"Hate Crime WEEK" in Glasgow oh the joys!

In the Policing of Language How Much We Lose

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Well it’s Hate Crime WEEK in Glasgow. A whole week dedicated to socially prescribed othering…. How very wonderful and Stasi-like of our government and educational overlords. I feel bad for the kids who are pulled into this nonsense. Groomed into paranoia about their lives, Glasgow City Council has produced an expensive little video to remind us of our ‘correct think’. “Glasgow is my city and there is no place for hate’ the individuals parrot. It’s quite saccharine really. Do these people understand what they are saying? Probably for them it’s a bit of #bekind, not an authoritarian government over reach demanding that we all love one another in the way they determine….

Note the opening sequence on our very own ‘Castration Flag’. Don’t want kids to have their bits lobbed off? Hater!

I heard a local activist interviewed on the BBC regarding her experience of being a ‘non-white person’ where she referred to ‘micro-aggressions’ from bus drivers. I thought to myself - ‘you do realise bus drivers are generally and specifically grumpy’? I was actually electrocuted by a mains power line at a bus stop on Pollokshaws Road in 2007 and two (TWO!!) bus drivers stopped, saw me thrashing about and drove by leaving me in distress before an ambulance was called (true story). You know what I got for the privilege of being hospitalised for electrocution at the bus stop? Five bus tokens! (really!) I think the drivers giving the ‘race activist’ short shrift is pretty darn minor is comparison. (I despair)

But in this Orwellian landscape of ‘correct think’ only certain behaviours are acceptable, if they are not met and you are a ‘person of colour’ = racism. End of. It’s lived experience innit? (unless you are a ‘Tory voter’, Christian, or have ‘nuanced’ view about Israel- in which case anyone can be as much as a direct a-hole to you as they wish. Fact).

Far be it for a bus driver to be having a bad day, or just be a jerk in general. That’s not to say that racism does not exist, but this hyper focus on identity is creating divisions and harms where there were none, in particular in schools. This pattern will follow IN LIFE. So let’s stop this shite ok? It’s not the world sane and genuinely moral people want to live in.

That said some schools will be CHARGED UP to be making ‘quality’ artistic renderings of hate like this….

Clearly design instruction is not part of the lesson plan on delivering messages. No offence to the children who were groomed to participate in this rote of indoctrination but artistic excellence this is not.

Salvador Dali work from the age of 6 and 10 years old for comparison…..

And lest we forget Scotland is now in the aftermath of the most draconian anti-democratic anti-free speech laws in the ‘democratic’ western world…

Iain Macwhirter

does an excellent analysis here of Scotland’s notorious hate crime legislation stating “According to the Scottish Government’s guidance, this law has created a stand alone crime of just being not a very nice person.”.

I am minded that my son’s school has started giving out awards to children who demonstrate UNCRC Rights Respecting Goalposts. I really don’t think awards should be given out ‘for being a nice person’ (which is essentially what it is). I mean that should be the default. A friend told me when she was in Brownies one lassie got an award for ‘best smile’. Turns out when she wasn’t smiling she was talking trash about all the other girls….

‘Best smile’ - Photo by Rob Griffin on Unsplash

In a previous post “Crime and Punishment” I lament how these school projects are making children afraid of words.

I see how words have become politicised by our political and educational establishments.  Words are to be feared.  Wrong words, right words, turn the wrong way with your language and you may be accused of racism, homophobia, hate crimes.  I have seen Scottish High School handbooks stating that should a hate crime be committed the offending individual is to be reported immediately to the police.  (let that sink in, a child is to be reported to the police for saying the wrong words)…. In the current landscape language is not something to be carved, shaped and understood for higher understanding as in the case of Dostoevsky’s great works, but something to be feared and policed.  And this fear stunts ourselves and our children from being able to grow.  It makes us stupid.  It stops us from communicating as we limit our vocabulary via socially constructed othering.  In the case of education this denies our children the real power to understand the beauty and power of language.  And where will this leave us…..

“To read too many books is harmful” Mao Zedong

And it’s not just schools. When the Scottish Hate Crime Legislation came into force 1 April 2024 I had to develop a ‘safe-plan’ for my son if and/or when I get charged. What happens if I get arrested, where does my son go? Who calls my parents? (Luckily I am a member of the Free Speech Union). It’s hardly a comfort though knowing that at any minute you could be judged, charged and locked up with no protection to stop it from happening. (for words)

To that end, today the Telegraph reported about the arts ‘secret blacklists’. Of this I am well familiar.

 I have written about this before. It is a reality in Scotland that (in particular in art or culture) even without any 'hate' or 'ill will' towards anyone- any *thoughts* that are out of the ‘allowable bandwidth’ in Scottish society will see you cancelled.  It’s not necessarily a dramatic thing (like

Jenny Lindsay

, Magi Gibson,

Rosie Kay's Substack

, Denise Fahmy et al…) but often a quiet letting go. I now have the experience of people who used to be my ‘community’ and my ‘colleagues’ either giving me dirty looks or ignoring me. Work in the sector? Never again I suspect.

And yet all I ever wanted to do was create dance works for everyone, genuinely. And I did.

But because I know sex is real and that people are equally capable of good and bad regardless of their skin colour, and because I took people as I saw them with no pre-judgement or anticipation… I was cancelled. Because I didn’t use the right words.

When I was in Argentina and learned of the history of ‘The Dirty War’ of the disappearances, of young academics being dropped from airplanes for speaking against the regime it seemed impossible. Now I am not so sure.

Already we are seeing people imprisoned for their words. Here we have Prime Minister Keir Starmer (keeping in mind he is talking about WORDS):

“This is not a law free zone. And I think that’s clear from the prosecutions and sentencing. Today we’re due sentencing for online behavior, that’s a reminder to everyone that whether you’re directly involved or whether you’re remotely involved you’re culpable and you’ll be put before the courts if you’ve broken the law.”

The of Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson stated,  “We do have dedicated police officers who are scouring social media, their job is to look for this material, and then follow up with identification, arrests, and so forth,” adding that although people may not think they are doing anything wrong, “they are and the consequences will be visited upon them.”

Li Zhensheng, photographer of China's Cultural Revolution. Pictured: A struggle session, a special form of public humiliation and torture used in Mao era, a Secretary of Party Committee and his wife was persecuted publicly with ink all over their bodies.

It is an extraordinary thing because in the history of humanity bad things have always been done in the face of a mass complicity. If you want to see how 'good Germans' were bred in the face of Nazism?  Look all around you. The complacently comfortable. In their government jobs and good salaries. They can comfortably look away but do not understand that eventually even a purity spiral eats its own.

I recently watched Lemony Snicket “A Series of Unfortunate Events” with my son again. These stories are quite useful.  In it there are adults who continue to forge ahead enabling bad things to happen to the children even when it's obvious it is harmful.  They trust the experts, trust the law, trust the government.  In that story it doesn't matter to those 'good adults' what happens because they continue to have nice lives regardless.  This is where we are.  

Someday I will point out to my son that the people around us, the people whom I have counted as friends, who have been cared for and by me - who have been valuable to me and my child… I will show him how good people did bad things, how capable good people are of doing bad things as a way of shielding him, of keeping him aware of how bad lurks everywhere, and good too.  We shall aim to judge people by their actions in the moments.

In the meantime let the HATE CRIME WEEK SHENANIGANS ROLL ON YOU PREDICTABLE LUNATICS.

Thank you for reading. Please consider supporting my work. You can ‘buy me a coffee’ here. Or become a paid subscriber for as little as £4.00 per month, £30 for the year, or £250 for a founding membership. Every penny makes a difference and allows me to keep speaking out about the failure in safeguarding for our children in schools and cultural institutions. We need to recognise, preserve and celebrate childhood. No one else is doing this in the arts in Scotland. Thank you.