Sectarianism in Scotland

[Chil1234]

Parcel bombs to Celtic connections today & a Scottish link with the murder of a N. Ireland policeman a few weeks ago. Religious sectarianism has always bubbled under the surface in Glasgow but what's caused the current escalation? Miserable lot.

I cannot stand John Reid. Nothing to do with his religion (I didn't even realsie he was Catholic until he started going on about the referees) but because he is an arrogant patronising bastard Labour two-faced git politician who facilitated supported an illegal war. :(

I could have written your long post prettybird

I was raised in relative ignorance of the sectarian bullshit that goes on here too. Thank god eh? In my family my dad supports Partick Thistle, my brother supports Rangers and my DP supports Celtic. I'm hoping to get my DS into rugby coz I love rugby and you're right, it doesn't come with all the crap attached.

My scottish GGF wasn't baptised and didn't go to any church. He was a communist miner.. and hated football. He wanted to unite the workers. I imagine he would have considered religion as a way for the 'establishment' to divide and conquer the masses in scotland and elsewhere in the UK.
Personally i find it bizarre that people identify themselves as christians (supposedly a religion of love and forgiveness) - then start fighting other christians!

Can anyone explain why this is?.

Christians are people and all people are imperfect. Sectarianism is about people, not about religion.

banning religion from schools wouldn't help at all. RE nowadays totally preaches tolerance of others' beliefs, also values ffs...would folk prefer no values being taught and even more 'celeb culture'? practically everybody I know from RC education has non-catholic friends,family or Fellow Pupils While At School.PRIVATE SCHOOL SEGREGATION is the real, CLASS DIVIDE in our society and should be tackled before doing away with RC schools which often have waiting lists including non-catholic kids,proving that they are welcoming to all

PS [1]These folk who cause all the trouble may be worse if they weren't getting at least some values taught at school RE (RC or otherwise)
[2]football players' disgraceful intimidating manner towards refs should be dealt with much more sev0erely: what a terrible example that is to kids! but some people here dont mention that it's the usual :"do away with RC schools!"kneejerk reaction

I don't think that sectarianism is a problem for the whole of Scotland.

Where I come from and live there are hardly any faith schools and no orange marches (they did try and start them a few years back but the community did not want them) and there is not as much sectarian violence here.
I think that it is obviously more prevalent on the west coast, where there are more faith schools. Why is there not as much problems surrounding Hearts/Hibbs in Edinburgh?

I do think that a more inclusive secular society/community would be better for everyone. You can teach values without bringing in religion. I went to our schools Easter Service today at the church: No values taught to the children; only that there is life after deaf in heaven with God and christ.

I agree - RME (RE doesn't exist on its own anymore) is very good: when I say that all state schools should be secular, that doesn't mean that people should not be educated about religion and morals (which are not the same thing).

You are absolutely right about the behaviour of the football players - it is a dreadful example to present to youngsters. Yet another reason why I prefer rugby - even if the referee gets it wrong (and even at Minis level, ds frequently complains to me afterwards abut the referee allowing things that aren't supposed to be doen at his age group), any dissent means a player will end up in the Sin Bin.

I happen also not to believe in private schools - but while people have the money and we live in a free society, we can't stop them.

We can however stop the state paying for children to be separated on the grounds of their religion. The fact that may kids going to Catholic schools are not even catholic makes a mockery of this separate system. The Catholic primary school closest to where I am is only half full - and has hardly any Catholics in it (the vast majoirty being Sikh and Muslim) whereas the school that ds goes to along the road is literally bursting at the seams (library was lost last year to become a class room, every inch in the place is used, sometimes 3 times over and ds can't even get two hours of PE inside as there are not enough hours availabe in the gum hall-cum-assembly hall-cum-dinner hall )

(why is it that every time I don't preview to check that the boldings have worked, they come out all mixed up )

I live in Kilwinning, where one of the letter bombs was posted.

The anti-catholic/pro-rangers sentiment here is overwhelming a lot of the time, but getting worse because of the football league title being so close at the moment IMHO.

There was a boys football festival here last week, dh had colleagues whose children were playing football. They are affiliated with Celtic, and said it was a very intimidating atmosphere with all the Rangers strips surrounding the pitches.

I hate, loathe and detest any form of religious intolerance, and we try to get out of Kilwinning when the Orange walks are on.

As a Scot, I see sectrianism as the biggest shame of Scotland right now.

Prettybird, I grew up in a wee village in Ayrshire and it wasn't until I was sitting in a pub in Edinburgh (had just moved there, was 18) while a celtic match was on I really thought about sectarianism. Someone asked where I came from, I said Ayrshire, they said something like 'what you watching this match for then? Ayrshire is full of huns.'. I was as I grew up with a family and peer group who never, ever said or did anything bigoted. This may be unusual for this part of the country, and I do see it now when I go home (still live in Edinburgh) but only because I susequently got interested in politics, work in community work so have an awareness and am actively looking for it. Undoubtedly there are horrifically bigoted and divided pockets of Ayrshire, Glasgow and Lararkshire and I am not so stupid as to not acknowledge this. Just wanted to get across that this is a minority problem.

I am disgusted by this recent news and it certainly has its roots in Northern Ireland and the influx of Irish people to the West of Scotland during the late 19th early 20th century. However now it if fuelled by povery, ghettoisation of different groups, unemployment, retribution, probably drugs (not just drug abuse, but trade also), black market, business, definitely football, alcohol abuse and very, very bad parenting. For MP Trish Godman to wear a celtic top in the Scottish Parliament is a disgrace. She should be sacked - most pubs in Scotland don't let people wearing football tops in the door. This is our democratic hub. How dare she. And I hate John Reid too.

I am sick and tired of NI terrorism (and is no coincidence that there is a rise in terrorism over the Irish Channel too) and wish we could just leave the fuckers to it now - so much time, money, effort and understanding has gone into this, yet it continues. I feel sorry for those people in NI who just want to move on from the past, but the evil terrorist groups just won't let it go.

Oh MacDog, that's awful

kiery(12:07).....you're right,east coast isn't as bad as west coast(have much experience of both)EVEN tho' have LOADS of RC schools so maybe they're NOT the cause??????? or just an easy, obvious seeming target. I agree with fizzy that lots of other stuff fuels it like poverty , unemployment and so on and so on....

We are not blaming 'the Catholic schools for this. But surely you see that dividing children from age 4 upwards according to religion doesn't help the sectarianism that already exists? Perhaps if the children of bigoted parents were educated together, there would be less sectarian nonsense spouted. Perhaps people would feel able to sit on a green chair or talk to someone in a blue uniform.

I grew up in London where there are catholic schools and I never thought twice about it as sectarianism is a non issue down there. In Scotland it's different and I think it's time for the government to make some radicalmchanges.

Trouble is, it isn't a vote winner.

I know what you mean norman but loads of pupils at RC schools are(fortunately!) not RC anyway,or have family members/friends etc who aren't; this idea of segregation 'just isn't so';sadly somee people just seem to enjoy their bigotry no matter what ,but we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater in an attempt (without sucess guaranteed)to solve it

PS It's not present everywhere in scotland anyway.far from it

PPS I was referring to sectarianism there btw !!!

Well yes DP is a baptised Catholic, Rangers supporting atheist - but that doesn't mean anything really.

He's still a 'proddy' and his DDs still attend a 'proddy' school (non denominational) in the eyes of many. I find the whole thing infuriating sometimes. It's a bloody embarrassment for a country which produced David Hume, Adam Smith and a wealth of other distinguished thinkers, academics and inventors.

I was born in NI and moved to Scotland (East Coast) partly to get away from sectarianism. I don't see ANY of it where I live

Fizzylaces, why should Trish Godman wearing a Celtic top mean anything at all anywhere? Pubs ban the wearing of football colours to make it more difficult for the numpties to identify who they think they should hate. "Our democratic hub" should be reliably filled with a more civilised class of numpty than that. The disgrace is that measures like that are felt necessary anywhere.

It's not football strips that cause the problem. It's the wastes-of-space who think they can judge another person on the strength of it.

MsHighwater - because anyone wearing a celtic top into the Scottish Parliament when in a position such as hers is not doing it for any other reason than to pledge allegiance to one half of the most divisive and damaging aspect of Scottish culture. That's why.

And she was going to work fgs. Apart from being a celtic player, I can't think of any job where you can wear a celtic top to work.

And another point - why are these teams not forced to play behind closed doors until they can behave themselves? And control their 'fans'.

It's a bloody discrace.

disgrace

Fizzylaces, was it not her last day and she then auctioned off the top?

I hate to sound biased in any way, but to me, it seems like it is the blue section which is in the wrong.

I think you'll find both sections are in the wrong with what's happening. Both sets of fans have done malicious nasty things to others. The only reason the blue side looks worse at the moment is due to the high level of merdia coverage surrounding NL.

Tomorrow is the old firm match, the last one of the season and glasgow will become a very quiet place until its over then everyone is worrying about what the fall out will be.

If people taught their kids that its only about a game of football rather than teaching hateful songs, stupid rants and nasty comments about religion maybe tehn we would have a chance of stamping it out.

I don't think making them play behind closed doors will change the bigotry only the people can do that. This has to be dealt with the same way we deal with racism a zero tollerance campaign!

Its no coincidence that the elections are very close which always kicks of the religous divides in an attempt to keep voters in their homes and away from the polling stations, the ira have been using the same tactics for years at voting time and this year is no different. There have been more bombs left for police officers in N.I this week though thankfully they never went off.