George Galloway

First off, I would like to say this is not a point scoring exercise but after reading about Kyle Lafferty this morning, I felt a big urge to share this experience I had last Monday.

I signed up to a guest lecture at my university by George Galloway who was speaking on Sectarianism. I was well aware that Mr. Galloway was a big Celtic fan but knowing his colourful personality thought he could give a big insight to the problem and maybe play devil's advocate to questions from both sides.

Unfortunately I wound up feeling very disappointed and angry at the end of his speech and Q & A. He stated in no uncertain terms that sectarianism was a wholly Protestant and Rangers problem saying it was impossible for a Catholic to have this mind set because anything associated with what was sung was in support of Republicanism and had nothing to do with religion. He then went on to say that it would be perfectly acceptable to call a Protestant an O****e so and so but not OK for the F word to be used in response. The final straw was when one girl who was raised as a Catholic and went to a Catholic school said that sectarianism would still exist as she had experienced a "them and us" mentality from her education, he straight up told her that her experiences were wrong and irrelevant.

I'm sorry if this seems like a massive one sided rant but unfortunately that is exactly what I heard last Monday and that it would exist until "they" could sort out their problem but made no attempts to state how the communities could be brought closer. I condemn all forms of sectarianism but I left that meeting wanting the Order marchers to bang there drums louder and pipe up their flute as all Galloway was doing was sensationalising the issue and whipping those from both sides into their respective frenzies.

Scotland will continue to be in the dark ages as long as antagonists like Galloway are given a platform.