Magicpole
Well-Known Member
The question of why Palestine, is one I have put to those within the GB and anyone else who agrees with embracing their issues. I asked the simple question, with people’s all over the world suffering, why choose Palestine? Why not the Kurds, or Indeed any number of others a scroll through Amnesty International would provide? Is it not explained solely on how their plight mirrors those of Northern Ireland? A country taken, settlers or Planters brought in, people driven from their land because they are the wrong religion?
I know that is the reason and although the plight of the Palestinians is one that many around the UK feel is unjust, the GB will say, well the exact same principal is happening 30 miles away and it’s just accepted. A country the UK controlled by force for 800 years and Planted Protestants in what used to be the most populous area and was always the most fertile.
After the Empires number was up we were forced to give back all the countries we occupied, except Ireland.
Now, I will put my cards on the table, I don’t have a problem with any individual having political views, or being passionate about them, what I do have a problem with, is in how that manifests itself.
The GB see themselves as a defender of the downtrodden. That’s fine, but I ask them what else do you do? Do you think that doing fuck all apart from singing a song at a game, or dishing out small flags to wave at a football game is enough? Or even appropriate?
It’s the same with their increasing singing about the Troubles. There is every year at least a couple of Republican marches calling for a United Ireland. The numbers who actually march hover around 200-300 people. Again I ask them, if you are so committed, where the fuck are you when these marches take place?
The GB are said to number about 4,000. You can go on YouTube and see them gather and march to a game. All good. But, where are they when an actual Republican match takes place?
Using the club and games to voice their heartfelt support to me is not demonstrating you really give a fuck.
I think the support are there to support the team. If you spend 60/80 minutes singing about Ireland, who is that lifting, inspiring, giving a boost to? Not the players, most of the songs are dirges, tell tales of wrongs, sung about historic figures, not about Celtic.
The historic lot of the Irish and their descendants in Scotland was always one of discrimination. Even today in 2018, there are employers who won’t employ you for the simple reason of the religion, that as an accident of birth you were born into. We have the Orange Order, who plan their marches to include walking past Catholic Churches, where they actually stop and as they put it, give it Laldy.
This causes anger. This triumphalist display for a battle 300 years ago is not conducive to harmony. The polarization of how Ireland is viewed is total.
Celtic as an institution was a vehicle that we could take that attitude on by beating the establishment club, Rangers, a club that until Mo Johnstone, refused to sign a Catholic. It still is.
The open wound that is still NI is used as part of the identity by too many still.
The GB can and do give fantastic support when they stick to football. For me, to be taken seriously about any heartfelt belief, takes more than songs at football games.
Palestine has been incorporated because it mirrors NI. Be political all you want, but remember why we are at CP, to support our team. To give them a lift. The Away support is singing songs on a 8/1 ratio about politics and it fucks me off, especially since they don’t go on the marches.
Even if they did I still want them to cut out those songs as they do the club no favours.
The main problem with Ireland is the regurgitation of past wrongs on both sides and the perpetuation of the same division by a refusal to let them go. To try and move forward.
I can’t solve that by being against that mindset, but what I can do is call them out for being part time diehards. For using my club to sing about stuff that has fuck all to do with what they are watching.
They have, for me, gone too far. Now plenty disagree with me. But plenty don’t.
Catholics number 800,000 in Scotland and the club the majority support but by no means all is Celtic. They were and still are a way we can take on that superiority complex that exists up here.
From where we have come from in economic terms, to numerical terms we have become a club known the world over. We have won nearly as many trophy’s and will soon overtake Rangers in that. That is an astonishing feat. People say we are paranoid about forced against us, refs, the SFA in the past. Our players being booed when playing for Scotland in the past. The press backing Rangers. It happened. We never buckled. We never will.
I want to celebrate that. I would never deny people the right to be political, all I would ask is do that where it matters. And don’t think you can do it at Celtic games then put your feet up. Feet were meant for walking. March, lobby your MP, donate money to humanitarian organisations. Waving a wee flag of Palestine at a game is not enough.
I would prefer both us and Rangers to just sing about our teams. But, more than that I want our fans to just sing about ours. When we do that, we are a sight to behold.