The world cup finals and Spain’s progression and ultimate triumph in the tournament has exposed the underlying painful, often irrational contradictions that are symptomatic of the many unresolved issues of identity that are lastingly pounding in our community’s nerve centres. Something is not quite right in our social organisation when the result of a football match can generate such anger as to transform 400 of our youths into an uncontrolled mob that pours out into the streets causing serious disturbances, intent on illegally blocking the frontier and arbitrarily targeting Spanish registered vehicles and supporters of the Spanish team. A case of home-grown football rage if ever there was one.

During the course of these shameful and unprovoked acts of public disorder, (which evoked ugly memories of black periods of our recent history (i.e.) the ‘Dove’ riots of 1967 and the fast launch rampage of 1996 rolled into one, in a football context), RG Police officers, vehicles, and a GHA ambulance were attacked with stones and bottles, while the riot squad had to draw batons to disperse up to 50 thugs who were actively engaged in criminal activities, wilful bullying and intimidation, no doubt feeling safe and encouraged amidst the numbers of similar minded vandals. A police officer ended up injured in hospital as a result.

The matter is further compounded and complicated by the open support and quite understandable admiration of a few hundred Gibraltarians for the footballing excellence of the Spanish team, Gibraltarians who have been on the receiving end of a catalogue of abuse and insults hurled at them by fellow Gibraltarians falsely and erroneously claiming that being a true Gibraltarian is only possible through the expression of a pathological hatred, suspicion, resentment and venom against everything Spanish, and that only an unworthy Gibraltarian is capable of supporting ‘la Roja.’ Of course many of these Hispanophobes have no qualms in simultaneously supporting CF Barcelona, Real Madrid, Betis, Atletico Madrid etc the other 364 days of the year, or owning property in Spain, and using its leisure/recreational facilities and trading opportunities to their heart’s content, or building their businesses on the back of predominantly Spanish labour in Gibraltar and paying them below the national minimum wage. The hypocrisy and intolerance of these individuals knows no bounds as they high-handedly condemn those who are capable of a more objective and rational assessment of relations with Spain and do not share their senseless chauvinism.

There is no question that everybody is entitled to support the team that they wish vocally and through the wearing of shirts, even to express satisfaction when the team they dislike loses. This is part and parcel of being a football fan. What is not natural or healthy is when there are people who obsessively wish another team to lose and the overriding objective of the tournament becomes not to see your team win, but to see the team that you dislike lose. As with everything, there are degrees and extremes to which this can be taken. We have seen examples of individuals enthusiastically supporting every team playing against Spain as political antipathies cross over into sport. But in a civilized society, there are parameters of moderation that cannot be breached and when hatred of a team takes you to the street to physically attack supporters of that team because they have won, then we tread dangerous grounds that go far deeper than the breach of public order that this represents.

The shocking scenes witnessed on Sunday night (July 11th) are also a timely and worrying reminder of how the seeds of hatred and xenophobia that are sown in some quarters, filter down the social heap to find fertile ground among mindless troublemakers. This has to be nipped in the bud and the speedy, exemplary and efficient action of the RG Police in curbing and containing the violent excesses, should now be ratified through stiff sentences in court so that Gibraltar as a civilized community sends a strong message that unprovoked, wanton violence of any kind will not be tolerated and will be dealt with the full force of the law. But we should also be looking at where all these messages originate, at the ‘respectable’ political and intellectual instigators who sometimes unwittingly but others palpably and deliberately, provide the ideological justification, the accusatory finger and validation of such acts which the gangs of hooligans will seize upon to perpetrate their gratuitous politically fuelled anti-social behaviour.

For certain political organisations, legal circles, and sections of the media, anti-Spanish prejudice has become virtually indistinguishable from the notion of a Gibraltarian identity as construed by ultra-nationalist dogma. This continues to feed on a chaotic hotchpotch where the Franco dictatorship, the claims that Spaniards are stealing our jobs, the grievances derived from the sovereignty conflict and the closure of the frontier stands side to side with the rhetoric related to “cross-border” fishermen plundering our coast, Spaniards invading our waters and blocking our sporting progression.

Behind the thugs there will always be an educated brain, a respectable citizen pointing the finger and leading the way for the hot-heads to follow.

Some people feel it is an affront that a Gibraltarian should support Spain and then attend National Day, and brand such conduct as duplicitous. It should be noted that attendances to National Day have dropped sharply since the 1990’s and that last year the official figure was of around 5,000 persons. This means that the other 20,000+ of the local population spent the day at home, at the beach, or across the border. It should also be noted that attendance to National Day is not compulsory and that more and more people do not feel represented in this yearly ritual of nationalistic excess where the outward manifestation of political intent is drowned by hordes of boorish youths getting drunk.

For far too long our identity has been hijacked by those who perceive and define it only in negative terms, by those who do not wish to see beyond the narrow perspective of a permanent process of conflict and antagonism with Spain. However, our distinctiveness is something which needs to be flexible, multifaceted and inclusive enough to accommodate not just those with nationalist sentiments, but also those who are non-nationalists and just as Gibraltarian as those who wrap themselves up in red and white flags. Nationalists do not have the monopoly of the truth or the right to adjudicate over who is a good and who is a bad Gibraltarian. The idea that it is the GSLP or the SDGG that can hand out certificates of Gibraltarianess as they attempted to do some years ago summoning ‘the true sons of Gibraltar’ to their political rally, is an obscene, totalitarian notion that will be repulsive to all democrats.

The reality is that most Gibraltarian followers of the Spanish team are as far removed from the archaic ‘Gibraltar Espanol’ slogan, as from the very modern Hispanophobia that is so deeply ingrained in sectors of the community. For the avoidance of doubt, it is possible to support Spain in the world cup on the one hand, and then politically, to support that any future political status for Gibraltar should emerge from the Tripartite Forum where Gibraltar is represented in its own right – any of the possible variants of the Andorra type solution for instance – with its own Chief Minister in direct talks with Britain and Spain. Today we have a space for reasonable dialogue and political negotiation to address problems that affect the quality of life of communities on both sides of the border, to find acceptable solutions for the benefit of both, while safeguarding the respective positions of principle.

The Gibraltarian identity has to be far more than red and white and ‘calentita’. It is the profound and inclusive expression of a people’s cultural make-up where all Gibraltarians – and I emphasise the term Gibraltarian, because of late just as we saw at the time of the 2002 referendum, we have seen many non-Gibraltarians with no roots in our community, gate-crashing into the party cynically adopting ultra-nationalistic anti-Spanish posturing for their own ends and vested interests – can feel comfortable as stake holders with a role to play in the fortunes of our community. We should be extremely wary of these ‘friends of Gibraltar’. It is Gibraltarians collectively, nationalists and non-nationalists alike, who must decide the destinies of our city.

During the world cup, the popularity of social internet networks has added a new dimension where immediacy, inflammatory comments and abusive intrusion by those who have found the growing local support for Spain unpalatable, has been a common denominator. It has facilitated the means by which to attack, harass and insult fellow Gibraltarians simply for supporting a team of their choosing. In the virtual battlefield that ensued, the uneasy stand-off between fans and detractors reflected the simmering tensions within the community that erupted when Spain lifted the trophy. The photograph of a local car draped in a Spanish flag in La Linea, the judiciousness of such a move given the highly charged atmosphere is naturally debatable, perhaps exemplifies the misuse and destructive potential of such applications, as it provoked a wholly unjustified hate campaign aimed at a local family of the type usually reserved for the most odious of criminals.

Browsing through these network groups what clearly transpires is that these are dominated by a stratum of painfully illiterate individuals – naturally not exclusive to Gibraltar as they can be found everywhere –who leave a trail of pitifully inarticulate ramblings while betraying an utter inability to construct the simplest sentence or putting forward anything remotely resembling a logical argument. For these, a crash course on the fundamentals of democracy and respect for those who think different would not be amiss. A crash course on the fundamentals of the English language would not go amiss either.

My suggestion to the Government would be that at the next National Day extravaganza, instead of balloons, flags and speeches, they give away free dictionaries – hopefully in two languages – at Casemates and the Piazza and introduce a young person’s allowance as an incentive for its regular use. That, unlike some of their latest offerings, would certainly be acting in the public interest.