By Phil Mac Giolla Bhain

Last week Alan Shatter TD submitted a Dail question to Foreign Minister Micheal Martin about the Famine Song controversy in Scotland.

The Minister stated, ” in common with the vast majority of people in Britain and Ireland, I condemn the singing of songs or other actions which promote or encourage racism, sectarianism or xenophobia of any kind. “.

I spoke with Deputy Shatter last week and he confirmed to me that he had also written directly to Rangers Football club to express his concern for this “anti-Irish chanting” indulged in by thousands of Rangers’ fans regularly.

He had taken this action after being contacted by a constituent who had attended the Celtic Rangers match on August 31st.

Shatter’s written question was answered on October 9th the day of Rangers football club’s AGM in Glasgow. Sir David Murray, the owner of Rangers, called on Rangers supporters who engage in “sectarian bile” to cease their activity. He also stated that he would be meeting with First Minister Alex Salmond to defend the club’s good name.

Coinciding with the AGM the Scottish Football association held a high level press conference about their continued attempts to stamp out anti-social behaviour, sectarianism and racism at Scottish soccer stadia. Smith stated that it would be inappropriate to punish clubs for the behaviour of their fans. “The clubs are doing everything they can, it would be unfair to punish them”.

A Scottish Premier League spokesperson told me that the SPL had a series of sanctions in place against clubs if their fans behaved in a racist manner.

Neither David Murray nor ex-Rangers player Gordon Smith mentioned the famine song.

The main organisation in Scotland dedicated to eliminating racism in football is Show Racism the Red Card (SRTRC) .

Last week on it’s website SRTRC, partly funded by the SFA, stated for the first time that the “Famine Song” was, in their opinion, racist.

Alasdair Allan the Scottish National Party Member of the Scottish Parliament for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (western Isles) stated that:

“The sentiments in this song are unquestionably anti-Irish and racist. The overwhelming majority of people here would say that there is no room in Scotland for this song.”

We are in the eye of a perfect storm. The shockwave is yet to crash against our lives, but be advised that which you thought was immutable. That which you thought was self-evident I being found out in front of your disbelieving eyes.

When I was teenager my first job in Glasgow was in a railway factory maintaining the rolling stock of the then nationalised British Rail.

The official name of the factory was British Rail Engineering Springburn Works.

To everyone inside and to the local people it was “the Caley”.

Thos was short for the Caledonian Railway Company.

It had been established in the 1860s when Britain was the global superpower and exporting free trade economics across the planet at the point of a bayonet. Those bayonets were often wielded by Scottish men. Back home as Britain became the workshop of the world it was in factories like “the Caley” that the iron horses of the global empire were shod.

The myth in the Caley of my days in the 1970s was that when the factory was nationalised in 1948 the Caley had employed its first catholic.

The poor man was nicknamed “Tim” by the entire factory. He was a labourer with a sweeping brush. In 1948 Glasgow this dealt with any equality issues for the mere Irish.

This was classic blue-collar male dominated British industrial landscape. This particular glen had a local flavour. There was an ongoing reality of anti-Irish racism and the folk memory of a different view. The alternative vision of class solidarity of Red Clyde side was like the mad aunt in the attic.

There were men still vital enough to tell me that they had stood as lads at street corner meetings and listened to the great John McLean.

This was pre-Blair and pre-new labour socialism was not a dirty word.

It was also the Cold War. So the refrain of “get back to Russia” was the usual riposte if, as a gawky teenager, you asked your elders why it had to be like this?

Why did people have to live out a purgatory is damp ridden high flats when others lived in luxury?

When I wasn’t being told to “get back” to Russia (somewhere I have no connection to) I was being told to “get back to Ireland!”

Happily I can attest that these words blink to life on a computer screen in sean Dun na nGall.

During those lunchtime “debates” in the “Caley” in 1975 I once stated-thinking it was a killer polemical blow faced with the chorus of older heads about my utopian nonsense about a planned society.

“Nationalise the banks!” I said. “We’ve nationalised the railways, why not the banks?”

This was derided as so much nonsense from a spotty teenager who didn’t know what he was talking about.

More than that this teenager was a taig with an annoying grasp of history. He always seemed to have an answer. In the end my elders played the boy and not the ball. They couldn’t invalidate arguments, so they invalidated me. I was either too young or too “communistic”.

I have recalled this week how my belief in nationalising banks was one of the more preposterous ideas that I advocated to these poor, limited industrial foot soldiers of the declining British economy.

Now the masters of the universe in Wall Street are begging to be nationalised.

It is truly a bizarre sight. Of course these powerful apparatchiks of capitalism still want to retain their dachas in the Hamptons.

They still want the lifestyle of opulence they just don’t believe in the free market anymore.

Within the week we have seen the creation of, in effect, an  Icelandic soviet. The global money markets, were they an individual, would be, by this time, detained under the mental health act for their own protection.

Funnily enough there are no reports of any chaos on Cuba.

Did someone mention planned society?

I would guess that most, if not all, of my lunchtime debaters may have passed away.

However the lippy young taig from the stores who was always for reading at lunch break when he wasn’t debating told them a truth that is today more than thirty years later (nothing in historical terms) being evidenced for the whole world to see.

The internal contradictions of capitalism make the entire global system inherently unstable.

My elders in the Caley were wrong.

There is a better way.

Phil was interviewed by Matt Cooper on Today FM’s “The Last Word” on Wednesday 8th October.

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Phil was invited onto the show because he had broke the story on his blog earlier that day that a parliamentary question about the Famine Song was going to be asked the next day by Alan Shatter TD to Micheal Martin Foreign Minister.

April 16th – Celtic v Rangers.  It is aired for the first time. Within days Show Racism the Red Card are innundated with complaints.

Week beginning April 21 – Complainants receive responses from SRTRC that the song is racist and they are in dialogue with the SPL, SFA and Rangers FC about the song.  The request for an ethnic group to go home is a racist mantra and has been for many years.

It is NOT the Famine reference that makes the song racist.

April 27th – Celtic v Rangers – It is sang in greater numbers and on at least four occasions.  The SPL delegate is Willie McDougall, ex-Rangers employee and associate of SRTRC.  Later that evening a Celtic fan of Irish background is murdered.  In the ensuing days there is no condemnation from any quarter.  The song now starts to feature on more and more Bebo pages and there is a significant increase on it’s references in various search engines.

May 9th – Representatives from IDSA (Irish Diaspora in Scotland Association), Garngad Irish Association and the Celtic Trust meet SRTRC to discuss measures to stop the song being sung. Both SRTRC representatives opine that the song is racist.

May 10th – Rangers v Dundee United.  The song is sang specifically at Noel Hunt,an Irish Dundee United player.  There is no condemnation from any quarter,including PFA Scotland, the footballers union.

May 14th – Rangers v Zenit.  The song is sung in the UEFA Cup Final.

In April and May the song is sang in games under the jurisdiction of the SPL and UEFA with the SPL in the full knowledge that thousands of supporters are being openly racist each week.

May 12th – Gordon Smith, Martin Bain, Lex Gold and others attend the Show Racism the Red Card awards ceremony in Downing Street.  Their presence is seen as a commitment to challenge racism in Scottish
football.

May 24th – Scottish Cup Final.  Rangers entertain minnows Queen of the South in Scotland’s showpiece occasion.  The song is aired in the presence of Gordon Smith and the SFA.  They also have been told the
song is racist.  There is no condemnation from Smith or the SFA.

June – Despite requests for further dialogue Show Racism the Red Card do not respond to contact from the Irish groups or the Celtic Trust.

June 9th – Show Racism the Red Card ackowledge privately they have had by this stage more than 100 complaints about the song.  This is unprecedented for the organisation and perhaps for almost any
anti-racist body.  Generally media coverage post-racism means the necessity is not there to complain to anti-racist bodies.

July – SRTRC inform complainants who followed up initial correspondence that dialogue is ongoing with the SPL,SFA,Rangers FC and the Rangers Supporters Trust.

August 9th – Falkirk v Rangers- The Famine Song reappears in stadia.

August 16th – Rangers v Hearts – The song emerges, but with a worrying development alluded to.  T-shirts are now on sale with sentiments stemming from the message of the Famine Song urging consideration from the Irish community to repatriate.

August 23rd – Aberdeen v Rangers – The song is sang throughout the fixture at Pittodrie.

August 31st – Celtic v Rangers – Despite conjecture that the song could lead to arrest it is sang with gusto.  Later that evening, Neil Lennon, the Irish coach of Celtic is beaten up in Glasgow.  Craig Brown, SRTRC patron and former Rangers player is the SPL delegate.  There is no subsequent condemnation.

September 15th – The BBC Scotland Reporting Scotland reports that the Irish Government, through it”s Consulate in Edinburgh has voiced it’s concerns over the song and sentiments.

September 16th – Rangers FC through Martin Bain release a statement asking for supporters to refrain from singing what has became known as the Famine Song.

September 21st – Rangers v Motherwell – Despite the request the song is aired by a significant section of the home support.

Septmember 28th – Hibernian v Rangers – Again the song is sang frequently throughout with many of the opinion that defiance is as much as a motivation as age old anti-Irish racism.  Just prior to kick off Celtic FC release a statement with John Reid, the Celtic chairman deeming the song as racist.  Again Willie McDougall is the SPL delegate for the fixture.

October 1st – An article in the Irish Post features contributions from anti-racist bodies Kick it Out and Searchlight.  Both deem the song as racist,with the former intimating that the Irish Government were correct in involving themselves in this issue.

October 1st – Show Racism the Red Card release a statement on their website which to many regurgitates the September 16th statement of Rangers FC.  They do not label the song as racist.

October 6th – Show Racism the Red Card amend the statement with an additional sentence which says “We are of the opinion this song is racist”.  The general consensus is that SRTRC have been left with no
option but to follow the lead of other similarly motivated bodies.  Prior to this the leading anti-racist body Kick it Out, the Equality and Human Rights Comission and the anti-racist and anti-fascist group Searchlight all label the song and sentiments as racist.

To date the SPL and SFA have not condemned the song, nor labelled it as racist despite being told almost six months ago the song is racist.  As a result Rangers FC have not been sanctioned.

By Phil Mac Giolla Bhain
Exclusive

Irish politician Alan Shatter TD has submitted a Dail question to Foreign Minister Micheal Martin about the Famine Song controversy in Scotland.

I spoke with Deputy Shatter last week and he confirmed to me that he had acted after a constituent had contacted him.

“I am urging Minister Martin to directly contact Alex Salmond, the Scottish First minister in Edinburgh, to deal with the racist chanting of the “Famine Song” by Rangers supporters at soccer matches in Scotland,” said Deputy Shatter  ”Rangers supporters should get behind their world famous team and move on from the hatred of the past. I also hope that the club itself will deal with the supporters who will not desist from singing this racist song.”

In a separate development the organisation “Show Racism the Red Card” (SRTRC) has called upon supporters of all clubs to refrain from singing songs and participating in behaviour that contravenes
footballing regulations as outlined by FIFA, UEFA and the SPL and that may result in possible prosecution from the police. In a statement on the SRTRC website specifically referred to the “The Famine Song”. The statement from SRTRC was very similar to that of the Rangers FC in that it warned Rangers supporters singing this song that they may be liable to arrest for a “racial breach of the peace..” The statement from SRTRC, like the one from Rangers, did not condemn the “Famine Song” as racist. This first statement from SRTRC had coincided with the publication of the Irish Post’s first piece on the Famine song controversy, which highlighted SRTRC’s lack of action on this issue.

That was SRTRC’s stated position at close of business on Friday 3rd October.  By Monday 6th October midday they had changed the text of this section on their website to include the statement.

“We refer to “The Famine Song” which is being sung by sections of the Rangers support. We are of the opinion that this song is racist. Both Rangers Football Club and Strathclyde Police have stated that anyone singing this song risked being arrested. UEFA guidelines stipulate that “racial abuse” or “discrimination” is not confined to skin colour. It can also be reflected in abuse for being foreign or from
an ethnic minority background.”

To the innocent reader it would appear that, as of October 1st, SRTRC  publicly considered the “Famine song” to be racist when this was not the case.

This journalist was unable to solicit any direct quote from the organisation despite speaking to two members of staff at SRTRC on several attempts. My request for SRTRC coordinator Billy Singh to get
back to me and speak for the organisation did not happen.

Alasdair Allan the Scottish National Party Member of the Scottish Parliament for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (western Isles) stated that:

“The sentiments in this song are unquestionably anti-Irish and racist. The overwhelming majority of people here would say that there is no room in Scotland for this song. This song is so sad on a number
of levels. If people only knew their history they would know that the potato blight was such a terrible disaster and led to death and devastation in both Ireland and Scotland.”