Where's the Justice?

A group of young lads decided to walk to the football one Saturday afternoon. They didn't go out their way to choose a route that would take them into conflict with opposing fans. Such a route might well have brought the wrath of the law who see large groups of young lads supporting different teams as the equivalent of opposing armies even though football-related violence, especially at non Old Firm games, is not perceived as a problem in Scotland.

The young lads didn't arm themselves with knives or other offensive weapons, though some external commentators launched an immediate smear campaign against them by deliberately spreading such lies.

They didn't harass Saturday afternoon shoppers and prevent them from bargain hunting in the world famous Barras market.

They didn't force local shops to close their doors for fear of being ransacked.

They didn't launch any full-frontal assaults on the police present.

In effect, this wasn't the Rangers fans in Manchester.

This wasn't anti-capitalist demonstrators out to bring down the government or global banking system.

This was, and I think it needs repeating many times, a group of young lads with an average age of about fifteen. Sure, there were some older lads, but the vast majority of this group of football supporters were teenage school kids.

How much of a threat to public disorder were they?

This is not Tottenham or Croydon or any other English inner city cauldron.

Glasgow has no recent history of mass rioting in the streets.

This group of fans, no matter what some may say, think or lie, have no history of violence or rioting.

Malicious rumours of their involvement in the mysterious Dundee riot on Boxing Day have failed to materialise into hard evidence.

How can that be?

This group is the most filmed group of people in the country.

Officers from Alex Salmond's Untouchables (officially known as FoCus) follow them around almost twenty four hours a day.

CCTV and handheld camcorders film their every move both inside and outside football grounds around the country.

Yet, remarkably, and this is definitely worth repeating over and over, not only has no one produced a morsel of video footage of their involvement in the mysterious Dundee riot. No one has produced any video evidence of any riot.
But this hasn't stopped obsessed bloggers disregarding these facts and spouting lies about this group of young lads whose primary objective is to bring a bit of colourful noise to match days.

Critics, like those mentioned above, who won't rest until this group of young lads is disbanded, also hark back to the 'No bloodstained poppy on our hoops' banner.

Yet this banner was not illegal.

Many Celtic fans also thought the banner was in poor taste. That is their prerogative. But I repeat. That banner was not and never will be illegal.

In fact, their stance on this issue is running parallel with others with simialr feelings around the country. There is a growing argument about people feeling forced to wear the red poppy at Remembrance time for fear of being labelled as unpatriotic.

Others feel the red poppy has been hijacked to build support for British troops currently fighting illegal wars in foreign lands.

What other horrific acts have this group of young Celtic fans allegedly carried out?

There was an uproar when they designed a banner depicting a gunman shooting a zombie.

At this point I feel the need to clarify this for overseas readers who might be confused as to the social standing of zombies in Scotland. Many will be wondering what government policy is on vampires, werewolves and a host of other mythical creatures.

Please don't be put off visiting Scotland. Well, not for this reason anyway. There are no real zombies roaming the streets of Glasgow or wandering the mountains and glens of the Highlands.

The story began when a football club in Glasgow died, or, to give the process its rightful name, the football club was liquidated.

It was a sad day for many...but a joyous one for many more.

However, a Yorkshire man, whose heroes were Burke, Hare and Howard Carter, decided he could make some shekels if he could resurrect the dead club.

He purchased the tomb known as Ibrox Stadium and claimed all the honours won by the dead club as his own. Here's a Charles Green quote on the topic: 'They're my titles. I bought them.'

He then started a new team that, through jiggery-pokery and sheer effrontery, managed to get a place in the Scottish Football League at the expense of older and more deserving clubs such as Spartans. Then without as much as a blink he named this new team The Rangers and tried to pass it off as the dead Rangers.

Fans of the recently deceased club rejoiced as if the messiah himself had resurrected. For instead of a huge boulder pushed aside to clear the entrance to the tomb The Rangers pushed aside a mountain of unpaid debts and stepped into the sunlight promising a new era of milk and honey.

This, dear readers from further afield, is why they are now known universally as zombie Rangers.

Reasonable persons can surely see the humour in attaching such a tag to a club that's come back from the dead.

Unfortunately, there are many unreasonable persons now trying to claim calling new Rangers zombies...and you really will struggle to believe this...sectarian.

Such is the level of hatred and intolerance of some in this country they can only view the world and everything in it through their own parochial ignorance.

Attempts were made, remarkably, to prosecute those seen holding the banner depicting a zombie being shot. But, as all reasonable persons suspected, those charges were laughed out of court.

Seems the judge had a sense of humour.

Perhaps the biggest thing opponents hate about this group of young lads is the fact they like to sing about Irish history.

This the heart of the matter.

A sizeable chunk of the Scottish population hate the Irish and anything to do with Ireland, especially descendants of those Irish-Catholics who emigrated to Scotland to escape the Great Famine that occurred in Ireland in the nineteenth century while Britain controlled it, or to seek work in an industrial Britain crying out for labour.

Whereas most Scottish citizens are warm and welcoming to immigrants of all creed and colour, unfortunately many don't view Catholic immigrants as human-beings.

Believe me, I know how hyperbolic such a statement sounds, especially in what is regarded as one of the most civilised nations on earth.

But one only has to spend five minutes on Twitter or Rangers fan forums to discover the real dark underbelly of Scottish society.

Of course, it's not as bad as it used to be, you will hear many say. And they will use the fact Irish Catholics reached economic parity with the indigenous population some time ago, albeit about sixty years after similar immigrants who'd headed west to the United States of America reached parity.

But, to some, that doesn't tell the whole story.

For although great steps have been made in many professions there is still a perception of anti-Irish Catholicism in the armed forces and police.

And the fact that this young group of lads in question sing about an oppressed people fighting back against their oppressors seems to cause much anger.

Now I don't know about you, but where there's an oppressed and an oppressor I'm always going to take the side of the oppressed.

Apparently, in Scotland anyway, such thinking makes me and countless others sectarian.

You see, this group of young lads who wanted to walk together to the football on Saturday were doing so to highlight the oppression their group is currently suffering from.

Young lads are being taken from their homes, workplace and even the airport by a special task force of police officers aiming to get high numbers of arrests to justify their, and Alex Salmond's rushed Offensive Behaviour and Threatening Communications Act, existence.

How can highlighting state oppression be classed as sectarian I hear you ask?

Truth is, I haven't a clue how a reasonable person can arrive at that conclusion.

But according to Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill that is what Saturday's gathering of young lads was. A sectarian gathering.

Mind you, this is the same Kenny MacAskill who described a stadium full of Rangers fans singing about being up to their knees in Fenian blood as a great spectacle.

It's also the same Kenny MacAskill who was arrested for being drunk and disorderly while in London for an England v Scotland game.

Justice Minister? You're having a laugh.

Scottish independence? You're having a laugh.

Unfortunately, I'm beginning to lose my sense of humour over this lack of justice, and so are many others.