The Presbyterianism of the Scotland of yesteryear has long been enmeshed in secularism, agnosticism and even atheism, writes Gamal Nkrumah. Nationalism has replaced religious zealotry as the animating factor in Scottish politics. It is even said that membership of the staunchly pro-independence Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) and other like-minded Scottish parties has surged since last Thursdays referendum on Scottish independence from the United Kingdom.

Unity is the best policy, or so the clich goes. And the United States of America is the perfect example. Yes, the American Civil War threatened to rip the nation apart in the 1860s. Fortunately for America, the Yankees fighting for the territorial integrity of the US prevailed, and the Southern Confederate states conceded that theirs was a lost cause.

In the Fertile Crescent, Mesopotamia (contemporary Iraq) and the Levant (modern Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine), national boundaries were demarcated when with the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire Britain and France decided to carve up the region into respective spheres of influence after the signing of the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement. Predominantly Sunni Syria, eventually governed by a Shia Muslim in the shape of Syrian president Bashar Al-Assads Alawi sect, came under French rule.

Iraq, overwhelmingly Shia Muslim (like Iran), in sharp contrast since independence from Britain in 1932 was run by successive Sunni Muslim leaders, the last of whom was former president Saddam Hussein. The proverbial colonial divide-and-rule policy was implemented with clinical precision, and the seeds of contention were sowed.

Following a twisted logic, Scotlands first minister Alex Salmond who led the campaign to vote yes for Scottish independence in last weeks referendum on independence, could be regarded as something of an amalgam of Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi and Islamic State leader and self-styled caliph of Sunni Muslims Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

Like Al-Abadi, Salmond was democratically elected, in his case as first minister by the Scottish parliament in May 2007. Al-Abadi was likewise democratically elected by the Iraqi parliament. Al-Baghdadi was never elected. However, even though no surveys have been conducted it is thought that a large segment of the Sunni Muslim population of Iraq and the Levant sympathises to differing degrees with al-Baghdadi, just as 45 per cent of Scots voted yes to Scottish independence.

Like Salmond in Scotland, Al-Baghdadi also commands a considerable following in the region. Yet the fundamental difference between Salmond and Al-Baghdadi is that as a staunch believer in democracy Salmond conceded defeat in last weeks referendum. He accepted the democratic verdict of the people and stepped down.

Al-Baghdadi, by contrast, has no intention of listening to the voices of those who detest his militant ideological orientation. He beheads his adversaries. He foments religious strife. His brutish barbarity has more in common with mediaeval savagery than with modern moderation.

Admittedly, more concrete causes of dissatisfaction with the status quo are to be found in Iraq and the Levant than in Scotland. In the latter there are public services, especially healthcare and education, whereas healthcare is virtually non-existent in the remote backwaters of eastern Syria and northwestern Iraq, the areas where IS is most active.

Whatever educational facilities existed in the area before the upsurge in ISs military conquests and its subjugation of the people in northeastern Syria and northwestern Iraq were destroyed by the violence and protracted warfare the group adopted. Al-Baghdadis very concept of education differs radically from that of the largely secularist Iraqi educational establishment, itself in shambles.

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Al-Baghdadi is no Salmond