Yesterday around 200 people got together in the Old College to talk about the white paper made by the government of Scotland. It's already impressive that this amount of people would choose to spend most of its St. Andrew's day talking about politics. But even more impressive was how well the debate went and how obviously interested people are in reflecting on the issue before making a final decision in 10 months time.
I know that's how Democracy should be like. Unfortunately, it's so rare that it really is like that. So often people don't care about getting to know more about the consequences of their vote. That, of course, when they do decide to vote... So this event was refreshing and gave me confidence on Scotland's future: in or out of the UK.
In the morning we had five academics' thoughts on five different questions. Would Scotland be wealthier? A fairer more equal country? Safe in the world? Greener? And what kind of Democracy would it have? In the afternoon we had five other academics who, assuming a yes vote in the referendum, reflected on dividing assets and debts, EU membership, role in the international community, currency union and constitution.
Both panels were followed by debates with people with different opinions and from distinct professional and political background. In the morning there was also a period of audience discussion. Unfortunately, the gadgets they provided for the audience to vote were not working very well but the discussion was still very lively. Another unfortunate fact was that there was a fire alarm in the afternoon that made us all freeze outside for one hour and loose the time for audience discussion. These two technical malfunctions still could not cast a shadow over how great the exchange of ideas was.
Congratulations to the organization and to all the participants! (uops, this last one also includes me...)
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