
Share
18th April 2018
05:47pm BST

Neither the striker nor the singer has ever lacked in ego, and both managed to cultivate a persona in equal parts outspoken and mysterious. When you marry originality with enigma, it is a heady mix to resist, and few even tried. In a city as insufferably in love with itself as Manchester so evidently is, they have always stood apart.
But for all these similarities, time placed a fork in the road. They are on increasingly divergent paths when it comes to how they are viewed by their longtime admirers, and how they themselves view the world. Both are in their fifties - a time of life in which ideas tend to become solidified and principles fixed. The contrast is jarring.
Morrissey, for so long a pied piper for sensitive souls and outsiders, has developed an ever more extreme aversion to otherness. This week's comments on racism, politics, Adolf Hitler, Muslims, and Sadiq Khan are so deranged, hateful and fundamentally stupid that even diehard fans who have defended him for years have had enough.
https://twitter.com/Mr_Dave_Haslam/status/986320447594811397
The ex-Smiths frontman increasingly resembles a bitter and twisted alt-right hate-speaker who is more than happy to promulgate proven shite in order to stigmatise anyone or thing that isn't exactly what he is. As his famous quiff shrinks and his eyebrows grow, so do his prejudices and ignorance. Halal meat can only be approved by ISIS? Really?
Some will suggest that it was ever thus, that he always courted controversy and questioned social norms, but it is not for nothing that he gained the genuine love and affection of many many people who felt different and ostracised. Now he hates them. He hates anything that would look out of place in an episode of Heartbeat.
Whereas once he sang the gorgeous lyric "It's so easy to laugh, It's so easy to hate. It takes guts to be gentle and kind..." there is now a regressive world view that is championed by Breitbart twats and bedroom fascists. It is heartbreaking to those who found such solace in his Smiths incarnation: the gladioli waving waif whose tender words meant so much.
If Morrissey's heart is shut and closed, Eric Cantona's is emphatically open. He too is a rebel, a contrarian who is happiest when tearing into accepted convention and questioning 'Pourquoi?' But unlike Morrissey, the Frenchman is determinedly inclusive in his outlook, and more ready than ever to fight the outcast's corner.
Take his thoughts on nationalism:
"I don't believe in regions. I don't believe in countries or borders. Because people start with a country, and then zoom into a region, then a city, then a street, then their family, and then themselves. I prefer to zoom out. Trump says he wants the power of America back. I want the power of the world."
Such condemnation of geographical barriers is the antithesis of everything that Morrissey now stands for, and for people who once loved both men for many of the same reasons, that is a crying shame.
The sole reason why Cantona's views are in any way controversial is because the world is so incredibly fucked these days. As for Steven, you can't claim to be a dissenting voice if your deplorable views are shared with the deplorable Leader of the Free World. It doesn't work like that. If the dickheads are in charge, being a dickhead is just falling in line.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4ebeHHsDuE
The easiest target of ire in the modern age is Muslims. It's dead easy to single them out for focused hatred. Whereas Morrissey condemns the Prime Minister for wishing people well on the religious day of Eid, and claims ISIS bless halal meat, Cantona - who himself is not especially fond of organised religion - says this:
"It is dangerous to say 'All Muslims are like that'. And it is important not to say that a Muslim is 'moderate', if he is just a citizen like you or me, What does 'moderate' mean anyway? Does it mean that Islam is an extreme religion? This is latent provocation. And it's very dangerous. We do not have to paint everybody with the same brush. That is the danger I think."
Heart open, and heart closed.
Now you may question, so the fuck what? Two individuals have differing views shocker. To an extent that is fair. But in the context of idol worship and the having of heroes, it is saddening to see someone you looked up to for their sensitivity and wit, become so acrid and predictable. It makes you question everything you once loved about them.
In the case of Morrissey, he's not even original anymore. He sounds like a 17-year-old keyboard warrior regurgitating what some dickhead has told him on YouTube whilst flogging Brain Force pills. Alas that's the problem with living in the ever-decreasing prison of own insecurities - you start harking back to an era you were slagging off at the time.
https://twitter.com/momsgoldqueef/status/986200039549698048
And you know what? Fair enough. Everyone's got the right to their own twatty views. It just means you lose people along the way is all. People who adored you with every fibre of their being. And really, everything else aside, we're talking about an ex-footballer and a has-been singer. They are only as relevant as the fans who still chant their name.
Explore more on these topics: