Merger of Ideas

Here we have an example of the merger of two bad ideas: limiting freedom of speech, and criminalizing stupidity.


In 1958, an airplane carrying the Manchester United football (soccer) team crashed on a runway in Munich, Germany. Eight of the team's players were killed, as were 15 other people.


Last month, a tiny little football club called Crawley Town was drawn to face Manchester United -- which has been the most successful team of the past 20 years -- in the fifth round of the F.A. Cup competition, a year-long tournament that any football team in England can participate in. It's a big, big deal for Crawley Town, and they put together a song and video to celebrate the moment and raise money for the team's official charity. The video showed a band performing the song on stage, with celebrants dancing nearby. It was posted on YouTube, of course, as is everything of even trivial moment.

Turns out, one of the people dancing by the stage was filmed making gestures, the Guardian says, "simulating a plane crashing into the ground and holding up his fingers to count one, then nine, then five and eight to symbolise 1958." Some Manchester United supporter called the Crawley Town offices and complained about this tactless and offensive performance. The club, which had until then been unaware of the gestures, pulled the video and put up an edited version, which cuts the edges of the picture off to exclude the offending images. They also banned the offender for life from attending any of the club's matches.


Now, according to that same newspaper, this idiot has been "arrested under the Public Order Act on suspicion of causing harassment, alarm or distress."


This offender is 19 years old. The Munich crash is ancient history to him, and is only of significance to most living Man U fans as an article of ancient history, like the Battle of Kosovo or the Siege of the Alamo. Banning this stupid kid for his entire life from the matches of his home-town football club is excessive; involving the heavy machinery of the State and branding him a criminal is an injustice of the first water. Sadly, it is the sort of injustice that is becoming routine, and not just in decayed old-world societies.

What's Wrong

Here's an example of what's wrong with news coverage in our society: The BBC reports today that comments  by the Irish singer Bono about a folk song are raising hackles in South Africa, because it includes the lyric "Shoot the Boer." ("Boer" is the Afrikaans word for farmer; it's also been used historically to distinguish settlers of Dutch ancestry from those of British ancestry, hence the Boer War; it also, according to this story, is used as a derogatory term for white people in general.) There is a push to get the song banned as hate speech -- something that is increasingly common in countries where there is no guarantee of free speech. 

Far down in the story is mention of the fact that "Since apartheid was banned in 1994, more than 3,000 white farmers have been murdered." 

I wonder why that fact hasn't gotten more attention in the world?