Because we live in the world that we live in, it is necessary to begin this piece with the usual disclaimers which would hopefully have been obvious to most readers: Those who would sing a song mocking the murder of a young woman on her honeymoon deserve no sympathy, or understanding, from the public at large. Their actions were contemptible and disgusting. Nobody should be particularly worried about the social consequences that they have faced, which include unemployment in some cases and general societal revulsion in all cases. All of that is merited, and nothing in what follows should be read as expressing personal sympathy in any way for the individuals facing criminal prosecution here:
Three people are to be prosecuted for “stirring up hatred” in connection with the singing of a song containing offensive lyrics about the murder of Michaela McAreavey, prosecutors in Northern Ireland announced on Thursday.
The Public Prosecution Service (PPS) said the three individuals were “investigated and reported by police as being amongst those who were captured in the footage engaged in the singing of a song” referencing Ms McAreavey’s murder.
A summons will be issued for them to appear at Belfast Magistrates’ Court on a date yet to be fixed….
…..In a statement on Thursday the PPS said seven individuals had been reported following a police investigation and, after “careful consideration of all the evidence and information”, a decision had been taken to prosecute three people for the offence of stirring up hatred, contrary to the Public Order (NI) Order 1987.
All of those disclaimers out of the way – is this the society we want to live in? Where singing an offensive song can land you in prison?
If so, we should consider a society in which those laws are applied by the people we would least like to see applying them. There is surely a reasonable case to be made in the hands of a skilled unionist prosecutor, for example, that those who sing “Celtic Symphony” and chant “ooh ah up the ra” are at least as guilty of causing criminal offence to the families of various IRA victims as the three goons facing criminal prosecution here are of causing offence to the Harte and McAreavey families.
As for the accusation that the three people involved were involved in “stirring up hatred”, that too leaves a lot to be desired. First, it is clearly and obviously a case of the law being applied selectively: If every person who stirred up hatred in Northern Ireland since the relevant act was passed in 1987 were to have faced criminal prosecution, then thousands of people – including, arguably, the late Ian Paisley – would have faced jail time at some point in their lives. They did not. Dr. Paisley, for example, once said that his catholic neighbours “breed like vermin” and that “catholic homes caught fire because they are loaded with petrol bombs”. Apparently there is one standard for politicians, and another standard for bigoted drunks in a pub.
Second, it is transparently obvious to anybody with eyes and ears that the accused people in this case stirred up hatred against nobody but themselves. Is it really credible to suggest, as the Crown Prosecution Service does, that there were people in Northern Ireland who heard their drunken raving and came to the sudden conclusion that the subject of their song deserved to be murderered? Or is it perhaps more likely that their performance brought “hatred” only on their own heads?
One of the great dangers with laws regulating speech like this, and permitting it to be prosecuted, is that they turn the law into the tool of the lynch mob. That such laws end up only being applied where there is utter and entire public revulsion, and that they end up not being applied at all where applying them might bring about public resistance. You will find very few people willing to defend the actions of the accused in this case, for example, which might not be true at all had they picked a more controversial target, like Bobby Sands. Singing offensive songs about Bobby Sands is not an uncommon thing, after all, in some loyalist clubs. The same might be said for Lord Mountbatten or Margaret Thatcher, amongst the more trolloc-like elements of Republicanism. But in those cases, celebrating a death in song is unlikely to land you in front of the Crown Prosecution Service, because of course some hate is culture, and other hate is unacceptable. All of it is subjective.
The accused in this case may be found guilty, or innocent, and if they end up in prison, few will mourn their plight on an individual level. But this prosecution smacks of a witch trial of yore, in which the society can be united around punishing someone who garners very little public sympathy. One day, that might be any of us. Which is why it’s a very troubling development.