Same Old Lies – A Lesson from History

In Egypt, one of the greatest surviving monuments and one of the most popular tourist attractions aside from the pyramids of Giza, is the great temple complex at Abu Simbel. The twin temples of Abu Simbel were originally carved out of the Nubian mountainside around 1250 BC by ancient craftsmen under Ramesses II, also known as Ramesses the Great (by his own admission) as a lasting monument to himself and his queen Nefertari and to commemorate his alleged victory against the Hittites at the Battle of Kadesh (located in modern day Syria).

Ramesses is often celebrated as the greatest and most powerful pharaoh of the Egyptian Empire. Like most heads of state, Ramesses was afflicted with a very high opinion of himself and ordered the construction of many large monuments in his own honour all over ancient Egypt. He also erected more colossal statues of himself than any other pharaoh before or since and even usurped many existing statues by having his own face recarved and inscribing his own cartouche on them. Ramesses was a master of propaganda (or what we currently know as PR) and his victories over foreign armies are depicted on numerous temple walls throughout the land.

The reason he built on such a monumental scale was to ensure that his legacy would survive the ravages of time. The walls at Abu Simbel are carved in a unique style called ‘sunken relief’. Ramesses insisted that his carvings be deeply engraved in the stone, which made them not only less susceptible to later alteration, but also made them more prominent in the Egyptian sun. Depicted in this indelible sunken relief across the walls and pylons of Abu Simbel are spectacular scenes of Ramesses the Great, victorious in battle against the Hittites at Kadesh. There, immortalized in stone, is his great victory for all to see.

Except

Ramesses the Great didn’t defeat anyone at Kadesh. Later historians tell us that Ramesses was actually fed false information by Hittite spies, led his men into a trap and barely avoided losing his entire army. Realising his 10,000 strong force (including some 300 chariots) would be overwhelmed by the Hittite army, Ramesses was forced to sign a peace treaty with the Hattusili III, King of the Hittites. This was the first international non-aggression treaty in recorded history and effectively ended Egypt’s expansion into the north.

However, Ramesses had too huge an ego and could not accept the reality of his defeat at the hands of what he believed was an ‘inferior’ race of people. The pharaoh also did not wish to appear less than godlike to his followers (who were taught that he was a God) and feared he would lose control of the population. So on his return, Ramesses set about promoting the idea that the battle in Kadesh had actually been a great victory for Egypt, certain that most Egyptians lacked the means to actually travel the 1,000 miles to Kadesh to find out for themselves what the truth was.

In modern times, the ongoing Rangers saga is a clear demonstration that this kind of ‘writ large’ propaganda is still as effective today as it was in ancient times. The supposed guardians of our game and our clubs have used their clever PR people and the lazy journalists of the mainstream media to promulgate several myths designed to keep the fans shelling out their hard earned cash to support a ‘failed system’. The most obvious examples of these deliberate fallacies are:

Club and company were separate entities;

Only Rangers ‘holding company’ was liquidated;

Club history and honours can be bought and sold;

The Rangers were voted out of the SPL;

The Rangers are ‘banned’ from Europe;

‘Rangers’ have paid all of their debts;

The SFA are powerless over the SPL and the SFL;

‘Rangers’ have been punished enough;

Rangers won the big tax case;…. and the classic

Scottish football needs a ‘strong’ Rangers.

These outright lies, repeated often enough in the mainstream media, have become accepted as self-evident truth by the deluded hoards but only serve to undermine the supporter’s individual and collective power over our game. The truth is our leaders have failed us, all of us. The system is broken, corrupted by corporate influence, SKY money and personal greed. The rules governing the financial aspects of the game are ineffective and have been shown to be so by their inability to mitigate the situation which has been evolving at Ibrox and Hampden over the last two decades. Current ‘reconstruction’ talk is no more than window dressing this ‘failed system’ in an attempt to convince us that ‘everything is under control’ and we should all go back to sleep.

There is a moral to this story and it is this. The powers that be won’t allow the truth to get in their way and will feed their own people any old crap in order to control them. That is a fact carved in stone for all to see, 3200 years ago. It is no less true today than it was in the time of the pharaohs.