Sir,
I read your article about the Serbian War [Free Life No. 29, April 1999], and it is a really excellent analysis of the situation. Let me add only a few thoughts:
First, NATO broke international law and rules.
Second, pan-Slavism is alive again (I estimate that about 60 per cent of the population in Slovakia declare the war as an aggression).
Third, people are losing belief in democracy because of events in last few months and are comparing the situation with the rest of the regions (long term problems in Turkey, North Ireland, Israel, China, Korea). As an example: bombing Lebanon last week.
Ten years after the "Velvet Revolution", we are asking if we have not jumped out of the Soviet frying pan into a Western fire.
Your sincerely,
Pavol Zaloudok
zaloudok@mail.eurotel.sk
The editorial "A Vote for Independence" [Free Life No. 29, June 1999] assumes that there is still an independent State, the United Kingdom, to vote for the independence of. Technically there still is [at the time of writing], but it is in a state of dissolution.
The term "United Kingdom" refers to the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, truncated after the secession of twenty six counties in 1921 to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The thirty-two counties voted against secession in the 1918 General Election but twenty-six were off-loaded anyway. Now the remaining six are being shunted off.
That leaves Great Britain. Scotland now has its own Parliament, which will have as its main business the manufacture of grievances against the English. It seems highly likely that the Scots will secede, sooner or later. Which leaves England and Wales, and I am not sure about the Welsh. They will probably remain but there is always the possibility that they will develop a sufficient sense of grievance about the English for them to secede too, though I admit the chances are much less of Welsh secession than of Scottish secession.
We could be left with "England Alone" or "England & Wales Alone". The implications of this for Libertarians are not good if we pull out of the European Union. At present we have the right to live and work anywhere within the Union. This freedom would be an obvious casualty of withdrawal, limiting our rights of residence to England & Wales, an area with probably the highest population density in Europe. We would end up like the Singaporeans with no escape from their island home.
England is becoming more overcrowded, more proletarian, and more unpleasant in numerous ways, from the dominance of pop and football culture to the ugliness of its architecture. We pay more in taxes, have lower wages, work longer hours, and have fewer holidays than our European neighbours. We need the Europeans to begin a process of re-civilising the English.
Mrs Thatcher and others advocate that we should join NAFTA. There is a big problem with the NAFTA idea - the Americans will not have us at any price.
Many of the features of the European Union that we dislike are the result of our failure to get in earlier and shape the Union more to our liking. Instead of grousing and whingeing from the sidelines we should take a full part in developing the EU in more congenial directions. This includes joining the Euro as soon as possible. The Pound is too closely tied to the dollar. The Dow Jones and the dollar are radically overheated and will collapse in the near future, taking sterling down with them. The Euro will soon be the safe currency haven.
Yours sincerely,
Paul Rowlandson
P.Rowlandson@ulst.ac.uk