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Personally, I think that a sports and politics are inseparable and, though I wouldn't admire Legia's far-right violent tendencies, there's something admirable about this. I just can't decide if it's misguided or not.
Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 12:42 - Aug 3 by robith
Brian, I respect you a great deal, but Irish slaves is a massive myth and to conflate the slave trade with indentured servitude is v dangerous in my opinion
Hey Robith,
The respect is mutual, my man. I'm aware of the myth vs reality debate and I realise that many captured were sold on as indentured servants, though I view this as slavery under another name. However, going on the books I've read on the subject there certainly were hundreds of thousands of Irish slaves sent abroad, to the Caribbean in particular.
"The opposite of love, after all, is not hate, but indifference."
Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 13:12 - Aug 3 by BrianMcCarthy
Hey Sheen,
Sorry, I saw Robith's post first. You can see my reply to him, I hope.
No problem Brian. The article refers heavily to the way the story has been abused, in ways rightly described by Robith as dangerous (and when do we ever agree on anything?). Irish labour was sent to America as either indentured labour, where the cost of the passage is paid back by a set period of labour - the same route by which Indian workers ended up in Guyana, Kenya, Fiji and other parts of the Empire - or as transported prisoners serving a sentence of hard labour. The loss of the American colonies as a dumping ground for convicted Irish (and English) men and women later triggered the seizure and settlement of Australia. I don't know what differences there were in the treatment of indentured and convict labour, and their work certainly fitted modern definitions of slave labour, but they at least had the benefit over real slaves of knowing that their compulsory service would end at some time (if they lived that long) and that their progeny would not be slaves after them. The distinction needs to be made.
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Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 13:58 - Aug 3 with 1464 views
Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 13:45 - Aug 3 by MrSheen
No problem Brian. The article refers heavily to the way the story has been abused, in ways rightly described by Robith as dangerous (and when do we ever agree on anything?). Irish labour was sent to America as either indentured labour, where the cost of the passage is paid back by a set period of labour - the same route by which Indian workers ended up in Guyana, Kenya, Fiji and other parts of the Empire - or as transported prisoners serving a sentence of hard labour. The loss of the American colonies as a dumping ground for convicted Irish (and English) men and women later triggered the seizure and settlement of Australia. I don't know what differences there were in the treatment of indentured and convict labour, and their work certainly fitted modern definitions of slave labour, but they at least had the benefit over real slaves of knowing that their compulsory service would end at some time (if they lived that long) and that their progeny would not be slaves after them. The distinction needs to be made.
I don't think anyone disputes any of that, Sheener, and I agree with what you say. A few points, though.
Indentured servants were treated like sub-humans. Many died through overwork and abuse, or were killed by their owners. They effectively lived and died as slaves. That they might have been free had they lived was no consolation.
Many indentured servants served as housemaids in the U.S. They were the lucky ones. Most did hard labour and worked alongside chattel slaves, and lived and died as kin to the chattel slaves.
Many indentured servants were kidnapped, many were children. No-one can tell me that they weren't slaves, though I appreciate that many lived to taste freedom.
Apart from those who were indentured servants, hundreds of thousands of Irish were sold as slaves, plain and simple. Broadly speaking, these were sent to the Caribbean whereas the "Irish Slavery Myth" people seem to me to concentrate on the U.S., with some justification. But they ignore people like Cromwell, who ordered that tens of thousands per swoop be captured and sold to slave owners in the Caribbean. They were never promised servitude or ever hoped for the day when they would be free. They were never intended to be indentured servants. They were slaves.
[Post edited 3 Aug 2017 13:59]
"The opposite of love, after all, is not hate, but indifference."
Nationalist populism, here, in Poland, and everywhere else has a tendency to pick and choose what it likes. Legia owe their place in Polish football to the favouritism of Soviet forces under the communism that succeeded the German occupation; Polonia Warsaw (their city rivals and historical superiors) were seen as the people's club and suppressed for decades as politically threatening.
Football clubs are nation states ultimately. Sometimes those identities can also be political.
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Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 14:13 - Aug 3 with 1432 views
Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 13:58 - Aug 3 by BrianMcCarthy
I don't think anyone disputes any of that, Sheener, and I agree with what you say. A few points, though.
Indentured servants were treated like sub-humans. Many died through overwork and abuse, or were killed by their owners. They effectively lived and died as slaves. That they might have been free had they lived was no consolation.
Many indentured servants served as housemaids in the U.S. They were the lucky ones. Most did hard labour and worked alongside chattel slaves, and lived and died as kin to the chattel slaves.
Many indentured servants were kidnapped, many were children. No-one can tell me that they weren't slaves, though I appreciate that many lived to taste freedom.
Apart from those who were indentured servants, hundreds of thousands of Irish were sold as slaves, plain and simple. Broadly speaking, these were sent to the Caribbean whereas the "Irish Slavery Myth" people seem to me to concentrate on the U.S., with some justification. But they ignore people like Cromwell, who ordered that tens of thousands per swoop be captured and sold to slave owners in the Caribbean. They were never promised servitude or ever hoped for the day when they would be free. They were never intended to be indentured servants. They were slaves.
[Post edited 3 Aug 2017 13:59]
My father was the seventh child, and was sent to work at 13 on a farm a few miles away for a childless couple to get him out of the way. He was made to sleep in the barn and given scraps like the dogs. In the end he caught the flu, and because he couldn't work and they thought he might die they threw him out. It took him two days to stagger home and his parents were furious with him. Ireland, 1951!
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Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 14:22 - Aug 3 with 1414 views
Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 14:13 - Aug 3 by MrSheen
My father was the seventh child, and was sent to work at 13 on a farm a few miles away for a childless couple to get him out of the way. He was made to sleep in the barn and given scraps like the dogs. In the end he caught the flu, and because he couldn't work and they thought he might die they threw him out. It took him two days to stagger home and his parents were furious with him. Ireland, 1951!
Ha!
We have a family reunion coming up this weekend and I'm sure we'll be regaled with stories like this! (though maybe not as extraordinary as that one!).
"We had one pair of shoes and we carried them to Mass to protect them and put them on outside the church gate..." etc etc
We'll all laugh, but Christ it was a different world!
"The opposite of love, after all, is not hate, but indifference."
Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 12:15 - Aug 3 by BrianMcCarthy
Good point. Little consolation to the hundreds of thousands of Irish slaves imprisoned and sold by the English, but the anti-slavery moment when it came was laudable.
Wasn't your St.Patrick originally a slave captured by Irish pirates(as was his sister whom they killed)? History can be very conveniently ignored if you put minds to it in order to illustrate a point.
Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 14:51 - Aug 3 by TheBlob
Wasn't your St.Patrick originally a slave captured by Irish pirates(as was his sister whom they killed)? History can be very conveniently ignored if you put minds to it in order to illustrate a point.
Hi Blob, good to see you here.
A magnificent football club, the love of our lives, finding a way to finally have its day in the sun.
Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 14:22 - Aug 3 by BrianMcCarthy
Ha!
We have a family reunion coming up this weekend and I'm sure we'll be regaled with stories like this! (though maybe not as extraordinary as that one!).
"We had one pair of shoes and we carried them to Mass to protect them and put them on outside the church gate..." etc etc
We'll all laugh, but Christ it was a different world!
Unfortunately, he never spoke to us kids about it. My mother told me after he died. There are lots of family stories that sound like they are out of the Brontes or Thomas Hardy, but happened not that long ago. Her own father was orphaned at 5 in 1918 in Galway, and was passed around various family members, though mostly happily. He once told me that customers in his aunt's pub would heat pokers in the fire then stick them in their porter if they wanted a hot drink on a cold day.
I digress. I guess the point I was making was that my father was a slave labourer, but he wasn't a slave, if that makes sense.
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Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 15:14 - Aug 3 with 1371 views
Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 14:51 - Aug 3 by TheBlob
Wasn't your St.Patrick originally a slave captured by Irish pirates(as was his sister whom they killed)? History can be very conveniently ignored if you put minds to it in order to illustrate a point.
Well, I'm not sure that I believe that St. Patrick actually existed, or at least the vesrion we were spoon-fed in school (he drove the snakes out of Ireland, y'know!) but I take your point. And I'm certainly not ignoring any part of history, Blob. I wasn't the first one to bring up slavery or Irish slavery, I'm just following the conversation along.
"The opposite of love, after all, is not hate, but indifference."
Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 15:02 - Aug 3 by MrSheen
Unfortunately, he never spoke to us kids about it. My mother told me after he died. There are lots of family stories that sound like they are out of the Brontes or Thomas Hardy, but happened not that long ago. Her own father was orphaned at 5 in 1918 in Galway, and was passed around various family members, though mostly happily. He once told me that customers in his aunt's pub would heat pokers in the fire then stick them in their porter if they wanted a hot drink on a cold day.
I digress. I guess the point I was making was that my father was a slave labourer, but he wasn't a slave, if that makes sense.
Ya, it does of course.
"The opposite of love, after all, is not hate, but indifference."
My mum was the 5th of 9 in rural Tyrone born in 1930. When about 3 my maternal great grandmother 'bought' her from my grandparents for £50 to have her as a housemaid. When her grandmother died when she was 13 she went to work in Belfast as a housemaid and on to London when she was 16.
We have come a long way,
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Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 20:30 - Aug 3 with 1257 views
Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 12:44 - Aug 3 by robith
Being generous though, Britain's efforts were partially driven by ensuring their economy wasn't undercut by those continuing to use slave labour
Undoubtedly a fact that would have driven some of the sentiment, but also true that those who drove the campaign and motivated public and political support did so for very much altruistic reasons.
Brian,
just want to say that this is a really interesting thread, heard so much already that I wasn't aware of. Keep up the good work!
[Post edited 3 Aug 2017 20:35]
Never knowingly understood
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Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 20:42 - Aug 3 with 1247 views
Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 16:40 - Aug 3 by Phildo
My mum was the 5th of 9 in rural Tyrone born in 1930. When about 3 my maternal great grandmother 'bought' her from my grandparents for £50 to have her as a housemaid. When her grandmother died when she was 13 she went to work in Belfast as a housemaid and on to London when she was 16.
We have come a long way,
We really have.
My Great-Grandmother was locked up in the 'Red Brick' just over 100 years ago for what was almost certainly a simple case of post-natal depression. Not surprisingly, being locked up in a primitive psychiatric institution did her more harm than good and she spent almost the rest of her life there before dying young. My Grandfather only got to see his Mother once.
A few weeks ago the gorgeous old building was burnt down. It's just down the road from me. Many were naturally upset at the demise of an architectural gem. Me, I thought of my Great-Granny and the thousands like her who suffered so much in there. I wasn't sad.
"The opposite of love, after all, is not hate, but indifference."
Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 20:30 - Aug 3 by danehoop
Undoubtedly a fact that would have driven some of the sentiment, but also true that those who drove the campaign and motivated public and political support did so for very much altruistic reasons.
Brian,
just want to say that this is a really interesting thread, heard so much already that I wasn't aware of. Keep up the good work!
[Post edited 3 Aug 2017 20:35]
I'm enjoying it too, danehoop. Love these rambling threads that have a mind of their own!
"The opposite of love, after all, is not hate, but indifference."
Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 22:07 - Aug 3 by Lblock
All I'd say is some of the fans and atmosphere on the continent (we'll soon be away from) are immense
It just seems to work across the channel
However on your doorstep, say in Croydon, it just looks, well, a bit shit I do still much prefer our football culture and the history of it
Apologies for lack of hysterical, political or controversial content
Very poor.
Excellent thread. Learning lots on this one too as others have mentioned.
Got a mate in Bristol whose family name is that of a slave master and he's convinced that's where he's descended from. As they were traded through Bristol I guess there's every possibility.
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Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 22:31 - Aug 3 with 1196 views
Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 22:25 - Aug 3 by Brightonhoop
Very poor.
Excellent thread. Learning lots on this one too as others have mentioned.
Got a mate in Bristol whose family name is that of a slave master and he's convinced that's where he's descended from. As they were traded through Bristol I guess there's every possibility.
I drive a Ford, from what I here I guess I'm a slave driver.
Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 20:42 - Aug 3 by BrianMcCarthy
We really have.
My Great-Grandmother was locked up in the 'Red Brick' just over 100 years ago for what was almost certainly a simple case of post-natal depression. Not surprisingly, being locked up in a primitive psychiatric institution did her more harm than good and she spent almost the rest of her life there before dying young. My Grandfather only got to see his Mother once.
A few weeks ago the gorgeous old building was burnt down. It's just down the road from me. Many were naturally upset at the demise of an architectural gem. Me, I thought of my Great-Granny and the thousands like her who suffered so much in there. I wasn't sad.
My Dad had a first cousin who got pregnant at 15 (father unknown), so she was sent to a Magdalene laundry to be locked up with the nuns until her child (taken at birth) turned 16, which was in 1969. A lot of the women in her situation had been rejected by their families and were so institutionalised by then that they chose to stay on, but she had an old bachelor brother who wanted to come home from England and asked her to move in with him as a housekeeper. Most of her female relatives - notably my Grandmother - were scandalised that the shame of the family would be back for all to see, but he just ignored them. Eventually she found someone to marry and had four more children.
On the subject of the Warsaw Rising, my wife's best friend grew up in boring old Ealing with two parents who had survived the Rising. Her mother was rounded up with her mother and sent to a series of camps, finally staying in Auschwitz for a few weeks. One day, the Germans just ran off, and people like her who had some strength left ran off too, before the Red Army arrived. They hid out in barns for months until they were registered as refugees by the post-war government. She was still in her prison uniform, which she kept even when she moved to London. When I knew her father, he was a tiny, quiet, gentle man who worked in insurance, but apparently he fought the Germans in the sewers with the Home Army, managed to get away, then was locked up by the Soviets for a few years. Apparently there is a character based on him in an Andrzej Wajda film, Kanal.
[Post edited 3 Aug 2017 22:41]
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Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 23:42 - Aug 3 with 1168 views
Fascinating thread. Returning to the general subject of sport and politics, I would make the point that mass political statements in a stadium tend to be of a rather crude and simplistic nature - football grounds are inevitably not the place for the expression of nuanced, complex ideas. However, I do like how our club (among others) is associating itself with supporting the community in many ways these days, and helping to create a sense of community, as it were; in addition, as west London (and the staff of the club, from owner to players) is so multicultural, perhaps there is an implicit, valuable message there, and certainly something I can identify with. QPR: Mes que un club !
Although I love football, however, I would admit that the tribalism which is so much a part of the game is something I generally dislike in the "real world"; for example, the hatred fans are encouraged to express for local rivals is totally irrational and can be strikingly similar to nationalistic hatred (most obviously in Glasgow, for example).
[Post edited 4 Aug 2017 1:06]
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Sports and Politics Shouldn't Mix? on 10:14 - Aug 4 with 1086 views
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