| JOE HORGAN  THERE
is a political group here in Ireland who have left more than one person
I know bewildered as to how they manage to garner such media coverage.
Despite claiming to speak for the silent majority they have shown abysmal
electoral results.
In modern political jargon they have no mandate whatsoever. Yet because
they have a stated position on the contentious issue of immigration to
Ireland they seem to be automatically asked for their opinion on any issues
relating to this and these are then reported in the press as if an important
voice had spoken. Whenever their main spokesperson appears on television
or the radio you can be sure that a huge amount of response will ensue
and nearly all of it will be in criticism of what the silent majority
actually perceives to be their vile racism and prejudice. Not long ago,
I caught the end of a recent appearance by this spokesperson on local
radio with the last caller pitying any of the listeners local enough to
have to listen to such racist bile on a regular basis.
So there I was just the other week flicking through the pages of The Irish
Post and finding myself much surprised to see a little box inserted by
this self same group. You may well have missed it. A group with no electoral
support and miniscule membership is hardly likely to be taking out a full
page spread. But there they were. The Immigration Control Platform. Amongst
their more enlightened views is the one that argues Ireland should withdraw
from the Geneva Convention, something that would put us on a par with
such pariah states as North Korea.
Of course I couldn’t help feeling that there was an obvious irony
in flicking through the pages of a newspaper set up by immigrants, for
immigrants, for the sons and daughters of immigrants and coming across
an appeal by those so hostile to immigrants and immigration, but then
I would hardly expect this particular group to have any fine sense of
historical truth.
I probably shouldn’t have even bothered bringing them to your attention
but if I hadn’t wandered across them where I least expected to see
them and hadn’t felt a shiver of revulsion because I am aware here
in Ireland of their views, I probably wouldn’t have.
There is a debate to be had about the nature of this country and there
should be more social discourse about the consequences in this Ireland
of ours of the astonishing cultural change the country has experienced.
With swathes of people now immigrating to Ireland for the first time in
the modern age we should talk about what being Irish means and is going
to mean in the years to come. Being any nationality isn’t fixed
in stone and just as being British doesn’t mean now what it meant
in 1950 neither does being Irish.
Only a fool would deny that there is racism in Ireland, and the government
has certainly mismanaged the arrival of immigrants into this country.
Even the chosen term of ‘non-national’ to describe those originating
outside of the state seems a peculiar one. They are not non-anything and
are always nationals of somewhere. But we can remain thankful that poisonous
little groupings such as the ones who advertised in this paper are a mere
dot in the Irish political scene. They will argue of course that they
are not racist, yet the BNP were enamoured enough with them to try to
make formal contact, yet their response to a changing Ireland is be vehemently
hostile to the appearance of refugees and immigrants, who are usually
but not always poor and whose skin colour happens not to be white.
The last time I heard their spokesperson on the airwaves she was berating
the fact that a Nigerian refugee was fighting deportation on the grounds
of having an ill child.
This child’s mother had received huge support from the local community,
yet this group’s spokesperson derided the mother for using the child’s
illness.
I can only hope, and I’m sure all the members of that local community
will hope too, that the pages of this immigrant newspaper offer no place
of refuge for these vile, hate-filled racists.
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