An interesting item dropped into my inbox just the other day; the anti-racism charity Show Racism The Red Card is hiring. They want an “Education Officer” who’s job will be to present anti-sectarianism and anti-racism workshops all over the country.
I wish them well in finding someone to fill the post, and I wish the eventual candidate well in the role.
But I cannot help but feel this is still an organisation badly undermined by past mistakes, and which I wonder exactly how much they have learned from.
A fortnight ago, the MSP James Dornan received a vicious email advertising a “Smash A Feni@n Day” and in the aftermath his entire Twitter feed turned into a trail of slime as the Peepul came out of the woodwork to shriek invective at him.
Amidst it all was a worryingly aberrant allegation; that Dornan himself had manufactured the thing to cause problems for them.
This is the mind-set of some of the most bitter people in Scotland, and it was to those people Show Racism The Red Card pandered last year, when they launched a shocking attack on Phil MacGiollabhain after he’d gone in to their office to talk about anti-Irish racism in this country. The Peepul responded with fury, and forced the organisation into a humiliating retreat, which didn’t so much show racism the red card as it rolled out the red carpet for it.
Their press release came very close to calling Phil a bigot. Had it ventured too far towards that point I have little doubt they’d have been left exposed to serious legal consequences, and equally I do not believe it would have been something the man from Donegal would have been able to brush aside. They were probably far closer to that than they are aware.
Their credibility took a huge hit because of that episode; it cost them more friends and allies than they’ll ever know, and it poisoned what would have been good working relationships. And all to give comfort to the kind of people their organisation was set up in direct opposition to in the first place. They showed they could be bullied. They showed they could be intimidated into repudiating the very founding principles of their organisation.
In addition to that, they have blown opportunities since which might have brought them some much needed credibility.
One of them was the leaflet James Dornan received, and which this site wrote about in an article that was highly critical of The Herald Group for the attitude of their “head of sport” Neil Cameron, when he made light of the issue and of sectarianism in general.
Show Racism The Red Card could have done Scottish society a big favour by focussing on that tweet and the sentiments contained in it. They could have publicly joined us in slapping down Cameron’s deplorable comments and sought the views of his managers at the paper. It would have confronted both the paper and Cameron himself with the seriousness of the issue, and their own glib response to it. Can you imagine the impact that might have had?
Instead the matter was ignored. They also appeared to ignore the blatantly fascist, openly racist, nature of the Union Bears march before the game at Ibrox. I cannot think of a more serious example of nakedly sectarian sentiment on our streets as that one was, and it was made manifestly worse by the fact that the club itself endorses these “fans”.
Again, that was an opportunity for SRTRC to confront a powerful institution and put them under pressure over the problem. They did nothing.
Scotland needs anti-sectarian and anti-racist organisations like SRTRC. It really does, and I would give those organisations all the support and encouragement in the world if I believed they took their role seriously, but it more and more seems that they pay lip-service to the task and that they shy away from any confrontation with any organisation that might push back and that is unforgivable for people who have their mandate.
I really do wish them well in their hunt for a new staff member.
I really do hope that it’s a sign they’re getting real again.
They badly need to get some guts.
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