In a move away from the normal content on these hallowed pages I would like to raise awareness of an issue that effects all of the country, albeit some 'sections' more than others. In this article I will suppress my own opinion of the issue and let you make your own mind up.
The debate at hand has been raised by a few Rangers Supporters and given a voice under the RST and various websites.
The Rangers Trust is campaigning to all of a Rangers persuasion to take part in the upcoming elections. What the RST are suggesting is that supporters should lobby their candidates on a range of topics that they feel are relevant to them and their Club. They have called this initiative the "Active Citizenship Campaign"
One of the issues that they will be contacting their representatives on is the issue of Sectarianism. The question to be asking ones candidate is succinct. "What do candidates see as the main causes of sectarianism?" which is a gallant cause until the question is qualified by the following statement of "Is it a crunch issue? Or less important than Sky High murder rates of inner city poverty"?
Reading that I interpret it as something along the lines of "Dear future MSP. What is your opinion of sectarianism (not too sure what response they expect to elicit? Oh yes I am all for it future constituent??)"
"Furthermore what do you think causes sectarianism (of which the reply will be lengthy and well thought out as to not offend any one side)
Then the Sixty Million-dollar Question is posed "What do candidates think about faith schools? Should religious apartheid be funded by the taxpayer?"
The depth charge is launched. I may be wrong in this assertion, but reading the above statements and applying basic psychology it would appear that the centuries worth of sectarianism can be traced to one source. Catholic Schools!
By asking someone's opinion of the root of a problem and then finishing with a loaded dice of a question is an attempt to add a persuasive answer to the initial query.
The issue of Catholic Schooling has long been a bug bear (intended) of sections of Scottish Society. I have my own opinion of these institutions, but as I said earlier these are not relevant to the point of this article.
Before we reach that point it is important that we understand the history of Catholic Schooling in this country.
In the early twentieth century the Catholic community was not "favoured" -far from it! It already had its schools, all bought and paid for, and run, by the Catholic community. The government required local councils to provide universal schooling for all its children. The councils realised that they could never afford to provide for every child and they asked the Catholic community if it would allow its schools to become state schools, thus, the councils/ government would fulfil their promise of universal schooling.
The Catholic community handed over their buildings lock, stock and barrel to the councils. No recompense was ever asked for. All the buildings, land and teachers (whose training had been paid for) were given over. In return, the one thing that was asked of the government was that it would insert a clause into the 1918 Education Act to ensure that Catholic education would remain the right of the Catholic community in perpetuity.
No other community has ever given so much.
This is the reason why we have Catholic Schooling in this Country, and similarly in other Countries such as Germany.
The point of this article is this, how can any rational, educated, tolerant human being believe that the reason they revel in being "up to their knees in someone's blood" is due to that person having gone to a separate school from the persons blood they seek around their legs? How can any citizen, whom shows their hatred for a race of people and their religion, base that simply on which school it was that they went to!
It would appear that this issue is the root of all evil for those who perpetuate the myth that Catholic Schooling is the cause of sectarianism in this Country. My response to this is short and sweet. If separate schooling is the cause of sectarianism why: -
1. Do the Celtic Support/Catholics not hate the Protestants to the same audible/visible extent?
2. Do other Countries such as Germany not have the problem of Sectarianism?
3. Was their sectarianism evident in this Country long before the advent of separate Schooling?
Yours in Celtic
Clydebuilt