THE REAL HUNS

THERE is a marvellous part of Paul Brickhill's wonderful biography of Sir Douglas Bader, 'Reach For The Sky,' which recalls when the Battle of Britain fighter pilot hero is being questioned by a German officer.

It is just after Bader became a POW, and the German adopts a softy-softy approach, saying to Bader that he knows the British always call them, Jerries.

Bader, always pugnacious, quickly interjects and corrects his interrogator by saying: "No we don't. We call you Huns."

Which gives a perfect example of just who or what Huns historically are. There is a long history behind this term, and those who bandy it about as a jibe at Rangers and their supporters are clearly ingnorant of that history.

In the ranks of the ignorant I include the editor of the Scotsman,  John McLennan . His newspaper was deluged by complaints after a cartoon appeared featuring the German Pope waving to Rangers fans in the aftermath of the draw at Old Trafford, and remarking that it was a good day all round for Huns.

McLennan was so under siege  he took a step unusual for an editor-in-chief of publishing a signed apology. It was however, weasel-worded, as he admitted to being a Rangers fan, brought up in the West of Scotland who was frequently referred to as a Hun by his Celtic supporting friends, and insisted he took no offence from it.

WELL HE SHOULD!

And indeed he would if he knew the history of the word in the 20th century. What will surprise all but the most erudite of readers, is that it was first used in July 1900 by Kaiser Wilhelm 111 as he spoke to German troops being sent to China to put down the Boxer Rebellion.

What Kaiser Bill said was this: "Prisoners will not be taken. Once, a thousand years ago the Huns, under their king, Attila, made a name for themselves, one still potent in legend and tradition. May you in this way make the name of Germany remembered for a thousand years, so that no Chinaman will ever again dare to even squint at a German."

There followed a period of German barbarism when the Germans, taking the Kaiser at his word, perpetrated the first genocide of the 20th century, as a forerunner to the Holocaust.

It was during 1904 in German south west Africa - what we know today as Nambia - that General Lothar von Trotha slaughtered 60,000 of the Herero tribe and 8,000, from a population of 10,000, of the Nama tribe.

This led to the Germans becoming widely known as Huns, an epithet which gained even more of a common currency ten years later at the outbreak of the Great War.

During the Second World War, Nazi Germany perfected the barbaric techniques of mass extermination, putting six million Jews to death, plus uncounted millions of Romany people, Slavs, and even their own countrymen, should they be unfortunate enough to suffer any mental illness, or be homosexual.

Huns, in the tradition of  Attila, indeed, but to an extent the Mongolian warlord could never have imagined.

It was a word still  used into the mid 1970s when that fine and learned Scot, Jeremy Issacs, produced the definitive television history of the 1939-45 fight for the survival of civilisation against the Huns, The World At War.

Many of those interviewed, in a series which is often re-run on the History , Yesterday or Discovery channels, refer to those from Nazi Germany as Huns, just as Bader did when confronted with one.

Therefore those who use it to describe Rangers and the club's supporters are either extremely ignorant, or believe the Ibrox club and its  supporters can be compared to the SS, the Gestapo and all the others who were responsible for genocide.

Brian Reade of the Daily Mirror is another who is either a fool or a bigot after he tried to be a smart alec by using it, referring to Rangers , in a recent column in that once great but now laughable rag.

One man who would not tolerate it being used was the wee guy who I thought was one of the best things ever to happen to Scottish football, the fellow who rescued Celtic from oblivion, the wonderful Fergus McCann.

I always thought Celtic as a club were at their best and most admirable when McCann was calling the shots and a good pal of mine, Jim Cullen, a Celtic supporter who owned The Montrose Bar, where I often shared a shandy with Billy McNeill and other Parkhead legends, idolised wee Fergus.

Of course there may be many with Celtic DNA who disagree. Who think McCann was not as great a Celt as I and my pal big Jim believed.

However, I am sure there are others, like so many of the Celtic supporters who have been my friends down through the years, and who may not have been completely aware of just what the history of the epithet, Huns is.

They know now!

Though I am just as sure there are others who won't take a blind bit of notice of this wee lesson to let them know the history, and will continue to apply the the insult, Huns to Rangers and the club's fans.

Fergus McCann had his own insult for those people. He called them bigots.