Time to rage against racism

There are fewer refugees living in Ireland than there are Irish emigrants in Munich, but that hasn’t stopped Justice Minister John O’Donoghue, however inadvertently, whipping up race hate on the refugee issue.

We don’t commonly use words like “race hate” about politicians here. We assume that terms of that sort attach properly to Le Pen’s National Front in France or to the gutter-groups on the far Right in Germany. Our politics are softer-edged. Our anti-immigrant politicians are more amiable fools than outright racists.

But in fact the neo-fascists in France and Germany and elsewhere in Europe say little which is not said repeatedly here, by O’Donoghue and others of his ilk.

Foreigners are “targetting” our country. They see us as a “soft touch”. They are coming here in “disproportionate” numbers because of a “liberal” social welfare regime. A majority of applications for refugee status are “bogus”. We are in danger of being “overrun”. They should be “sent back”. Procedures for dealing with them should be “tightened up”. “Loopholes” must be closed. We need a “fast-track system” for deportation.

The words are all taken from speeches and statements by O’Donoghue. But they are also part of the common currency of racist rhetoric across Europe. Their effect everywhere is to validate and give a semblance of authority to the attitude of yobs who get their rocks off by doing violence to people of a different language or skin-colour.

O’Donoghue – and the media propagandists who amplify his arguments – maintain that they are trying to avert racism. It is only by keeping down the numbers of outsiders that we can halt the growth in resentment against them, it’s said. It is a fatuous argument. It is put forward in exact terms by openly racist parties elsewhere.

Le Pen has been to court, claiming libel against commentators who have accused him of stirring up racism. The reverse is the case, he argues: his opposition to immigration, and demand that “illegals” be sent home, are intended to prevent a rise in racist feeling.

But of course the effect is to portray immigrants as alien people improperly here. If their presence is the problem, then they are themselves largely to blame for the racist violence they encounter. And thus the perpetrators of the violence have a point . . .

In this way, Le Pen in northern Paris or the British National Party in south London provides racist thugs with a spurious rationale. It’s no different here.

This is not to say that O’Donoghue wants to see young Africans called “monkeys” and beaten by white racists in Dublin, as has happened. Any more than Ian Paisley wanted the Quinn children burned to death in Ballymoney.

The parallel with Paisley is even more apt than with the likes of Le Pen.

Paisley’s self-exculpation with regard to the firebombing of Catholic families across the North during the Drumcree crisis drew the derision of, seemingly, every shade of opinion in the South. Church leaders, middle-of-the-road politicians, the entire mainstream media showered him with scorn. His refusal to accept at least a share of responsibility was dismissed as a shameful evasion.

How could he deny the direct connection between his own incendiary rhetoric and the murder-thoughts in the minds of the Ballymoney killers? On phone-in programmes, there were calls for him to be charged with incitement, which, in context, didn’t seem in any way outlandish.

But the matter is rarely put as straight when it comes to Southern politicians like O’Donoghue. The disagreement between himself and Liz O’Donnell on whether refugees should be allowed to work while waiting for their asylum applications to be processed, for example, was generally presented in the context of Fianna Fail-PD tensions within government, not as a dispute between one minister potentially fuelling racism and another taking a rational and not particularly radical view. We have a need to raise consciousness of racism, as a prelude to anti-racist activity.

It is against this background that the Anti Nazi League’s second “Rage Against Racism” march and carnival has been organised in Dublin for Saturday week (August 22nd).

Announcing the carnival, the ANL pointed out: “Throughout Europe we are witnessing the rise of neo-Nazi parties trying to direct anger over poverty, unemployment and economic insecurity onto immigrants. We have seen the firebombing of hostels and the murder of refugee families, the growth of racist gangs of skin-heads and others. It makes no sense to say this couldn’t happen here. It is already beginning to happen here.

“The same ugly sounds are coming from respectable politicians who know well what the result will be for innocent people who are here because they had to flee persecution or destitution.

“In reality, there are only about 5,000 refugees in Ireland. They are forced to depend on social welfare because the government won’t give them the right to work. The majority come from Congo, Rwanda, Somalia, Bosnia, Nigeria and Romania – all countries ravaged by war, famine and civil strife.

“Poverty and the housing crisis existed long before refugees came to Ireland. The government is using racism to deflect attention from its own failures.

“Stop the racist attacks. Give refugees the right to work. Oppose deportations.”

Speakers at the carnival will include Green MEP Patricia McKenna; Senator David Norris; Mohammad Haji from the Association of Refugees and Asylum Seekers; Tom McCann of the Irish Travellers’ Movement; Carolann Duggan, the woman from Waterford who gave the leaders of SIPTU the fright of their lives when she stood against them in recent elections; and a member of the Stephen Lawrence Campaign which has spearheaded the drive for the truth about the racist murder of Stephen, a black teenager, in south London five years ago.

Bands playing at the carnival include Heavy Flow, The Ultra Montanes, King Sativah, Rumble, Canice and Brian Kenealy of Engine Alley, Yemanja, the Chicks and Happy City Samba School.

See you there.

This issue’s sad case is Mr. Ian Burnett, QC for the British Ministry of Defence at the Saville Tribunal into Bloody Sunday.

At the hearing in Derry Guildhall on July 20th, Mr. Burnett was required to announce that the proceedings really had very little to do with his clients. When the Tribunal moves on to hearing direct testimony next February, he’ll just nip in and out, keep a general eye. No point maintaining a continuous presence when he’d have nothing relevant to say . . .

QC Edwin Glasgow, on the other hand, also instructed by the British Government’s solicitors, intended to be there throughout to look after the interests of, as the official press-pack put it, “soldiers”.

Could be Moldovan soldiers, for all the enlightenment the hand-out provided. Or soldiers of the Salvation Army. Even little slices of toast dipped in egg yolk. Just ”soldiers”.

Couldn’t bring themselves to say British soldiers. Or soldiers of the Parachute Regiment. Or anything at all to indicate what class of soldiers these might be.

The implicit view was that the issue before the Tribunal lay between the relatives of the Bloody Sunday dead and wounded on the one hand, and “soldiers” on the other. The Department of the British Government of which the soldiers had been agents wanted to present itself as being, well, not very relevant to any of this.

26 years on, and a new Tribunal appointed, and they still won’t look the issue straight in the face.

It is pleasant to be able to report that if the frown on the face of Lord Saville was anything to go by, the “Nothing to do with me, guv” approach won’t wash. Could be very interesting times indeed up ahead.

Not that it would be wise to read a lot, or anything at all, into a frown on the face of law lord. But we must take encouragement where we find it. It’s been hard to come by until now.

BRAIN DRAIN

I see that Sean O’Callaghan, the self-confessed serial liar and killer, was received at 10 Downing Street during the Drumcree siege.

Mr. O’Callaghan had come with the text of a speech which he thought Mr. Blair might usefully deliver. The point of the speech was to reassure the Orangemen maintaining the siege that the British Government was aware of and sensitive to their concerns.

The speech was the result of a “six-hour brain-storming session” involving Mr. O’Callaghan, Ulster Unionist Assemblyman Chris McGimpsey, Prof. Paul Bew and Dr. Liam Kennedy of Queen’s University and and Ms. Ruth Dudley Edwards, a journalist.

What an idea-impoverished bunch of chancers the Blair entourage really is, to have accorded such seriousness to a communique drawn up by such people and in such circumstances. A “six-hour brain-storming session”, indeed! One is reminded irresistably of the legendary all-nighter during which John, Paul, George, Ringo and Masie came up with ‘I Am The Walrus’.