On 20 April I attended a roundtable on anti-racism hosted by the Equality Authority in Dublin.
While several of us attending have sat in similar roundtables and other forums for the past 15 years to discuss the topic, the killing of Toyosi Shitta-bey on Good Friday had clearly moved the EA – curtailed and under-funded though it is – to convene this forum in a genuine attempt to mobilise members of migrant and ethnic minority groups.
The main speakers were as usual white, settled Irish people, but around the table were some leaders of migrant-led groups and networks – mostly Africans, with scant representation for Asians and eastern Europeans, and only one Traveller (Ellen Mongan, the only Traveller who has ever sat on a local authority council).
But everyone was asked to speak, and participants outlined their experiences of racism – and spoke of the anger and fear in their groups and neighbourhoods.
A few ‘usual suspects’ proposed what has been suggested so many times before – establishing an anti-racism forum, reforming the useless 1989 Incitement to Hatred Act (promised so many times by successive Ministers for Justice), and holding information campaigns (which have yet to prove their usefulness).
Of all the speakers, only this newspaper’s editor Chinedu Onyejelem had the courage to say that holding yet more meetings will make no difference in the absence of the Government’s commitment – a sentiment I’m in complete agreement with.
The Government has done all it can to portray migrants as a ‘problem’ ever since the first influx of asylum seekers in the late 1990s. Incarcerating asylum seekers in direct provision, thus making it near impossible for them to organise politically; ignoring the appalling conditions they are forced to live under; and making the work permit regime harder and harder for migrants to navigate – all of this makes it patently clear that ‘integration’ means nothing to this Government.
That said, we must remember that migrants are doing a lot to integrate themselves and their groups into Irish society through involvement in hundreds of migrant-led networks and associations, providing advocacy, education, public information and service provision, and promoting culture.
However, too many migrant support groups are headed by white Irish people. So it was not surprising that most speakers stressed – yet again – the need for fair representation. When Kensika Monshengwo, formerly of the NCCRI, suggested that Irish people often do a very good job at representing migrants’ and minorities’ needs, Ellen Mongan asked – rightly, in my opinion – how long must Travellers and migrants belong to organisations headed by white, settled Irish.
In the absence of Government commitment to allow migrants to represent themselves and live a free and decent life, and its determination to deport as many ‘failed’ asylum seekers as possible, the valiant Equality Authority has little chance to succeed in re-awakening Irish anti-racism. And that’s not to mention the difficulties in securing funding due to the recession – the social effects of which have also encouraged racial scapegoating.
As anti-racists we need to be less apologetic, saying loudly and clearly that we do not want to continue to live in a state that racialises Travellers – who it refuses to define as an ‘ethnic group’ – and migrants – who it criminalises for seeking asylum or losing work permits through no fault of their own. We need to eradicate institutional and State racism before there are any more killings.
Dr Ronit Lentin is head of the MPhil in Ethnic and Racial Studies at the Department of Sociology at Trinity College Dublin. Her column appears fortnightly in Metro Éireann
