Refugee crisis exposes the underlying racism of a great number of our people

There are strange things going on in this little country of ours and I am not necessarily talking about that daft decision by Mayo County Council. You know the one. Embarrassing for the entire county.

I was on the train at Heuston Station a few days ago. We just pulled in and I was putting on my coat in the narrow aisle. I am not as agile as I used to be. I had put the right arm into the jacket sleeve and was struggling to find the left arm of the jacket which was behind me. There was a young lad behind me and I asked if he could locate the left sleeve for me. He duly obliged.

I muttered thanks and he somewhat strangely, I thought, said if it was two years ago he would not have been able to help because of Covid. I looked a little more closely at this young fellow (he was probably 30 and that’s young when looked from my advanced perspective) and then he staggered me. 

“You know," he said, “they executed the man in the US who discovered the cure for cancer. The medical companies did not want a cure.” 

I had another look. The fellow was serious but this was not something I wanted to engage with. We’re all cowards in our own way so I moved off. On the platform there happened to be a lady who, judging by her clothing, was of Middle Eastern extraction and I thought to myself, I’ll keep an eye on my helpful friend. I thought he might have something to say to the lady. But no, he did not seem to see her and simply walked by as you would expect from any law-abiding citizen.

In those few moments on the train I had type-cast this helpful fellow as one of those far-right bigots we hear so much about nowadays and I anticipated, if not trouble, then some slight anti-social comment or behaviour. I was wrong. I had jumped to the conclusion that my friend was racist, when, in fact, it was me who was, if not, racist then at least prejudiced. Now, my friend had obviously heard or read this trope about the execution and believed it, which is his right.

And therein lies one of the great problems of modern society. We live in an age of instant communication but we don’t provide the tools to enable people to establish the truth of these communications. The reality is that people will believe what they want to believe and if Google or Facebook or Twitter or TikTok or a myriad of other (anti!) social platforms provide a bit of commentary that suits them they will readily go along with it and adapt it as their own.

We’ve seen recently an outbreak of what can best be described as hysterical overreaction to the provision of accommodation for international protection applicants. The far right (whoever they are!) are blamed for this upsurge in prejudice, racism and incitement to violence. The far right, according to all government spokespeople, are a small minority, and that may well be true, but they are striking a chord with a great number of people. And the issue is, and government has yet to admit to it, that a great number of Irish people are racist at heart. These people don’t think they are racist and give every outward appearance of being tolerant, broadminded, Christian and charitable but scratch them and they change.

We have seen this over many decades, if not centuries, in the way society (and I include myself) has treated our Travellers. We have excused our unjust attitude to the Traveller community by referencing the flaws and faults and lawlessness of individual Travellers while, at the same time, ignoring that members of the settled community are equally adept at that same type of anti-social behaviour.

We have seen how members of the NIMBY community can blithely and without so much as a moment’s consideration lodge their objections to any proposal that might provide social housing within a kilometre of their property - sometimes a substantial property, sometimes an ordinary four bed, two bathroom home. Any excuse and every excuse under the sun will be advanced to justify their opposition and if there is any danger that their objections will not be taken seriously then, of course, they enlist the support of their local elected representatives - councillors and, even better, their TDs. The poor old potential social housing tenants don’t have a voice in these situations and so planning is withdrawn or shot down. Sad.

In the past while, we’ve seen how prejudice and racism has animated people who, in their more rational moments would be most unlikely to jump to the barricades, light up the barrel fires, link arms with unknown fellow travellers and raise their voices in anger.

We’ve seen it in Ballinrobe, Moville in Donegal, Rooskey, Ballinamore, Dublin, Cork, Galway, Rosslare, Tipperary and now in Claremorris where ordinary decent people are getting riled up to the extent that they believe they have a right to interfere with other people’s property, determine how it should be used and, in a small number of cases, destroy it. And, because it may be the case that 15 or 20 people who are not white Caucasians, who are unvetted (whatever that means!) and are of military age (what significance does that have?) may soon find refuge in the area.

The far right has been credited with stoking the fires of fear in respect of this particular cohort of asylum seekers and they have struck a nerve with quite a number of people who would argue that they don’t have a racist thought in their heads. But, the very clear exhortation in this trope is that the time has come to “lock up your daughters” as the "black bogeymen" are in town. And, quite amazingly to my mind, an inordinate number of people have been taken in by it.

Now, suppose we put the shoe on the other foot. Instead of 15 fine strapping young men being brought in to seek asylum and the far right (and again we must ask the question - who are the far right?) put out the news that 15 or 20 unvetted lithe, lissom, long-legged, nubile ladies of black/brown hue were to be housed in a particular area as they waited for their asylum application to be processed, what would the reaction be?

Would it be the same? Would the community unite on the barricades to ensure that such asylum seekers be denied accommodation? Would the arsonists bring out the petrol cans? Would a conspiracy of silence descend on the people? And, if the reaction is different, why should that be?

Are men to be discriminated against simply because they are men? That, if we are to take any message from recent events, would seem to be the case. As a people we like to think we are fair-minded and non-judgemental. We like to think that we are respected by other nationalities, that we are a modern people, that we respect equality and that we are prepared to stand up for the rights of the individual against unjust discrimination. Unfortunately, that is not the case. We still practice discrimination and seem to be quite happy to do so.