The inalienable right of the Hun to sing the Hokey Cokey

A few years ago, I was passing a pub when I overheard a conversation between two men. It became clear that one was advising the other on his heroin habit, summarising by saying: “Listen, get oantae the drink; get affae the drugs – and stop aw this pish!”

On first hearing snippets of this sage advice, some might have sneered at its crass nature. For sure, alcohol can be – and often is – a desperately destructive drug. But it is presented in many a benign form, its consumption is ingrained in the social and religious cultures of millions of people worldwide, and it is relished in its many forms across the social spectrum from cherry brandy to tonic wine.

And yet wasn’t there something in those words of street wisdom? Addicts, after all, often replace one destructive behaviour with another less hazardous obsession.

So why shouldn’t someone suggest that a sometimes dangerous, potentially damaging and often obnoxious – but socially accepted – vice would be an almost desirable alternative to something with the even greater attendant physical dangers and social tragedies associated with heroin?

Such thoughts echoed around what was once my mind in recent days, when the right of loyal Rangers supporters to sing the Hokey Cokey became newspaper hot gossip.

Trying to understand the culture of the archetypal Rangers fan is a soul-destroying fool’s errand. For sure, we know that there are thousands of decent, respectable inoffensive football fans amongst them. It is equally clear that those who are not an acute embarrassment to the sport are being lost among the increasingly loud and aggressive drone of the collective moron that assembles itself in the name of Rangers FC.

Suffice it to say that these are the very people whose culture provided the basis for the development of the American Redneck, a “glorious lack of sophistication”.

On the internet, their hatred and prejudices are laid bare, with any whose appreciation of irony might warn of impending embarrassment banned from the forums.

For example, what religious education has to do with Rangers, only a bigot could explain but it seems to creep into every second forum thread or article by the Rangers illiterati.

Do fans of other clubs obsess on the “sectarian” or “apartheid” youth organisations that meet their approval, despite separating young children on the grounds of religion?

When displaying their hatred of the Irish Catholic community in Scotland, do they ever wonder if they might be asked the question: “What part of Scotland is Ulster?”

Do any of them consider that in singing, “The famine’s over, why don’t you go home?” they are denigrating their own fans and families? Probably not.

Do they ever ponder how they might logically navigate their aggressive rejection of Nil By Mouth (who dared to challenge sectarianism), while at the same time claiming that NBM’s ridiculously flawed condemnation of the word “Hun” made the term “officially sectarian”? Well, we’re talking about the Huns here, after all.

In the last 18 months or so, we have seen Rangers fans contribute the single strongest argument for creationism in demonstrating their ability to defy the forces of evolution. 25 years after the most appalling display of football thuggery, pre-Heysel, they celebrated the anniversary by again embarrassing the nation they claim to love in Barcelona.

And of course, May 2008 was the occasion in which the most vile display of hooliganism, post-Heysel, was manifest in the celebration of Rangers values that was the Manchester UEFA Cup Final.

Today, their celebration of culture stems around besmirching the name of Jock Stein and defaming companies by associating them with the Rangers form of racist banter.

So imagine their joy when they discovered that the old favourite, the Hokey Cokey was alleged to have its origins in mockery of the Catholic Mass. Some might have mused on the nature of a country in which such abuse becomes so ingrained in the culture that it is taught to children.

But, instead, the combined creative and intellectual powers of Rangers have revelled in their ability to try to offend in a novel way – and fight for their right to do so, brothers!

Is this a desirable trait? No. Would it be better if they just tried to sing some positive songs that didn’t celebrate the principles of ethnic cleansing or religious intolerance? Absolutely.

But seriously, given the alternatives, like the advice to the drug addict mentioned before, isn’t the lesser of two evils that Huns should celebrate and define their identity through the Hokey Cokey, that is presuming that they can multi-task enough to perform the actions and remember the words at the same time?

In the words of Homer Simpson: let the baby have its bottle.

Who knows – they might even develop a sense of humour.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A present for our hosts on Saturday - a cut-out-and-keep Christmas mask






--