or an admission that the debate is going round in circles and nothing new is going to be added at this point perhaps?
To me, it looks like there are two new developments to the discussion this time around.
The first is @WookieD's thesis that somehow Herbert is to blame for the violence in Rome and Lyon. Without even bothering to point out that correlation does not imply causation, I'll say that this absolutely blows my mind. Before Herbert or Baddiel or anyone spoke up (and I suspect it's Baddiel's film that got this discussion rolling again—Herbert tagged along for the ride) Nazio were Nazio. Further, Italian ultras have a history of being rough (w/o resorting to anti-Semitism as an excuse),
and anti-Semitism has been on the rise in Europe over the past few years. I'd say the attack in Rome was a combination of most of the first two points, with a touch of the third, just because the people involved are scum, and they'll take any route toward antagonism. Completely speculating, I'd say Lyon was a straight copycat of Rome, with a bit of "anti-rosbif" tossed in. Maybe there's lingering resentment over how the English used to run roughshod over Europe, but, really, that was so long ago… then again, these people are scum, and scum like to give their antisocial behaviour a historical justification, so that they can boast of somehow defending tradition or patriotism or some such shit.
I've made my opinion on the SBL clear here before, so resurrect those threads if you want to have a go at them through me. Consider Herbert's claims any way you like, but to think it had some kind of ripple effect among ultras in Europe beggars belief. The idea that racist, fascist scum in Italy would take marching orders from a lawyer in England in charge of an organisation dedicated to overcoming racism simply makes no sense.
The second new kink is @Greaves_357's addition:
but when people start getting hurt, when our club's name is constantly linked with trouble, and some of that because because of a completely erroneous idea that we are a Jewish club, then I do start to get bothered.
There's a lot going on here, imo, and I do have to say that I've never heard this justification given, which is why I point it out. The word in question has been linked to violence of some sort since it found its way into the English language. And despite its origins as a word used (neutrally) within Jewish communities, no one is going to pretend that that neutral use survived the leap into the English lexicon. And even now there's no neutral way of using it. Either it's used as a slur or as a badge of pride (by Spurs fans exclusively?). So deciding that
because of recent events, perhaps the word should no longer be used obscures the history of anti-Jewish violence.
The recent BBC story on Ajax as a Jewish club had its share of problems, but there was one kind of interesting thing an Ajax fan said. His understanding of why Ajax was "the Jewish club" boiled down to this (paraphrasing): "Everywhere we go, no one likes us. Rotterdam, etc. We began to feel like Jews. Unliked by everyone except ourselves. So we became the Jews." This is, obviously,
completely fucked up, but I see a resonance (in reverse) in the claim above. I read Greaves's point as if to say, "hey, if we just remind everyone in Europe, 'It's cool, m8, we're not Jewish', they'll like us and won't attack us anymore!"
The "erroneous idea that we are a Jewish club" is immaterial to the fact that anti-Semitism still exists and is on the rise. In fact, maybe it's even a good thing that this erroneous idea persists, since it lures anti-Semites out of whatever awful holes they usually hide in so that they can be processed by the police. It's truly a shame that our innocent supporters are hurt in the meantime, but people are victims of hate-based violence all the time, and I don't feel that a "real Jewish person" is somehow
less innocent when a victim of an anti-Semitic attack than someone who isn't Jewish but happens to support a football club that is "erroneously" linked with Judaism. An act of anti-Semitism is an act of anti-Semitism, even when, bizarrely, the target isn't Jewish.
After the attacks of September 11th, many Sikhs reported being assaulted by scum who thought that they were Muslim. Was the problem there the fact that the Sikhs were "erroneously" linked with Islam, or was the problem that there was scum out there looking for Muslims to beat up? I have a Sikh friend who was roughed up, and he spent the entire time protesting, "but
I'm NOT MUSLIM!" The perpetrators obviously didn't care about that, or they didn't believe him, or whatever. But the point remains that all of the fault for the attack rests on the shoulders of that scum who assaulted him. If they weren't anti-Muslim to begin with, then no attack would have happened. Somehow imagining the scum as saying "no, wait… he's Sikh, not Muslim… we got to
find a Muslim!" doesn't make things any better.
