Good. I'm glad that this newspaper has recently dedicated so many column inches to describing the intelligence, acuity, enterprise, honesty, decency and personal hygiene of Travellers, with one columnist apparently declaring that the sole reason for the problems of the Traveller community is the bigotry of the settled people. One can only express wonder that if this is the true state of affairs, why the obstinately stupid rednecks who make up the majority of the population in this Republic have not disappeared down a black hole of total poverty, while the Travellers, by their hard-work and their intelligence have not risen to the very top of society.
Of course, not everybody who lives where the two communities meet - in remote housing estates on the edges of our towns and cities - reads The Irish Times. So such people will not have read that the people they live so closely to are the paragons described in this newspaper: which is perhaps a shame. Though no doubt they were already aware of these numerous qualities. On the other hand, nor will they have read that the reason so many of their mobile neighbours are living in dirt and poverty, without water or sewerage, is because of the bigotry that fills the hearts of settled people: i.e. them.
Confusion
The entire question of Travellers within the broader community has been utterly and - probably irredeemably - confused by the fact that Travellers are far too often not represented by themselves. Self-appointed spokesmen or women arrive from what we might call the Stayput community, announce that henceforward they will speak on behalf of Travellers, and then present themselves to the media as fully fledged and authentic representatives of an oppressed people.
These people had read their sociology texts; they had pondered upon their Marcuse, their Fanon. And so into an already complex social interaction betwen two sets of people with two sets of values, words like racism, culture, ethnicity were introduced, but all in one-direction only. The very people who are normally the beneficiaries of a subMarxist lexicon of sympathy, the working classes on the outskirts of cities, are within this new dispensation transformed into racist bigots, without culture, without ethnicity, without authentic pride in identity. The intellectual climate is such that no self-respecting broadsheet liberal newspaper would write at length about the deep internal problems faced by certain groups within the Travellers community: the chronic alcoholism, the abominable levels of violence, towards both women and men, life-expectancies shortened to Third World levels by alcoholic self-abuse and homicide, and a State-dependency now so ingrained that it is perceived as an inalienable and perpetual right, with no perception of, or regard for, the sensitivities and the rights and the culture of the Stayput community they live both amongst and off.
The complexity of the Traveller society has been lost within a welter of self-pity by certain Travellers and the witless but nonetheless discriminating self-loathing of certain Stayputters, who see bigotry throughout their community - but not of course in their own virtuous hearts. They know travellers. They love Travellers. They respect Travellers' ethnicity, their culture, their rights.
Colonisation
This is a modern version of the New Christy Minstrels, in which white men dressed up as black men, and said: "We am talkin jess like you, Sambo, and lawdy lookee here, here cum dat old black mamma o' mine". It is colonising Travellers' real experiences and real world with a vocabulary gained from the textbooks and the lives of the bien-pensant Stayputters. It is bogus through and through; but even though it is bogus, it doesn't mean that the waters in which we must swim together, already muddy with confusion and animosity, are not made more confused, with more animus.
We can read fine liberal reports about the spirit, cultural dynamism and energy of Travellers: but part of liberal Ireland knows that a larger truth is evident every summer, when the faction fights start again, and the knives and knuckle-dusters come out, and young men's lives are ended by the cold steel of a blade or the hot iron of gunfire. You can try telling the people who live alongside the caravan encampments that these events are occurring within because of the bigotry of them, the Stayputters: but you know something? They won't fall on their knees begging for forgiveness: they'll say, go on - pull the other one.
Complex
The Traveller issue is complex as all human problems are complex. Some Travellers - indeed many - are highly successful hardworking entrepreneurs; as anyone who has ever attended a Traveller wedding or funeral and seen the lines of 4 x 4 vehicles can testify. And as any garda who has waved down a Traveller vehicle can equally testify, few enough Travellers bother to insure or tax their vehicles.
And this is normal. Itinerant peoples anywhere seldom obey the laws of the community they are nomads within; and the mutual disdain between the two is a commonplace. Ask the urban Palestinian what he thinks of his Bedouin brother or vice versa: ask the Romanian Catholic what she thinks of her gypsy sister, or vice versa.
Common disdain is what Nomad and Stayputter truly hold in common, in all cultures everywhere. Accord is difficult at the best times; it is a path strewn with tears and misunderstandings. What does not make accommodation or understanding possible is if either side claims - or is accorded by a liberal intelligentsia - a monopoly of moral superiority.
In other words, people who live in affluent regions, far away from halting sites, improvised or formal, should mind their tongue when tempted to give sanctimonious advice on tolerance to those lucky enough to live beside halting sites.