloo” in 1814.

Dr Daut writes: “As a Black woman of Haitian descent and a scholar of French colonialism, I find it particularly galling to see that France plans to celebrate the man who restored slavery to the French Caribbean, an architect of modern genocide, whose troops created gas chambers to kill my ancestors.”

Né esclave, c’est en tant qu’homme libre que Toussaint prend la tête en 1791 de la revolution haîtienne à St Domingue. En 1794 la Révolution française abolit l’esclavage et Toussaint Louverture embrasse la France. C’est Napoléon qui réimposera l’esclavage en 1802 en dont l’armée trahira Toussaint, qui mourra en 1803. Refusant de céder, Haïti obtiendra son indépendance en 1804. Pourquoi célébrer ce tyran français symbole d’oppression par les Blancs, qui trépassa le 5 mai 1821 en exil sur l’île St Heléna? Marlene déplore celui qui avait restoré l’esclavage aux Caraïbes, inventé le genocide et dont les soldats avaient créé des chambres à gaz pour tuer ses ancêtres haïtiens.

 

“In 1794, in the wake of the revolution that transformed France from a monarchy into a republic …. France declared slavery’s abolition throughout its territory. But in 1802, Napoleon …. reversed that decision, making France the only country to ever have brought back chattel slavery after abolishing it,” writes Daut. 

 

Let me tell you, folks:  Boney was a warmonger, a racist, and I am not supporting any celebration of his life. He also burned the flax crops in Brittany - where I am writing this blog post - in order to destroy the Breton economy and weaken resistance to Napoleonic domination. Do I like him? No! 

Beltaine is a Celtic Festival of Fire and Maypole dancing for the Merry Month of May.

 And so we celebrated Beltaine 2021 on the Friday night of April 30th, which was considered the Night of Beltaine when our ancestors considered that a day began at dusk. Of course, we our celebration was Covid-restricted: only 6 people allowed to meet, and no travel allowed after 7pm. So our friends Mikael Morice and Sylvie Le Moel welcomed us to their home, where they built a maypole for six ribbons, and fire to warm six people: who drank Beltaine champagne and ate Beltaine oysters. Yummy. 

I wore the kilt, but our dancing was limited to skipping around the Maypole and wrapping it in coloured ribbons. When pandemic restrictions ease, we hope to use it for children's entertainment and education.

Beltaine is one of the great Celtic events - taken over by the Catholic Church in Germany as Sankt Walpurgisnacht:  the nun St Walpurga was born in Devon, and she carried her English version of the gospel to convert Germanic heathens. No one in England has ever heard of her!  In France, the cleansing fires of Beltaine became the Feast of St Jean (John) on June 24th. We can still celebrate the Start of the Season of Light, the end of the 40 days of Nauruz (the Persian New Year that our Indo-European ancestors celebrated, starting with the Spring Equinox on March 21st). And so we did. 

We danced, we read poetry, we heard music (notably Gounod's "Faust") and we ate good food, washed down with a magnum of rosé wine. We would have wanted this to be a celebration for the Jumelage, the Town Twinning between Pordic, our Breton village, and the Cornish town of Hayle which we cannot visit because of the pandemic..... and we could not celebrate with the 40-odd French members of the Pordic-Hayle Jumelage. We celebrated with the president, our friend Claudine Mizzon, vice-president (my wife Michelle) and with our hosts who are also Jumelage Board Members. With their talented 15-year-old son Pierre. So I wish everyone a very joyful Merry Month of May. And next year maybe we can celebrate Beltaine like this, with 100 people.

 

Here are Breton Druids celebrating BENTAINE and the Season of Light 

deep in the Forêt de Brocéliande, a place that is filled with Arthurian legends