EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE BIGOTS

Happy New Year everyone!

At one of the ND schools I taught at, my new class and myself were getting to know each other at the start of the school year. They pointed out one particular girl, telling me that she was a 'Christian'. Further questions elicited the fact that the girl was, in fact, a Roman Catholic. Bemused, I asked the rest of them if they weren't Christians. You can guess what came next. 'Naw,' was the reply, 'we're Proddisents!' It took a while for me to explain that 'Protestants' were Christians as well, whereupon they all decided that they weren't 'Proddisents' after all!

I was reminded of this episode while reading all the guff about the bigoted singing at Ibrox. Despite the desperate attempts to claim otherwise, it seems that they're now admitting to singing about 'Fenian blood'. The Vanguard Bears, that bastion of everything Christ stood for, say, 'Everyone knows that the vast majority of Rangers supporters are from the PUL community. Monday's rousing rendition of the Billy Boys, Derrys Walls etc leaves nobody in any doubt.' Strangely, they go on to spout the pish about 'big trophees' and the rest, which nullifies their defiance a bit. What reminded me about that class, though, was that 'PUL community' bit. What they're really talking about is the Orange Order. The writer goes on, 'As a member of the Orange Institution, I am subjected to vile (I think he means 'bile') and vitriol like this every time I go to a match, or even look at social media. That is seen as acceptable by the media and politicians of Scotland.' Apparently, he gets called an 'Orange bastard' and a 'Proddy bastard' at matches, no matter who they're playing. So, according to this clown, every other team in Scotland, apart from Sevco, hates Protestants with a vengeance!

I can't say I've ever heard anyone use the term 'Proddy bastard'; at any rate, it would be a complete misnomer. The scum that attaches itself to the Ibrox club are anything but Protestant. The word 'Protestant' itself is well past its sell-by date; most chuch-goers nowadays would describe themselves as Church of Scotland, Free Church, Episcopalian, Jehovah's Witness or divers other denominations. The only ones that call themselves 'Protestants' are normally to be found nowhere near a church of any kind. Their church is the Orange Order and their temple is Ibrox. Not one of them would be able to explain 'Justification By Faith', 'Double Predestination' or any other tenets of Protestant churches. Instead, they define themselves by not being Roman Catholic and hating Roman Catholics and the Irish.

The Orange Order claims to be an organisation that upholds the Protestant faith, principally the Nicene Creed, including Trinitarianism. Strangely, however, there are many Jehovah's Witnesses that are members and I've known a few Mormons that are in the Order as well. Both these denominations are Unitarian, which should effectively disqualify any members from joining the Orange Order. (The Mormon leadership in Scotland frowns upon its members being in the Orange Order and I don't doubt that the Jehovah's Witnesses feel the same.) And then we have the weirdest group of members entirely: Jews. The Order boasts openly about its Jewish membership and it was Jewish members that were instrumental in making the Orange Order a political force in Canada. This, of course, begs the question: how do non-Christians uphold the traditions of the Protestant faith? The simple answer is that they don't and this wide membership shows the Orange Order up for what it is: an organisation based on hatred of Roman Catholics in general, and Irish Catholics in particular. It doesn't matter a jot if you're a totem-worshipping heathen; if you've got hatred in your heart, you're in.

For years these hate-filled bigots have marched along our streets every July, spouting their filth unpunished. Other months of the year would see them at their place of worship in Govan, singing the same songs of hate and worse. Nobody would ever condemn them without indulging in 'whatabootery'. Even after their old club died, the supporters could still be heard, assaulting our ears with their sectarian and racist bile. It seems, though, that they've chosen now to make a stand; nobody is going to stop them singing what they want and they're challenging everybody to do their worst.

The writer on Vanguard Bears closes with this call-to-arms:

"To the Rangers fans; It was great to have the best anthem in world football back on Monday. The Billy Boys must be sung at every game. No concessions, no changing of the original words. They are hurting, they know we are coming back. They tried to kill us and couldn't. If they want to be offended then give them what they want!
To the club, don't make the same mistakes that David Murray did. Do not 'build bridges'. These clubs, their fans and Chairman tried to kill us. Never forget that. Let's do to them what they couldn't manage to do to us. If need be take them to the EU court, but we will sing our anthem. Ban, for life, any journalist who tries to single us out. Oh and if it's not stretching it, lets have the Orange Order Divine Service back at Ibrox on an annual basis. It's time to take our club and country back."


Now that sounds like some benighted old Boer in South Africa, ready to indulge in an attack on the present government, rather than somebody that claims to be a reasonable human being. It's a threat; pure and simple and one can't help but wonder what they're planning. Whatever it is, the good, old Daily Record is already on their side. Michael Gannon, in a vile, little article, points to 'the ones who seem to have made being offended a national past time. It’s almost like they enjoy it.' This is harking back to the days when Jabba told everybody offended by the 'Famine Song' to leave the country! Then we have Johnny McFarlane, the DR's so-called 'Rangers Blogger', whose only complaint about the 'Billy Boys' is that

"As fans we need to accept that the only winners from singing these tunes are the haters. We are feeding them and on Monday, instead of talking about our dynamic young team and our most exciting manager in at least a decade, we laid an 8 course tasting menu in front of a pack of salivating trolls."

Again, we're supposed to accept that those offended by bigotry are at fault, not the bigots themselves.

It's a different story, though, when it comes to terms that The Peeppul don't like. The writer on Vanguard Bears wants the word 'Huns' banned, while I received many attacks on Twitter, calling me 'a bigot' because I'd used the word 'Huns'. I've said it before and I'll say it again; The Peeppul don't understand irony. The shite we're told by Vanguard Bears, and even by Nil By Mouth, is that 'Huns' refers to Protestants. This is a downright lie and they know it. Danny McGrain and Kenny Dalglish weren't Huns, neither was Jock Stein. In fact, neither were well-known bigots Ian Paisley and Jack Glass; I don't remember ever seeing either of them in a Rangers scarf. Nacho Novo, however, is a Roman Catholic and a Hun; something that our media, bigotry watchdogs and The Peeppul themselves seem to ignore.

The origins of The Peeppul being called 'Huns' is lost in the mists of time; suffice it to say, however, that this term is used by supporters of every team in Scotland to describe the follow-followers of Rangers and its successor club. No doubt the label was attached to them due to their habit of leaving a trail of destruction in their wake no matter where they went. Stories about Celtic supporters once being called 'Huns' are just that; stories. These fanciful histories only exist in the minds of The Peeppul, along with the Irish refuelling U-Boats and Celtic Park leaving floodlights switched on more than a decade before it had any! In other words, it's a load of pish! Everybody knows what a 'Hun' is and there's nothing sectarian about it.

The Vanguard Bears fantasist also has this to say:

"In 2015 the Scottish Government published figures showing 27.2% of race hate victims in Scotland were indeed classed as White British. 21.2% were classed as Pakistani and only 14%were classed as other white (which includes Irish). Seems odd that your focus is to clamp down on one of the least likely groups to suffer from hate crime, and ignore the group most likely to be a victim. But that is a Nationalist agenda."

What a load of shite! The Peeppul don't restrict themselves to hating, or victimising Irish; those of Irish descent are included. My passport says I'm British but, to The Peeppul, I'm not really British; I'm Irish. If I was the victim of one of their hate crimes then I'd be in the 'White British' category, which, to the Vanguard Bears bam, means that I can't possibly be a victim of their racist bigotry! It's also worth pointing out that many of The Peeppul are responsible for the other hate crimes against Asians and Eastern Europeans, through their links to the BNP and England/Scotland First. At any rate, the majority of the victims of The Peeppul's hate crimes would be classified as 'White British' so the clown's argument is totally invalid.

And then there's the old favourite: Celtic supporters sing 'in praise of terrorists'. I've pointed out before on here that, as an armchair supporter, I don't know any of these 'terrorist' songs. I only recently heard 'Roll of Honour' for the first time, and had to go on YouTube to do it! I do, however, know all the words to 'The Billy Boys', 'The Sash' and 'Derry's Walls' because I've heard them blaring out of my TV and radio on occasions too numerous to mention. The argument that 'one side's as bad as the other' doesn't hold water and, anyway, it's not a question of sides; it's a question of outright racist and religious bigotry being allowed to go unpunished and, indeed, pretty much unremarked.

As for 'singing in praise of terrorists', one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. The French Resistance was called a terrorist organisation by the Vichy Government. George Washington was a terrorist according to the British Government, while in South Africa in the 1980s you'd probably have been beaten senseless with a sjambok for singing Jerry Dammers's 'Free Nelson Mandela'!

You might not agree with songs about the IRA or whatever, but you can't use that as an excuse for songs of hatred directed at a whole religion or a whole nationality. My da was in Palestine after the war (he was a regular in the Royal Scots) and my family has heard many (many!) times about the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. This was carried out by a bunch of Zionist zealots, led by Menachem Begin. Would that have justified singing songs of hatred against Jews? What about the pirates in Somalia or the situation in Zimbabwe; would they justify displays of hatred against black Africans? And yet The Peeppul are allowed to keep on singing!

The guy on Vanguard Bears says he wants to take his country back, which would suggest that he, and the rest of them, want to get rid of everybody of a different race or religion. They know they'd be castigated for openly expressing hatred of blacks, Muslims or Eastern Europeans so they stick to the religious and racist bigotry that Scotland allows. They keep telling us to 'go home'. I'd be happy to oblige and go back to where my grandfather came from in County Derry. The only problem, ironically enough, is that the place is full of bloody immigrants from Scotland!

The great atmosphere at Ibrox