New Research: How Childhood 4th of July Celebrations Affect Adult Political Behavior

Quite an interesting research, considered worth it to share. by Doug Gavel Not every child in America has the opportunity to attend Fourth of July celebrations, but those that do are prone to be more politically engaged and associate more closely with the Republican Party than their peers. Those are two conclusions in a new [...]

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Miroslav Hroch and the term nationalism

In the reflection of our small group discussion on Hroch’s explanation of the term ”nationalism” in ”Nationalism and national movements: comparing the past and the present of Central and Eastern Europe”, I considered relevant to post a piece that I bumped today online from “Learning from Small Nations”, interview with Miroslav Hroch, New Left Review, [...]

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Gellner @ Cambridge

Recently, I watched one of the rarest videos of Ernest Gellner, particularly his conference talk at Cambridge in 1977, where he shared his views on evolutionism, functionalism, social change and antique models of state foundation. I think it worth to spend around 20 minutes to listen and watch to the Great Polymath.

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Russia to host 2018 World Cup

by Meerim Maturaimova Today Russia has won the fight to host 2018 World Cup, and it is the main topic for discussion in Russian forums. Even the president of the state Dmitrii Medvedev, whose posts in his Twitter account are usually very official, simply posted today: “Hurray! Victory!” (http://twitter.com/MedvedevRussia). Russian channels did not take long [...]

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Scotland: The end of devolution as we knew it

I wanted to raise my awareness about the functions and responsibilities of Scottish Government and Parliament. Recently read this article from OpenDemocracy by author Gerry Hassan. I can not evaluate the objectivity of information, but I think the article contains some interesting elements for nationalism students. Here are small parts from article: The current and [...]

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Why Gellner regretted the demise of Soviet Communism – visual illustration

I was really wondering after one of the lectures by Professor McCrone, why Jewish-Czech liberal (all possible combinations to be anti-communist) Gellner was upset about the demise of the Soviet Union? I deem I discovered a visual answer to the question. Despite the typical Soviet content of the song about the glory of Lenin and [...]

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Action for Peace in Kyrgyzstan

Dear All, We, a Central Asian diaspora in Scotland and friends, are organising a charity event to raise funds for victims of the recent “ethnic” conflict in the south of Kyrgyzstan. To learn more about this conflict, please visit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia_pacific/10325589.stm Please do come along! The programme of the event is very interesting and includes: a [...]

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Welcome, but not too welcome…

I was driving down from Mull this weekend and saw a British flag flying over a pub. My friends and I stopped to have lunch and started a conversation with the owner – a proud, die-hard Scottish nationalist if I’ve ever met one. So I had to ask… ‘Why the British flag and not the [...]

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