"We the undersigned wish to protest at the torrent of abuse that has been stoked up against asylum seekers. The most vulnerable people fleeing persecution, oppression and war are being blamed for the ills of Irish society. . .Instead of attacking refugees, we should condemn politicians who led an opulent and corrupt lifestyle while they told the rest of us to `tighten our belts'. . .We particularly condemn attempts to associate refugees with medical illness. People from divergent countries with different experiences should not be dehumanised in this way. . .We believe that asylum-seekers deserve our compassion and help."
Thus runs the Declaration against Racism which has been signed by 10,000 ordinary people who are opposed to racism, plus, of course, the usual suspects - the literary types, the left, and, naturally, our kool, right-on, showbiz dudes. All very predictable. Thirty years ago, comparable petitional pieties were being uttered by their English equivalents as the tide of Commonwealth immigration rose cross-channel.
Anti-racism
Now, I'm not opposed to anti-racism. Quite the reverse. Racism is a foulness in the human spirit which must never be allowed to triumph. But it is, alas, a widespread foulness, and because it is so easily aroused, we must be careful how we address it, for we will never ever defeat racism with falsehoods or prating humbug.
Of what group is the Declaration Against Racism speaking? Solely and exclusively "asylum-seekers" or "refugees". But we all know these terms are largely false; they are simply congenial and convenient euphemisms for illegal immigrants. Few of our recent guests are genuinely seeking "asylum" - that is, immunity from seizure - or are refugees who have been forced to flee their homelands. Far from condemning such illegal immigrants, I applaud their enterprise in getting here. Since we have crippling labour shortages, my instinct is to give them work visas, and to start the process of naturalisation immediately, regardless of race, country or origin.
Yet that in itself is a piety, because I live in the middle of the countryside, and it's unlikely that large numbers of Africans are going to be my neighbours. But they will be - indeed, already are - neighbours to large numbers of Dubliners. Now there has never in the history of the world an occasion when two ethnic groups have begun to mix for the first time without misunderstandings, mutual dislike, cultural disdain. If large numbers of Afro-Caribbean people manage to settle in areas of Dublin which have been poor, working-class, white, Irish and Catholic for centuries, and do so entirely without friction, it will be an utterly unprecedented miracle.
Mythology
Such friction normally expresses itself predictably - they're taking our jobs, they're taking our women, they're on the dole, et cetera. Amid all the spurious mythology of such prattle, the last thing the inner-city natives need are sermons from castles in Dalkey about their duty towards "asylum-seekers" - which, as we all know full well, is what the vast majority of our immigrants are not. Moreover, why are we enjoined to condemn corrupt politicians who led an "opulent and corrupt lifestyle while they told the rest of us to tighten our belts"? The corruptness of our politicians is irrelevant, a sanctimonious red herring to throw into this simmering pot of public holier-than-thouness. By the by: are the members of U2 perfectly at ease condemning the opulence and corruption of politicians? When they've finished telling us that they are, maybe they would tell us how much tax they pay a year. No doubt they're utterly law-abiding, but multi-millionaires with clever accountants should be slow to deliver sermons from the Mount to anyone.
But stay! Who else is giving us sermons on public duties but two men who were named in the Northern Assembly as members of the IRA Army Council. What? Am I to receive anti-racist homilies from leaders of a movement which has not repented by the merest molecule of a truly atrocious sectarian war which took thousands of lives? Am I to listen to condemnations of racism from men whose comrades blew up Protestants pubs, machine-gunned Protestant workmen, butchered two impoverished Pakistanis for the crime of serving tea to British soldiers, murdered British businessmen for the crime of being British, and for whose supporters the very word " Brit" is the foulest term of racial abuse? By gum, this is rich stuff indeed.
AIDS tests
The petition condemns "attempts to associate refugees with medical illness". What? Is the state not to give AIDS tests to immigrants? With glutinous PC circumlocution, the petition declares that "people from divergent countries with different experiences should not be dehumanised in this way". But are we not told often enough, perhaps even by some of those who signed this petition, that we are not doing enough about AIDS in Africa? Are we now to establish parity of neglect and wait for full-blown AIDS to develop here before acting? And then how would U2, in their sermons from the turrets and embattlements in Dalkey, describe the State's failure to treat infected people properly when they first arrived? As dehumanising, perhaps?
A black Englishman now resident in Dublin told me recently that he had never personally encountered racism of any kind; but he thought all the talk about racism and how-horrible-we-Irish-all-are might exaggerate whatever racism there actually is. I don't know, either way. But I do know we will never tackle this problem properly so long as we prefer to posture with weasel pieties than to speak the plain truth plainly.