"They Will Never Take Our Freedom!": Separatist Media and Scotland's New Referendum Agreement

On Monday, October 15th, Parliament gave the a-ok for Scotland to hold a referendum in 2014. But this is no ordinary referendum. In fact, it could potentially show that the Scottish people do in fact want to separate themselves from the United Kingdom for good. After nearly 400 years of "unity" with Britain and Wales, we may by the end of the decade need to show our passports just to go from London to Edinburgh. (See the Al-Jazeera video that explains the situation pretty in-depth: "Scotland's Independence Referendum Deal Inked")

The implications for just a cessation would be huge on the international political arena. If a state like Scotland could separate from its long-time overloads (hence the quotations around unity above) and feasibly make it as an independent nation on an international scale, could other states like Kashmir and South Sudan viably do the same? Of course, a region like Kashmir, due to a half-century of violent upheaval, does not have the same infrastructure in place that Scotland does; having been a member of one of the premier world powers for so long has done a lot in the way of giving the Scots a political, economic, and cultural system that could support itself on the world stage.

But what Scotland does have in common with those other regions fighting for independence from larger powers is that the movement has stayed in the minds of its people, especially through the use of media in the last century. Lets look at big-budget movies for an example. Who doesn't know of Mel Gibson's iconic speech in Braveheart and learned about the independence movement for which William Wallace so desperately fought? Less well-known would be the Bollywood hit Dil Se which dealt with tensions in regions of India that are so far removed from the administration of Delhi, both geographically and culturally. But even regional films, such as some produced for Tamil speakers, keep a different cultural identity alive within the greater context of a nationalism based on one idea of the nation.

Dil Se Movie Poster

There are many more examples of film I could give (Mary Queen of Scots comes to mind), but what I do not know is to what extent social media, the Internet, satellites, and other recent technology innovations are keeping separatist movements alive around the globe. It certainly would be interesting to find out, since a lot of the digital technologies would also allow for more freedom of expression. The ease of access to it (versus, say the access to a printing press 300 years ago) and the sense of anonymity it can afford could potentially allow for stronger separatist movements to form. Besides, it would be hard for a government to police the Internet for every single blog post about independence. We have seen social media work to form the Arab Spring, so why not apply it to Scottish Independence?

Overall, this is the same conversation we have heard in our readings regarding diasporas. Forging a new identity within the context of a nation with which they do not necessarily identify. What the potential independence of Scotland shows us it is not just migrants who are using media to keep alive identities (or sometimes forging new ones). Communication scholars need to also look within nations, and discover what media is being utilized by separatists to both spur independence and keep a different national identity alive.

However, one cannot help but wonder what the implications of producing such media are today versus twenty years ago. For now, globalization means the eye of the world can be on this media production, and nations not directly involved in the struggle for identity can now participate in and shape the movements (Darfur anyone?). The whole world could now potentially take up the battle cry of these regions/ethnic populations, all because media circulated their message of "never taking their freedom".

Mel Gibson in Braveheart