Ronit Lentin

A letter to the Justice Minister

Last update: 11:25 | 01.07.14 | © Metro Éireann

Dear Minister Fitzgerald, it is impossible for Ireland to claim to have an integration policy while the State treats asylum seekers as it currently does.

Christine Buckley told the truth of â€˜Irelandâ€™s gulagsâ€™

Last update: 03:16 | 15.03.14 | © Metro Éireann

I was very saddened to hear of the death last Tuesday of Christine Buckley, the Irish-Nigerian woman survivor of ‘Ireland’s gulags’, the industrial school system run by religious orders. Buckley has been battling with cancer and, in view

Asylum affects art in Australia

Last update: 02:57 | 01.03.14 | © Metro Éireann

This is not a column about art depicting the asylum process, or about asylum seekers making art, but rather about the sinister connection between art sponsorship and the provision of detention services. Or more specifically, about the close – and abhorrent

Apologising for discrimination

Last update: 02:41 | 15.02.14 | © Metro Éireann

Imagine a public body agreeing to pay out-of-court damages to an institution committed to promoting, say, the place of ‘whiteness’ and Catholicism in Irish society, because said public body had accused said institution of racism and discrimination

The absurdity of asylum in Israel

Last update: 02:25 | 01.02.14 | © Metro Éireann

Last December some 200 African asylum seekers started a march from the open detention centre Holot in the south of the country towards the Knesset, the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem. “We are not afraid to march, sun, rain or snow,” said Masala,

Rest in power, comrade Mandela

Last update: 18:27 | 15.12.13 | © Metro Éireann

The moment Nelson Mandela died at 95, together with the mourning and celebrations across South Africa, much hypocritical ink has been spilled by commentators and politicians, some of whom – like former British PM Margaret Thatcher – had painted him

Who said â€˜weâ€™ are not racist?

Last update: 17:39 | 01.12.13 | © Metro Éireann

When I started teaching race and racism some 20 years ago, the response from students was brutal: “How can you, a foreigner, say that Ireland is racist? We are a friendly, welcoming people. And anyway, Irish people were victimised by the British –

The Roma experience

Last update: 15:13 | 01.12.13 | © Metro Éireann

When my mother was growing up in a picturesque spa town in northern Romania as part of a thriving Jewish community – most of whom were exiled by the Romanian fascist regime to Transnistria during World War II – she was constantly warned about

Children of the Palestine occupation

Last update: 14:58 | 01.12.13 | © Metro Éireann

Some weeks ago, Israeli anti-occupation activist Tamar Fleischman wrote on Facebook about an incident she witnessed at the Israeli Defence Forces’ Qalandia checkpoint on the West Bank, concerning a six-year-old Palestinian child whose head had been

The limits of European â€˜hospitalityâ€™

Last update: 15:56 | 15.10.13 | © Metro Éireann

I don’t suppose that any tourists lured to Lampedusa’s Rabbit Beach off the southern coast of Italy – voted the world’s best beach by TripAdvisor, with its “unspoiled nature and the crystal-clear sea filled with life”

Syrian conflict: a different view

Last update: 15:41 | 01.09.13 | © Metro Éireann

What has been called a civil war in Syria began on 15 March 2011 when the Syrian people, inspired by the wider Middle East protest dubbed the Arab Spring, staged popular demonstrations against the government of Bashar al-Assad.

Legislate against the sex trade

Last update: 13:05 | 15.08.13 | © Metro Éireann

The proposal by the Oireachtas to adopt the ‘Swedish model’, which seeks to abolish prostitution by criminalising the buyers rather than the sellers of sex, has incurred opposition by several Irish academics.

Race thinking is critical

Last update: 13:25 | 01.08.13 | © Metro Éireann

Back in 2005, British sociologist Paul Gilroy spoke of the “refusal to think about racism as something that structures the life of the post-imperial policy”.

Racism is more than ignorance

Racism is in the news again in Ireland. Not only has the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) uncovered a high incidence of discrimination against migrants and people of colour, perhaps more importantly it was highlighted by Minister for Justice Alan

Patrick Guerin: death of an anti-racist

It was with great shock and sadness that I heard of Patrick Guerin’s sudden death last week. Above all, Pat was known to his friends and many others as a dedicated anti-racist.

Nationalism by bloodline

On 14-15 May last, Fitzpatrick’s Hotel in Dublin played host to a Diaspora Forum conference that aimed to celebrate migration, migrants and the contribution the diaspora makes to home countries. Keynote speaker and business editor of The Economist,

A culture of incarceration

During the 20th century, Ireland routinely locked up one in 100 of its citizens in Magdalene laundries, industrial schools, mental hospitals and ‘mother and baby’ homes, where women pregnant out of wedlock were placed and forced to give their

What for the Middle East after Obama?

What did US President Barack Obama’s visit to the Middle East actually achieve?

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