It’s not that I want to trawl back through history compiling a full inventory of things that happened on this day – those lists can easily be found on the web. Rather, I want to draw a contrast between what is taking place in Britain today, September 18, 2014, and what took place in Burma 26 years ago today, September 18, 1988. In Burmese history, of course, the marker is the SLORC internal coup – making this “a date which will live in infamy”, as US President Franklin D Roosevelt famously said of Japan’s December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. In British history, by contrast, the marker is the referendum on Scottish independence – making this a date which will surely always have at least some positives attached to it. This is the question, just six words, to which resident Scots are being asked to respond: “Should Scotland be an independent country?” Certainly there are reasons to believe the exercise could have been handled better. Nevertheless, my own feeling is that whatever comes out of the referendum, it’s good in and of itself. It helps give real substance and even a new participatory identity to British democracy. It also clearly separates it off from the kind of pseudo-democracy found in Myanmar, and from the still more disciplined political systems found in places like China and Russia.