Where I come from in Aberdeenshire there was no such
thing as sectarianism. No one in school ever asked me about religion. I neither
knew nor cared which church if any anyone else went to. There were no marches
here until very recently. We were able to “stand free” from all of that or so
we rather smugly thought.
Christianity is becoming ever rarer in Europe. I find
the idea therefore that people should hate each other because of the
denomination they happen to follow to be peculiarly unhelpful. I am Russian Orthodox.
I am neither a Catholic nor a Protestant, but I have read and admired works by
authors who were. I find aspects of Catholic and Protestant thought to be both
interesting and important. My final assessment is that the difference between
Catholicism and Protestantism is small with regard to matters that are
essential, but sometimes large with regard to matters that are inessential. It
doesn’t matter one little bit to me if someone is a Catholic or a Protestant.
They share the same faith as me. More importantly they are my neighbour just as
they would be if they shared a different faith or none.
I have never experienced sectarianism in the way that
it is experienced in the West of Scotland. The words that are used to insult
are usually unfamiliar to me. I don’t know the words to the songs. I don’t follow
football. But I fear sectarianism is no longer about the school you went to,
the religion you were born into or the football club you support. It has spread
beyond its Glasgow base and infected all of us.
What is sectarianism? The Oxford English dictionary
defines it as:
The sectarian spirit;
adherence or excessive attachment to a particular sect or party, esp. in
religion; hence often, adherence or excessive attachment to, or undue favouring
of, a particular ‘denomination’.
From this we can conclude that although sectarianism
is frequently associated with religion and denomination, it has a wider
meaning.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote in 1834 “[In
Shakespeare] there is no sectarianism, either of politics or religion.” What
this means is politics can also be sectarian. This is familiar from Glaswegian
sectarianism. Traditionally the Rangers side was associated with Ulster
Unionism, while the Celtic side was associated with Irish nationalism and
Republicanism.
Some Protestants in Glasgow go on Orange marches,
while some Catholics go on Irish Nationalist/Republican marches. Each commemorate
events which took place in Ireland. But
until recently these marches were in no way associated with politics in
Scotland. Irish politics had not really spread here.
But something changed in the years following the SNP
taking power in Scotland. While they sought to criminalise certain
traditionally sectarian behaviour at football matches, they spread a new form
of sectarianism throughout Scotland.
Who marches in Scotland now? We have the Orange Order,
various republican orders such as Cairde na hÉireann and the West of Scotland
Band Alliance. To these we can add the All Under One Banner Order. Shall we
call it the Yellow Order of the SNP thistle?
Scottish nationalists march for the same reason that
the Orange Order and Irish Republicans march. They want to exaggerate their
strength. They want to encourage a sense of group unity with other Scexiteers and
separateness from their fellow Scots who want to remain British. They want to
intimidate people who disagree with them politically.
There is of course no need to march in a democracy.
People march when they are frustrated by democracy not going their way as was
the case in September 2014 and also June 2016.
Marching is fundamentally anti-democratic when you
live in a democracy. A few thousand people marching are a tiny number compared
to the whole population, yet they think that this tiny fraction is somehow
representative. It isn’t. It’s a sect. The reason for marching is to celebrate
this modern form of sectarianism.
I have only contempt for sectarianism whether green, orange or yellow.
A few years ago, Aberdonians turned their backs on an
Orange march down Union Street and felt very virtuous about it, but some of
them took part in a recent All Under One Banner March as if that were somehow different.
But they disgraced their “stand free” motto and turned it into just another
sectarian song.
We are not all under one banner. Scotland is split
right down the middle politically. While our side votes for Conservatives,
Liberals or Labour, the All Under One Banner side votes according to an
identity that is exclusive and not shared by the rest of us living here. It's a separatist identity and we want nothing to do with it. If you
look under the banner, you’ll find that they are only pretending to be
different. Some front organisations unite in voting SNP, while we remain split
three ways.
Scottish nationalism is frequently thought to be based
on hatred for England. There is an element of this. But much more important is hatred of
Britain and hatred of Tories.
There is no word on either side of the Glaswegian
sectarian divide that is as insulting as the word Tory when it is spoken by a
Scottish nationalist. The SNP has built its power on the basis of the hatred
expressed by this word. If there were not the vicious hatred of Tories, based
on some half remembered folk tale of the poll tax and Margaret Thatcher, there
would be no demand for independence. It is an irrational hatred, because it
hates Tories whether they are good bad or indifferent. It hates Tories automatically and without reflection because of who they and what they believe. It is the most sectarian hatred in Scotland because it is more widespread geographically and endorsed by the leader of the SNP.
The SNP hates Britain and the British because we as a
nation sometimes vote Tory and infect Scotland with Tory Covid spreading across
the border. As a British Scottish Conservative, I have experienced a level of
hatred that is as bad as any Catholic or Protestant has faced in Glasgow. It is
as vicious as racism though we are of the same race. It is tribal, divisive and dangerous.
The SNP have divided Scotland far more than
traditional Glaswegian sectarianism ever could. The SNP has spread its marches
and its hate to places like Aberdeenshire that never knew such nonsense before.
They have divided us so that we no longer dare mention who we vote for in the
same way that some people from Belfast don’t mention their surname or the
school they went to.
The modern divide in Scotland follows much the same
fault line as Glaswegian sectarianism. Irish nationalists and Republicans together with those who hate Britain support the SNP as a way to get historical revenge by simultaneously partitioning Britain
as they unite Ireland.
The rest of us just want to go back to the Scotland
that was not divided. Where we didn’t much care about politics and there were
no marches at least where I live. Take your banner away, we are not under it.
The SNP have normalised hatred of British people,
Tories and those who simply support the unity and territorial integrity of our country. They have done it
by uniting everyone who hates Britain whether because of historical grievances,
foreign wars, or because we are an ally of the USA. All these haters have been
united under one banner. Their hatred is as malicious as any previous form of
sectarianism. Far from eradicating sectarianism, the SNP have embraced it. “Tory”
spoken with Sturgeon’s venom is as insulting and sectarian as “Hun” or “Fenian”
ever were.
