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IT’S BY NO means a given that Jeremy Clarkson will be sacked by the BBC even if he is found – as is alleged – to have punched and racially abused producer Oisin Tymon. There is even less of a chance that he will be charged with racially aggravated assault. Where Clarkson fans have dismissed his language as “banter”, Irish people in particular will shudder at his choice of words.
They will also know that the fact that Clarkson has previous form for using the N word and other racist language against other minorities is no guarantee that the charge of racism will stick. Astonishingly, the BBC has already ruled this week that the Top Gear frontman’s use of the word “pikey” was not racist, a finding vehemently contested by the Traveller Movement.
Lessons from the British experience of tackling hate crime
Britain today still exhibits a significant gap in understanding between minority experiences of racism and the rest of society’s acceptance of its full impact and seriousness. Nevertheless, it is to the lessons from the British experience of tackling hate crime that Irish and other European reformers are looking. In spite of its shortcomings, and there are many, the British have a criminal justice system that is among those better equipped than our own to give justice to minorities with some degree of equanimity.
To what can we attribute this relative progressiveness? The Clarkson and other experiences illustrate well the fact that institutions do not spontaneously dispense racial justice in a fit of post-colonial, anti-racist generosity. The degree to which Britain is a racially just society owes everything to the fact that black, Asian, Muslim, Jewish, Irish, Traveller and other communities fought for, and continue to fight for, recognition in law of their identities and experiences.
A gap in understanding about racism in Ireland
In Ireland, the racial justice gap is wider still than Britain’s. State acknowledgement of racism as a significant problem is almost nil. CSO figures for racist crime reflect the Garda Inspectorate finding last year that no gardai recorded a racial or homophobic motive on the pulse system. In contrast, the latest report of the European Network Against Racism in Ireland’s racist incident recording system, iReport.ie, published today, confirms that racism is a consistent fact of life for all minorities in Ireland.
Racial violence, too, plays an unacceptably prominent role in shaping peoples everyday experiences of life here. Census figures published last month raise parallel concerns about the concentration of minority children in only a handful of schools.
The drive to introduce a hate crime bill
While we do not have a criminal justice system that is yet fit for the needs of our present intercultural reality, there is some of agitation in that area. The Minister of State for New Communities, Culture and Equality, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, has been consulting with a coalition of NGOs representing anti-racist, Traveller, migrant, LGBT and disability groups with a view to legislating for hate crime in Ireland.
With the help of the University of Limerick’s Hate and Hostility research group, we hope to have a hate crime bill that the Minister can present to Dail Eireann in the lifetime of this government. The Minister has also pledged to legislate for the recognition of Traveller ethnicity in the same timeframe.
Tackling racism and its root causes
Assuming the Minister is able to make good his intentions, these will be laudable steps in the right direction. But these alone will not redress the problem of racism. In Britain, hate crime provisions are flanked in law and policy by a raft of ant- racism and anti-discriminatory measures, built up by decades of pressure for positive change. Ireland,in contrast, has not had a National Action Plan Against Racism since 2008, the same year the government axed the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism.
What is needed is a new National Action Plan Against Racism, that is, a major reform programme across our institutions, laws, policies and practices for tackling racism and its root causes. This will help make our republic a truly egalitarian one, fit to meet the needs and value the contributions of the diverse society we are only now coming to acknowledge.
Our own struggle against injustice and domination
As we celebrate International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, we should take the time to count our assets. Unlike many of our European neighbours, Ireland looks unlikely at present to develop a significant chauvinistically nationalist or xenophobic political formation, like UKIP or the Front National. We owe this fact wholly to our strong tradition of solidarity and anti-racism, bound up with our own struggle against injustice and domination.
This tradition is exemplified in the multicultural definition of citizenship decreed by the Confederation of Kilkenny in the 1640s, and in the solidarity between Daniel O’Connell and African American Abolitionist Frederick Douglass in the 1840s. It can also be seen reflected in the famine relief sent by the Choctaw Nation to survivors of the Great Hunger, and finds example in James Connolly’s Yiddish election leaflet in Dublin in 1902. In more recent times it can be seen in the solidarity between the Irish and US Civil Rights movements in the 1960s, and by the leadership shown by the Trades Unionists at Dunnes stores in Dublin, whose strike in the 1980s pushed Ireland to become a major contributor to the global struggle to end the Apartheid regime.
If current government policy is out of step with the needs of the diverse society we live in today, let our tradition of anti-racism be our guarantee that we can make a republic that cherishes all the children equally.
Shane O’Curry is the director of Enar Ireland, the European Network Against Racism in Ireland. Enar Ireland manages iReport.ie, Ireland’s independent racist incident reporting mechanism on behalf of a national network of civil society organisations. Its latest report is published today. Follow on Twitter @ENARirL
It’s definitely because they are afraid of women. Educated women are a major threat to their agenda. It’s so sad and so vile for those girls. I hope they can find a way around it.
@Anna Carr: no, it’s to prevent earthquakes. Everyone knows that earthquakes are caused by women wearing jeans, and many women in universities wear jeans. So, for our safety, it is necessary that women do not go to universities.
@John Mulligan: lol
@Anna Carr: “It’s definitely because they are afraid of women. Educated women are a major threat to their agenda.”
They don’t fear women, they view them as property and an educated woman can be easily silenced with a bullet. The only way out of this is to leave/escape or rebel en masse.
@Will: It’s definitely because they are afraid of women but they aren’t? Jaysus Will stick to calling people tarts.I do agree as regards internal uprising though. The bloodshed that entails is horrific though.
I find it absolutely incredible that such a society can still be allowed to exist in these times. What is the point of the UN? Certainly not to go where needed, unless there’s a political agenda as opposed to a human rights one.
I despair for the future of humanity as it would appear that we are the architect’s of our own extinction.
@John Mulligan: THe UN does not have the authority to go into a country and initiate regime change, just because we don’t like the method of government there (regardless of how evil and nasty it is)- that’s why countries find excuses like WMDs to go in and invade a country… Foreign governments have been attempting to put their own stamp on that country for the last few hundred years and all they have suceeded in doing is making it a lawless basket case.
@John Mulligan: ‘Allowed’ ?
@Keth Warsaw: Yes . Nobody wants these dystopian societies to continue their abuse of their own people. I think you strayed in here Keth you product of western culture unable to string a sentence together.
Women are being pushed out of Government jobs in Afghanistan..
Sounds like Ireland up to the 1980s when once a woman got married she was forced to resign from any Government job .
But we are so quick now to condemn less advanced countries.
@Roger Bond: and so we should be. Are you saying that they shouldn’t be condemned? And are sure they’re not advanced but rather led by religious fervour?
@Roger Bond: Oh shut up you tart!
@Roger Bond: ah sure tis grand so they are “less advanced” than us.
@Roger Bond: But, interestingly, while the law said she had to resign, she could also reapply for the vacant position! Married women could apply for positions. An odd loophole.
@Roger Bond: And so we should be. Condemn the bejayus out of them of them on the world stage. Show these women they have support. It will mean little as they will suffer but something nonetheless.
@Will: Yeah Roger you tart put a sock in it. Unusual way of putting it Will but I’m all for it. Roger you know what you are.
Some might ask ‘Who or what is western culture to suggest change in foreign cultures…such changes that might initially be justified, but which might have deeply changing effects in decades to come upon said foreign cultures?’ And yet, there are others that decry the loss of other cultures: the Red Indians, Aztecs, Aborigini’s etc. Is it correct for western culture to pick and choose what is right and wrong within another culture while defending ‘to the hilt’ any and all criticism by a exterior forces upon its own way of life, however detrimental the the effects (some of) the wests culture has had upon the planet et all.
@Keth Warsaw: Enough of this false equivalence and whataboutery. There has to be some things we can agree on as human beings.
Women are not property.
Homosexuals are not criminals.
Your religion doesn’t give you the right to abuse others who don’t share your beliefs.
If you agree with the three points above then you must condemn the Taliban.
Also, you talk of culture but that’s not what this is. Afghanistan was one of the most liberal countries in the near east until the 80′s and the Soviet invasion. The Taliban are destroying Afghani culture, not protecting it.
@Will: I’m not invested in any foreign culture. I’m a product of the west. But that said, I am interested in where the line of trying to change/westernise foreign cultures starts and stops.
@Will: I would suggest you don’t have the right to say to another, me, ‘Enough’. If I may remind you, we both live in the free west where open discussion is, ideally, permitted. Correct me if I am wrong?
@Keth Warsaw: Red Indians Jaysus. Have you escaped from the seventies? So if people are (usually women let’s be honest )are struggling against oppression we shouldn’t support them in any way we can. The “west’s culture” leaves a lot to be desired but most of us want to make it better and to not to throw people off buildings because of who they love.
@Keth Warsaw: You primarily Keth are a product of your own warped mind. You have absolutely nothing to offer other than your warped views. The only thing that really interests you is shoehorning some archaic fantasy of yours into modern Irish society. Nobody is buying what you have to sell. On your bike Keth
@Keth Warsaw: Doesn’t seem likely Keth . You are here with an agenda. Unfortunately you were at the back of queue at some point. I’m sure it’s not your fault I mean someone took advantage of you. I mean maybe they did or you are cackhandedly trying to further your own aims . Blimey Keth it’s like mystery mixed with an enigma. So Keth you seem to have run away. I would be really upset if you thought I had drawn attention to your pulsillanimist nature (ahem) in no way was that my intention.
@Daftbit Jelly: All the best for your future endeavours. Not being critical but you need vocabulary if you are doing the whole raised in western culture thing. Also the whole birthrate thing . Nobody cares. All right maybe statisticians or Issac Assimov ( no he’s dead) Shitë he wasn’t very nice apparently. A bit like you Keth with the women thing.
Not my words, but there are those who would suggest that the drop in western population, resulting in an aging population, and the need for foreign importation of peoples willing to contribute to western population numbers for the safe upkeep of government coffers is the result of western women choosing a career over having children at a safe age that guarantees healthy children, and a sustainable number of them. Unfortunately, we cannot eat our cake and have it to.
@Keth Warsaw: Certainly we can. We do in Ireland where we have a relatively higher younger population. Besides, your stats are out of date – plenty of women chose to have children during the pandemic, and worldwide, people had less stressful pregnancies and far fewer stillbirths because of increased flexibility. Credit where it’s due to companies that facilitated their working from home. Our government’s job is to ensure that they all have equal rights, avoid the poverty trap and don’t regret choosing to have children. Incidentally, when did you last bake a cake for anyone : – P
@Fiona Fitzgerald: By the very mature of it, I don’t think you can generally, sorry. If so, why are western birth rates falling?
Yep/cook. Sunday. Apple tart, friends.
@Keth Warsaw: Meant to say ‘nature’….but I think ‘mature’ will suffice.
@Keth Warsaw: I’m thinking you might be a Barbarian Keth. I’m thinking you might be wanting women barefoot and pregnant and presumably cooking your dinner. You are obsolete Keth past your sell by date.
@Keth Warsaw: Two unrelated words Keth. You being a product of ” western society” I believe given your ability to talk shïte.
@Keth Warsaw: So western birth rates are your main concern Keth? Really?
@Daftbit Jelly: I respectfully disagree Sir. Again, and for the records of futurity, I have no investment in this main subject, but only in examining the claw-like tendrals that the west craves in spreading. Should the headhunters of some distant forest in a far-off region of thus sphere be pulled up and corrected for such ‘deemed’ savagery, or should we let them be and value them as a cultural tidbit?
@Daftbit Jelly: You’re a bounder sir. You, who uses the word ‘daft’ within your moniker. I should add, the robots now inform me that using your name may be perceived as toxic. The humanity!
@Daftbit Jelly: western birthrate my main concern? No. The splicing of the atom and the invention of a device capable of increasing time ratio whilst able to float via anti-gravity pendulums is my main concern. That, and pudding….
@Keth Warsaw – (sorry the reply feature doesn’t seem to work for me)
All this talk about culture is moot in this case. Yes, we in the west have no right to dictate what women of Afghanistan can and can’t do.
If an Afghan woman wants to wear a burqa or stay home from college or whatever in the name of preserving her culture, fine. No one is saying she shouldn’t be allowed. The problem here is *they don’t have the option*. These people *want* to work, to go to school, college, public parks, etc.
The question of whether we have a right to think they should follow our culture goes out the window – (or maybe even works in our favour) when their oppressive culture is being forced upon them at gunpoint!
It’s not about the specific traditions, it’s about them having the choice.
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