"Orange Fest" Needs to March out of Scotland

1691 saw the Spanish inquisition forcibly baptise over 200 Xuetas, a group of people who descended from Spanish Jews. When some tried to flee the conversion, they were burned alive at the stake. 37 of them to be precise. Although history views the Spanish inquisitions as a successful campaign for those it benefited, it also shows the Spanish as a ruthless army who colonised a lot of Central and South America. One of their main reasons for conquering the Americas was to force their religion on the people there. According to records, the Spanish inquisition arrested around 150,000 people with between 2,000 and 5,000 being executed - around one in 50.

No one celebrates the tortures dealt out by the Spanish Inquisition

In other words - this was a brutal regime which focused on taking land and forcing religion, something that the majority of the world would be appalled by today. The Spanish do not celebrate these inquisitions and why should they? It was 1691 - well over 300 years ago. Yet some still celebrate similar events in Scotland.

1690 saw the Battle of the Boyne near Drogheda in Ireland. The battle saw the Protestant William of Orange defeat James II, bringing the end of the Catholic monarchy. To this day, this was considered a huge shift in power in the days where religion had a massive role in politics and kings had real power so it was a big deal.

William of Orange led his army to victory at the Battle of the Boyne

However, that doesn't mean that events like the Battle of the Boyne should be celebrated. Not only is the celebration irrelevant to the way Scotland is ran today, but it celebrates how one type of Christians were discriminated against right up until the 1990s. My own father was asked on job interviews in the eighties what school he went to. If he said "Notre Dame" (a Catholic school) he would never get the job. It was a way of finding out what your religion was. The Orange walks - and Orange Fest which will take place in Glasgow today - celebrate everything Protestant about the UK today. Catholics were second class citizens in the same way that women were and still are. To celebrate the supremacy of a people which caused the suffering of others because of their religion is disgusting and has no place anywhere in the world.

These marches also cause a lot of violence

Even if you argue the point of free speech - which can still be deemed offensive - you cannot excuse how much money these marches cost local councils. In 2011, there were 300 marches in Glasgow alone. In 2009, three Orange walks in July cost Glasgow City Council nearly £900,000. Surely money can be spent on things more important than a small minority hanging on to the past whilst trying to defend it as "heritage". If we all hung on to our heritage, we'd be conquering the world again and still have poorhouses. It's time for change and you won't get change if you let dinosaurs waste tax payers' money on their little marches. What have they got to celebrate? What have they got to prove?

It may be too late to protest against the Orange Fest that is in Glasgow today, but please take this post into consideration and protest at any marches that take place in the future.

Cheers.

Got an opinion on Orange Fest? Leave a comment below.

Twitter: @mick_demarco