Some time ago, while visiting Australia, relatives who migrated from the UK having worked as ‘ex pats’ in Sri Lanka told me that ‘the new immigrants should do as we did, work their way up and not expect anything from thegovernment.'
Another time, a British Pakistani professor of sociology, who specialises in researching migration and Muslims, told me he was in favour of citizenship tests for so-called new immigrants. 'My father worked hard,' he had said, 'these people should also work hard and take their turn.'
Documented the world over, this is called the drawbridge syndrome – older immigrants had it hard, but newer immigrants should not expect anything – let’s draw the bridge and let them sink or swim back home.
In fact, like my British Pakistani friend, and Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar, born in Dublin to an Indian father and an Irish mother, second generation migrants are often the leasttolerant of newer migrants. Trouble is that when Varadkar suggested that migrants who find themselves unemployed should get a lump sum providing they return home, he managed to cast the Fianna Fáil Government as supporters of immigration. As soon as he flew his kite, FF ministers Lenihan and Hanafin said his comments ‘verged on racism’. Yet, as he said in a letter to The Irish Times, the Government itself is encouraging migrants to avail of funded voluntary repatriation, so why the fuss?
The problem is that integration is proposed only for those immigrants ‘we’ are prepared to allow in, while we tighten the immigration and deportation regime.
A national integration debate held last week, sponsored by Metro Éireann, An Post, and the Office of the Minister of Integration, reiterated the same old clichés without furthering the debate. A piece of research by Amárach Research was presented, according to which 66 per cent of adults in the State believe immigration policy should be more restrictive. No amount of casting the rest of the findings as ‘positive’ can change this figure of two thirds of Irish people believing it’s time to draw the bridge.
Meanwhile, across the water, Britain plans new rules on recruiting workers from outside the EU – doctors, nurses and social workers will now be excluded, while engineers, maths teachers and sheep shearers will be allowed in. European countries are increasingly considering migrants as merely economic commodities, whose role is to support ‘our’ comfortable way of life – look after our elderly, clean and mop up, do jobs ‘we’ don’t want to do, while learning our languages (at the expense of neglecting their heritage languages).
I welcome the debate on integration. But let it be a real debate without flying kites, without self congratulation, as in ‘Ireland has a unique opportunity to be a role model in relation to integration’. Many areas need debating – including the balance between immigration restrictions and integration, family reunification, the continuing housing of asylum seekers in direct provision hostels, the pressure on services. Above all, we need to hear migrants’ own contribution and thoughts.
Remember not all migrants want to ‘integrate’ into ’our’ way of life – all they might want is to live a quiet life, get a decent job, bring up their children and look forward to a peaceful future. To have a real debate, we need first and foremost to hear from migrants, but also f r o m I r i s h people who find migration difficult to accept. We need to clarify what is meant by ‘integration’, and ‘culture’, and how to square immigration restrictions with integration policie.
