Change the tune - Traynor

[ian1964 10,415]

No bulky letters, no padded packages and no crudely-wrapped parcels. Just a plain, simple message: Stop, before you kill someone.

 

You have already scarred and maimed Scotland's image. Please, let that be enough.

 

Fortunately the potentially lethal devices posted to Neil Lennon and some high-profile Celtic fans and officials haven't led to any loss of life or injury. But if the morons who are sending these packages get lucky, just once, the consequences could be horrific.

 

This has to stop. They have to be stopped.

 

And so, too, must the singing. Surely we've had our fill of that as well.

The Old Firm meet up at Ibrox tomorrow for the final time this season and if there is an ounce of decency left among the people who have been shaming Rangers they'll change their tunes. Not because it's Easter Sunday or because UEFA are homing in Rangers. Just because it is wrong.

The songs and chants are anti-Catholic, primitive, offensive and also illegal. They are an affront to all of us and Scotland cannot take much more of the publicity it has had to endure this past week even though we are far from a nation of bigots.

 

The vast majority of us are not anti-Catholic or Irish and it is wrong to suggest we are anything other than a country willing to absorb and embrace other races, minorities and cultures. It really is okay to be Scottish.

 

Of course many of us have links to Ireland but many of us prefer to promote our Scottishness first and that should never be regarded as some kind of denial of or insult to another country. Anyone who says it is lacks tolerance.

 

But if we don't confront the deranged who are casting us all in a dark light we might get to the point where we will be ashamed to belong to this country.

 

But not yet. This is a decent place, even if among us there are twisted bands of bigots who use Rangers as a platform from which to lay down the soundtracks to their grotesque images which present us as a nation of poisonous and violent madmen and women. We're not, although the people who are posting explosive devices undoubtedly are and we should be clear they are not doing this in our name.

 

And the people who sing the songs do not act for us either. Neither do those who are fond of throwing out lines that Scotland is institutionally biased or that sectarianism is endemic. None of them speak on behalf of me and I believe I am a fairly typical Scot.

 

The overwhelming majority of Scots are decent and tolerant and we support Neil Lennon against those who want to do him harm. He is a football manager who believes passionately in his club and their fans and that is not a crime.

 

Neither is his faith but there are dangerous people out there who see him as an affront to whatever it is they stand for or believe. Hopefully they'll be rounded up and put where they belong but in the meantime, can the Ibrox chanters do the right thing and shut up.

 

If they have any intelligence they'll realise by now they've gone too far and that the club they claim to support don't want to be associated with them.

 

If they can't see that and pipe down they should be rounded up by Strathclyde Police and taken away. And when they are the rest of us should stand and applaud.

 

But before the police have to act, messages slamming sectarian behaviour and songs should be flashed up on the Ibrox screens - that's if they are still working properly despite the maintenance cutbacks - in the names of chairmen Alastair Johnston and John Reid and chief executives Peter Lawwell and Martin Bain.

 

All of them should be united in their condemnation of anyone who wants to sing about Fenians and Huns or insult the Pope or the Irish. And let's have none of the IRA chants either. These are not political chants. These are downright offensive and these people do not speak for us either.

 

It is asking a lot but we have to hope and believe the players will behave as well. They also have a responsibility to keep a grip on their tempers even though this game will have a massive bearing on the championship race.

 

If we are asking fans to show more respect and tolerance the players must do the same, even in a game which is bloated with importance.

If Celtic, who appear to have greater energy and flair than Rangers, win they would be even more confident and unlikely to drop points in the run-in.

 

Same with Rangers, although they do have a weary look about them. They beat Dundee United 4-0 away last week but the Tannadice side finished the game with only eight men.

 

Walter Smith's players will have to find added zest from somewhere and hope they can cope with the tempo which Celtic will want to dictate. And of course, there is the Lennon factor itself.

 

The packages meant for him and the way he's been forced to live his life this year with 24-hour protection have drawn the fans and players to him in a way no other manager can have experienced.

 

They want to win the title for him and that could be telling in tomorrow's match.

 

But Celtic are also a better and more exciting side than Rangers and this added twist should make them even more determined. They want to protect and reward their manager and that could be crucial.

 

However, there is a resilience about Rangers and if they can stand their ground in midfield they might just take the sting out of Celtic. But to do that Smith needs huge performances from Steve Davis, Mo Edu, Jamie Ness and Stevie Naismith.

 

And, of course, he needs Nikica Jelavic to damage Celtic's defence. If the Croat gets the supply he will be a real threat.

 

Rangers, you imagine, will need to score first because they have to put pressure on Lennon's men. They need to put doubt and fear into Celtic, especially at the back.

 

But there is something about this Lennon side. They are brimming with confidence and belief and tomorrow just might be the day they wrench the title from Rangers' grasp.

 

Of course it is never wise to predict which side will win any Old Firm encounter but since the outside world probably thinks we are all insane by now, Celtic just might win this 3-1.

[Super_Ally 0]

The third highlighted paragraph; is Traynor calling some of the media, politicians etc (i.e. those with an agenda against us) bigots? Read that way to me and is an interesting break from the norm if so.

[gisabeer 409]

The vast majority of us are not anti-Catholic or Irish and it is wrong to suggest we are anything other than a country willing to absorb and embrace other races, minorities and cultures. It really is okay to be Scottish.

 

Is it not the other way around. Do the catholic population fail to absorb and embrace their scottishness? It is a question that has to be addressed.

[gisabeer 409]

The third highlighted paragraph; is Traynor calling some of the media, politicians etc (i.e. those with an agenda against us) bigots? Read that way to me and is an interesting break from the norm if so.

 

sorry i cant see that anywhere in the article.

[der Berliner 3,246]

There's the current press folk who fall over one another to spill their bile. And then there are the sane people, who can behave and think like every other normal people in the world, no matter whom they support or what faith they belong to:

 

THE assertion by James MacMillan (Letters, 21 April) that the bombs sent to Neil Lennon and others by some deranged criminal are symptomatic of "anti-Catholic" bias is only the latest in a long line of similar preposterous claims by Mr MacMillan.

The nonsense that goes on around Scotland's two biggest football clubs is not representative of Scottish society. Contemporary Scotland has many problems but my experience tells me that bias against Catholics is not one of them. I was born and raised

a Catholic. Like around half the people from my background in Scotland, I am married to a person who is not a catholic.

 

In 34 years of working in Scotland I have never encountered a single instance of religious or sectarian prejudice directed at me in a professional or, indeed, personal context. The only examples I can recall of people being discriminated against are teachers who are not Catholic being refused promotion in Catholic schools.

 

There are many Catholics in prominent positions in Scottish public life. More importantly, few people care whether a particular politician, lawyer, businessman, or composer is Catholic, Protestant or an atheist. The Catholic Church is hardly marginalised.

 

As Allan Massie has pointed out, a visitor from abroad surveying the Scottish media would be likely to identify Cardinal Keith O'Brien rather than the Church of Scotland Moderator as the leader of Scottish Christians.

 

Finally, as a (lukewarm) Celtic supporter let me offer a word of sympathy to poor old Rangers, targets of Mr MacMillan's bile. In the past 20 years Rangers FC have moved far from the sectarianism which once characterised them. Indeed, I am fairly sure that in at least one game in the past decade Rangers fielded more Catholic players than did Celtic.

 

Rangers fans do sing some unpleasant songs just as many Celtic fans are happy to hymn the IRA. While Rangers fans are surely wrong to sing a song exhorting Celtic fans to "go home", that song might just be a reaction to those Celtic supporters who (three and four generations in Scotland as Mr MacMillan has it) continue to assert an Irish identity and to carry the flag of a foreign country rather than the Saltire wherever they go.

 

Peter Wood

 

Morningside Drive

 

Scotsman

[Zappa 0]

James Traynor eats all the pies

James Traynor eats all the pies

He's also quite fond of telling lies

James Traynor eats all the pies