Our dirty little secret
It’s there all the time, bubbling under the surface, a nasty, malignant undercurrent with the potential to engulf us if left unchecked. Occasionally it spills forth, showering its victims with venomous bile, and then retreats back to safety.
Measures are suggested, ways of quelling this worrisome tide are mooted, and then, gradually, everyone forgets about it. Because, when it comes down to it, we’ve got enough to be worrying about.
Ireland has a problem with racism, one that needs to be addressed and dealt with as a matter of course. It may not be as widespread, or as violent, as that in the US or the UK, but it is there, and it is getting worse.
In the first half of this year there were 98 aggravated assaults on people in this country as a result of their ethnic background. I know, that doesn’t seem like very many. But those were only the ones recorded.
To put it into context; over the whole of last year there were 118 similar incidents recorded, meaning we are on course to double that figure in the space of twelve months.
Furthermore, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) has stated that almost a fifth of all reported crime is not recorded on Pulse, the database used by An Garda Siochana.
Add to that, the figures released by Ireland’s European Network Against Racism, which received almost double the number of calls on its hotline than recorded by Gardaí, and that initial figure grows ever higher. And that’s just those that were reported.
How many incidents went unreported, completely undocumented?
We laugh at the Brexiteers across the water, at their UK Independence Party, at their misguided belief that cutting themselves off from Europe will prevent any more pesky foreigners from entering their sacred borders, but all the while, without even realising it, we become more and more like them.
We’re not quite at the point where we’re blaming immigrants for all of our ails, but we’re hardly living up to our claim of being the ‘Land of a thousand welcomes’ either. Or maybe that just applies to people who come here, spend a few quid and then piss off back to their own country?
Of course what can’t be ignored is the perfect storm that has led to this festering societal issue. The collapse of the Irish economy was always going to have consequences beyond recession and poverty. It was always going to create antipathy and enmity among those hit hardest. And it was always going to leave people looking for someone to blame.
With no access to those responsible for miring us in those godawful mess, we have turned to another, more accessible, candidate: the immigrant.
The last decade has, by our standards, seen a mass influx of non-nationals arrive on our shores. Some have been fleeing war-torn countries and impoverished homelands. Others have came in the hope of starting over, beginning anew in a land of opportunity. And some, it’s been argued, have arrived solely to avail of our generous welfare system.
I have no desire to debate the morals of Ireland’s immigrants. The fact is these people have been granted the right to live in this country, therefore it is up to us to treat them as our equals.
Whether they work, don’t work, want to work or can’t work is an irrelevance, they are a part of this country, as much a part of it as you or I, and in treating them differently we are nurturing separatism and resentment.
Ireland is currently one of only a handful of EU member states without effective hate crime legislation. In an effort to counter this, a Bill was introduced by Fianna Fáil TD, Margaret Murphy O’Mahony, earlier this month.
Pointing to research carried out by the University of Limerick’s Hate and Hostility Research Group, which found that hate crimes are “systematically ‘disappeared’ from the criminal justice process”, Deputy Murphy O’Mahony stated that “hate crime has become a fact of life in Ireland” and that “in the absence of of an adequate response to offenders, victims continue to pay for these crimes.”
The response to this new legislation was as predictable as it was tiresome. The red tape immediately came out. Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald pointed to operational difficulties and wondered how it could be proved that an assault was racially aggravated.
Sinn Féin Justice Spokesman,Jonathan O’Brien flat out rejected the bill and questioned the motives behind it, going so far as to accuse Fianna Fáil of trying to “earn” votes.
In the meantime, while our elected officials bickered and backbit about who had the nation’s best interests at heart, people in this country continued to be targeted solely on the basis of the colour of their skin, the clothes they wore or the language they spoke.
And with no real deterrent, no law to ensures those responsible for these crimes face appropriate action, they will continue to be targeted, both verbally and physically, on an almost daily basis.
Creepy killer clowns
So apparently there’s a clown invasion going on, a clownpocalyse if you will. I haven’t seen any of these red-nosed ruffians as of yet, but, rest assured, I am prepared.
Like many others, I’ve been waiting for this day, waiting for a time when I could strike back and gain revenge on those creepy, garishly-dressed grown-ups who coloured my childhood.
Except these people are different, they’re not even part of the circus. They’re just silly adults playing dress-up. Grown men and women behaving like children. Which, funnily enough, is what Halloween is now about.
I’m not entirely sure when it happened but somewhere along the line, Halloween has become less about the children and more about the parents. It never used to be like this. Time was when it was merely an opportunity for the little kids to stock up on sweets for the winter and the bigger kids to partake in a spot of mindless vandalism.
It wasn’t a big deal. There was little or no build-up. It was over almost as soon as it began. But now, like so much else in this country, it’s become Americanised.
Walk into one of those Halloween pop-up shops, specifically opened to cash in on this increasingly commercialised holiday, and you’ll see very few costumes for children. It’s all for the grown-ups; skimpy, sexy little numbers for the girls, cool, comic-book orientated stuff for the lads.
And such is the myriad of fancy-dress parties it’s probably not enough to purchase one costume, imagine being caught wearing the same outfit twice! It doesn’t bear thinking about.
You might say the whole thing is harmless. That I should lighten up a bit. That I should just order that Stormtrooper costume and join in the fun, grab hold of my inner child and refuse to let go.
But try telling me that when that friendly clown you met in Smyths, the one called Paul, the one with the funny blue hair, turns out to be a homicidal maniac, and that knife, the harmless prop he said was just completing his outfit, turns out to be real.
You have been warned.
