Some more truths...

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Top academic slams sectarian 'scaremongers' (Originally from The Scotsman 2004)

SCOTLAND is not a sectarian country and claims of significant conflict between Protestants and Catholics are simply "scaremongering", according to a leading academic.

In a new book, Sectarianism in Scotland, Professor Steve Bruce claims that the rate of sectarian murders has been grossly exaggerated and discrimination against Catholics in the workplace has all but disappeared.

Prof Bruce, from Aberdeen University, who wrote the book with three researchers, also claims that the group which appeared to be most discriminated against were atheists.

He added that he and the other academics decided to write the book because they got "fed up with people like James MacMillan, who is a great composer but a crap social scientist, going on about this based on their own limited experience and anecdotal evidence".

Mr MacMillan, who declined to comment when contacted by The Scotsman, caused controversy at the Edinburgh Festival five years ago when he argued that anti-Catholic bigotry was rife in Scotland. The debate has rumbled on ever since.

Prof Bruce, a sociologist who has worked extensively on religious issues in Northern Ireland and elsewhere, said: "Scotland is not sectarian, but there’s a lot of casual acceptance of stereotypes which leads people to hysterically inaccurate conclusions.

"If you sit back and dispassionately examine the evidence, you come to a very different conclusion.

"James MacMillan described it as Belfast without the guns and bombs, but it’s not. It’s more like New Zealand, Australia and America.

"Of Catholics under 35, 51 per cent are married to non-Catholics. Among the older generation, people over 65, almost all the Catholics are married to Catholics. But young people do not regard religion as an important consideration in choosing marriage partners."

Prof Bruce said survey evidence showed that half the Catholics in Glasgow believed discrimination in the workplace was commonplace, but only 1 per cent had actually experienced it. His team analysed information from the 2001 census, which contained information about religion and occupation, and other surveys to get an idea of whether being Catholic harmed someone’s employment prospects.

"What this information tells us is there is no significant difference in socio-economic status among young Catholics and Protestants," he said.

"The one group of people who keep showing up as getting a hard time are surprisingly the people with no religion. It’s a bit of a mystery to me. But whatever explains why some people do less well, it is not discrimination."

He said there was evidence of workplace discrimination against Catholics of 55 and over, representing previous attitudes, but not among the younger generation. The percentage of Catholics under 35 in "non-manual" jobs, such as managers, was 58 per cent compared to 63 per cent of their Church of Scotland peer group. But only 45 per cent of non-believers under-35 were in the same category.

Among 35- to 54-year-olds, 22 per cent of Catholics and 24 per cent of Presbyterians were in the top AB social class, compared to 19 per cent of atheists.

Prof Bruce also said some "astonishingly inaccurate figures" about the number of sectarian murders had become accepted as fact.

A murder study by Dr Elinor Kelly of Glasgow University identified 11 deaths as being reported as sectarian between 1984 and 2001.

Talking about the book, which is due out in May or June, Prof Bruce said: "One of the chapters is concerned with scaremongering about sectarian murders in Glasgow.

"The Church of Scotland’s Church and nation committee produced a report about how terrible sectarianism was which had some astonishingly inaccurate figures. Someone mistakenly reduced the period over which the 11 murders occurred to just seven years - more than doubling the apparent rate of sectarian killing.

"Finally, Nil By Mouth [an anti-sectarian campaign group], reading the same research, reduced the number of murders to eight but shortened the time-scale even further to just two years so that 3.4 per cent of murders were now sectarian."

Prof Bruce said he felt only six or seven of the murders could be described as sectarian - the fact that the attacker or victim was a Celtic or Rangers fan was simply "background noise" in some cases, not part of the motive.

Scottish police charged more than 260 people with crimes aggravated by religious hatred between June last year, when a new law came into effect, and February this year, representing at least one case every day.

The Rev Alan McDonald, the convener of the Church and nation committee, who described the rate of alleged sectarian crime as "chilling", insisted it was a major issue.

"I’m quite confident, and so was the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, that there is a problem in Scotland. There’s absolutely no doubt that people are hurt, maimed and killed and that this is partly at least to do with sectarianism," he said.

"I simply do not accept what Steve Bruce is implying, that sectarianism is not a problem. I would suggest he goes to a casualty department of a hospital in Glasgow on a Saturday night and then have another look at these figures."

But a spokesman for the Catholic Church agreed with Prof Bruce’s central claim.

"I don’t think Scotland is endemically sectarian, but there is sectarian behaviour and it’s incumbent on the state to eradicate it," he said.

"There are Catholics in Scotland who have never experienced sectarianism, but equally, I could give you examples of churches having their windows smashed and smoke bombs being thrown in during mass."

A spokeswoman for Nil by Mouth said it stood by its figures, but welcomed the book as a contribution to the debate.

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A spokeswoman for Nil by Mouth said it stood by its figures, but welcomed the book as a contribution to the debate.

Love that bit Gotta love Nil by Mouth. I'll say one thing for them, they try hard

I liked the quote from the COS guy about casualty wards....it seems to have bypassed him that the fact that Glasgow is considered the knife capital of Europe might have something to do with busy hospital wards.

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evidence of workplace discrimination against Catholics of 55 and over

This is fuckin DIABOLICAL - SOMETHING SHOULD BE DONE!!!

kidding obviously!

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"I’m quite confident, and so was the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, that there is a problem in Scotland. There’s absolutely no doubt that people are hurt, maimed and killed and that this is partly at least to do with sectarianism," he said.