Miami Hurricane, September 22, 2014

              “Yes” and “no” banners lined the
streets of Edinburgh in the weeks before
Scotland’s historic vote for independence
from the United Kingdom.
At 3 a.m. on Sept. 19, the day after the
election, University of Miami junior Mi-chael
Rosenberg, along with friends he has
made while studying abroad, headed down
to the Scottish Parliament Building. There,
voters waving Scottish flags and singing
Scottish songs awaited the results of one of
Scotland’s first political referendums.
This referendum asked Scottish voters
to decide whether Scotland, which has been
a part of Great Britain for 307 years, should
become an independent country. On
Thursday, the “no” vote won. According
to the latest BBC News poll, 55.3 percent
voted “no,” while 44.7 percent voted “yes.”
Rosenberg, who is studying at the Uni-versity
of Edinburgh this fall, was excited to
experience this historical moment.
“Scotland is paving the way for many
other countries and shows that such refer-endums
are possible,” he said. “When I fell
asleep, I didn’t know if I was going to be
waking up in a different country or not.”
If Scotland had seceded from the U.K.,
it would have impacted its economic, politi-cal
and business sectors, according to Joa-quin
Roy, an international studies professor
who specializes in the European Union.
Roy said this story of independence is
not going away any time soon.
“It’s going to produce a certain peace
you know for a while,” he said. “This is
something that is not going to disappear. If
someone thinks that this is the end of the
story, those people, so-called experts, are
wrong. The desire to have more autonomy
is not going to disappear.”
UM junior Albert Liu has also been
studying in Edinburgh this semester and
during the election. He has seen people
from both parties, and while the “yes” side
seems devastated, the “no” side is “only re-lieved.”
“Honestly, Scotland may have avoid-ed
a lot of turmoil and struggle in the next
decade by staying in the U.K.,” Liu said.
“Scotland has a lot of devolved powers al-ready,
meaning they decide quite a lot from
Edinburgh, so what they really lost was full
parliamentary independence, but it’s not
necessarily the worst outcome.”
Elyse Resnick, assistant director of the
Study Abroad program, advises those who
travel to Scotland. She said students who
are living in Scotland during the election
were “really blessed” to experience this op-portunity.
“Just to see a community come togeth-er
for a civic or even a religious purpose –
it’s really special,” she said.
As an analyst, Roy agreed that students
studying abroad experienced “hands-on an
extraordinary process of democracy.”
As Rosenberg was on his way to the
parliament building the night of the vote,
he passed by a church where hundreds of
candles were lit in prayer and support of the
Scottish. Surrounding them were flags of
other countries around the world, includ-ing
Taiwan, that were also hoping for inde-pendence.
“This is one of the first legal situations
where a region was going to split away and
form a new country peacefully and diplo-matically,”
he said. “Although it didn’t
happen, this referendum is giving hope to
many nations across the world. This refer-endum
for a potential country of only about
5 million has such a global impact and is the
spark of future change to come.”
Despite the thousands of miles separat-ing
Miami from Scotland, Roy believes any
student in today’s world should pay atten-tion
to what is happening throughout the
globe, especially in Europe, and to what he
believes is one of the most important allies
of the United States – Great Britain.
“To remain ignorant about what is
happening … the student that makes that
decision is actually damaging himself or
herself,” Roy said. “We cannot afford to be
ignorant about what is going on in the rest
of the world but most especially in the most
important allies.”
ON THE
INSIDE
BIRTHRIGHT
ISRAEL, GAZA CONFLICT
DOES NOT DISCOURAGE
TRAVEL EXPERIENCE
PAGE 3
SKYRISE
THE MIAMI HURRICANE
STAFF WEIGHS IN ON NEW
MIAMI SKYSCRAPER
PAGE 5
GLOBAL CUISINE
TOP MIAMI SELECTIONS
FOR INTERNATIONAL
DINING OPTIONS
PAGE 7
NEBRASKA
GAME RECAP: CANES LOSE
TO NEBRASKA 41-31,
REVIEW SEASON
PAGE 9
The Miami Vol. 93, Issue 8 | September 22 - September 24, 2014 . HURRICANE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI IN CORAL GABLES, FLORIDA, SINCE 1929
com Study abroad provides
window to Scotland
BY ASHLEY MARTINEZ
EDGE EDITOR
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Students witness democratic milestone
SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS: A woman in Edinburgh, Scotland shows her support for the “yes”
vote for Scottish independence from the United Kingdom by playing the bagpipes during
election day Thursday. Junior Michael Rosenberg took the photo while studying abroad.
PHOTO COURTESY MICHAEL ROSENBERG