Dawn

Dawn

Monday, August 04, 2014

Nationalism; Pujol's pasta; Blood lines; & Mosques and modernity.


Ahead of Scotland's September vote on independence, one Scot has written: Despite 400 years of patronage and propaganda, Scotland isn’t the heathery extension of England. It remains stubbornly and grimly, often amusingly, a different place. Its humour, its character, its stories, its expectations, how it gets married and celebrates, how it gets buried and sees in the New Year, what it sings about and fights about, are all markedly, noticeably, fiercely different. Indeed, this quiet river divides two of the most distinctively separate nations in Europe.One wonder whether anything similar could be said about the differences between, say, Cataluña and Spain. Or Galicia and the rest of Spain. Or even the Basque Country and Spain.

Talking of Cataluña . . . Click here for details of the half-billion financial skulduggery of the region/nation's most eminent politician. As was. A master Spanish politician, in every way. And here's El País, in English, on how the nationalists are distancing themselves from him so as to save their secession campaign.

The Spanish public is more robust about blood and gore than elsewhere. Which is why we have fotos today of a Moroccan jihadi sitting behind the heads of the 5 people he's just decapitated. Though the faces are pixellated, if not their bloody necks.

Finally . . . Author Innes Bowen tells us that only 2 out of Britain's 1,700 mosques follow modernist interpretations of Islam adapted to modern circumstances, against 56% of mosques in the USA. My guess is this reflects the Bangladesh/Pakistan origins of most British muslims.

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