After years of ignoring The Famine Song, knees bathing in Fenian blood, etc, Scotland seems to have had a knee-jerk reaction in the opposite direction. The supposed Sectarianism bill outlaws rudeness, while Hearts have asked fans not to bring Red Hand of Ulster flags to their stadium (they can't be arrested for possession of a flag, but can for waving it, supposedly).
I am not a waver of flags, and I don't think football stadia should be used to glorify violence of any sort. I believe that the whole concept of national football teams rather dubious, which will be looked back on in future years as one of the last vestiges of racism, but that's a subject for another time. I'm also not a libertarian who believes people should be able to get away with as much as possible. Inciting racial hatred is rightly illegal, and clubs have a right to decide what can, and can't happen in the ground, within reason. What is acceptable in the street is not necessarily acceptable in a football stadium because of the increased chances of a riot breaking out.
However even I find these recent developments concerning. Hearts fans have a right to wave the Red Hand of Ulster if they want. I know that normally they are doing to annoy, but do they really intend to remove annoyance from the game? Why ban one national flag and not another? Do they intend to announce a similar prescription on the Irish tricolour just before Celtic's next visit? To my mind it sets a very dangerous precedent. As a nation we have a sensible think about what we tolerate, and what we don't. As the supposed target of this dastardly flag-waving, I am perfectly happy to tolerate a flag of a neighbouring country being waved in my general direction. Indeed football fans of all persuasions tolerate this all the time. Even with all the rancour at the last Hearts vs Celtic game, I'd be surprised if one Celtic fan approached any kind of official and said "gonnae stop them waving that flag?". What I don't think we, or anyone else, should have to tolerate is incitement to racial or sectarian hatred, death threats, or (and I think this is possibly the most dangerous of all) the defence of these actions by influential people in the media.
The sectarianism legislation (if it can even still be refered to as such) in theory outlaws anything that the police deem to be offensive, in a football stadium or various other places. This is something of a sea-change from a position of acquiescing with blantant widespread sectarian singing in recent years. The serious stuff was already illegal, so why make trivial things illegal too? I think the answer lies more in publicity stunts than anything else. The police aren't going to arrest everyone who annoys the opposition at a football match, but giving them the power to do so is almost certain to lead to abuse of that power, either through malice, or ignorance. Someone will be arrested for singing "God Save The Queen" or "The Soldiers' Song" and it will make matters worse, not better. A bill that was supposed to tackle hatred on the internet doesn't seem to understand the internet. Those vexatiously arrested will become martyrs on their various football forums. Meanwhile those on the forum will be wanting everyone who supports of plays for their opposition to be arrested under the legislation. The ludicrous Lennon-racism allegations of last reason will played out every week with "he blessed himself coming the park! lock him up!". Or "that guy's waving a Union Jack at Lennon, why's he not locked up??".
Being a walloper shouldn't be illegal. Like adultery, it should be seen as wrong, not illegal.
While all this bill is all for show, it distracts from two more important matters:
1. The thing that really stops fans from misbehaving is serious sanctions against their club. The docking of points, or closing of stands, change mass behaviour. Punishments for individual fans don't.
2. It doesn't address why people want to misbehave. By making almost all fans potentially guilty, it muddies the waters about the actual moral arguments to do with sectarianism and racism.
I fear that next season is actually going to be worse than this year because of this legislation
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