Across the Universe: Oxford

If you said Islam, try again.  The perpetrator or perpetrators behind the attacks are believed to be Protestant Christians.  The intended targets were either members or supporters of Celtic FC, a Scottish Premier League football (soccer) club with an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic fan base.

Police say they have reason to believe that the person or persons behind the mail bombs are supporters of Rangers FC, a Scottish Premier League club with an overwhelmingly Protestant fan base and a fierce and often violent rivalry with Celtic.

Initially, it may appear that this is merely a football rivalry gone terribly awry, but in this case the athletic and religious rivalry are nearly inseparable.    Both the Protestant and Catholic factions are guilty of hateful speech and violent acts.  Celtic fans are notorious for chants supporting the Irish Republican Army – a Catholic and Irish nationalist organization responsible for a number of terrorist attacks against British authorities in the twentieth century.  Rangers fans sometimes sing of being “up to [their] knees in ‘Fenian’ blood.” Fenian is a slang term used to describe supporters of a united Ireland and sometimes Roman Catholics, in general.  Matches between the two teams usually involved scores of arrests for violent behavior.

I vaguely was aware that sectarian clashes between Protestants and Catholics were still a part of British culture, thanks to the not so distant memories of violence between largely Catholic Irish Republicans and Protestant British loyalists over the status of Northern Ireland – clashes which were still prevalent well into the 1990s.  However, I must admit that when I first saw the words “terrorism” and “mail bomb” in the newspaper, I did not expect to read that Christian sectarians were behind the attack.

I’m ashamed to admit, I immediately assumed the attackers were either Muslim extremists or anarchists trying to cause chaos in the days before the royal wedding.  Until reading the full article, I never entertained the thought that sectarian Christian football hooligans were responsible for such an attack.  I am ashamed of my reaction.  I generally like to consider myself non-judgmental and fairly open-minded, but at that moment, I was close-minded and intellectually weak.  I allowed my perceptions to be shaped by the numerous British media outlets hyping up the threat of anarchists and radical Islamic terrorist groups in the run-up to today’s royal wedding.

The fact is that violence is perpetrated by persons of all religious backgrounds and political persuasions, even by Christians in an overwhelmingly secular Western country.  I’ve known this fact for a long time, but I haven’t always been mindful of it, and I suspect I’m not alone.  This week, I was reminded that we are all susceptible to narrow-mindedness.  It’s a reminder I’d like to pass along.