Oikophobia: a tendency to criticise or reject one's own culture and praise other cultures.
On the theme of vetoing everything the Union Bears (UB) currently say and produce, Patrick Stewart totally missed the reference in his recent misplaced attack on his favourite scapegoat the UB and their magnificent display.
The tifo was clearly an image of Mr Souness, our legendary former captain and manager and the catalyst for our glorious 9 in a row period. It's a very famous photo with the original showing Mr Souness looking every bit the fit and menacing dominating midfielder that he was with an ironic addition of a child's toy to add a bit of playfulness to the image and no doubt the story of the day, which I have long since forgotten.
The board now has an attitude - we are going to bully you. We are going to force you to accept at the point of a metaphorical gun to make you act in a certain way. Patrick Stewart is taking it upon himself once again to bankrupt the culture at Rangers FC in the pursuit of something that doesn't exist - diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI). What is real is the very tangible actions of people who seek their own kind. This is a natural human preference, this is as natural as breathing. It's an involuntary, self preservation mechanism that human beings instinctively know. In the great diversity of man, we prefer to be around people who have the same values, culture, religion, outlook and history. Be around people who love what we love and hate what we hate.
The demonising of the UB is on the back of a current myth and invention and the board at Rangers FC is guilty of looking for an unnatural, ideological dogma at our expense, fuelled by a seemingly unassailable self righteousness. The arrogance is staggering and the target is the wrong one. Not only is it the wrong one (again) it is far more resourceful and smarter than the people running the club. I'm no deluded supporter of the UB and they've had some ups and downs with the wider support, but their dedication is unquestionable.
The board have demonstrably proven again they are incapable of defending the club and have a perverse obsession with the UB. When you have a look at the multitude of examples of what the board have brought to Ibrox in the name of DEI in the past few weeks, it is staggering that the UB and the broader support in general find themselves being scolded by Headmaster Stewart again. To labour the point, in the past few weeks we've had LGBTQ flags at Ibrox, Ramadan, criticism of opinions and a Sinn Fein member at Ibrox taking selfies. You literally would struggle to make up a more bizarre list of priorities from an institution that was founded on Protestant, Christian, working class belief structures. To my early point, wanting to be around and being attracted to people like you is an immutable fact of life. A normative fact of human inclination.
The board has become ideological. When the Rangers support quite rightly have oppositional views and highlight the paradoxical and contradictory facts of the matter. Such as, a Sinn Fein supporter in the body of Ibrox, the fault-line of addressing two cultural idiocies, such as Islam and gay rights, then we are mocked, attacked, derided and then subject to the higher authorities at the club to admonish us and explain why we are such nasty people.
The board should stick to their remit of producing a successful football team. Their dabbling of the culture wars have been an embarrassment and abject failure. Just this week we have had exposure to the vile bigotry deep within the cretinous mind of a race baiting, failure of a politician in the shape of Humza Yousaf. The board should be asking serious questions about the actions, language and biased nature of Yousaf. Yousaf is a fan of the football club that covered up paedophilia for 50 years - that should tell us everything we need to know about him. That's repellent enough, to make matters even more insidious he was for a time the most powerful lawyer in the country when the lockdown was implemented. He has no credibility in broad terms, and given his politics, religion and sporting preferences, has no legitimate authority, moral, legal or otherwise to be acting against Rangers FC. We all now wonder and speculate how the board will react and deal with the revelations of the text conversations between the former and present First Ministers. What is clear is that Rangers FC and the Rangers support have been subject to lies and smears. A tifo should not be the focus of the board, but it ostensibly is.
By their own actions and ideology the board is not much better than Yousaf because they have adopted this cultural orthodoxy of DEI and by association has embarked on a hostile stance that it is very comfortable using to attack within. The support has been a footballing phenomenon for over a century and a half. It is difficult to exceed this historical fact, however, in the past 13 years, it has been eclipsed by what the support has achieved from the lowest ebb and tier of Scottish football. The support has been the life-blood and oxygen when the club was on life support. Everything we do is for the existence, longevity and future of the club based on its foundations.
At the time of typing this out, there has been a lot of media attention about a certain individual of such depraved character that this should prove the focus for the board over the coming days and weeks to ensure anyone at Ibrox (or anywhere for that matter) found guilty of mocking the victims of the Ibrox disaster is not only in prison, but denied access to football. There is more than enough evidence of the act and subsequent social media activity to bring this hate filled individual to justice.
The supporters do not like, nor agree with the following, Ramadan celebrations, LGBTQ celebrations, Sinn Fein selfies, lies peddled by the most senior politicians in government and the mocking of one of the darkest tragedies in Scottish football. The board needs to apologise for this misdirection. mismanagement and adoption of something that is contemporaneously alienating and divisive.
We did not not radicalise the board; the false religion of DEI did.