Arrest made after Aberdeen fans fly sectarian banner at Ibrox

[Frankie 8,367]

On 11/11/2022 at 17:51, JohnMc said:

I suspect his defence will be "but it can't be sectarian cause I'm a Proddy too". 

I've some sympathy for the posters who are neither offended by the phrase nor see much point in escalating the tit for tat 'I'm pure offended' that often dominates online discourse. Like all words the person using them and the tone in which they are delivered makes a huge difference to that word's meaning, whether intended or not. As Ascender says up thread being called a 'hun' by a friend or acquaintance in a friendly conversation rarely causes any offence and neither is it meant too. However a complete stranger shouting Kill All Huns at you on a dark night might elicit a different response, and again I suspect that would be deliberate. I imagine this Aberdeen fan's defence will be along the lines that he feels 'hun' has no sectarian meaning, to him it's simply a derogatory term for Rangers supporters. I also suspect he'll be able to show numerous examples of this, maybe he'll ask Stuart Cosgrove to give evidence in his defence, it's a term he's used a bit in the past after all. It'll be an interesting defence and assumes that bringing a banner saying 'kill all Rangers fans' to a ground holding nearly 50,000 Rangers fans is otherwise perfectly acceptable behaviour of course. 

 

From a personal perspective, like all of us, I've been called a hun on numerous occasions. Often it was jocular and delivered by someone I knew, no offence was meant and none was taken. On others I was fairly sure the person was intending to insult or intimidate me, it was meant aggressively. Sometimes it was said in my company by someone who forgot I was there and their reaction when they realised I'd heard was often telling as to their intention and meaning. I'd a girlfriend many years ago who described me as a 'practicing hun' to members of her family when the subject of football inevitably came up. That relationship wasn't destined to last. 

 

The meaning of words changes. That's simply a fact about the English language. No matter how much we might wish it otherwise, the meaning behind how we say something, or these days type something, isn't always the meaning that someone reading it will take. On a return trip to Belfast a few years ago I noticed the term 'KAH' sprayed close an intersection where Unionist and Nationalist areas joined. Graffiti and murals have long been used in Belfast to designate territory and I found them a very helpful navigation aid when I first moved there. For those unaware KAH stands for 'Kill All Huns', and it was sprayed as a territorial marker, letting everyone know what area you were entering. Do we think the person responsible meant 'Rangers supporters' when they left that mark? We can only speculate, but personally I'm in no doubt at all that in that context it meant 'Protestant' or at the very least 'Unionist', although those terms are often interchangeable. 

Whatever that Aberdeen fan's intention, it's naive in the extreme to think that some people who use that word don't see it as a derogatory catch all term for Protestants. Like a number of other words that were once fairly commonly used it's probably advisable to avoid using it at all now. 

 

Great post, John.

 

If you have a spare hour this week, it would be smashing if you could flesh it out into an article of sorts. Helps get the message across to the wider debate.

[Malangsob 1,264]

Repression breeds obsession. 

 

Push it down here, it bubbles up there. 

 

Freedom of speech, is the freedom to offend. 

 

[Bluedell 5,471]

I fail to see why a banner that basically says "Kill all Protestants" is inoffensive, and why it's not a huge issue.

 

"Kill all blacks" or "Kill all Jews" would quite rightly be front page news and it shows a certain amount of bigotry by the press and politicians for it to be largely ignored.

 

There's an ongoing campaign for the "Hun" slur and therefore sectarianism to be normalised. We saw the sinister hanging of Protestant effigies being largely ignored.

 

Banter? I think not.

 

 

 

 

[Gonzo79 14,520]

8 minutes ago, Bluedell said:

There's an ongoing campaign for the "Hun" slur and therefore sectarianism to be normalised.

The correct term has already been coined - it's 'selectarianism' and it's prevalent thanks to Scotland's ruling party sharing a similar anti-British outlook to their best mates, Sinn Fein.

 

I have accepted that as long as Scots keep voting for this nationalist cult, it will only get worse.  

[Scott7 5,662]

Would it be ok if the banner text was “Kill all Rangers Supporters”?

[ranger_syntax 4,004]

On 14/11/2022 at 21:04, Malangsob said:

Repression breeds obsession. 

 

Push it down here, it bubbles up there. 

 

Freedom of speech, is the freedom to offend. 

 

Strange point to make.

 

We don't have free speech in the United Kingdom.

[Malangsob 1,264]

1 hour ago, ranger_syntax said:

Strange point to make.

 

We don't have free speech in the United Kingdom.

True, but it used to be a lot freer.

 

Congratulations on your acquiescence.