Social Items

TPQ
Paudie Sullivan ✍ Anyone over the age of 30 in the North of Ireland would have been forgiven for expecting the PSNI to use violence against the Garvaghy Road Residents in Portadown, following the Parades Commission’s contentious September 2026 decision to grant an Orange march after a 28-year hiatus.

Yet, PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher made it explicitly clear at the Policing Board that forcing the parade through a crowd of protesting residents would be "catastrophic," admitting that the level of physical force required to execute such an operation was entirely unviable. This stands in stark contrast to July 1996, when the PSNI’s predecessor—the RUC under Hugh Annesley—enthusiastically battered nationalist residents off the Road to pave the way for the Orange Order.

A question; has the demographic shift within policing dictated this operational reticence? In 1996, Catholic/Nationalist representation in the RUC sat at a meagre 8%, leaving the force over 91% Protestant/Unionist and moulded by seven decades as the armed guarantor of a unionist state. Today, post 1999 Patten Report, Catholic/nationalist representation within the PSNI stands at roughly 31%.

This internal political dynamic is far from theoretical. On February 5, 2021, the PSNI arrested Mark Sykes—a survivor of the 1992 Sean Graham bookmakers massacre—at a dignified 29th-anniversary wreath-laying ceremony on Belfast’s Ormeau Road under the guise of Covid-19 health regulations. As detailed in The Irish News, the incident was said to have sparked immediate internal dissension among nationalist peelers and threatened a collapse in community confidence. Then Chief Constable Simon Byrne was forced to interrupt a trip to London, returning urgently to suspend one cop and reassign another to head off an existential rift within the force.

The British state and PSNI leadership now find themselves in an acute dilemma. After decades of time, political capital, and public funding spent trying to render the PSNI palatable to nationalism, violently forcing an unwanted march down the Garvaghy Road would destroy that delicate construct. It would risk a mass exodus of Catholic personnel, gut nationalist recruitment, and completely vindicate the long-held republican stance that the PSNI remains little more than a colonial instrument—a "continuity RUC."

Beyond political optics, there is a stark mechanical reality: the PSNI simply lacks the numbers. Police strength is at a historic low of under 6,400 members. The widespread civil unrest that followed previous assaults on Garvaghy Road demonstrates that any PSNI charge in Portadown would not remain isolated; it would trigger simultaneous relief confrontations in nationalist areas across the North.

The historical precedent is undeniable. In August 1969, when the RUC and the paramilitary B-Specials proved utterly unable to hold the North following the Battle of the Bogside, the British government was forced to initiate Operation Banner and deploy British soldiers onto the streets. The PSNI today could not contain a similar North-wide revolt without once again demanding British military intervention.

In these operational and political calculations, you see the true, exorbitant price the British state would have to pay merely to facilitate 35 Orangemen walking roughshod over the fundamental rights of a nationalist community to live free from sectarian intimidation.

⏩Paudie Sullivan is a socialist activist.

The PSNI's Garvaghy Dilemma

Bill O'Brien ✊of the Truth And Neutrality Alliance with a statement on Irish neutrality and his recent detention by British police.

Against Ireland Joining A European Army

Caoimhin O’Muraile ⚽ These lines were the first of a song the Red Army of Manchester United back in the seventies would chant at Maine Road to Manchester City fans as we packed into the away section of the Kippax Street Stand post segregation. 

We would sing these lines to the air of ’Two Old Ladies Got Locked in the Lavatory’ when we had beaten City; ‘Oh Dear What Can the Matter Be, Manchester City got Hammered on Saturday’. And today in the boiling cauldron of corruption called the ‘Premier League’ it looks like the financial wrongdoings of the men in Sky Blue have caught up with them. For many years football, as a game, has ceased to exist in its traditional form as bent business and crooked entrepreneurs have stolen the game from the fans. All that considered what we are left with the cards dealt, and with these cards lacking Aces, Kings, Queens, and Jacks we try to turn a ‘pig’s ear into a silk purse’! We try, with increasingly greater difficulties, to make this pile of corruption into the game we were once fanatical over. This corruption, crooked dealings being top of the list, is prevalent all the way through top flight of so-called football and Manchester City are top of the rotten pyramid.

The ‘Blues’ have recently been found guilty of 114 out of 115 financial rule breaches which involves the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the ruling royal family. Man City are owned by billionaires from the UAE with the principal owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, being a member of the ruling Al Nahyan royal family of Abu Dhabi and is also the Vice President of the UAE. Sheikh Mansour owns the club through the Abu Dhabi United Group and the City Football Group (CFG). To him Manchester City are a plaything, a toy he can discard when bored play games with. It would appear the game of Monopoly he chose to play this time with his toy has been a financial dealing too far because even by the standards of corrupt capitalism it is illegal. As the Sheikh moved round the Monopoly Board Officer Edgar Mallory said, ‘Go to Jail, Go Directly to Jail’ but the Sheikh refused telling the policeman to fuck off! He can of course say that because he’s a member of the UAE royal family who own 10-11% of the middle-east’s oil, around 113 billion barrels. Other non-oil wealth sectors include, Gold and Commodities including diamonds and precious metals, Financial Services, Real Estate and Construction are all sources of wealth for UAE and, like most businesses, are open to possible mega corruption just like their Man City venture.

City are appealing, as is their right, and the appeal was launched on 1st October 2026 and is in all probability to be heard within 12 weeks. Are there grounds for an appeal? If it were anybody else the answer would be no because the evidence they are presenting has apparently already being “branded untrue by the Premier League’s independent commission” (Irish Daily Mirror back page Friday 2nd October) therefore it is not new evidence. Manchester City were found guilty of violating Premier League spending rules using “sham arrangements to inflate figures and sponsorship deals to the tune of £900 million”. Apparently, they moved expenses around and used a “sham Fordham arrangement involving player image rights as part of a disguised funding scheme to bypass spending limits”. An independent commission found that “Fordham was funded by the club’s owner, the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), making it little more than a front rather than a genuine independent third party” as City claimed, in plain language a fucking sham.

If they win on appeal the question to asked is, did they win because the law was on their side or because they have the financial clout? The latter would be most likely but under such a scenario both the Premier League and Man City, through their legal teams, are unlikely to leave any evidence of corrupt payoffs. What it will tell us though, once and for all, is the game, already corrupt, is irreparably fucked. Fans could stop attending PL games, but that would make little difference. Many of those crossing the turnstiles today aren’t proper fans of the team but tourists and different tourists every other week at that! Ask the Scousers, Liverpool that is, they carried out a survey. If Man City buy their way out of this then the Premier League will be about as credible as Infantino and FIFA!

City’s legal team are likely to argue “an Abu Dhabi government body – rather than Sheikh Mansour – provided funding at the heart of the financial dispute” (ibid). After the guilty verdict a statement from City said:

The whole Premier League case against us is based on a single false accusation – that the owner’s personal money was somehow and secretly put into the club via some sponsors from Abu Dhabi. This is just not true (Irish Daily Mirror page 40). 

The Premier Leagues 40-page core decision rejected the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Court (CPC) explanation as “untrue” adding:

we concluded that was an explanation that the club concocted well after the event in an attempt to obscure and conceal the realities of the disguised funding scheme. (ibid). 

Will City lose their appeal? Don’t bet your house on that, they could, and no doubt will, try behind the scenes to buy their way out of the mess they’ve found themselves in and could well succeed in this. That is the nature of the modern supposed game. After all, what’s the point having royal dynasties as owners if they can’t make, and break, the rules?

Former Manager, Pep Guardiola, appears to have been very clever in all this. He resigned as City’s Manager having just secured the Premier League title at a very opportune moment! Did he expect this verdict coming? If this was the case, how did he work out when to jump ship? Either way he managed to distance himself from Man City at just the right time. City’s alleged corruption began back in 2009 when Roberto Mancini was their manager and the successful years – now at best tainted – were just beginning. The Abu Dhabi United Group bought Manchester City in 2008, a year before these corrupt transactions began. Ironic that! All the same it appears the cunning Pep knew when the time to go had arrived. It may have been helpful having his employers, the UAE royal family who were also his mates, on side. Did they give him the nod? Either way Pep Guardiola has told City fans – tourist and few proper fans left alike – he will “always be there for them”. Where exactly Pep will you be? Why did you not hang around? No doubt Pep will be watching the outcome of the appeal very closely. Should the decision go against the Blues will Pep still “always be there”? ‘There’ perhaps meaning somewhere in Saudi Arabia!

Former Manchester United boss, Alex Ferguson, said regarding Man City’s sudden rise into the big money league; “suddenly City could walk into conversations for players that previously would have been choosing between United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Madrid and Barcelona”. When Emmanuel Adebayor signed for the former Maine Road outfit his people “were still talking to Chelsea” meaning they were out of the conversation the player was having in West London. 

At the time you simply accepted they had enormous financial power. You competed with it, that’s football. But if you discover years later that rules were being broken during the period you’re trying to compete with that financial power, you’re entitled to look back differently. Once you change the financial strength of one club, you don’t only change that club, you change where players go. You change title races before the first ball is kicked. 

A very good short analysis Alex.

Should City lose their appeal and the charges are upheld what then for the bent champions? They could get a slap on the wrist, depending perhaps on how much the owners are prepared to fork out in bribes. Or the present owners could be barred from owning a football club, becoming deemed ‘unfit’ as happened to Roman Abramovich at Chelsea over something which had fuck-all to do with football! City’s owners may also pull billions of pounds investments out of the UK should their appeal fail and severe punishment is incurred. This would bring outside influences into play and would, no doubt, influence the Premier League when coming to a second decision. 

So much is the corruption which makes Gianni Infantino’s plan to sell off the World Cup to the Trump family, among others, not so far-fetched. City could be relegated to the second division – fourth division when football was structured properly – and be stripped of their titles falsely won during the corrupt years, though this is “less common”. Should that happen where do the trophies go? There has been talk of the seasons proven when these illicit transactions took place that Man City have their trophies removed and the runners-up for those seasons be crowned champions. That would mean Man Utd may get City’s tainted silverware something I, for one, would not want. No self-respecting United fan would want these trophies we had not won. Neither, I would hope, would the fans of any other clubs including Arsenal and Liverpool taking these trophies would paint us as “fake” as City.

Perhaps the worst-case scenario could be Manchester City FC are liquidated and cease to exist. They then could reconstitute themselves with different owners under their original name, St. Marks (West Gorton), or Ardwick another former name and restart life in the North-West Counties league, the strata FC United started life, forcing them to work their way back up. This is unlikely because “according to league protocols, an expelled top-flight club would have to apply to rejoin the football pyramid at the lowest tier of professional football, League Two”. This would only act as a punishment if the billions of pounds the UAE royal family put into City is denied them. Man City could not be given an unfair advantage over their peers in the lower leagues so, royal family or not, it’s time to “fold their tents like the Arabs, and as silently steal away”. It has also been touted that Arsenal, Man Utd, Liverpool and Spurs “could be in line for £200 million each” (ibid). This is a lot of money but small change to the bent owners of Man City. After all the amount of wealth they have is seldom amassed morally honestly! What about teams relegated after suffering defeat to ‘fake’ City? Will they have a claim? The possibilities are boundless! It would not be good for what’s left of football and particularly Manchester Football if City ceased to exist, Derby Day means a lot. Severely punished, yes, but do remember those passing judgement are also bent as nine bob notes themselves.

When Brian Clough took over at Leeds United from Don Revie, he accused the Leeds players of “cheating”. He suggested to players like Billy Bremner, Eddie Gray, Norman Hunter all institutional names at Elland Road, that they “throw away their medals” because they had won them “through cheating”. If ‘Old Big Ead’ were alive today, what would he have said about the goings on at Manchester City? 

At Old Trafford we had an iconic song rooted in red Army folklore which some of today’s fans will remember – not including the tourists – ‘If I Die in the Kippax Street’. The Kippax was Man City’s huge terrace, capacity 27,000, down one side of Maine Road. Before segregation United fans stormed the Man City supporter’s part effectively ‘taking the Kippax’ ‘If I die on the Kippax Street, there’ll be ten blue bastards at my feet. If my bones never mend, carry me back to the Stretford End’. Today, should the Blues fail in their appeal, that old Stretford End chant might have a prophetic literal meaning about City dying!!

Another ancient terrace chant I recall: ‘We’re Manchester United and no one can deny, there’ll always be a United team in the days when City die. We’ve won the league, we’ve won the cup, we’ve conquered Europe too, and when we win the league this year, we’ll sing this song to you’ (Air, Puff the Magic Dragon). City dying seems the order and theme past and present, great days now just memories.                  

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

“Oh Dear What Can The Matter Be Manchester City”? ⚽ Memories!

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand One Hundred And Sixteen

 

A Morning Thought @ 3287

Gary Robertson ⚽ On October 3rd 1981 the hunger strike came to an end but not before ten young men laid down their lives.
 
As I write this I’m acutely aware that many of you were friends, family and comrades of these selfless souls and my thoughts are with you at this time

Holding their sacrifices in our minds puts daily life into sharp perspective but as the weeks turn we find ourselves facing the absurdities of another seven days in Scottish football. From the embarrassment v Switzerland, Hendry finding himself off after 11 mins to the muted joy of a victory over North Macedonia - a country that came into being in 1991 - to the tennis balls and banner protests at St Andrews targeting Dermot Desmond it’s been a rather extraordinary week.
 
The Celtic board were quick to condemn the actions of the few in a statement that rapidly backfired.
The gist of this statement is “board good fans bad” but what irked me and no doubt many others were the blatant lies they’re happy to present as facts.
 
There’s much talk of fan and board interaction. It reads almost like there’s constant communication which couldnt be further from the truth. Indeed the Celtic board are notoriously tight lipped and on numerous occasions have been asked to explain X,Y and Z from fans groups only to be met with absolutely silence. Celtic fans are constantly left in the dark and from this frustration grows.
Frustration that ends in protests, protests that then and only then force the club into action mode and releasing statements.
 
Looking back on Desmond’s tenure as majority shareholder: at time of writing he holds roughly a 36% share in the club. From where Celtic were in 1994 when he came on board at the time, I’m sure many would have snapped your arm off to have the trophies and achievements that have come the way of the club. Indeed, outwith 1965-1974 this has been the most successful time in the unbroken history of Walfrid’s dream. Perhaps therein lies a part of the problem. Celtic have created the rod to be beaten with. Fans have come to expect success, younger fans especially don’t remember the lean years, the difficult times when Rangers won trebles and Celtic were a club in disarray. Indeed Celtic were minutes from going out of business only to be saved by a wee man in a bunnet. Success is that rod.
For many Celtic have become synonymous with success. As a fan it’s been a wonderful time, 14 of the last 15 years Celtic have lifted the SPL title. I mean what’s not to like?
 
But success demands further success and herein lies yet another problem.
 
Every transfer window, fans are crying out for the club to make signings. To strengthen the squad, to bring in players for positions in which they’re clearly lacking but most times, if not all the time, we’re yelling into the abyss.
 
Celtic's statement once again is shown to contain untruths enough to make Trump blush. The club doesn’t engage with fans, and players have been sold with no replacement in place.
 
Think Daizen Maeda.
 
Am I asking for a say in recruitment? Yes and no. Practically it would be impossible to please every fan all the time but it might help if you listen to their concerns at times. Celtic went two seasons without a recognised striker. Fans begged for action and it wasn’t til Summer 2026 this was addressed.
 
We aren’t looking for anything unreasonable. Celtic fans only want what’s best for their club as fans of all teams around the world do.
 
The board claim they’re open to listen to fans concerns then do their best to manoeuvre a way out so as not to have to address the difficult questions.
 
Perhaps the events of St Andrews could have been avoided but when fans have concerns and frustrations regarding their club and are met with a wall of silence inevitably protests are going to take place.
 
Just because it’s an international break it doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten the mess Celtic are in and I’m sorry but Dermot you brought this on yourselves.
 
Banning supporters, supporters groups etc might appease your clearly fragile ego but it won’t make the problem go away. The problems run deep.
 
For every fan you ban two will take their place. These frustrations aren’t of the few but rather the many if not all.
 
Rather than claim to be open to fan meeting, actually attend these things, make the club accessible, listen to the people who buy tickets and merch.
 
This hasn’t come out of left field, you cannot be so blind and deaf as not to see and hear the boos ringing out at Celtic Park? Engagement is what we ask for. Yes a very large majority are seeking regime change but again that’s due to your unwillingness to be transparent.
 
No one is denying that Dermot Desmond et al haven’t brought great success to Celtic but at what cost? We’re on the brink of civil war, fan v board, fan v team, and so on and so forth.
 
It’s descending into chaos and yet it was all wholly avoidable.
 
They end the statement with the following - The reputation of Celtic football club is non negotiable.
True - But herein lies yet another problem.
 
We all have a part in defending the reputation of the club but for that to happen everyone needs to be pulling in the same direction.
 
Let me take you back to the 16th of May 2026. Celtic Park - a must win game for the team. Our opponents would have sealed the title with a draw. Celtic needed three points. So already you have the pressure of a title decider. We’d previously lost the league cup to St Mirren and tensions were running high.
 
What transpired that day will live long in the memory, the great escape was complete and the title remained at Celtic. Exuberant fans took to the pitch to celebrate and the press went into meltdown. Claims of Hearts players being assaulted, the good name of Celtic dragged through the mud by the pondlife media. Fans demanding replays, Scottish football once again being castigated by the likes of Simon Jordan and Ally “cheeky chappie and partisan extraordinaire” McCoist. Calls for sanctions on Celtic and Celtic fans all based on the say so of one man - Pat Nevin who claimed to have seen Hearts' Shankland being punched by a Celtic fan.

Hearts FC made statements, Tony Bloom jumping onto TalkSport radio claiming “one or two” Hearts players had been assaulted. Of course None of this actually happened. Yet did the Celtic board come out and defend the fans? Did the reputation of Celtic not matter then?
 
Indeed I’d have thought that would have been the perfect time for the board to speak up for those who work all week to afford a ticket. But no silence, nothing but silence. The reputation of Celtic didn’t matter then. Desmond and the board were happy to paint Celtic fans as thugs and hooligans and remain with lips tighter than a nun’s knicker elastic.
 
Indeed I cannot remember a time when this current regime have spoken up in defence of the fans.
 
If it didn’t matter then how can it matter when a few angry young men throw tennis balls and protest on a golf course? What’s the difference?
 
Simple. Embarrassment.
 
Celtic fans running onto a pitch is easy to condemn, and the club can make a statement asking fans not to do this but it embarrasses no one except perhaps those who invade the park whereas the St Andrews fiasco embarrasses Dermot in front of his mega rich buddies and the whole watching world.
 
This is why the speed at which the statement was issues was so critical. It was damage control but not for the reputation of the club but instead Dermot Desmond himself. When he speaks of it being non-negotiable this has nothing at all to do with Celtic but all about damage limitation for the dictator. DD couldn’t care less on how this looks to Celtic, he’s proven that many times, but as soon as it gets a little too close to home then the presses start printing immediately.
 
Dermot Desmond is a businessman, clearly a very successful one. He’s also a Celtic fan but this statement was never about defending the club but rather defending him.
 
Dermot Desmond isn’t Celtic.
 
Now go and read the statement again but instead of reading “Celtic” read “Dermot” and if you don’t already agree with me you soon will. His ego’s been bruised and that’s what matters to Dermot Desmond.


Anyway that’s my thoughts for this week I can assure you this story won’t end here and no doubt further fall out to come.
 
League football returns to the SPL this weekend so hopefully we can get back to talking about controversial VAR decisions and Masonic conspiracies, you know the stuff that matters 🤣

Enjoy your week, whatever you’re doing do it well do it safely and have fun

Til next time …… 🐼 

🐼 Gary Robertson is the TPQ Scottish football correspondent.

Ergo Ego

Savage Minds ★ Written by Rumy Hasan. Recommended by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh.

Last year (in August 2025), The Future of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 came into force. 

This purports to protect the freedom of speech of students, academics and external speakers at universities in England, whereby “universities must actively promote academic freedom, ensuring campuses are places where robust discussion can take place without fear of censorship of students, staff or external speakers expressing lawful opinions” (Gov UK, 2025). 

Though this is surprising given that both the previous Conservative government, who drafted the Act and the present Labour government, who have (with some exclusions) implemented it, are not principled supporters of free speech, nonetheless, this is ostensibly a positive step and should lead the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland to follow suit.

But given the recent history of the reticence, even reluctance, of UK universities to abide by free speech principles, it is by no means certain that they will comply with the new law. Two recent cases of profound importance at the University of Bristol point to important lessons in this regard. 

Continue @ Savage Minds.

Academic Freedom 🧠 Lessons From Bristol University

Pádraig Drummond ✊ It’s a hell of a strange world we’ve built when our national football team will march off the podium because a reporter tells a lie, yet happily line up for ninety-plus minutes alongside representatives of a state whose government is credibly accused of genocide.


Apparently there are principles, and then there are principles that conveniently disappear when the referee blows his whistle.

We are told to believe that football is above politics, that sport builds bridges and brings people together. Fine words, until those bridges are being built over the bodies of people who have been bombed, displaced and killed. 

The problem is not the ethnicity, religion or nationality of the players on the other side. It is the political machinery and state violence they represent, and the grotesque double standard that allows Western institutions to condemn racism in one breath while making excuses for colonialism, occupation and mass civilian death in the next.

That is the real absurdity, outrage at a lie from a journalist, but silence when the facts themselves become inconvenient. Anti-racism cannot stop at the edge of the football pitch, and opposition to imperialism cannot be something we remember only when it is politically comfortable. If human rights mean anything, they have to mean something when the victims are inconvenient, when the perpetrators are powerful, and when standing by your principles actually costs you something.

⏩Pádraig Drummond is an anti-racism activist.

Disappearing Principles

Dixie Elliot ✊The Sinn Féiners hijacking yet another anniversary to peddle their narrative about electoralism and the so called GFA.


The fact is that the GFA was the 1973 Sunningdale Agreement repackaged by the British. The only difference being was that the GFA didn't contain the 'Council of Ireland'.
 
The Sunningdale Agreement also contained the vague promise of a referendum on Irish Unity.
Therefore at the time when Kieran Nugent refused to wear the uniform of a common criminal and wrapped a blanket round his naked body, followed by other Republican prisoners and at the time when the two hunger strikes took place resulting in the deaths of ten brave men, not only was the Republican Movement totally opposed to electoralism but we saw the Sunningdale Agreement as something only Gerry Fitt and the SDLP would have accepted.
 
How many are aware that three days after Owen Carron won the bye-election for Bobby's seat and the death on the same day of the last hunger striker to die, Micky Devine, Sinn Féin began paving the way for electoralism by announcing that they would be standing in all future elections in the North and asked people to get registered to vote?

An Phoblacht/Republican News Saturday August 29th 1981
An Phoblacht/Republican News Saturday August 29th 1981

The hunger strike was still ongoing and this hadn't yet been put to the Movement as that year's Ard Fhéis wasn't held until late October.

That was when Danny Morrison gave his ballot box and armalite speech.
 
The beginnings of the so called peace process were being put in place slowly but surely and out of sight and earshot of the brave men and women who were fighting the war.
 
It took 13 years, at a high cost in Republican and civilian lives, before we had the 1994 ceasefire followed by a victory parade on the Falls Road.
 
But nothing had been won.
 
The 1998 GFA was hailed by the Sinn Féiners as a great achievement even though it was, as I pointed out, the Sunningdale Agreement repackaged, including the vague promise of a referendum on Irish Unity.
 
So in fact Gerry Adams and Sinn Féin finally accepted what we on the Blanket Protest, in particular the ten brave hunger strikers and Kieran Nugent, believed that only Fitt and the SDLP would accept.
 
So what was it all for?
 
Sinn Féin try and silence the truth tellers by saying that we can't speak for the dead, yet they have no problem linking the dead to the disastrous path they have taken the Movement down.
 
But we can tell the truth about how it came to the end it did, with a British Prime Minister slamming the door shut on the vague promise of a referendum on Irish Unity.

The thing about the truth is that you cannot get caught out telling it.

Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

Narrative Peddling

Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.


Before We Conform, Or Condemn, Let Us At Least Be Curious


♜One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it - Albert Camus♞ 

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand One Hundred And Fifteen

 


Hate Theology @ 17

 

A Morning Thought @ 3286

Anthony McIntyre ☠ The pile on is one of the biggest downsides of social media. 

What once looked like the democratisation of opinion formation, to the chagrin of the elites and their virtual monopoly of information dissemination, has steadily undergone a shifting of the plates beneath public discourse. The result has often been a planet of the bots given to volcanic eruptions of malignant magma with which the tyranny of the majority club seeks to vaporise voices it does not approve.

The online pile-on which Carla Lockhart has been subjected to for years, has now spread to the streets. It is not about political vindication, but personal vilification. The vitriol vat has been so cooked up, it both steams and stinks. Stieg Larsson could have found in her experience inspiration for the title of one of his Lisbeth Salander novels.

I am not in any way enamoured to the politics of Carla Lockhart. One quick glance at the barricade and she will be positioned on the wrong side of it, shoulder to shoulder with obscurantism and holding the line against empathy. Her appearance alongside masked men - always at the ready to tear the veil from Muslim women as a signal of their virtuous opposition to mask wearing - at the Scarva genocide rally was unpardonable. Her role as chief cheerleader for the Drumcree dinosaurs not much better. Her views on abortion, immigration, the Irish language, religion, gay rights, and just about everything else run counter to my own. DUP to her oxters, there is little about the woman to warm to, politically. She deserves every salvo of polemical and political flak fired her way.

What she does not deserve is the chemical weapon of poisonous personal abuse online or off. That toxicity should be out of bounds, off limits. And despite hard hitting calls from Michelle O'Neill last year for the "disgraceful and unacceptable" abuse to cease, it has re-emerged with venom in recent days. Whatever about Drumcree, or a phalanx of masked men supporting Israel's continued breach of international law, the pernicious personal abuse directed against Ms Lockhart is hateful, the desire to trample over her face as objectionable as the determination to trample over Garvaghy Road.

What propels a female public representative to stand with masked supporters of genocide might be perplexing. Not so opaque is the type of hurt that propels the same woman to stand before the media to explain her situation in the face of a barrage of abuse not about what she thinks or says but about how the abusers scream she looks.

I see the online keyboard warriors have been dusting off their dictionaries and thesauruses to abuse me online, based solely on how they think I look.

She can be blamed for the first stand but is entirely blameless in the second.

It takes quite some courage for any woman to stand in front of a camera and be descriptively candid about the abuse she is taking in the sure knowledge that she has to open up about what hurts, exposing the wound to hyenas salivating at the prospect of another bite.

No woman should be subject to toxic abuse for how others claim she looks. It is not free speech being sought after here but a licence to bully. And bullying is always designed to smother free speech by recourse to intimidating people out of the public square. Bullying is never banter. It is the call sign of the malignant.

Carla Lockhart can be justly criticised for who she appears alongside, not for how she appears. To her son she is a beautiful mother, to her parents a beautiful daughter, to her husband a beautiful wife, to her siblings a beautiful sister. They are the people who count in this, no one else.

She has the courage to stand up and argue her case, unlike many who hide behind fake names to abuse her. It might be a case we find repugnant. If so, focus on her case, not her face. We have no business going there.

As for the way she looks, I wish I looked as slim. I would be much healthier for it.

It is entirely legitimate to have a go at Carla Lockhart, but with political intellect, not personal insult. Get off her back. Leave her alone.
 
⏩Follow on Bluesky.


The Girl Who Takes Hateful Abuse

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)