Peter Casey is wasting our time. The presidential candidate has doubled down, refusing to apologise for his objectionable comments on Travellers, and is barrelling along despite his dire performance in the polls. Casey is currently running a cartoonish attack ad video online, complete with American accent voice-over, aimed at an apparent decrease in Michael D Higgins’s public appearances. If only we could see and hear less of Casey.
Casey's latest rant, an article in the Sunday Independent, features a fantasy description of Ireland as a "welfare-dependent state" creating a "sense of entitlement that's become unaffordable". What aspect of welfare is he referring to, one wonders? In 2017 the total social welfare expenditure was just over €19.9 billion; 36.9 per cent was spent on pensions, by far the largest area of expenditure (the second-highest area of expenditure is illness, disability and caring, at 19.8 per cent). It's a brave wannabe politician that rails against pensioners. How does Casey intend to combat this dastardly group in society – which he, at 61, is just five years away from joining? Cop on.
Racism and discrimination aimed at Travellers has been going on for generations
While there is much about Casey’s lowest common denominator approach that doesn’t even merit a response, it is important for us all to combat the negativity he espouses. So Casey talks about a “sense of entitlement that’s become unaffordable”. Yet the most pronounced sense of entitlement comes from Casey himself. He is the entitled one, entering a campaign for the Irish presidency armed with arrogance and a combativeness that is demeaning the campaign even further. Yes, Peter Casey is wasting our time.
Terrible rhetoric
If anything good can come out of Casey’s tedious and ugly campaign, it’s that we once again acknowledge and seek to end the terrible rhetoric Travellers face for existing, it seems. Although Casey was roundly criticised for his comments, there remains a shoulder-shrugging in Ireland when it comes to “giving out” about Travellers in admonishments that stir up prejudice and needless resentments. Casey told a radio show he was tired of political correctness. This remedial raging against “political correctness” is what Sarah Schulman rightly calls “the classic supremacy response to demands of accountability”.
Racism and discrimination aimed at Travellers has been going on for generations. It only really started to become unacceptable in tandem with the social and cultural shifts that saw racism and discrimination being generally opposed. Realistically, we can only ever represent ourselves, and try to have empathy for others. Travellers can only represent themselves, and groups such as Pavee Point do great work in doing so. But what actions do settled people take to support Travellers when they come under attack? What initiatives does the State activate to create a dialogue between this ethnic group and others in Ireland?
Casey saying he received messages of support for his statements shows that some people welcome taking aim at a discriminated-against community
The Irish attitude and policy towards ethnic and racial diversity and integration has always been a cross between doing nothing and hoping it will all work out, along with a sanctimonious stance that because we were oppressed, it’s somehow impossible for us to in turn be oppressors. We were victims so we can’t be perpetrators. We were discriminated against so we can’t be racist. Clearly this is not the case. One of the reasons we don’t hear more about racism in Ireland is because those who experience it lack the platforms and access to a media that is largely monocultural.
Settled privilege
There is often an argument for exposing such underlying sentiments, as though we need to pull this type of ignorance out into the cold light of day in order to deal with it. But that’s easy for someone like me to say, someone who is not a member of the Traveller community, and who will not feel the ugliness of anti-Traveller rhetoric so acutely thanks to the privilege I have as a settled person.
Casey saying he received messages of support for his statements shows that some people welcome taking aim at a discriminated-against community. We need to face that, because we know it’s true. You still hear the word “knacker” casually thrown about as an insult in Ireland.
One of the most sickening displays of anti-Traveller sentiment in recent years was the protest that some residents held when those made homeless by a fire in Carrickmines – where five adults and five children died – were set to be rehoused. The anti-Traveller sentiment was already there, and some residents just needed a platform for theirs. Imagine being the kind of person who sought to compound the trauma of a grieving community and families? It’s something that illustrated the inability some have to extend empathy to Travellers, even when their lives have been torn apart. Have we honestly tackled that attitude?
We have a duty as an electorate to defy this kind of politics at every turn. In many democracies, we are seeing very clearly the consequences of inflammatory rhetoric, from the coded insinuations and shorthand known as “dog-whistling” to outright racism. Casey’s opinions on Travellers are not welcome in modern Ireland. He may see Trump-ing it up as an edgy tactic, but he is an embarrassment to the campaign and himself.