The Beat Goes on to Europe; Near East: Scotland, Kurdistan and Barcelona

I was involved in the crumbling of the Russian Empire and the establishment of the Russian Confederation in the late '80s.  At the time, I could imagine that the movement to regional governments would take-off, because the several regions could free themselves from Russian domination to re-institute cultural individuality across what was once the Empire.

But I did not think it would take so long!  I even dreamed  of a movement toward regional governmental control sweeping the United States, causing new independence of the several 50 states; and reaching into China, freeing the many provinces to go their own ways, yet continuing cultural bridges throughout that great nation.  Well, there has been no rush toward an independence of the several cultural and regional diversities as has happened in the former Soviet Union.  Interestingly, the  many former parts of that Empire have been approached recently by Putin, desirous of returning to the Empire structure, but he has not been able to find them enthusiastic to go back to the days of their Russian subjugation and domination.  As the Chinese spread throughout Africa, we may see the local regions, e.g., in Kenya, break away to form their own version of Chinese culture in an African setting!

I applaud all the recent attempts toward an independence and freedom of regions seeking cultural identity for themselves. For, I have witnessed these past years the successful diversions that have occurred throughout the former Russian Empire, permitting each region to assert their own uniqueness amid the binding force nonetheless that keeps them together in a Federation of independent states.

And, I believe Scotland will make its way into a cultural inheritance of a people united and will ultimately join the EU as its own being.  Could not the same thing happen, smoothly, in Spain--freeing the Catalans from Spanish rule since Philip V?  And do not the Kurds who have so distinguished themselves in battle to unite an Iraqi government guarantee themselves the right to become independent and free as a Kurdish people?

For, reasons to join some national entity, not bearing the heritage of its subjects is simply outmoded, when independence of a people is socially and linearly bound.

In the same vein, I would applaud the southern states of the United States find their own heritage and historical identity independently of how the people in the New England States conduct their affairs, howbeit a lingering unity of  mutual respect.