11.03.07

Leviathan

Posted in Domestic/Relationships, Feminism, Irish Politics at 3:09 pm by Sarah

What a night!

First of all, two acknowledgements. One to the crowd. People queued for ages and paid €20 a skull to get in. With drinks priced high at the Crawdaddy venue (well, a G&T was over €6 which I thought was high) I was amazed and impressed that people are so interested in politics that they went to such trouble and expense. Of course, the wonderful Naomi Klein was speaking (though my groupie, Mother, assured me I was a core part of the attraction ) Klein is incredibly articulate and her theory of The Shock Doctrine was depressing and scary. She’s probably over-enamoured with the left but still, raising political awareness of the evils and SUCCESS of the right, is a righteous mission in life. I bought the book, she signed it and with a dedication to my mother “To Betty, be brave!” Hurrah!
The second to McWilliams. You know, he appears lighthearted and was very flippant at times, but his motives are pure. He really believes in discussing ideas outside of party politics and that people WANT to debate the big issues – and the turn-out vindicates him. He said at the start, and its true, that getting political debate off the airwaves is important because too many of the same people arguing the same things gets boring and rarely addresses core issues. So hats off to David and the organisers – I was delighted to take part in something so…stimulating.

AND Twenty showed up! AND he was terribly polite (well off stage, though on-stage he cursed – would you credit that?) So a nice balance, I’ve met him but I don’t know his name. For some reason I like Twenty’s anonymity, though in general its against my principles….Oh AND I met Liam Carey, no relation, a commenter on the blog so that was nice. I tend to feel the blog is distinctly less weird and unhealthy when I actually know the people I chat to all the time! We discussed the Friday poem idea. I should get that together. If anyone has favourites, send them on and we’ll cheer ourselves up.

So, the debate, Romantic Ireland’s Dead and Gone. John Waters and Killian Forde, the Sinn Fein Councillor were wonderful additions. My mother and I agreed on the way home that Killian has that Sinn Fein skill of being well versed in political science and moving arguments around to his agenda. It was impressive. With John, he has been thinking, writing and talking about politics and culture in Ireland for so long that his experience and perspective stopped us going down the road of cliches too easily. I really enjoyed the chat. We disagreed on some areas, though agreed on others and its great to have an enthusiastic difference of opinion with people who don’t get into a huff just because you disagree on certain things. Professional arguers, its great And in fairness to Deirdre de Burca, she is a serious, well-intentioned politician with a clear agenda. Whether any of that agenda is successfully implemented in government is another thing – but I liked her.

Anyway, the debate as I say threw up lots of interesting questions, too many to go into in one post but I might address them as the week goes on.

One strand which arose was to do with our immigrants. The left leaning crowd (and David) appeared to take it for granted that unless WE DO SOMETHING! our immigrant population is going to cause a problem. This seemed to be based on the fact that other countries, like England and France have had race riots, so therefore we will too. At the most benign level we will have a significant minority of alienated people in our midst.

I was more optimistic (though I was called naive, I might have avoided that if I’d thought about the issue in greater detail beforehand).

We all agreed on two things (well the panel, not the crowd I think)

1. that the first generation of immigrants is never a problem. The second generation are the ones who tend to have a problem.
2. Multi-culturalism is a disaster. The Garda uniform is a garda uniform. No turbans. Killian seemed to think we needed to work out lots of stuff in advance rather than handle each question as it arises. He made a point, which seemed a bit silly at the time, BUT now that I think about it, could be prescient! He said, what happens when a male garda wants to wear a skirt? NOW we laughed about it and a woman contributor from the audience took him apart, BUT, you KNOW what this crazy world is like. Is it beyond conception that a transexual garda would ask to wear a skirt? Who knows??!!

I pointed out that France, a former colonial power, ended up with race riots because they made two classic mistakes – they isolated their immigrants – the Algerians etc – both geographically and economically. Put them all into the ghettoes and then cut them off from economic opportunity. Like, what did they THINK was going to happen?
Our immigrants are different. We have two kinds – classic economic migrants – the vast majority of whom are white – and asylum seekers – the vast majority of whom are black. The asylum seekers are a small section of the population and I think we are handling them wrong. I think we should let them work and make their own way. HOWEVER the vast bulk of our immigrants are the Eastern Europeans – primarily the Poles. With these immigrants I really don’t see what the problem is. They work hard, they send money home, and if there is an economic downturn they will go home, set up their own business and we’ll be emigrating there.
The ones who stay have their children in school and this bit is crucial = the schools must be the integrating force. Get everyone speaking English, mixing together, learning about each other’s culture, but secular and learning Irish history. The fact that the Poles are Catholic helps. The former colonial powers ended up with large Muslim populations which brings its own set of challenges.

I like the melting pot theory. McWilliams said, but what will this generation call themselves? Polish or Irish? I couldn’t think of an answer but a woman in the audience did – She said “look, they’ll call themselves Polish-Irish, just as there are Irish-Americans, and Italian-Americans.” For the moment, the Eastern European population appears to be mixed through the State and throughout the housing estates.

I quoted the experience in Enfield (which is when I got called naive). In our national school there are pupils from 30 different nationalities. We have a Polish grocery store (and its a small town) and everyone is fine! Its exciting and vibrant and genuinely enriching for the children and the adults. If Ireland had a problem it was parochialism. Having so many foreigners in our midst kicks that out of us. Why is it so wrong to say that things aren’t so bad?

Alright so quoting Enfield is cutesy, but we are a representative of small town Ireland.

The naive-calling gentlemen from the audience argued that there were ghettos in Dublin. I agree completely that there are ghettos, but of the poor – not of race. We have terrible inequality in Ireland but its do with geography – those born into certain housing estates are almost doomed. Pushing the asylum-seeking population into those same ghettos is a problem, but I think if anyone riots in 10 years time, it’ll be our own Irish people who got left behind in Neilstown or Moyross when we holidaying in the South of France. That’s something we have to deal with but I don’t see that as an immigration issue- that’s a class issue.
As for race ghettos..well, as Killian said..look immigrants always congregate and live together. Sure every big American city has its Chinatown, or Japantown and the famous suburbs where the Irish or Italians lived. Once people have economic opportunity, it doesn’t become a problem.
Its when you geographically isolate people AND deprive them off the opportunity to take part in society and the economy, that you end up with race riots.
We weren’t a colonial power and so….I choose not to worry about the “polish-Irish”.

em, that’s enough for now….

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