Ruth Dudley Edwards and the dehumanisation of Rangers fans

[ian1964 10,474]

... to confound those who choose to demonise club.

 

Cup final violence showed the depth of hatred in Scottish football, says Ruth Dudley Edwards

 

Ruth Dudley Edwards

 

Although I've never been able to summon up any interest in football, I've just spent hours reading about and around the Rangers versus Hibernian Scottish Cup Final on May 21.

 

It was a door into a world that troubled me more than I had expected.

 

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Of course I knew about sectarianism in Scottish football, but the extent and depth of the demonisation of loyalists shocked me.

 

A Scot who occasionally contacts me privately on Twitter had told me how at the end of the match thousands of victorious Hibernian fans - overwhelmed by a success they hadn't had since 1902 - had poured on to the pitch, attacked Rangers players and goaded supporters.

 

The police had mostly been outside the stadium and so had been late arriving to restore the peace.

 

What had upset my correspondent particularly were attempts to blame Rangers, who had been very restrained.

 

However, Callum Steele, general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, saw it otherwise.

 

"The police response at the Scottish Cup Final was nothing short of magnificent," he said.

 

"It was disgraceful that hundreds of fans outside the stadium conspired to inhibit the police response through acts of violence and intimidation as well as the cowardly act of using children as blockades and shields."

 

This allegation was expanded in the Daily Record by a journalist called Jane Hamilton, a Celtic supporter, who said anonymous police had spoken of Rangers' fans' "mob mentality" and alleged the police had to endure a barrage of abuse and the jostling of police vans by, according to one unnamed officer, "everyone", with parents using children to block roads, "a tactic I had only seen in Northern Ireland".

 

Mr Steele and Ms Hamilton seemed not to have learned from the Hillsborough inquest that when the police mess up blaming fans is a bad idea.

 

There is to be an investigation, and I'm not going to get into the ins and outs of what clubs and police appear to have got wrong during and after these events, but on social media the fallout has been what the sports writer Gordon Waddell described as "poisonous, hate-filled, he-said-she-said effluvia".

 

I've been reading a great deal of that, and I don't for one minute ignore the abuse of ****s and Tims and Fenians, but the insults from republicans are of a different order, for they echo the language of demonisation republicans practised so ruthlessly in Northern Ireland and exhibit the same contempt for loyalists.

 

Rangers, who were founded in 1872, and whose rivalry with Celtic is legendary, have had a torrid few years of financial disasters that ended in liquidation.

 

Their assets were bought by Sevco Scotland (which later changed its name to The Rangers Football Club) and their players had to start again in the third division of Scottish football.

 

Back now in the top tier, their enemies call them Sevco and refer to their supporters as Sevconians, which the Urban Dictionary tells me refers to people "usually bald and toothless" and "consumed with bigotry and lies" who insist they are really Rangers.

 

On the website of Rangers supporters the Vanguard Bears, there is a thoughtful blog called "dehumanisation and the end game", which gets to the heart of the matter.

 

It is dehumanising to deny the club's identity by refusing to call it Rangers and to refer to its supporters as "Ku Klux Klan", "Nazis", "Huns", "knuckledraggers" and "scum".

 

An important part of the process of dehumanisation, as discussed in the blog, is deindividuation, "whereby individuals are seen as a member of a category or group, rather than being seen as a person".

 

As Sinn Fein did to Orangemen and the RUC, so extreme Scots republicans are trying to do to Rangers, with the intention of demoralising them by denying them sympathy, equality, dignity or respect.

 

I would hate to see supporters going down the victimhood path, but with the establishment of Club 1872, an independent new, united fan group which aspires to rebuild the club and keep it safe from dodgy businessmen, they have a much better alternative ahead of them.

 

Success would be the best way of confounding their enemies.

 

I won't be joining, but I wish Rangers well.

 

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/ruth-dudley-edwards/success-on-the-pitch-would-be-the-perfect-way-for-resurgent-rangers-to-confound-those-who-choose-to-demonise-club-34774268.html

[D'Artagnan 173]

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/ruth-dudley-edwards/success-on-the-pitch-would-be-the-perfect-way-for-resurgent-rangers-to-confound-those-who-choose-to-demonise-club-34774268.html

 

Success on the pitch would be the perfect way for resurgent Rangers to confound those who choose to demonise club

Cup final violence showed the depth of hatred in Scottish football, says Ruth Dudley Edwards

 

Published

06/06/2016

 

 

 

Although I've never been able to summon up any interest in football, I've just spent hours reading about and around the Rangers versus Hibernian Scottish Cup Final on May 21.

 

It was a door into a world that troubled me more than I had expected.

 

 

Of course I knew about sectarianism in Scottish football, but the extent and depth of the demonisation of loyalists shocked me.

 

A Scot who occasionally contacts me privately on Twitter had told me how at the end of the match thousands of victorious Hibernian fans - overwhelmed by a success they hadn't had since 1902 - had poured on to the pitch, attacked Rangers players and goaded supporters.

 

The police had mostly been outside the stadium and so had been late arriving to restore the peace.

 

What had upset my correspondent particularly were attempts to blame Rangers, who had been very restrained.

 

However, Callum Steele, general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, saw it otherwise.

 

"The police response at the Scottish Cup Final was nothing short of magnificent," he said.

 

"It was disgraceful that hundreds of fans outside the stadium conspired to inhibit the police response through acts of violence and intimidation as well as the cowardly act of using children as blockades and shields."

 

This allegation was expanded in the Daily Record by a journalist called Jane Hamilton, a Celtic supporter, who said anonymous police had spoken of Rangers' fans' "mob mentality" and alleged the police had to endure a barrage of abuse and the jostling of police vans by, according to one unnamed officer, "everyone", with parents using children to block roads, "a tactic I had only seen in Northern Ireland".

 

Mr Steele and Ms Hamilton seemed not to have learned from the Hillsborough inquest that when the police mess up blaming fans is a bad idea.

 

There is to be an investigation, and I'm not going to get into the ins and outs of what clubs and police appear to have got wrong during and after these events, but on social media the fallout has been what the sports writer Gordon Waddell described as "poisonous, hate-filled, he-said-she-said effluvia".

 

I've been reading a great deal of that, and I don't for one minute ignore the abuse of ****s and Tims and Fenians, but the insults from republicans are of a different order, for they echo the language of demonisation republicans practised so ruthlessly in Northern Ireland and exhibit the same contempt for loyalists.

 

Rangers, who were founded in 1872, and whose rivalry with Celtic is legendary, have had a torrid few years of financial disasters that ended in liquidation.

 

Their assets were bought by Sevco Scotland (which later changed its name to The Rangers Football Club) and their players had to start again in the third division of Scottish football.

 

Back now in the top tier, their enemies call them Sevco and refer to their supporters as Sevconians, which the Urban Dictionary tells me refers to people "usually bald and toothless" and "consumed with bigotry and lies" who insist they are really Rangers.

 

On the website of Rangers supporters the Vanguard Bears, there is a thoughtful blog called "dehumanisation and the end game", which gets to the heart of the matter.

 

It is dehumanising to deny the club's identity by refusing to call it Rangers and to refer to its supporters as "Ku Klux Klan", "Nazis", "Huns", "knuckledraggers" and "scum".

 

An important part of the process of dehumanisation, as discussed in the blog, is deindividuation, "whereby individuals are seen as a member of a category or group, rather than being seen as a person".

 

As Sinn Fein did to Orangemen and the RUC, so extreme Scots republicans are trying to do to Rangers, with the intention of demoralising them by denying them sympathy, equality, dignity or respect.

 

I would hate to see supporters going down the victimhood path, but with the establishment of Club 1872, an independent new, united fan group which aspires to rebuild the club and keep it safe from dodgy businessmen, they have a much better alternative ahead of them.

 

Success would be the best way of confounding their enemies.

 

I won't be joining, but I wish Rangers well.

[Frankie 8,187]

An interesting piece and suffice to say not one you'll find in the Scottish press.

 

Not when members of said press use the terms above when discussing our fans.

[aweebluesoandso 290]

Not a narrative the Main Stream Media in Scotland would repeat, although it is the truth.

[limeburner 0]

"success would be the best way of confounding their enemies".

Never a truer word was spoke.We cant loose focus on this.We MUST start winning things again.

We cant allow ourselves to be seen as victims forever.

[Uilleam 5,519]

An interesting piece and suffice to say not one you'll find in the Scottish press.

 

Not when members of said press use the terms above when discussing our fans.

 

Not one of the self styled "journalists" of this parish have either the nous, or the nerve,

to even attempt to gainsay Ms Dudley Edwards' piece.

[alexscottislegend 2,094]

Ruth is the sister of the renowned catholic scholar Owen Dudley Edwards; not a source which you would expect to be sympathetic to us, yet she has produced a most balanced piece.

[ian1964 10,474]

Lie After Lie

 

Written by: 1972

Monday, 6th June 2016

 

It surprised me no end to see a respected and credible broadsheet journalist reference a VB article, in her own observation of the sheer hatred and venom the Rangers support face in Scotland. Ruth Dudley Edward’s piece was a welcome intervention, and should ring alarm bells that such a credible objective voice should criticise the anti-Rangers bigotry rife in Scotland.

 

I should not be surprised that she picked out “The Ref”’s piece, as it was another well put together and well informed piece about the current environment that the Rangers support finds itself in, and it was most certainly of a quality that a good broadsheet should be publishing.

 

I would encourage anyone who hasn’t already read it to read it here:

http://www.vanguardbears.co.uk/article.php?i=113&a=-dehumanisation-and-the-end-game

 

Ironically, one response to Dudley-Edwards, from long term Rangers hater Angela Haggerty, was to cite the mythical VB “Death list”, which really is rather tiresome but still worth addressing. To be clear, an article once featured on VB accompanied by a montage of individuals was photoshopped elsewhere on social media (when one of the individuals on it passed away) to indicate that one Rangers hater was no-more. Was it distasteful? Of course. Was it a “death list”, and was it a VB “death list”? Absolutely not, but why let that get in the way of a good lie about a group of Rangers fans dedicated to exposing those who make it their life to attack Rangers.

 

So, yes, the response to an accusation that certain people operate in a certain manner confirms that is exactly how they operate.

 

The second lie from Ms Haggerty was to cite a myth laden “account” of the scuffles on the evening of 19th September 2014 following Scotland voting No to Independence, blaming VB, and written by Ms Haggerty’s employer, backer and editor at the Sunday Herald Neil McKay.

 

This laughable account offered no evidence whatsoever of VB even being present at the George Square celebration of a No vote, which was hijacked by aggrieved Yes voters intent on spoiling the party. The celebratory gathering was instigated on Facebook and Twitter, with an impromptu walk from unionist pubs on Duke Street in Glasgow to George Square. I’m sure if the Sunday Herald wished to go over old ground and properly look in to these events, they will find absolutely no involvement from VB whatsoever. Rather than do that they picked the lazy and inaccurate option.

 

Furthermore, Rangers blogger “themanthebheastscanttame” wrote at great length, with pictorial evidence, of known Irish Republicans acting as Agents Provocateur at George Square and around the city centre on the night, taking liberties after the event, with single attendees heading home being attacked

 

https://themanthebheastscanttame.wordpress.com/2014/09/23/lets-all-pretend-it-was-a-loyalist-riot-pretend-it-was-a-loyalist-riot/

 

What The Ref wrote about, and Dudley Edwards picked up on, is a culture in Scotland where lying and denigrating the Rangers support is a mainstream activity, being driven by Republicans and Nationalists hell bent on smashing the last bastion of unionism in Scotland.

 

What they haven’t reckoned on is VB countering every last lie, and exposing every liar responsible.

 

We will not be cowed or bullied by liars.

 

http://www.vanguardbears.co.uk/article.php?i=115&a=lie-after-lie

[barca72 440]

Ruth is the sister of the renowned catholic scholar Owen Dudley Edwards; not a source which you would expect to be sympathetic to us, yet she has produced a most balanced piece.

 

Have you read her book, 'The Faithful Tribe'? It might change your expectations of her, it's excellent.