Politicians have a duty to guard against the stoking of prejudice

• Published date: 26 May 2023
• Publication title: Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland)

Besides, aren't there little racists lurking inside most of us

"Your race card has been declined, do you have another argument" challenged a protester's placard outside a warehouse in Santry, north Dublin, which has been earmarked to accommodate some international protection applicants. If that is a question, the answer is yes.

There is an old joke about a nightclub bouncer asking a would-be patron at the entrance to identify himself. "Give me a mirror and I will," goes the punchline. To simply look in the mirror and declare oneself "not a racist" does not constitute case closed, especially when the evidence includes demands for prior consultation before international protection applicants are given accommodation in your midst and claims that no woman or child will be safe if the applicants are allowed in.

We all need to check our unconscious bias when we hear words such as "undocumented", "influx" or "unvetted" dripping from our mouths with scorn. One man protesting in Santry this week claimed that, if 30 male asylum seekers moved into the industrial estate, local women would not be able to walk around the place in safety. As if they ever could. Do we need reminding that most murders of women are committed by men known to them?

The dire scenarios being depicted by the anti-migrant bandwagon have all the hallmarks of phobias, also known as irrational fears. They are being stoked by agitators who fancy themselves as Irish patriots. They puff out their macho chests on social media with quaint proclamations that they are "protecting our women and children". No, they are not. They are using women and children as disingenuous arguments to drag Ireland back to the insular, dictatorial, Po patriarchal, cruel and judgmental country it used to be and where they ruled the roost; a place where children were abused in open secret and women were consigned to second-class citizenry.

In truth, many so-called nationalists who are fomenting the protests detest the Ireland they claim to love - this new Ireland of solidarity and live-and-let-live - and they are exploiting social inequality for their own agenda.

Echoes of history

Xenophobia is a tried-and-tested tool. Most people have racist instincts to some degree. Unlike pregnancy, it is actually possible to be a bit racist. There are echoes of Ireland's history of discrimination against the Traveller community in what is going on now as entire groups of people get tarred with one brush. Because some Traveller members...