As an exile I can't vote in Scotland's referendum, but I know I'd vote yes

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/09/scotland-refendum-yes-economy-confidence

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It is said that those old enough to remember know exactly where they were on 22 November 1963, when they heard that President John F Kennedy had been shot. I wonder whether, a few years from now, the people of Scotland might ask themselves a similar question: where were you when you finally knew how you would vote in the referendum on Scottish independence?

After months of uneasy deliberation, my own resolve came in the back seat of a car in India. It was late December 2013, the last half hour of a 250-mile drive to my in-laws' home in Bangalore.

Without any prior thought, I suddenly felt sure that if Scotland voted no in September I would feel sad for the missed opportunity, while if we voted yes I would feel joy for the possibilities ahead.

There is something horrifying about the wilful destruction of a relationship that has evolved over centuries to a unique state of geopolitical complexity. There are troubling questions about technocratic imponderables, a palpable sense of guilt and betrayal about the prospective loss of kinship with fellow Brits, and a sense of anti-heroic embarrassment about the pragmatism of a British currency union.

And while I do see a path towards a revitalised social democracy, at ease with ourselves and our place in the world, I don't see us getting there for a decade at least. I see lots of risk along the way, huge scope for regret and inevitable heartache. It all feels so unnecessary.

And yet, at that random moment all such reservations mattered to me less than my deep appreciation for the political courage it takes to shape our country in our own way.

It is political independence after all, not any other kind of separation, so it's ultimately about our relationship with power, and how we choose to make use of it. Once you accept that Scotland is a nation worthy of the idea of independence, the details of the prospective reality feel less like problems to be avoided, and more like challenges to be faced.

Alas, as a Scot in voluntary exile in London, I am not actually allowed to vote, but since I was born in Aberdeen I can and will become a Scottish citizen if we vote for independence. More generally, it is incumbent on the 800,000 members of the Scottish diaspora in the UK to decide what they feel about this momentous choice. It is our country too. Vote or no vote, this decision is a touchstone of conscience, identity, judgment and belonging.

I write as a relatively Anglicised Scot, having lived most of my adult life in Oxford or London, so it might seem strange to feel inspired by the idea of national self-determination. What does it even mean to think Scotland is a nation and feel part of it from afar?

Is it about my own identification with the Scottish people and places that formed me? Does a desire for independence stem from being touched by the Aberdonian voices of my late grandfathers, from hours spent gazing out upon prosaically spectacular scenery from large Scotrail windows, or from my will-to-power years on the international chess circuit, where I typically played with a saltire flag next to my name?

No, that's not it. On reflection, there is nothing about Scotland that feels any less Scottish for it remaining part of a political union with England, Wales and Northern Ireland; if anything the opposite, because Scotland is partly defined by those relationships. And while my fond memories of a Scottish childhood are precious because of the people and places that formed them, they are resilient enough to withstand the banal thought that it was a British childhood too.

Perhaps then the point is less about the psychology of identity and more about the philosophy of nationhood? Just as we place trust in the rule of law, in human rights and in democracy, perhaps the mixture of language, law, history, ethnicity and geography that constitutes a nation is a necessary and legitimate touchstone for the question of where self-determination should lie?

Maybe, but that's not it either. The excitement and conviction I feel about political independence is not conceptual in nature. The decisive factor is more visceral, and I can almost locate it physiologically. It is the felt sense of courage, the bodily experience frequently described as the conviction, when one has reason to be frightened, that there is something more important than fear.

The ongoing debates about currency, oil, living standards, debt, Europe and pensions are suitably intense, and highly relevant to any utilitarian calculus about our future, but they are nonetheless secondary considerations. In a reflexive world, where outcomes are determined by predictions and unpredictable reactions as much as by actions, there simply cannot be a definitive expert verdict to help us evaluate all the possible implications and permutations of independence.

The choice is ultimately yours, and it is agonistic and existential in nature. It really should not be about whether you will be financially better off after two, or five, or 10 years because, let's be honest, who knows? What matters is to decide who you are with respect to the decision, not just nationally or economically, but personally and politically.

For me, the decision boils down to an appreciation for the sanctity of personal power. It's about our responsibility to use whatever power we have to try to bring about the kind of world we want to live in. For most Scots, that means a relatively egalitarian country, welcoming to business but strong enough to know that wealth creation is not the ultimate end of any country worth living in.

We are rich in oil and gas reserves, but I would like to imagine we could be even richer in scientific understanding and global responsibility, to the extent that we choose not to extract or burn precious geological assets until we can do so without further destabilising the climate on which all that we care about depends. That would be true global leadership. And while I know this idea is utopian and unlikely to transpire, I increasingly suspect that our lack of confidence in this kind of principled restraint stems partly from the alienation we feel from our current constitutional arrangements.

I think my first experience of the value of political independence came while I was marching against the Iraq war in Boston in 2003, when I was a graduate student at Harvard. At the time the rush to war felt so obviously wrong to me that I felt ashamed to be British.

Realpolitik suggests an independent Scotland may have supported the war in any case, but that's not the point. The charm of full political independence, rather than an extension of devolved powers, was tangible for the first time. Simply stated, as a Scot overseas, I resented being a British ally to an American cause.

If you feel your personal power is best expressed in a larger composite state with real or imagined global influence, that's your prerogative, but I would ask: can you really see yourself there? I can't any more. I love London, my adopted city. But because of birth, upbringing and belonging, England will never be my nation, and since British governments have inadequately reflected Scottish preferences and values for decades, the UK is increasingly unrecognisable as my sovereign state.

Political hope is simply more credible when it is invested in a nation we can know as our own; and we can more readily believe in the efficacy of nations when they have a viable state. Personal power feels more meaningful and rewarding in that context, whether or not it proves to be more effective or profitable.

Now I realise that the oblique rationale that I intuited in the Bangalore traffic was democratic in nature. Our psyches are strengthened when we can see our own hand in the world that is being built around us. In a politically independent Scotland, ideals of a better society may or may not be more credible, but they are literally more fashionable.

So I wonder how fellow Scots will feel on the day the vote is counted, knowing what they are rooting for, and why? In the context of pervasive risk and abundant opportunity, we need to find the will to choose whatever feels truer to our better natures. For many discerning Scots that will mean that caution prevails, but for me, given this precious chance, it means choosing a country of our own.