Never mind the famine song - what about the whataboutery

Last updated : 19 September 2008 By Barrioh

Well the genie is well and truly out of the bottle regarding the 'Famine Song' and the fact that you are probably by now fed up hearing the words 'Famine Song' shows how successful Celtic fans have been in bringing this previously unmentionable topic into the mainstream despite the obvious reluctance of the press.

We on this site like to think we played a part in bringing it to the fore following our exclusive interview with Tommy Reilly which we published on Saturday morning and in fact we were among the many Celtic fan sites which highlighted this odious ditty way back in April (click here).

Tommy and a great many other people have been complaining and actively campaigning for months with regard to this disgusting song and it's thanks to their tenacity that this is finally in the public domain.

Suddenly journalists are tripping over their laptops in their haste to file their reports - Roddy Forsyth of the Telegraph was in so much of a hurry, for instance, that he decided to lift seven paragraphs from our original article and paste them into his own online report.

Suddenly it's acceptable, nay, compulsory to talk about the 'Famine Song' on radio phone-ins - so compulsory that in fact they have 1 and 2 hour radio slots dedicated exclusively to the topic. And listening to the phone-ins I'm sure I even heard references to that other remaining unmentionable - the disgusting and long running campaign being perpetrated against Jock Stein - and the callers who made these reference weren't cut off! Progress indeed!

Of course on the flip side we've have to endure the barrage of whataboutery from the now offended Rangers fans, whataboutery from Northern Irish politicians and the ultimate whataboutery from the chief executive of Rangers FC, Martin Bain. "What about Novo songs and death threats.........what about the IRA songs............what about them...."

My advice would be for Mr Bain to sort out his own midden first. Three drunken neds down the Gallowgate singing an obnoxious song about the rat-faced little forward and one misguided person posting the name of a large Glasgow street on the internet does not equate to thousands of wearrapeople spouting their racist bile within a sporting arena.

And the scariest thing is that the Rangers fans still don't understand why people are offended and from what I've seen and heard from them the most common reply, other than whataboutery, seems to be "well the famine is over so why don't they just f*ck up and go back where they came from?"

They don't do irony do they?