A lot has been written about the pros and cons of the Lisbon Treaty. I confess I have not read it in its entirety, but nothing of what I did read has made me change my mind about a ‘no’ vote.
That’s not to say that I agree with some of the far-fetched claims made by Cóir, a right wing organisation working “to protect Irish sovereignty and the Constitutional rights of every Irish person”. Nor am I worried about the Lisbon Treaty letting in abortion through the back door (in fact, I am definitely in favour of women’s right to choose). But the ‘no’ vote campaign, as is often the case, brings together strange bedfellows from across the political spectrum.
There are several reasons for a ‘no’ vote, including workers’ rights and preventing militarisation. But a more important issue came to mind when I saw the first posters of the ‘yes’ campaign, with photographs of two young, white, attractive ‘Irish’ people above the caption “We belong, you decide.”
What concerns me here is the silence about the nature of that ‘we’ – which, from the looks of it, means white, young, probably Christian and middle class. This ‘we’ doesn’t include me, nor many other older, non-Christian, non-white, non-middle class people. Quite simply, it ignores the new migratory realities of Ireland and Europe.
In better days, before the economic downturn, much was said about the transformation of Irish society due to immigration, seen as ‘sudden’ and ‘unprecedented’ but also welcome, as migrants did jobs the ‘Irish’ didn’t want to do. Much was written about the ‘floods’ of asylum seekers the State was struggling to cope with. And much was said about the importance of integration as the State and myriad NGOs were keen to regulate, manage, mainstream and control the ‘bodies out of place’ that Ireland suddenly found itself hosting. Yet little is said about migration or integration today.
I am glad that anti-migration and racism have so far not penetrated the public debate on Lisbon. Yet when thinking how to vote, I remember that Europe’s policies – besides providing some funds for migrant and migrant support organisations – are essentially about migration control.
Thus last year the European Parliament adopted new measures to fight illegal immigration, sanctioning penalties for employers who break the rules. At the same time, tough EU asylum policies make it increasingly hard for people to present their applications. Last year there were some 238,000 asylum applications throughout Europe, of which only 3,865 were made in Ireland. Interestingly, Ireland grants very few applicants with refugee status (in 2009, just 40 out of 1,005, compared with Germany’s 2,005 out of 5,930).
Refugees are also excluded from EU integration policies. According to the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), the exclusion of asylum seekers fuels racism, leaves vulnerable people isolated and risks alienating future citizens. Incarcerating asylum seekers in holding camps without employment and education, and doing very little to integrate people once they are granted refugee status, ultimately means these EU (and Irish) policies are fostering racial tensions under the banner of so-called ‘integration’.
While racism has not figured in the Lisbon campaign as of yet, neither was there any reminder that ’the Irish’ now make up a much more diverse definition of ‘we’, nor any warning against Irish and EU racism. Which is why I will be voting ‘no’.
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
