It is peculiarly stupid for Scottish people to hate those
of Irish descent or to suggest that they should go home. The word Scotland
derives from the Irish tribe that settled here in the Dark Ages. So, to hate the
Irish is to hate ourselves. To hate people because they are Catholic is equally
stupid. Nearly all of us are descendants of Catholics, because Catholicism was
the religion of Scotland up until the Reformation. It is only because we were
once Catholics that we are Christians at all let alone Protestants.
Everyone who lives in Scotland rather than is here on
holiday is at home. My grandfather arrived here from near Dublin in the late 19th
century. But I have no home in Ireland. To suggest I go home there is as
senseless as to suggest that you go home to your grandfather’s house, which may
belong to someone else now, or may not even exist.
But there are various hates in Scotland and it would be
well not to mix them up. Irish people and Scottish people are the same race.
Modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic both descended from Middle Irish. People have
been moving across the Irish sea both ways since time began. To suggest that
there is a racial distinction between Scottish people and Irish people is
itself racist. But white people cannot be racist about each other. If everyone
in the world were the same race there would be no such thing as racism, though
there might be other forms of prejudice.
Racism has become the unforgivable sin in the modern
world, but this does not justify extending the term to cover all forms of hatred.
People do not sing about those of Irish descent going home because they are of
a different race. They are not motivated by racism, but rather by sectarianism and
xenophobia.
We have different words in order to describe different
things. It is just as bad to hate someone because he is a Catholic or of Irish
descendent as it is to hate him because he has black skin. Hating someone for a
characteristic he was born with is the worst form of prejudice because it is
hating someone for something he cannot help.
The oddness of West of Scotland sectarianism is that
while Catholics hate Protestants and vice versa they don’t do so if the
Catholics happen to come from Poland or the Protestants come from Germany. No
one is interested in what school you went to if it was in Warsaw. Sectarianism
is not straightforwardly about religion then. Nor is about nationality, because
nearly all of those involved have the same nationality. It is merely a tribal
dispute between people who are nearly the same, kept going by a rivalry between
two great football teams and the fact that too many people from this area are
segregated into different schools from age five onwards.
I don’t believe that those singing about people going
home seriously wish anyone to go home. Nor indeed do those singing about the
IRA seriously support terrorism. Rather these songs are a way of expressing an
identity distinct from its rival. Each side sets out to offend the other in
order to get the reaction which maintains the difference. Each side enjoys singings
songs that are forbidden, without necessarily meaning any of the words that are
sung. These are the rebel songs of a conflict that no longer exists. They may
be fun to sing in the pub, but it doesn’t mean anyone is going to actually do
anything about it. This is a squabble about nothing. About a religion whose
rituals we have forgotten and dogma we know longer know.
There is a lot of faux outrage whenever Rangers fans
are caught doing something they ought not. I suspect this is one reason why
some of them continue to do it. It’s the equivalent displaying two fingers. But
sectarianism is also displayed when people suggest that it was somehow illegitimate
for Scottish Protestants to be “planted” in Ulster. All forms of migrations are
just fine except those that go from Britain to Ireland. There are frequent
suggestions that British people in Northern Ireland should go home and that
they are merely part of an occupation that stretches back a thousand years. But
the Protestants in Northern Ireland have been there since the original
settlement of North America. To suggest that Northern Ireland is not their home
is just as bad as the song the Rangers fans were singing.
While Irish Republicans demand “England get out of Ireland”
and some Scottish nationalists demand “England get out of Scotland”, and while banners
are carried describing Tories as scum and we sing about sending English people
homeward to think again, then it is quite clear that it is not just Rangers
fans who sometimes make dubious statements or sing dodgy songs.
Scottish football fans were heard in London taunting the
English and singing if you hate the f**ing English clap your hands. But they
probably didn’t really mean it and few if any of them did anything about it. But
this hatred is at least part of the motivation for the desire to separate
Scotland from England.
Sectarianism and xenophobia have real world
consequences beyond the singing of unpleasant songs. English people are
sometimes made to feel unwelcome in Scotland, which is the equivalent of
telling them to go home. People on both sides of the sectarian divide can face
prejudice and sometime violence. But there is at least nothing visible or
indeed audible that distinguishes between one side and the other. Dress them
both in suits and you cannot tell the difference. Its only the uniform, the
songs and the flags that distinguish the two sides. If I was so keen to
maintain that I was at home, I wouldn’t wave the flag of a foreign land. I feel
no need to do so, even if my ancestor came from there.
