Leafleting at Easter Road

A football match summons all types of people to the ground.

Matt Le Tissier is to be interviewed by Professor of Biosciences Richard Ennos on the 4th of May, at South Leith Parish Church. If you cannot attend but would like to see, hear and engage with the event, then you can watch the livestream for FREE here.

To promote the Matt Le Tissier event at South Leith Parish Church on the 4th of May, Common Knowledge Edinburgh leafleted the Edinburgh derby match between Hibs and Hearts - Hibernian FC and Heart of Midlothian FC, two football teams, for non-Scottish readers. Held at Easter Road stadium in Leith under bright April sunshine, the best day of the year so far.

In all honesty, we did not know what to expect. Football fans did not like losing their football to lockdowns, however, their attitude seemed to be fairly representative of society as a whole: it was necessary, given what was being faced at the time. We might be handing out flyers to a resistant if not overtly hostile group. By saying ‘hostile’, I mean that a proportion of the support, like quite a large segment of the population, might react angrily to people who point out the simple fact that they have been duped and lied to, since, obviously, they do not think that; although, not a little are, I believe, deep down, insecure about the possibility that this is in fact the case; hence, the angry rejection.

When we consider that it is not a large leap of thought to connect having been hoaxed about lockdown to having been tricked about the vaccine; and then, as night follows the retreat of light from the western sky, the possible health and moral implications of that decision would intrude uninvited into the beguiled individual’s mind unless actively suppressed, constituting a maddened flight from that specific chain of reasoning. One that would then be manifested in concrete reality with one of us raising the issue to their attention with a pamphlet which, consequently, fired psychological defensive mechanisms producing a furious denial projected onto the person articulating the very marrow of the deepest fear residing in the sarcophagus of their unconscious: the expression of this avoidance being most likely verbal abuse and quite possibly, at least in some instances, violence. Thus, it is quite easy to see our concern. And, many would have been drinking too.

Therefore, although I could not say anyone was anxious in our group, and, after three years campaigning publicly for possibly the most unpopular populist cause in my lifetime, we were well-acquainted with abuse, the reaction of such a wide ranging mass of people was an unknown quantity.

Yet, my experience and everyone else in leafleting was, the odd comment aside, people were either kindly indifferent, quite polite or politely interested. If we were not pulled towards the bosom of the football community, embraced tightly and held there in adoration and gratitude, then neither were we thrust away, repulsed with unkind words and threatened with harm if we should approach again. No, we were met fairly civilly and with a certain stunted curiosity. The fans might not have wanted to talk about lockdowns, Matt Le Tissier or v-injury; but, they were prepared to often take and read a leaflet on these topics as they walked to the stands.

Of the five thousand leaflets that we had, around four thousand were given out which, based on years of experience, for a small group handing them out, is a great achievement…leafleting-wise. A more encouraging measure, with four thousand pamphlets in the hands of strangers with unidentified attitudes, was that, once the match started and the surroundings were emptied of derby devotees, only a few of those leaflets were left lying on the pavement or were being gently blown around the now eerily quiet streets. (Although, we had obviously triggered a few people as a handful had been ripped in to tiny pieces!)

We do not know if that is significant. I don’t know if it’s significant that a handful of people crossed the road, quite determined to take a leaflet, or that as I stood distributing, many supporters were reading the leaflet handed to them by a member of our group who was further down the road, oblivious to all around them including the football banter of their mates. Is the public beginning to open its mind to an alternative view of the events of the past three years? Even in Scotland, where, tragically, the Covid Cult seemed to have completely engulfed and swamped the reasoning powers of the Scottish Mind.

We hope so.

However, the unapprehend, unknowable aside, there were a nexus of points that impressed themselves upon a person not overly familiar with football matches. The first was how different and diverse people are despite a fairly standard apparel. There were people who were both incredibly tall and startlingly small, large and thin; pleasant and cheerful contrasted with gruff and dismissive; genial and polite (common) opposed someone who looked like they were not uninitiated with the rituals of violence and the dithyrambic emotional stirrings that fuel it; drunk and loud - expressed through voluminous chanting - was in stark contradiction to the many muted and unassuming fans who seemed to have emerged from some quiet spot equipped with placid placode and who only wanted to watch their team before returning to their peaceful, undisrupted existence. Of course, relatively rich and relatively poor also made their way along the tenemented streets leading to the ground. It was a varied and divergent experience of humanity that aligned along the axises of predominantly the working class and football enthusiasm and an ambiguous approach to health.

Because one of the other striking points about observing all the fans was the number who looked unwell. It was not the majority, nonetheless, it was significant enough to provoke thought. There were so many young men with deeply-lined faces that spoke of stress, bad diet, too much drinking and a lack of exercise in the sunlight. A lot of the older people looked frail and bore the ‘signs of weakness, signs of woe’ that silently tell of long, unsatisfying working lives with personal tragedies interwoven. None of this is criticism and it is definitely not intended as some class-based anthropological study from a self-appointed superior observer, I have seen the same in my life, my peers from different backgrounds and where I work: it is merely a compelling aspect of reality that was not ignorable.

This reality converged with another fact of the day: the unavoidable awareness of the concentration of people. There are few places in our society other than a football match where tens of thousands of us will congregate in such a small area. Less still, where such a range of ages, backgrounds and personalities will gather. There is a rare intensity and sense of potential power in such collective coming together. ‘What if these people were angry with me?’ I thought. Why they could tear me limb from limb. 'What if they were angry with the kleptocracy currently governing?’ I asked. They could savagely eviscerate them in minutes, if they can find them. Like some Leninist-Marxist theorising, the thought of how the mass of people walking the Leith streets combining with the imagined millions still unmoved at home or at work and congested with daily, petty tasks, led to conclusions that the Great Reset would be finished in a day…if only the masses knew.

Waking Up The Masses! This is the challenge for any group wanting change. It is completely familiar throughout history and it is notorious for its difficulty. We, unlike any other movement in history, probably have a better understanding of what is required, which does make it more daunting. Unlike Marxists, who probably had the best thought-out theory of revolutionary change, we are not aiming to raise ‘revolutionary consciousness’ and weaponise the ‘subjective factor’ or try to bring about a set of social relations that we ourselves barely understand other than as a basic employer-employee paradigm. Our task is more complex and less easily unified. We know that to prevent a world that is worse for the majority, we have to address factors that cannot exclude areas such as health, food, chemicalising of air and water, individual values, currency, childhood, trauma, technology and many more. Therefore, although previously, movements may have had a mountain to climb, we now have a mountain range to scale. But, at least we know what we have to do, and in many instances, we are also aware of how to do it.

Leafleting in Leith is a small step with a small group’s attempt to climb their mountain. We hope that as we go, more and more people will start to ask questions and then take on the responsibility of conquering the other elevations that face us, and them, individually and as families and as communities.

Matt Le Tissier will be interviewed by Professor Richard Ennos in Leith, Edinburgh on the 4th May. Tickets are available here. It is funded by the community and any profits return to the community. Join us in resisting censorship.

Common Knowledge blog posts will increase over the next couple of months as we try to promote this event.