Immigration And Language
10/09/08 22:37 Filed in: Politics
Immigration is a touchy subject at the best of times,
and it doesn’t take all that much to have people
jumping up and down, pointing fingers and screaming
“Racist!!” at political opponents.
It is a serious issue that merits a wide-ranging and open debate, but sadly this has little prospect of happening, because of the tendency for hysteria to drown out rational discussion. It is only in the last ten years or so that we have seen a shift from net emigration to net immigration, and in that time, the number of so-called “non-nationals” (or “foreigners” in the old money) living here is now roughly 10% of the population. Anyone who says that this isn’t an issue for Irish society clearly has their head in the clouds.
A poll published in detail in De Paper today (and touched upon in others) shows that people have concerns about the issue of immigration, with 66% wanting a clampdown on future immigration. Now does that make us a nation of racists? Hardly, given that 54% believe that the immigration experience for Ireland so far has been a largely positive one.
Fine Gael TDs Brian Hayes and Leo Varadkar have both found themselves in hot water recently by airing opinions on the issue. I’m not going to comment much either way on the merits or otherwise of their proposals. The mistake both men made was to use clumsy language. They both used words that have such negative connotations that it immediately brought opprobrium upon both their heads. For Hayes, the offending word was “segregation” and for Varadkar it was “repatriation.”
Segregation is a word that is associated with apartheid in South Africa or with the open racism of the southern states of the US up until the 1960s. But what Hayes was suggesting was that children of immigrants who arrive in a new school in Ireland with little or no English, should initially be given intensive and exclusive teaching of English before they join the mainstream school curriculum.
The word “repatriation” conjures up images of the National Front or the BNP in the UK, demanding that immigrants and even British-born children of immigrants be forcibly sent back to the country of their birth. Leo Varadkar’s proposal was a voluntary scheme for unemployed non-nationals, similar to the one in operation in Spain. Fianna Fáil have jumped upon it and have accused the Dublin TD of racism. Mary Hanafin came to the conclusion that Varadkar had it in for “the Africans.” Her logic was that as it could not apply to immigrants from the EU, then the target had to be “the Africans” and therefore, it was racist.
If we can’t allow ourselves to have a mature and open debate about immigration, without the attendant hysteria, then the issue will fester, as it has done in several European countries already. Here in Ireland, we have the luxury of being able to learn from the mistakes of our EU partners. However if we choose to ignore the lessons that are there to be learned, then we risk making the very same mistakes ourselves. This will benefit nobody, not least the immigrants living among us, and those who will come here in the future.
It is a serious issue that merits a wide-ranging and open debate, but sadly this has little prospect of happening, because of the tendency for hysteria to drown out rational discussion. It is only in the last ten years or so that we have seen a shift from net emigration to net immigration, and in that time, the number of so-called “non-nationals” (or “foreigners” in the old money) living here is now roughly 10% of the population. Anyone who says that this isn’t an issue for Irish society clearly has their head in the clouds.
A poll published in detail in De Paper today (and touched upon in others) shows that people have concerns about the issue of immigration, with 66% wanting a clampdown on future immigration. Now does that make us a nation of racists? Hardly, given that 54% believe that the immigration experience for Ireland so far has been a largely positive one.
Fine Gael TDs Brian Hayes and Leo Varadkar have both found themselves in hot water recently by airing opinions on the issue. I’m not going to comment much either way on the merits or otherwise of their proposals. The mistake both men made was to use clumsy language. They both used words that have such negative connotations that it immediately brought opprobrium upon both their heads. For Hayes, the offending word was “segregation” and for Varadkar it was “repatriation.”
Segregation is a word that is associated with apartheid in South Africa or with the open racism of the southern states of the US up until the 1960s. But what Hayes was suggesting was that children of immigrants who arrive in a new school in Ireland with little or no English, should initially be given intensive and exclusive teaching of English before they join the mainstream school curriculum.
The word “repatriation” conjures up images of the National Front or the BNP in the UK, demanding that immigrants and even British-born children of immigrants be forcibly sent back to the country of their birth. Leo Varadkar’s proposal was a voluntary scheme for unemployed non-nationals, similar to the one in operation in Spain. Fianna Fáil have jumped upon it and have accused the Dublin TD of racism. Mary Hanafin came to the conclusion that Varadkar had it in for “the Africans.” Her logic was that as it could not apply to immigrants from the EU, then the target had to be “the Africans” and therefore, it was racist.
If we can’t allow ourselves to have a mature and open debate about immigration, without the attendant hysteria, then the issue will fester, as it has done in several European countries already. Here in Ireland, we have the luxury of being able to learn from the mistakes of our EU partners. However if we choose to ignore the lessons that are there to be learned, then we risk making the very same mistakes ourselves. This will benefit nobody, not least the immigrants living among us, and those who will come here in the future.