Paul McBride’s recent comments on the Celtic Underground podcast outlined the extents that the new legislation being prepared by the Scottish Government will go.
Some harmless phrases look like becoming victims of Salmond’s Law but what will the legislation prove or change in Scotland?
First of all, the new law seems to suggest that if anyone uses offensive language, they are a bigot and therefore can be punished by the courts.
So what exactly is deemed offensive? Who decides and how do they decide? When these decisions are made, do we as fans, get a list of what is and is not offensive?
Of course I don’t think we can get a list or words/phrases, I am asking to illustrate how difficult it will be to define and enforce such a law.
People will and do get offended by different things.
My thoughts are that simply banning a word or certain words will not make one bit of difference. If someone has a deep rooted hatred of someone based on their religion, nationality or football team supported, then banning a word is hardly going to change that persons mind set.
Take for example someone who dislikes Asian people, if they use the work P**i because they dislike people from that part of the world, they wont have suddenly started liking people as soon as that particular word is deemed to be racist and offensive.
In the past, I have been called various f****n something or others, but because I don’t respect the opinion of people who have called me that, it doesn’t bother me at all and certainly doesn’t offend me.
However, In the eyes of the law, it is offensive.
We can then move on to the chants of Paddy McCourts f****n army which can be heard sometimes when Paddy plays for us. Is that chant now going to be deemed illegal?
If so, why? Who would get offended by such a chant? And if someone does get offended by it, maybe it’s time to have a look at themselves and to get a grip.
Another thing that I have heard as being a potential reason for bigotry in this country is the fact that there are Catholic and non Catholic schools. I do not buy into that train of thought at all. I grew up going to a Catholic school – well two of them.
Part of the religious lesson taught was to treat all people as equals so how that can cause bigotry is beyond me.
Having never been to a non Catholic school, I can’t say for sure what the kids are taught there but I doubt very much that it would say anything that your religion/ethnic background defines you as a person.
Now I apologise if this sounds cynical, but the new laws are pretty much a result of the so called old firm shame game – the cup replay at Parkhead last season. Does that mean that the people who called the summit think there is a problem with Celtic and us as fans?
The summit was called in the build up to an election of some sort. I’d like to make it clear that I have virtually no knowledge or interest in politics and I don’t even vote but to me it just looks like the politicians thought we better look like we are doing something.
When you take the behaviour of Celtic fans over the past say 10 years, we pretty much travel all over the place and get on fine and rarely cause any trouble so why, I’d like to know, are we even being targeted?
Is it perhaps the case that politicians and some reporters etc do not or can not be seen to favour Celtic or Rangers so it’s much easier just to tar us with the same brush ?
As a Celtic fan, I don’t feel that I have anything to worry about with regards to the new laws. We support a club that has always been known to be open to all and since the days of Fergus McCann and the ‘bhoys against bigotry’ campaign we really have not had a particularly big problem with bigotry.
Yes, there will be some bigots amongst our support – it would be ridiculous to suggest otherwise, but surely if the bigots’ kids were educated to understand that religion etc doesn’t matter then the bigoted generation will die out and a new generation of people will grow up and not be bigots.
The most publicised bigotry stuff must be the fact that a lot of songs that Rangers fans sing are punishable by UEFA so with the new laws coming in, we will probably have more songs deemed as bigoted and so will they.
All I can see this new law doing is giving more people criminal convictions without actually addressing the reasons for bigotry and how to stop it.
So the new laws, from what I can gather, are going to be very difficult to enforce. As a collective group, Celtic fans don’t really have anything to worry about anyway so here’s to the hoops, on and off the park, in the season ahead.
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Salmond’s law looks to prosecute those who use bigoted words online.
Will there be dawn raids on Schools when it is found the comments are made by children?
Will interpol be called to arrest those is such far flung places as Berwick or Belfast where the SNP have no authority?
Will offensive terms that are deemed illegal just be replaced?
Will Salmond become the King of Scotland after this foray?
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: We Celtic supporters are going to have to be very careful this season.
There are a lot of people just waiting for a chance to show that we’re just the same as the darkside. It might not be official policy, but there are plenty of bigots in the police force just waiting for a chance to jump on someone, and there are plenty of bigots in the media just waiting for a chance to drag our name through the dirt.
There’s nothing they’d like better than to destroy the reputation of our fans.
It was interesting to see that the first person arrested for internet abuse was a Celtic fan. Obviously, you cant condone what he said. It was just plain wrong. But how they managed to pick him out in the sea of filth that passes for comment on certain sites, begs the question, what exactly were they looking for ? Or maybe more to the point, who exactly were they hoping to find ?
Well said.
Also why target an individual when there are entire sites based on racism and bigotry with hundreds of people posting criminal comments?
Is this just going to be the new ASBO
A badge of honour, an OBIF…..
paranoidandroid: Couldn’t have put it better myself….sums the situation up exactly…
well said…
And yes…it’s a hopeful “vote catcher”…these people don’t live in the real world….
and don’t have a clue.
I live in London, and I probably know more Spurs fans than anything else. Leaving aside the undeniably racist abuse that the self styled “Yid Army” receive, which is never reported let alone prosecuted, they routinely call Arsenal fans “Scum” or “The Scum”. This is undoubtedly offensive (what reasonable person wouldn’t object to being called Scum?), but is it really worthy of a court appearance?
Existing legislation, if actually applied, would be sufficient to tackle religious bigotry and racist abuse, but nooooo, we need a new law that is patently unworkable.
There will be a few prosecutions and I am sure there’ll be more on us for singing political songs than there will be on them for singing the decidely racist “Famine Song” & Billy Boys, as well as the undoubtdly sectarian references to the Pope and Catholic Church in many of their other “songs”.
Plus ca change in Scotland.
This is blatantly being brought in to tar Celtic fans with the same brush, it’s absolutely baffling why the government think this is a reasonable thing to do, you don’t make up ridiculous unworkable laws because a section of society is regularly breaking the law in huge numbers and you want to be seen to be treating LAW ABIDING people who are the law breakers rivals on a sporting stage the same, you don’t criminalise innocent people to “even things out” so as not to upset criminal racists and bigots. Absolutely outrageous way of thinking.
And again the same thing with Catholic schools, how on Earth do you blame the VICTIMS of racist and sectarian morons!? It’s Catholics who are being targetted, so my question is what the f#ck is going on in non Catholic schools to make the people who attend/ed them behave like this? Maybe non faith schools need to be looking at Catholic schools and copying their ethics and teaching, you don’t need to be religious to learn manners, inclusion, charity and so on.