Illuminated by the burning fires of Birmingham, London and France, I wrote a column about immigration last week. It had no racist content because I am not a racist. To judge someone by their race is the mark of a fool or a bigot. However, I did not say so at the time, because one shouldn't have to profess virtue endlessly in order to discuss matters of national importance, writes Kevin Myers
Michael D. Higgins TD issued a statement in reply to that column, which statement was partially quoted in The Irish Times but published in full on the Labour Party website. It was headlined: "Myers scrapes the barrel again: this time on race during anti-racism workplace week". It continued. "The Irish Times through Kevin Myers has, once again, reached the sewer level of journalism. And once again, no doubt, The Irish Times at editorial level will stay silent. The contents of his column today go beyond his usually crafted cowardice, staying one step on the safe side of prosecution for incitement to hatred or racism."
Now this is an actionable allegation. It reeks of ill-will. It accuses me of habitual professional cowardice, when my job calls for the very opposite. Worst of all, it clearly implies that I am a racist who is going as far as I possibly can to incite racism and hatred, without falling foul of the law.
Needless to say, Mr Higgins was quite unable to produce any examples of racism or racist implications from my column, because there were none. The rest of his statement consisted of a meandering pile of intellectual inconsequence and sanctimonious drivel such as those who have ever had the misfortune of being publicly addressed by him will be well acquainted with.
He quoted this section from my column. "George Bernard Shaw was once propositioned by a beautiful woman who said: 'Imagine our child with your brains and my looks'. He replied, 'But Madam, but what if it had your brains and my looks?' And multiculturalism can work just like that. Mixing British with Bangladeshi doesn't necessarily mean you get an Islamic Tom Stoppard, but a skinhead thug call Ahmed.
"Irish crossed with Moroccan might give you Riverbellydance: or equally, it can produce Seán, the suicide bomber."
Higgins then asked: "Does The Irish Times stand over this kind of writing? Many have been asking for some time what principle of balance requires such gratuitously insulting and hurtful language. Certainly the anodyne and dry editorial on 'Fighting Racism' could hardly be considered provocative."
Now this paragraph would disgrace the pen of a third-rate undergraduate. It contains no cohering logic; its three sentences are utterly unconnected, as if they have been plucked at random from what passes as thought in that preening, self-regarding organ, the Higgins mind.
Yet from its largely witless melange, one is able to identify a key element: the language of feeling. This has invariably been the weapon of choice for the defenders of the politically correct. If they see something they disagree with, why, they are promptly, hurt, offended, insulted. Their sensibilities alone are the touchstone of whether or not something is acceptable.
But what is gratuitously insulting or hurtful about telling the truth? And the truth is that the cultural fusions in Britain have produced violent youths of Asian background who behave like English skinheads. No? Then ask the family of Isiah Young-Sam, the Afro-Caribbean man knifed to death by Asians for the crime of being black. And though we have not so far seen a suicide bomber called Sean, we have certainly seen one called Richard.
Yet the Higgins statement, for all its defamatory nature, raises a vital question. Why would henceforth anyone go to the bother of discussing race and immigration in this country in a serious way? Almost nothing is to be gained by it, as poor Mark Dooley, contributor to the Sunday Independent, found out when he was invited on to the Late Late Show, where he was ambushed by Fintan O'Toole and Shalini Sinha, and roundly and triumphantly denounced for his racism.
Now, as it happens, I was subsequently invited to a discussion on racism and immigration by the Smurfit Business School. I asked, who else was to be on the panel? Why, Fintan O'Toole and Shalini Sinha, of course. Which pretty much sums up how debate is conducted in this country. Debate becomes a morality contest in which the winners are the side which can most loudly declare their love of immigration as they denounce sceptics as racists.
Naturally, I declined the invitation.
Official figures show that approaching 10 per cent of our population are foreign-born. But immigrants for the most part are in their 20s and 30s - so our immigrant profile in that age group will be vastly greater. What is it? Thirty per cent? Forty per cent? And with immigration running at least 100,000 a year the proportion is bound to grow rapidly.
So: are we going to discuss this extraordinary phenomenon? Or are we to watch it in mute piety, silencing anyone who raises questions about the long-term impact of these population changes with shrill Higginsesque shrieks of "racist"?