Letter: It's just rudeness

Published on Friday 17 June 2011 19:00

Take a Liberty (Scotland) has launched a letter of opposition against the proposed new laws that could see people imprisoned for up to five years for sectarian chants or blogs. My own opinion is that if this becomes law it will be the most authoritarian piece of legislation in recent history.

Talk of "tolerance" by the Scottish Government (your report, 17 June) masks an outrageous level of intolerance towards football fans who are somehow blamed for everything from domestic and street violence to binge drinking, sectarianism and racism.

Laws already exist to lock people up for acts of violence, but magically to link singing songs or writing rubbish online with serious criminal acts is irrational and reactionary.

Tolerance, it appears, today, means not tolerating views we don't like, or more to the point, not even tolerating football fans throwing tasteless insults at one another before they troop off home to their Catholic wives, Protestant pals and multi-denominational workmates.

Even if sectarianism was a big problem, could this be resolved by banning what people think, say or write? Should hatred even be illegal? If so then lock me up as Mr Salmond is quickly rising to the top of my list!

Alex Salmond talks about tackling prejudice, however, the real and more worrying prejudice that I see is coming from the authorities towards ordinary people who simply lack the politically correct etiquette that he would like to enforce upon them.

Singing and blogging, being rude and indeed offensive is not the same as stabbing, beating or organising a pogrom and in a free society they must be tolerated. And let's face it - most of the time the chanting and blogging is little more than a form of football name calling. In all this talk of violence it is worth noting that being locked up in prison for five years for saying, singing or writing something that someone doesn't like is a form of violence that is both barbaric and astronomically intolerant.

(Dr) Stuart Waiton

University of Abertay

Dundee