Obama success unlikely to aid Irish minority candidates

BARACK OBAMA'S inspirational election is unlikely to have much long-term effect on the political prospects of minority candidates in Ireland, it was argued last night.

Dr Abel Ugba, a lecturer at the University of East London and co-founder of Metro Éireann, a Dublin-based newspaper, said Mr Obama's election had reawakened the aspirations of black prospective candidates for office in Ireland and elsewhere.

However, he cautioned against presuming that events in the US would presage similar change in Europe.

"I'm not at all optimistic that many of these visions will translate into political actions and achievements because the history and circumstances of the emergence of Barack Obama are different from those that exist in many so-called multicultural societies, including Ireland."

Dr Ugba, who was contributing to the Seamus Heaney lecture series at St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin, last night, predicted many minority candidates would stand in next year's local elections but this would be followed by a sense of "deflation".

"Councillors of African origin have been elected, and the first African mayor has completed his tenure.

"But alongside these commendable achievements is the realisation by increasing numbers of Africans that theirs is still very much a dance that is taking place on the periphery and, more worryingly, that access to the mainstream will be difficult if not impossible."

Dr Ugba's recent research on Africans living in Ireland suggested that a general sense of optimism and belonging, evident four years ago, had waned against a backdrop of economic decline and high immigration from EU states.

In a survey he carried out in 2004 among 200 African immigrants in Dublin, 66 per cent wanted to make Ireland their home.

Over 57 per cent said they were "happy" in Dublin, with just 1.2 per cent professing themselves "unhappy" here.

Focus group research in recent months gave a sense of creeping pessimism, however.

These interviews with Nigerians living in five different towns and cities showed that optimism was ebbing, even if there was little desire to return to their native country.

The period 2004-2008 saw high immigration from eastern and central Europe, and Dr Ugba noted a feeling among some Africans that they were viewed differently as a result.

"Many of them felt there was a hierarchy in terms of migrant groups, and that as soon as the new EU members started migrating to Ireland, the African communities felt they became the less wanted."