I was talking to a socialist friend some time ago when he brought up the International Brigades who fought against Franco's fascists in the viciously brutal Spanish Civil War. The Republicans, for whom the International Brigades fought – many hailing from Scotland – ultimately lost, resulting in Franco's undisputed power to violently oppress dissenters and persecute any expressions of culture that didn't fit with his view of Spain.
I referred to the savagery of the war and the wilful slaughter of approximately 7,000 Catholic priests and nuns. “Could anyone justify that?” I asked. “Of course not.”
“But those killings were carried out by the International Brigades – almost every division of them.”
I never received a satisfactory answer to how someone can give blanket support to the International Brigades and claim to be appalled by deliberate slaughter carried out as part of a process that subordinated humanity to their espoused ideology.
If you're reading this, there's a fair chance that you, too, would consider yourself an intuitive supporter of the Spanish Republicans and almost certainly not a fascist. And, in my experience, the majority of people who hark back to those days of the glorious fight against Franco know very little about the sordid details of what really went on.
Because, frankly, most people who shout from the rooftops about militant causes are too intellectually lazy to really inform themselves about the inconvenient details. As humans, we have a tendency to favour binary choices – you're with us or against us; the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
And in doing so we naturally amplify the horrors of those perceived as our enemies while muting or mitigating the wrongdoings of “our side”.
So people who would castigate Ulster loyalist terrorists for targeting Catholics for murder can praise the International Brigades for far exceeding those crimes without a moment of self-reflection.
But facts matter and so do principles and so do human lives – all of them.
And so we come to what really should – but probably won't – be the final chapter of the Green Brigade Saga – or “How We Took an Esteemed Football Club and Made it all About Us”.
I have already made my feelings known about the Green Brigade's most recent attention-seeking behaviours.
The suspension of approximately 200 tickets has been met with predictable ire amongst fans to whom the Board of Directors can do no right and thus, through the “enemy of my enemy” doctrine, decided that the Green Brigade are being unjustly punished.
Despite the lengthy list of complaints against them – many of them extremely serious – the popular view of that is “TLDR”; “They're being banned for opposing genocide”; “It's cos the Board are Tories!”; “I stand with the Green Brigade”.
So you stand with the violence and intimidation towards other Celtic supporters and people who work at the ground, many of them Celtic fans and mostly doing low-paid, casual work. Could you tell me is that being done in the name of socialism, Irish republicanism or the people of Palestine?
The pyro (yes, it's dangerous as well as illegal and both safety and punishments against Celtic matter); the breaking into Celtic Park, rushing gates, trying to break in through fire exits. You stand with that, too.
The “Pigwatch” whereby this clan of juvenile delinquents publish photographs of police officers, seeking to identify them and put their details online. Of course you stand with that because “ACAB!”
The Green Brigade have drawn much praise for their displays and their charity collections (though the list of groups and individuals that have used charity work to whitewash their reputations is peppered with people with whom decent folk would rather not be associated).
But this is what it's about for them – their own profile and Celtic is just a convenient platform from which to project their logo across the Internet.
And in doing so now, they are not just flying the Palestinian flag but hiding behind it. They are taking the symbol of an oppressed people and using it like a cheap throw to cover some nasty stains.
And, if social media is any guide, most supporters are falling for it hook, line and sinker.
This group, mark you, doesn't see you as its equal. With its secretive membership, and privileged status within the club allowing it to make territorial claims, home and away, has come an elitism to which many fans have become only too willing to doff their bunnets.
Because, wherever there are bullies and self-appointed bad-boys, there are snivelling suck-ups who think they can get some reflected cool points for supporting them. They are the Richard Hammonds to the Jeremy Clarksons of the world.
And then there is the Celtic Trust – another group that sees itself as speaking for Celtic supporters in their own elitist way. They have spoken out in support of the Green Brigade, presumably to emphasise how much better they are than the directors whose positions they covet.
Celtic should – but almost certainly won't – stand firm until the Green Brigade stops becoming a topic. I say they won't because the Board seems to be filled with cowardly stuffed shirts who understand conservative financial policies but nothing at all about strategy.
So it seems inevitable that they'll sit down with the usual suspects who reckon they represent the intelligentsia within the Celtic support.
And they'll thrash out a tentative agreement, again! And the Green Brigade will break it, again! And we'll go through the same process, again.
And we'll be urged to stand with the Green Brigade, again!
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