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When will Fine Gael expel Cllr Scully?

Last update - Thursday, December 15, 2011, 00:07 By Rashid Butt

We all know the story by now: on Monday 21 November, Cllr Darren Scully of Fine Gael, at the time Mayor of Naas in Co Kildare, spoke in a radio interview about his refusal to take representations from black Africans.

Just in case anyone had misunderstood, he reiterated his message in a second interview the following morning He would no longer represent black Africans in his town, he said, claiming they were too aggressive, ill-mannered, and always playing the race card.
Later in the week, after the storm blew up, there was a piece published in The Irish Times in which it was claimed he received almost 1,000 messages supportive of his sentiments.
Fine Gael – the main party in our current coalition Government – should have expelled him soon after his initial comments were broadcast. It would have sent a clear message that racism is not acceptable, especially in public life. It would have sent the same signal to bigots and racists, who I must say we have more than our fair share of in Ireland.
It’s been long felt by many that there’s no will at the top to curb racism or discrimination. But now it’s proven beyond any doubt that the elitist Government doesn’t care about marginalised communities, especially if they are of foreign extraction.
I hear on a regular basis first-hand accounts of hate speech, racism and gross racial abuse from my African colleagues who work in the taxi business. They face racist remarks and abuse night after night.
At every forum, the authorities encourage us to report incidents. But when one goes to the Garda station, it’s a different story. The level of compassion that one expects isn’t there. Moreover, people are discouraged by the apparent lack of appropriate or timely responses from the policing authorities. Reporting alone doesn’t help, as it has been shown in other countries.
Meanwhile, it seems the Garda in general is very reluctant to record racist crimes as such. At a recent conference on diversity, I informed a Garda representative that it has been observed by immigrants that racist incidents are not recorded as ‘racist’. He admitted that it was true, but didn’t have an answer as to why. It’s inexplicable.
We immigrants need to lobby to change the laws of this land to acknowledge the existence of racist crime in Ireland. More than that, we need to change the mindset of the authorities.
There is also need for a paradigm shift in thinking among the immigrant community as well. This is not a transit camp, this is our home. We are raising our families here. Our kids are growing up in this hostile environment. We must take charge of our destiny and stand up to be counted. We are stakeholders in this country, too.

Rashid Butt is an entrepreneur, human rights campaigner and chairman of the Westmeath Immigrants Network (Win). In 2009 he became the first ever peace commissioner from the new communities in Ireland.


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