There’s a fine line between Nationalism, pride in your country, and the extremism, xenophobia and outright racism that has crept into mainstream, political discourse in the UK, parts of Europe, all over the US, and which threatened to drown a recent meaningless race for a symbolic office here in Ireland. James McClean is no shrinking violet. He is a decent footballer by any measure and one who may love his country just that little bit too much, but he remains a lightning rod for cavemen English nationalists every poxy November.
He has his faults and he overdoes things on an off the field for some people’s liking, including mine at times, but at this time of the year, his noble stance against the forced recognition of the poppy is admirable and is perhaps silently supported by many of his fellow professionals.
Nemanja Matic has certainly aligned himself to McClean’s stance in a non-silent manner. He removed the poppy from his jersey at the weekend because as a child he witnessed Her Majesty’s finest do their work as part of a NATO bombing campaign in former Yugoslavia. He said today:
“… for me it is only a reminder of an attack that I felt personally as a young, frightened 12-year-old boy living in Vrelo, as my country was devastated by the bombing of Serbia in 1999… Whilst I have done so previously, on reflection I now don’t feel it is right for me to wear the poppy on my shirt”.
On mature reflection, perhaps inspired in part by the Derryman.
Argentinians and those from some African and Middle Eastern nations must also have some reservations when donning something representing an historical and current foreign agitator. Surely Aguero and his fellow countrymen must have thought about the Falklands and the Belgrano at some point, or had it pointed out to them by someone, as they donned the symbol of the Army which carried out that action; one which many right-minded Brits regard as a somewhat controversial act of war. Maybe not. Maybe Geography; maybe the more recent stains on the Union Jack caused in Ireland and Serbia have not been expunged in the manner that historical colonialism, slavery and the Falklands have? And in the case of the Middle East, things are perhaps even more complex.
But one thing is for sure, there are an awful lot of footballers, pundits and media people across the board who don the poppy thoughtlessly or simply do not want to be seen to cause offence. They are unaware that the fields of Flanders from where the symbol came, and the many battlefields of World War I were not theatres for some noble fight against tyranny, as Europe was from 1939-45; they were theatres for colonial and imperial competition; and they were scenes of absolute and total butchery – the slaves and servants of the kings and emperors sent to their brutal deaths. Brave? Noble? It was an industrial slaughterhouse. Now let’s stand for a minute’s fucking silence 100 years on to remember them, surrounded by ads for gambling leeches in a stadium named after whatever foreign global corporation bid the highest for the rights.
But the Brits and the hyper-English are entitled to their myths and their symbolism. We have plenty of them ourselves. Ireland’s 20th Century is not without its shame; Irish Nationalism not without its butchers, from Ballyseedy to Omagh. Irish culture is not without its extremists, from the GAA bans to the dictators who ran the Catholic Church and via McQuaid and De Valera, the State, for so long. But in 2018, what are we forcing on anyone? We are emerging from a period of monoculture, and while you may hear the term “true Gael” every couple of summer Sundays, the oppressive old definition of Irishness is well and truly dead. The nation can unite and be brought to its feet by Protestant Hockey players in the same summer that it turned its back on the Pope. Elsewhere they are moving towards monoculture and what it means to be English, British, American etc etc. It’s deeply tragic in nations which have always, always, been the most diverse and multi-cultural.
And poppy fascism is the latest cri de couer for the true Anglo. The great irony is that those people should really be wearing swastikas to match their attitudes. The even greater irony is that some of them do.
In the current climate of English politics, it cannot be a coincidence that every November, this gets worse. As the UK further degenerates over the coming years into a certain type of England in London; a different one elsewhere; an irrelevant Wales; a restless, possibly independent Scotland; and christ knows what in Northern Ireland; this fractious kingdom will be defined more and more by this Faragian, Rees-Moggian approach to discourse. And people like McClean and Matic will be further and further denigrated. God help the working class blacks, Asians and other “foreigners” in those forgotten cities and towns, as a multi-cultural nation turns inwards into a septic isle; a poorer isle, looking for minorities to blame.
Where does it go from here? McClean has been warned by the FA over his use of the c-word and will face no further action. I have to commend the FA for this, as I had expected more (or less) from them. Stoke have yet to come back on the latest statements, but I presume they won’t go any further than the FA. As for Nemanja Matic, things could get interesting for him too. Will Poppygate finally be exposed as mere good old-fashioned anti-Irish xenophobia. Banter. A bit of crack (sic). Or will fans start to taunt Matic as well? What should McClean do now? He has been at his most vocal this week since this all started back in 2011. Gone are the days of hoping it will all go away with a brilliantly worded open letter like the one he wrote to Dave Whelan at Wigan. Nah, in post-Brexit Britain, logic, compassion, understanding and empathy have no place.
I still think they have a place in Ireland, despite the vile shart that was Peter Casey’s presidential campaign and post-election deluded, ignorant and egotistical witterings. McClean divides opinion on both sides of the Irish Sea. I don’t subscribe to the genre of Irishness that glorifies violence, or any narrow definitions of what one should believe about the Rising, the Civil War, the Troubles or anything else. No conflict on this island has been black and white; and in Irish football things have been multiple shades grey since day one – McClean’s former club being one of the great symbols of that greyness. It’s up to James what he does next. I like him. I hope he is ok. If he feels he has the inner strength to put up with the cavemen year in year out, I wish him the best. He is under no obligation to leave his job, or his adopted home. But when he does, he has an entire city in the north-west of Ireland which will welcome him back with open arms, and a majority on the island that fully respect his overall stance on the substantive issue under debate here.
A Yard of Grass 