FACTS - Beware the Myths that tarnish "sectarian" Scots

FACTS on Sectarianism by Professor Steve Bruce

http://thescotsman.s...fm?id=171622005

Beware myths that tarnish 'sectarian' Scots
STEVE BRUCE

TWENTY years ago, I published the first serious social-science study of
sectarianism in Scotland, called "No Pope of Rome". Last year, with three
colleagues, I returned to the subject. We devoted much effort to measuring
every index of religious disadvantage, discrimination, difference and
conflict in Scotland. We looked at economic position, educational
qualifications, access to higher education, political power, voting
patterns, legal rights, residential segregation and sectarian violence and
came to the conclusion that the best parallel for the experience of the
Irish Catholic community in Scotland was not the enduring conflict of
Northern Ireland but the successful integration found in the United States.

I offer two items from a large array of data to support this optimistic
view.

First, social class: disadvantage is not itself proof of discrimination,
but the link works in reverse - if Catholics are victimised in schooling
and employment, they should have a lower class profile. What the 2001
Census shows is that there is now little difference between those raised as
Catholics and those raised as Protestants. The group with the worst class
profile is that of those raised with no religion (and, no, we have no idea
why either).

Second, integration: just over half of married Catholics under 35 have
non-Catholic spouses. In Northern Ireland, only 6 per cent of marriages are
mixed. In the US, inter-racial marriages are also about 6 per cent. Despite
segregated schooling, Scots now choose partners with no regard for
religion.

Yet, the perception is different. In a recent Glasgow survey, 53 per cent
said they thought employment discrimination was common, but only 1 per cent
said they had suffered any (and half of those were not Catholic).

One explanation for this paradox may be mistaken baseline expectations. One
person said her firm discriminated against Catholics because only three out
of ten people were Catholic. Because we talk about the Catholic Church and
the Kirk, Catholic schools and state schools, and Rangers and Celtic as
matching pairs, it is possible to suppose that half of Glaswegians are
Catholic and, hence, only three Catholics in ten people needs explaining.
Actually, three in ten is a slight over-representation, because Catholics
make up only 25 per cent of lowlands Scots.

We see the same paradox with violence. Two-thirds of the Glasgow survey
said sectarian violence was common or very common, but less than 1 per cent
had suffered any. When those who had suffered various forms of abuse were
asked the reasons, it turned out that most violence was domestic.
Residential area was much more commonly cited than religion, as were gender
and sexuality. So, again, we have a mismatch. People think something is
widespread but somehow they have not experienced it.

This is what I mean by a social myth. How do we explain it? A large part of
the answer is that opinion-leaders such as politicians and the mass media
believe that sectarianism is a major problem and that belief distorts their
perceptions.

I will cite just two examples. Since June 2003, it has been possible for a
criminal offence to be "aggravated" by religious prejudice. A mugger can
now be hit with a second charge if he calls his victim "a Proddie b******".
Last November, the Crown Office and the Procurator Fiscal Service released
their analysis of the first six months of the new system. The Daily
Telegraph was typical in leading with "Catholics are twice as likely as
Protestants to be the targets of sectarian abuse". What was not stressed in
the reporting was that, in more than 90 per cent of cases, the original
offence was breach of the peace, not murder, robbery or assault. More than
a third of the victims were police officers, not civilians, and more than
half the perpetrators were drunk. More than a third of cases were
associated with football matches or Orange marches. And the sectarian abuse
was verbal.

This is not Nazis wrecking Jewish shops: it is young drunks ranting at
coppers and others who get in the way of their inalienable right to get
drunk and disorderly.

What was striking about this episode was that the Crown Office (aided by
uncritical reporting) created an entirely false impression of Catholics as
victims. The perpetrators do not know the religion of their victims and nor
do we. What we know is the content of the verbal abuse. It tells us about
the identity of the abuser, not the abused. Two-thirds of the perpetrators
expressed anti-Catholic sentiments; one-third expressed anti-Protestant
sentiments. If the drunken hooligans of Glasgow divide two-thirds
Protestant and one-third Catholic, that is about par for the area.
Incivility is evenly distributed.

Second case: last November, the Sunday Mail reported the burning down of a
Catholic chapel in Stornoway under the banner headline "Real toll of Old
Firm mayhem". The police later announced that the fire was caused by an
electrical fault and that no crime was suspected, but that fact did not get
the banner-headline treatment. Thus are myths sustained.

• Steve Bruce is professor of sociology at Aberdeen University.