Challenging Sectarianism in Scotland: The Prism of Racism

Abstract

This article is an essay in change in attitudes to sectarian prejudice, drawing on the Herald and other Scottish newspapers in order to identify key developments in the three years between 1999 and 2002. In June 1999, Cara Henderson's published a passionate letter of protest against sectarian hatred in football, in August James Macmillan gave his renowned lecture about anti-Catholic bigotry . In November 2002, Jack McConnell, First Minister, called in the giant football clubs the Old Firm of Celtic and Rangers to demand that they take concerted action against the violence of their supporters, and threw his weight behind proposals to make 'religious prejudice* an aggravating factor in crime. It was inevitable that the new Scottish authorities would, at some time, face challenge about sectarianism, the component in Scotland's political culture that is more sensitive than any other. It was also inevitable that they would have to deal, at some time, with the scale of violence that surrounds Celtic and Rangers, the giant football clubs in Glasgow, each with their distinctively sectarian affiliations (Finn 2000). However, what is interesting about these three years is the development of centripetal pull. Politicians who stood aside in 1999 were pulled towards the centre of a momentum that was gathering pace.