On September 18, 2014 Scotland held a referendum, where the people voted on whether or not Scotland would separate from the rest of the United Kingdom. I can’t think of any other moment in history where a country has willingly and in a civilized manner let one part of the country vote to separate itself, which makes me extremely grateful to have been here to witness such an event.
For months, Scotland has been debating the pros and cons of each side – staying in the Union or becoming independent. Since I’ve been here (only about 2 weeks), everyone has been talking about the referendum non-stop. So when it finally rolled around to the 18th, there was a lot of tension between the two sides.
I thought that living in Edinburgh would mean seeing a lot more public displays of opinion, but I think Glasgow was the epicenter of all the action. However, in Edinburgh it was still impossible to leave my flat without having a flyer shoved in my face or seeing someone trying to gather support for Yes or No.
On the night of the 18th, after the polls had been closed, I went over to a friend’s flat to watch BBC news as the votes were counted. I got to her flat at about 11:30 pm, and stayed until the official decision had been made at about 6 in the morning. It was very tense waiting for each district to announce how many votes were cast for each side, especially at the beginning (about 2 am) when the announcements were far apart.
At the beginning, the vote was extremely close – at one point No was leading 50.2% to 49.8%! However, as the votes trickled in the gap widened and it became more and more clear that Scotland was going to vote “No.” That didn’t mean we relaxed at any point, since we knew Glasgow is the biggest city and would have a Yes majority. By about 5:30 am it was clear that it was going to be a No, and that’s when we relaxed a little.
Now that the referendum has passed, it’s important to know that the issue has not been resolved and that there is a lot to do before anyone is going to be happy. Though Better Together won an important victory yesterday, they, too, are going to be working hard to get Scotland more rights and liberties from Parliament. I’m glad I witnessed the referendum but over the next 4 years I know I will be witnessing a lot more history.
