Irish Centre for Human Rights Blog

Dr Fidèle Mutwarasibo is an Independent Consultant on equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging;   Visiting Fellow at The Open University; a former member of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission; and a former Integration Manager at the Immigrant Council for Ireland.

During my many years of civic activism in Ireland, I often heard policymakers and opinion formers saying that immigration was a new phenomenon in the country. These sentiments were expressed most of the times in response to my insistence that we had to use lessons learnt in countries with immigration history to avoid the pitfalls of unsuccessful integration of migrants. Another point stressed by officialdom was that Ireland was a very tolerant society. Empathy with migrants according to opinion formers was linked to the country’s history of emigration. I was told on many occasions that Ireland had never been a colonial power and hence was more open compared to states that had colonised and at worse enslaved ancestors of their newcomers. When I arrived in Ireland a quarter of a century ago, the sight of a person of colour was a rarity. That is why people who looked like me living in Ireland were by and large considered to be tourists, international students, priests or nuns. Although those labels made most of us feel transient, there were positive. Over time new negative tags emerged including citizenship tourists, scroungers, among others.

By and large, my experience in Ireland, as a person of colour has been very positive. I have been the embodiment of successful integration as highlighted by the positions I have occupied. I am proud of my Irish heritage. Ireland is visibly more diverse than it was when I landed at Dublin airport for the first time in September 1995. In the normative sense, there is a long way to go in matching my self-identification as Irish with my categorisation by others. Readers, I am sure people will ask for the evidence to substantiate my claim. Suffice to say that, whenever disparaging remarks about ethnic minorities were made in my presence, I was told that it was not about me, as I was one of US. In other words, I am well incorporated but my identity is far from being integrated. I am of the view that one develops a full sense of belonging when there is an alignment between individual and group integration.  In essence, a time when there is no more need to prove my Irish credentials on an ongoing basis. In my social practices in Ireland, I attended and contributed to many discussions where the issues relating to identity and diversity took place. Two, in particular, come to my mind. These are a debate exploring why casual racism is okay in Irish society (University College Dublin) and another one looking at the importance of free speech even when it is offensive to others (Trinity College Dublin). The Black Lives Matter Social Movement made me wonder what I would contribute to such debates were they to happen today. The motivation to share my thought in this blog stems from an article that appeared in the Examiner on June 24^th, 2020 titled: Europol: Ireland hit by a surge of ‘right-wing extremism. The realisation that George Berkeley, whose association with Trinity College Dublin is legendary, was a slave owner, also played a part in my thought process.

The article made me realise that the progress I thought we had made in Ireland over time, was being undermined by the rise of activities of right-wing actors aimed at sawing divisions. It did not come as a surprise.  I had followed with interest what happened during the last local elections and most recent general elections’ campaigns in Ireland. During the 2019 local, European and the 2019 by-elections and the 2020 general elections campaigns, there was an increase in activities of the promoters of extreme-right views. Commentators went on to say that this was going to challenge the traditional centrist approach to politics in Ireland. I was horrified when a candidate for a seat in the European Parliament called for Ireland to withdraw from its international obligations relating to immigration. Aware first hand how the 1951 Geneva Convention on the status of refugee played in getting many refugees sanctuary in Ireland, I was very concerned. There were fears in many quarters that the 2020 general elections campaign was going to become an open season for racism and bigotry. These developments were not new in Irish politics. In the 2002 general elections, migrants were used as scapegoats in the campaign by Noel O’Flynn. He played the race card and suggested that migrants, refugees and asylum seekers were spongers, freeloaders and “screwing the system”.  I am sure readers, will wonder why these stories are spelt out in this blog post.

As a back story, on March 26^th, 2012, following a successful launch of the RED Network project in Ireland, I ended up on a receiving end of profanities including being called a “spokesnigger”. This unspeakable name-calling appeared and is still visible to this day on the Vanguard News Network Forum. I will spare the audience from exposure to the obscenity by refraining from sharing the link. Although I cannot tell the motivation of the personal attack, I would be of the view that it may have been in response to an incident reported on the RED Network portal a few days before the launch. The posting of an article titled: Outrage at Nazi flag that flew in a garden that featured in a newspaper on March 17^th, 2012 might have had something to do with my experience as the lead project in Ireland. In the recent past, I have been observing the social practices of people who have stepped up to articulate the relevance of the Black Lives Matter Social Movement in Ireland. Some of those activists have been subject of attacks on social media. On occasions, these experiences went beyond the main actors. I even ended up in the mix because of my previous association with the Immigrant Council of Ireland. At the beginning of July 2020, I found myself at receiving end of online hate when my twitter handle was tagged in an abusive post targeting a former work colleague.

Before concluding this post blog, I would like to spend a moment looking at solutions. We are born innocent. Racism is a social construct that people acquire over time. We can overcome our prejudices. For most professionals courses around unconscious bias would be familiar. Such courses should not be an end but a beginning. Likewise, diversity training is a good baseline but far from being a panacea.  Formal education and life long learning would offer better and lasting solutions to the challenges we face when it comes to identity in multi-ethnic societies. In terms of lifelong learning, a couple of things come to mind. Social scientists have been making a case for the contact hypothesis. The theory encourages people to interact with people of different backgrounds and in doing so, challenge their prejudices. Contact and interactions with members of the outer group, coupled with judging people as individuals rather than members of groups we ascribe them to, has the potential to help adults in getting on with each other irrespective of their backgrounds.  Let me finish with formal education, which in my opinion, is the essential tool to deal with intolerance. Ensuring that we have an inclusive curriculum will prepare the next generation to get on better with Ireland’s demographic changes and globalisation. The full education cycle should embrace the idea if we are to change and get on with everyone who has made Ireland their home historically or in the recent past. The universities, as centres of knowledge, will need to play their part. In my maiden public address as an activist in Ireland during the anti-racism workplace week in November 2001, I quoted someone who confessed to me that their upbringing and education had not prepared them to have a work colleague of colour. I hope that two decades on, the situation has changed for the better.