Shocked and saddened
by the personal animus
of a literary critic
The Cafe 2
Power prices
Why not gay marriage?
We have a tradition
of religious liberalism
Barbara Millar
Real doctors
The Cafe
Norma Allan
It’s interesting to read Peadar Ó Donnghaile’s (1 November) suggestion that banking and finance should be carried out in Gaelic, but would it not debase the language of poetry and song, the language of community work on land or sea, to apply it to the slimy world of lying, cheating and stealing that corporate finance and banking have become?
Howie Firth
Unlike many publications SR doesn’t have an online comment facility – we prefer a more considered approach. The Cafe is our readers’ forum. If you would like to contribute to it, please email islay@scottishreview.net
Today’s banner
Children at dusk, Monifieth, Angus
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
Why Celtic fans must
rally to the support of an
anti-Catholic bigot
Kevin Rooney
If Celtic fans accept the treatment of Birrell or worse still if we call for
the arrest and prosecution of rival fans, then we invite these laws to be
used against all of us.
Then there are those Celtic fans whose banner mentioned the ‘Huns’, a term used by Celtic fans (and even some Rangers fans) for many years to describe the Rangers football team and its fans. A term that has been criminalised in the rush to label every expression as a symbol of sectarian hatred. These fans have also been arrested and charged with a hate crime – a case that has been postponed several times leaving the fans unaware of their fate.
For months I have warned that politicians are using the controversy around the targeting of Neil Lennon to blur the distinction between words and deeds in a way that is a serious threat to free speech and civil liberties. But few champions of civil liberties have taken to the streets – finding the principle of free speech apparently easy to sacrifice when it comes to uncouth football fans who upset their liberal sensibilities.
Some Celtic fans have also taken issue with the attempt by politicians and the authorities to lump a range of football chants and slogans under the headline ‘sectarian’. A new organisation, Celtic Fans Against Criminalisation, has gone to great pains to point out that many Celtic songs are not sectarian but political. They are right – whether it’s traditional Irish rebel songs in support of a United Ireland or the ‘Up the IRA’ slogan that landed my nephew in jail – these ‘communications’ are not anti-protestant but anti-British rule in Ireland.
Of course my defence of a nasty bigot like Birrell will be hard to take for some. And of course his sentiments are different to someone singing a political song. But it is vital that all fans join together to defend the principle of free speech . The reason that we are in this situation today is that we have allowed Celtic and Rangers fans to be criminalised and demonised in the most extraordinary way over many years.
I don’t like anything Birrell says or represents but like Voltaire I defend absolutely his right to say it without being locked up and branded a criminal. If Celtic fans accept the treatment of Birrell or worse still if we call for the arrest and prosecution of rival fans, then we invite these laws to be used against all of us.
Alex Salmond can now claim the dubious distinction of presiding over one of the most authoritarian and illiberal pieces of legislation in Western Europe. Anyone who remotely cares about basic civil liberties should howl with rage at the imprisonment of Stephen Birrell and should stand up now to defend free speech and the right of football fans to be offensive whether on Facebook or at Ibrox or Celtic Park.
