What passes for tolerance in Britain
Posted on August 27th, 2006 by Jackie Danicki
An athlete has received a formal caution for making the sign of the cross at a football match. Why? Because a few people complained that it offended them. The footballer, Artur Boruc, received a formal caution for breach of the peace.
The Crown Office said a caution was issued as an alternative to prosecution. A spokesman said that as Boruc made the gesture before a crowd in the charged atmosphere of an Old Firm game it constituted a breach of the peace and had ‘provoked alarm’.
Filed under: Individuality vs Collectivism, Law, Life, Politics, The State Is Not Your Friend
The problem is: in some parts of Glasgow, you may still risk being attacked for wearing the wrong shade of green.
As an atheist I dislike religious intolerance - seeing it as particularly pointless - but the fact of the matter is that for over 100 years, Rangers v. Celtic matches have been proxy battles between Protestant (Rangers, Blue) and Catholic (Celtic, Green) populations in Glasgow, reflecting bigotry to that which still carries on just over the water in Northern Ireland, specifically because a lot of the population *arrived* from N.I. in the 1800s.
In context, the act of a Celtic players’ crossing himself in the Catholic manner might be considered by some to be “baiting” the opposition fans, and trying to incite a riot. If the player is Polish, mayhap he’s just not aware of the local sensitivities, but that *is* the way of things. “Old Firm” matches are entrenched in the local psyche and police/legal experience.
It’s not nice, but neither are the people concerned particularly liberal nor openminded.
So when reading stories about the above, do please remember not to put it in the context of Scotland, or Britain as a whole. File it instead amongst the fuckwittage and intolerance of Northern Ireland, the which for some reason has always been sustained more romantically, emotionally and strongly amongst expatriate populations.
Like you can experience (for instance) by being in a bar in Boston whilst having a loud voice and an English accent.
Backplot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangers_F.C.#The_Old_Firm_and_sectarianism
[…] From Jackie Danicki via the Guardian ” An athlete has received a formal caution for making the sign of the cross at a football match. Why? Because a few people complained that it offended them. The footballer, Artur Boruc, received a formal caution for breach of the peace” […]
Alec, I understand the context (believe it or not - and I can see how you might think I was unaware of it), but the point is that the law puts ridiculous restrictions on what should be free speech. Inciting a riot? Hardly, especially if the handful of complaints (out of how many thousands of people in attendance?) are anything to go on. The law should not encourage intolerance or indulge those who would be moved to riot by such reasonable free expression.
Hi J:
I don’t disagree that the law should not put restrictions on free speech, I went to a Catholic boys’ school (now happily defunct, demoshished and paved-over) where I developed a healthy respect of others beliefs, my right to think differently, and for us all to express ourselves.
Not that that stopped various folk telling me that I was going to hell.
In Terry Pratchett’s “City Watch” Discworld books, on the other hand, he makes a wonderful case for extending the verdict of “suicide”: walking into a dwarf bar and making “short” jokes, walking around in the “Shades” at midnight, summoning dragons into your living room… all of these in Ankh Morpork are typically described as verdicts of “suicide”, after you’re dead.
In between real-world free speech, and real-world “doing something so stupid that it verges upon suicide”, I sometimes feel there is a point at which the law ought to intercede, at least when many more than one person is concerned. For me, a football game with hyped-up fans who enjoy the fighting because it’s part of their cultural identity… that’d qualify.
I avoid football so lack direct experience, but I *do* know a couple of pubs in Aberystwyth into which you do not go on a friday night unless you speak Cymraeg, At such times they are not full of smart, polite, literate people who want to discuss political theory over a drink.
Instead they are fuill of tribes - and it’s bad to be a Saesneg.
Anyway I suspect - no more than that, merely suspect - that the whole thing has been inflated somewhat by the media due to it being the silly season; somewhere under that lot is the truth.
Needle in a haystack time.
Alec’s right about the Old Firm games, but wrong, I think, that that justifies a formal caution for breach of the peace. The whole point of the law is that it applies to everyone all the time. Either pass a law specifically governing only behaviour at Old Firm matches or deal with the situation informally. The police should not have been involved in this. And that their doing so is consistent with the current state of the law is why Jackie’s comment about Britain is correct.
Sectarianism’s far worse in Glasgow than Northern Ireland.
I take Squander’s point, and I do often regret that the law - and the ways in which its various functionaries attempt to enforce it - are rarely orthogonal; but in the stupidity stakes there appears an accepted gulf between shouting “Fire” in the middle of a country park, and shouting “Fire” in a packed cinema or theatre.
Like it or not, it’s the context of the situation which makes the difference in the eyes of the authorities.
As a total aside, this seems like a good time to say that my then girlfriend and I once popped out for cat food at Parkhead and found ourselves walking back just as the match finished. We suddenly realised that, through sheer coincidence, I was dressed in blue and she in blue and bright orange. At no other time in my life have I so fervently wished that a football team has won.
As the American child of elderly parents who are now “The Old Firm” literally as well as figuratively (Glaswegian CofS dad, Irish American mum) I’ve noticed that sectarianism is pretty rife in the UK. Not just among the laddist footie culture, but the chattering classes as well. They’re just less violent about it.
Only the other night, both Elvis Costello (born Declan McManus in London) and Christopher Hitchens were guests of Bill Maher’s Real Time program on HBO. First, Bill interviewed Elvis via satellite (about the govt response to Katrina), and there’s Mr. Costello on the screen with his quite obvious English accent. Hitchens was part of the roundtable afterwards, and Bill asked Hitch to remark on Elvis’ thoughts, saying something like “blah blah as you’re both Brits blah blah.” Hitch responds, and just as Bill is about to move forward asking another guest’s opinion, Hitch interrupts with, “And by the way, Elvis Costello is Irish.”
Maher looks at him with this WTF expression, all ‘who doesn’t know Elvis Costello is English? I’m pretty damn sure I didn’t misidentify him.’ And he jokes it off with Hitch, like, “Oh come on, YOU ARE BOTH BRITISH, don’t be silly” and then goes on with the next guest.
I’m not sure if Maher understood the context, but Hitch was smart enough to let it go after Bill’s response. It was extremely telling, though - his reflexive response/need to CORRECT Maher on his “mistake.”
Full disclosure: I enjoy Hitch’s commentary even when I don’t agree with it, but this just goes to show how deeply entrenched the prejudice is.