Naming it right and calling it out

“To name things wrongly is to add to the misfortune of the world”.

Albert Camus.

Regular reader will undoubtedly spot that this is not the first time I have deployed this quote from my all-time favourite goalie.

However, in the aftermath of the Ibrox klanbase trashing George Square for the second time three months, it is apposite.

I noted with a degree of satisfaction that the obfuscatory term “sectarianism” has been jettisoned by some authority figures in Scotland and most notably Humza Yousaf.

The “S” word is part of the problem.

It creates a false equivalence when the reality is that an ethno-religious minority is constantly targeted by those motivated by nativist atavism.

The Cabinet Secretary for Justice made the point on several media outings that what was being belted out in George Square was not “sectarianism” but anti-Catholic prejudice.

As a journalist and writer, I am concerned with the words that I choose to deploy.

Now, as I am nearing the end of a three-year journey to have a manuscript ready for submission, I constantly ponder if I am using the correct word in the correct context.

As an undergraduate, I was introduced to the wonders of Private Eye. One of their regular features was the reportage on the travails of Neasden FC.

Their tight-lipped, ashen-faced manager Ron Knee was the conduit for every toe-curling footie cliché.

Of course, it was the Eye’s way of pointing out that, within the Fourth Estate, sports reporters aren’t the cognitive elite.

This site has been on the go since 2008, and I  constantly tried to get the chaps on the sports desks to use exciting new terms like “anti-Irish racism” when describing the Ibrox song sheet.

Even when the highest court in Scotland ruled back in 2009 that the Famine Song was racist, those employed to compile match reports still referred to it as “sectarian”.

Anti-Catholic hatred and anti-Irish racism of the Ibrox mob should be called out for what it actually is.

That is the first step to tackling the world view of that Fascist underclass who believe that Glasgow belongs exclusively to them.

Consequently, I was more than pleased to read this piece by Andrew Smith in the Scotsman.

His article has drawn much praise over the last 24 hours, and rightly so, in my opinion.

In terms of full disclosure, I have met Andrew once.

We briefly chatted in the media centre at the AVIVA Stadium in Dublin during an international match, if I remember correctly.

It was certainly a long time ago, as the original Rangers FC was still alive.

The piece is excellent throughout.

However, for me, this is the key part with my emphasis added:

Yet what has been missing from such condemnatory commentary – with Police Scotland equally unequivocal in calling out the carnage – is self reflection.

That is required because all parts of civil society, our highest authorities and, in no small part, we in the media have all been enablers in allowing a corrosive sense of entitlement to be brewed with a cocktail of anti-Catholic/anti-Irish bigotry.

The concoction percolates into a mindset that now twice inside three months – just ponder that, twice! – has resulted in Glasgow city centre disturbances that have been despicable in scale and nature.

Dear reader, “enablers” is the key concept.

When this site started writing about the Famine Song, senior members of the  Fitba Fourth Estate effectively wrote permission slips for the genocide choir at Ibrox.

This appeared in the Daily Record in September 2008.

If they are not capable of  “self reflection”, then they should simply leave the stage.

For all of my life, anti-Catholic hatred and anti-Irish racism has been permitted and tacitly approved of in the land of my birth by people who should have acted with good authority.

I hope that is now becoming something to be surveyed in the rearview mirror of social progress in Fair Caledonia.

Last night on The Nine, Jeanette Findlay, the chairperson of Call It Out, educated the chap in the studio on the subject.

Here is an excerpt from it.

I do not disagree with this characterisation of the interview.

It is a daunting task to educate the Scottish media on the realities of life for Scotland’s multi-generational Irish community.

However, I feel that work has finally commenced.

The battlefield against this traditionally sanctioned hatred now moves to Holyrood.

Hopefully, if there is a debate in Holyrood this week, the  George Square rioters will be called out for their anti-Irish racism.

After all, that is their worldview; that is what defines them.

Moreover, it would be a crass error to absolve the Ibrox club of their corporate responsibility in giving house room to a racist subculture.

The featured image should become the emblem of a pariah in modern Scotland.

The good folk of Fair Caledonia stand at a crossroads in many ways.

Do they want Kenmure Street or George Square to define them?

They cannot have both.

“Refugees welcome here”, and the Famine Song cannot co-exist.

I hope that the good guys win.