Arrests are continuing as part of a crackdown on Nationalists on the Isle of Man with events starting to take a curious twist.
The latest instance highlighted to the Celtic League apparently involves not someone directly involved in the pro-independence graffiti campaign which has prompted allegations against others but someone with an indirect and tenuous association.
It would seem that a collectivist `guilt by association’ mindset is being applied by the Islands colonial administration and if that is the case then this `McCarthyistic’ development is indeed sinister.
Little is reported on the ongoing situation by the Islands media which is curious because notwithstanding the difficulties surrounding possible legal proceedings and matters which may be deemed sub judice general issues relating to the Isle of Man’s unsatisfactory constitutional relationship with the UK which the graffiti campaign highlighted seem `off-limits’.
Three months ago as on a weekly basis slogans appeared around the Isle of Man the media scrabbled to follow the story. Now with arrests made and the paint gone, bizarrely there is no curiosity as to why this outbreak of apparent nationalistic fervour exploded. It is almost as if the media itself, like the neo-colonial government of the Island, is unsettled by this opposition in the UK/Manx status quo.