Your Celtic Media

Repeal the Act.

|
Image for Repeal the Act.

It is always a pleasant thing to agree with the clubs hierarchy, their statement on the need for the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act to be repealed, is a welcome stance for the rights of expression of its patrons. The Act is unworkable and anti democratic, the idea that you can ban a persons ability to express their history and culture, is itself a concept thought to have been consigned to history.

download

Fans against criminalisation protest at the SNP’s Act.

That the Act exists in modern Scotland is a measure of truly how paranoid the Scottish populous is about any expression of Irish culture which has the preposition of Nationalism behind it. That the SNP is the author of the hated Act is perplexing. Maybe it s to try and win the votes of the middle ground themselves scared of the ramifications of Independence. If so, it failed and Celtic fans were far from uniform in voting at the Referendum.

Holyrood needs to review and then repeal the Act. The Rangers* can sing Rule Britannia but we can’t sing Come out you Black and Tans, They can sing God Save the Queen but we cant sing The Symphony properly, let them sing the Billy Boys and give us our song sheet back! Their songs which are mainstream are more offensive than their Unionist bleating.

The Irish culture and its diaspora learned how to sing before they could ever read. From the era of hedge schools when no one could read but everyone knew the stories, contained in song. The idea of stopping our histories being passed down is itself an act of belligerence against the heart of our culture. If you tell me a story i listen, if you sing it i join in. Whoever is the author of the Act knows this well. The ramifications are that not only will we not know our history, but worse still,  we won’t be participating within it.

This marks it at as an assault on the traditions of an entire diaspora. If this Act continues to be imposed on Football fans then it should be challenged where everything else to do with poor decisions in Scottish Football is heading. In the Supreme Court.

Share this article

Leave a comment