Snak

Bournemouth?

What dehumanising people does is obscure what should be crystal clear and instead say that it doesn´t really matter, that they turned up late, that they turned up drunk. That they robbed the dead. And then that they have a chip on their shoulder. That they are a self-pity city. That they are always the victims. Always the victims. It is never their fault. They weren´t one of us. They were one of them.

Dehumanising people doesn´t just happen over night – it isn´t a cataclysmic event; it caused a cataclysmic event, it obscured a cataclysmic event but it isn´t one itself. It is an erosion and a corrosion and it needs the circumstances to work. The Enemy Within. Managed decline. Orgreave. An attitude hammered home day after day after day for a decade and beyond towards working class people and football supporters and a city allowed the dehumanising to occur.

There is this line around Hillsborough that is often uttered by those within Liverpool - “they picked on the wrong city”. It´s a good folk story to tell ourselves. Like many such lines it is both completely true and absolutely false. Liverpool can organise, yes. Liverpool will fight and this was a fight led by Liverpool´s women, Liverpool´s mothers who simply would not ever let the lies lie. They wouldn´t stand for it. For those who have campaigned aggressively today is another day of vindication, another day where their tenacity and bravery has to be applauded.

But they picked on the right city as well. The city was the softest target of a decade which had been set up to create and pick off soft targets. The dehumanisation happened and was allowed to happen to a city because those undertaking it knew so many nationwide would allow it to go on. To go on and on. This isn´t just about a right wing government and a corrupt police force back then. The past isn´t another country, let´s not kid ourselves. The targets remain soft in this country – they are just less visible.

Therefore let´s take today as another opportunity to be crystal clear and let´s keep being crystal clear: Hillsborough is a national disgrace.