Free Radikal

Posts Tagged ‘Ireland’

Since the onset of the recession, it became clear that the state’s integration policies and all the talk about ‘cultural diversity’, ‘interculturalism’ and so on were becoming redundant. What started with draconian cuts in the integration and antiracism sector and the demise of bodies such as the NCCRI very quickly turned into complete silence on the subjects of immigration, integration, and interculturalism, and culminated with the axing of many community development projects. The new Minister for Integration was nowhere to be seen, and even though the government was boasting that Ireland was ‘getting it right’ by avoiding the pitfalls of both (French) assimilationism and (British) multiculturalism, it became clear that in the recession the state was not interested in migrants, no longer seen as the engine of Ireland’s economic boom.

In recent days the media reported somewhat triumphantly that ‘foreign nationals’ were going home. Using PPS statistics, a downward trend was reported across the workforce. According to December 2009 CSO figures, ‘57,112 of the 117,983 foreign nationals who received PPSNs in 2004 were still either working or claiming welfare in 2008’. In the absence of statistics for those who actually left Ireland, it was less clear ‘what happened to the rest, but it is very likely that they left the Republic’.

Last week further reports suggested the halving of ‘foreign nationals’ registering for work or social services. This trend was most apparent among migrants from the 12 new EU members; the number of Polish migrants registering for work went down from 42,500 in 2008 to 13,700 in 2009.

Migration statistics, in other words, are still limited to labour migrants, and depend very much on work permits and PPS numbers; however, according to the Immigrant Council of Ireland, such statistics are misleading. Not all labour migrants need to renew their permits annually, and people originally living here on the basis of work permits now have long term residency rights or citizenship, yet they are still migrants, whose needs – social, cultural, political – go beyond labour statistics.

Polish people living in Ireland deny the impression that all Poles are going home; indeed many prefer to stay here, and others continue to come even now, because surprisingly, they regard life here as gentler, less pressured. Furthermore, according to Piaras Mac Éinri, UCC lecturer in migration studies, many migrants from destinations such as Romania, though not entitled to work in Ireland, work semi illegally, doing jobs that even other East European migrants won’t do, and are often horribly exploited.

And these statistics do not include asylum seekers, many still living in holding camps, not allowed to work and often suffering from serious mental health problems as a result; nor do they include other non EU migrants with citizenship or leave to remain, many of whom live in appalling accommodation, isolated and desperate to make some sense of their life here, safer as it may be than what they had fled from.

Although for these migrants there are no integration or intercultural measures, now so hopelessly last year, many migrants are not waiting for state initiatives, and are busy enacting their own ‘integration from below’ social, cultural, advocacy and service provision networks and organisations. However, with spending cuts and increasing indifference to any contribution they can make, they face a serious danger of disenchantment, which we need to carefully watch out for.

Paddy Healy published addresses of TDs, asking people to email their TDs protesting the budget. So this is what I just sent to Chris Andrews (Fianna Fail) and John Gormley (Green Party):

Dear John and Chris

As your constituent, let me express my revulsion at the budget which has targeted the poorest and weakest in society.

As a public sector worker, I accept that high earners should bear the brunt, but introducing an extra income tax band for those earning over €100,000 (a category, which,  by the way, includes me) would have brought €2bn in revenue without cutting disability and unemployment allowances, children’s allowances and taxing low paid workers.

John, in particular - I voted for you to get Michael McDowell out and belived in your green policies - you and I spoke on several antiracism platforms and I had a lot of respect for you then. I feel you and the Greens have sold out to FF
and to power and have not really achieved much progress in either social issues or green issues. And now, with this budget, you have demonstrated your downright disregard for poor people, people with disabilities, carers, parents of young children, unemployed people and low earners.

You will not get my vote in any subsequent elections (and, needless tosay, neither will Fianna Fail, ever).

Best

Ronit

Copy of a letter I sent to the Irish Times:

Ronit Lentin
Department of Sociology
TCD

Madam,

The shortsightedness of the government’s plans to subsume community development projects in area partnerships (Letters, 25 November) was eloquently articulated by four community activists on Vincent Browne’s TV3 show on the same day. Cathleen O’Neill of Kilbarrack CDP, Rita Fagan of St Michael’s Family Resource Centre, Bronagh O’Neill of the Canal Equality Campaign and Margaret O’Shea of the Kerry Network for People with Disabilities highlighted the services CDPs provide, often by volunteers, to their communities, and the loss to theses communities of taking the projects away from the people they are serving. The transfer to area partnerships has been decided upon without consultation and it is evident that now more than ever CDPs are both ‘good value’ and essential in providing services such as childcare, after school care, programmes for women and disabled people, not provided by the state and local authorities.

Likewise, migrant-led organisations and networks, whose case has not yet been championed, are also facing drastic funding cuts. Like the CDPs, they also provide much needed services to their constituencies, often on a voluntary basis. These services, including empowerment and advocacy, language training, gender-based programmes, and basic advice on rights and entitlements, are not provided by the state or local authorities. Thus, like the CDPs, migrant-led organisations save the state money while at the same time facilitating the smoother integration of migrants into Irish society and preventing the eruption of banlieu-style disturbances in the future.

The planned cuts and amalgamations are supported by leading philanthropists, whose financial largesse involves the over zealous management of CDPs and migrant organisations, often leading to the decimation of the very sector they purport to support. I call on Minister Eamon O Cuiv and Minister of State John Curran to guarantee the continued funding and autonomy of both CDPs and migrant-led organisations whose contribution is vitally needed now more than ever before.

Yours etc

Ronit Lentin

An Garda Siochána have again made it absolutely clear that they do not want foreigners in the police force. In 2007, having appealed for recruits from what is euphemistically called Ireland’s ‘new communities’, it refused to allow a Sikh volunteer to the Garda reserve force to wear his turban on duty. The Garda explicitly denied that the turban ban was based on race or religion, but rather on the imperative to provide an ‘impartial police service’ requiring, among other things, ‘our standard uniform and dress’. According to Kevin O’Donoghue, Head of the Garda Press and Public Relations, ‘within the principles of an intercultural approach, An Garda Siochána is not advocating one religious belief over another, nor are we, in any way, being racist. We are attempting to… retain an image of impartiality while providing a State service to all citizens’. At the same time, An Garda declined to rule out the wearing of Catholic religious symbols such as crucifixes, Lenten ashes and pioneer pins.

It was an opportunity missed. Rather than occasion a much needed debate on the secularisation of the Irish public sphere, the turban ban drew supporters and opponents for an ‘Irish’ way of doing culture. Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole, arguing that Garda and state practice is replete with Catholic symbolism and practices, proposed that state institutions either adopt a ‘no religious symbols in public’ ruling across the board, including Catholic religious symbols – his preferred option – or allow all religious symbols, including turbans and veils. In an interesting twist, Harpreet Singh, president of the Irish Sikh Council, linking immigration and Irish emigration, pointed to the large number of Irish migrants in the US who have converted to Sikhism and asked whether they would face the same barriers if they return home.

This was in 2007, towards the end of Ireland’s Celtic capitalism era. In 2009, as Ireland is sunk in the depth of a gloomy recession, the turban issue raises its head again. But wait for it, this time is it explicitly reiterated in the name of none but ‘diversity’. As the Garda’s ‘diversity champion’ chief administrative officer John Leamy said in a Garda conference on diversity on 19 November, the force’s diversity strategy ‘has taken an intercultural model, where diversity was respected and reflected in the force’ rather than an ‘assimilation model where newcomers would have to accept the majority status quo’. And yet again, the Garda claims the ban is about ‘impartial policing’ – as if a turbaned or veiled Garda officer cannot possibly be impartial, as opposed to a Catholic, cross-bearing officer of course.
But hold on a second. If diversity is ‘respected and reflected in the force’ and newcomers ‘do not have to accept the majority status quo’, how come the Garda is still insisting on assimilation, as Dr Jasbir Singh argued, effectively denying ‘equal employment rights’ to Sikhs and other minorities? The ban affects not only naturalised Sikhs migrants, but also their Irish born Sikh children. Dr Singh reminded the conference that in Britain and other countries turbaned Sikhs serve in the police.

Remember however, that the performance of cultural diversity becomes a device, a brand, as state bodies, companies, and educational institutions pride themselves on their ‘happy colourful faces’, albeit without relinquishing control of those diversity projects to the owners of these very faces. The reiterated turban ban denotes the confusion, by the Gardai and other state bodies, about the meaning of ‘interculturalism’, an Irish (policy) solution to an Irish (immigration) problem, both multiculturalism and assimilation under a different name. It is absurd to both claim diversity and interculturalism and demand ‘newcomers’ do things ‘our’ own way without taking any steps towards officially secularising Ireland’s (Catholic) public sphere.

Since the onset of the recession and the demise of the NCCRI and the cut in
the budget of the Equality Authority and the Irish Commission on Human
Rights, no one has been speaking much about racism. Most Irish people feel
they have other priorities, as they try to make ends meet, get a bank loan,
or secure their pensions.

Racism, however, has not disappeared. Migrants, Travellers and members of
other ethnic minorities are reporting a marked increase in racist incidents,
though, apart from CSO statistics on ‘racially motivated crimes’ (which
don’t differentiate the experiences of Travellers, migrants or other
racialised groups) there is little hard evidence.

It was therefore encouraging that the Equality Authority and the European
Network against Racism organised a discussion forum on ‘Tackling racism and
the impact of racist stereotypes’. The event, hosting academics, members of
NGOs, some of whom were themselves migrants, Travellers and members of
minorities, aimed to identify ‘best practices and tools to address racism
including racism arising from stereotypes’.

However yet again, none of the speakers was a member of a migrant or
minority group. The keynote speaker was Anastasia Crickley, a long time
anti-racist campaigner for Traveller and minority rights, and chairperson of
the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (formerly the EU Monitoring Centre against
Racism, Antisemitism and Xenophobia). She listed four reasons for addressing
racism: charity, cohesion, economics and ethics, but she did not speak about
the politics of antiracism, or about the role of the state in perpetrating
racism. In the Equality Authority’s background document, ‘Living Together:
European Citizenship against Racism and Xenophobia’ the best practices
listed for Ireland mostly focused on cultural diversity, not antiracism.
Twelve years after the European Year Against Racism, racism is still spoken
about in terms of cultural diversity. The EA’s event gave no space to the
lived experiences or analysis of racism by the racialised.

The famous anti colonial fighter Frantz Fanon emphasised the lived
experience of the black man. Yet  contemporary academic preoccupation with
‘culture’ and ‘identity’ as the sole positions of the struggle of racialised
people leads to the conflation of ‘identity politics’ with anti-racism and
to the depoliticisation of the anti-racist struggle. However, one of the
most important questions asked in relation to antiracism is ‘who speaks for
whom, who says what and from where?’ Antiracism can be either generalised -
intending to raise awareness among the population and reach a post-racial
‘racelessness’, or colour blindness. Or it can be self-representational,
where the lived experience of the racialised informs the struggle.
Generalist antiracism is anchored in universal values such as democracy,
human rights, equality and tolerance; it reduces the importance of state
racism and emphasises individual (or institutional) prejudice.  In contrast,
self organising antiracism stresses the role of the state, which focuses on
notions of the race idea rooted in the political structure. The lived
experience of the protagonists informs the struggle and names the state as
the main culprit rather than stress individual prejudice, a way of
depoliticising racism and antiracism.

Not privileging the experiences of the racialised means nothing much has
changed. Antiracism in Ireland continues to be solidaristic, performed by
well meaning white, settled, Christian Irish people, whose ‘best practices’
documents continue in the tradition of soft interculturalism and cultural
diversity, while racism goes on.