BRIAN Feeney’s standardising of loyalists denies realities about sections within that ‘community’ whose anti-racist actions and commitments undermine his most recent stereotyping. If Brian were to frequent himself with those activities, he may be less compelled to homogenise the actions of some as a reading of the many.
In the past loyalists prevented the BNP from attending events in Northern Ireland and de-platformed, even before that was a word, Nick Griffin from an event in Antrim. They have also stood guard outside the homes of victims of racism. Despite such actions, Brian can only point to the “…long association of loyalist terrorist groups, particularly the UDA, with neo-nazism… and notions of racial supremacy”.
Data on racist crimes and incidents finds that the three council areas with the lowest ratio between those criminalities and the share of the population who are non-white are Lisburn and Castlereagh, Ards and North Down and Mid Ulster. A feature of all three is the tireless work of republicans, such as Bernadette McAliskey, and loyalists to challenge prejudice from within.
To speak primarily of insidious loyalist actions weakens much-needed examination of how racism is now structured and reproduced.
The laziness of analysis around racism – north and south – is both as astounding as it is harmful. Broadening the debate beyond loyalist-infused racism is vital if we are to challenge xenophobia across the island.
In 2018 Eurostat found that black respondents were nearly three times as likely to have experienced racism in Ireland than their counterparts in the UK.
In the recent European elections around 15 per cent voted for the populist right. This following hundreds of anti-immigration protests and violence.
Importantly, the ability to counter the emergence of that racism was impeded in a society that remains uncomfortable with realities that confound a national hubris committed to Irish exceptionalism wrapped in a fabled understanding of a welcoming nation. Racism’s rise rendering the idea of a post-nationalist Ireland as myth akin to the recent denting of British multiculturalism.
The danger from far-right groups in Europe is that they receive funds and resources from nefarious states and groups beyond the EU in a bid to undermine democratic consensus. Ireland’s right, emerging as ultra-nationalism, is linked to the same global conspiracies, myths and fictions played out in Britain, France, Germany and Italy.
Racism was always a nationalist ideology but now it is a global movement. Such politics is not local.
It may appear as such in Dublin or Belfast, but it is linked to transnational social media and other strategies.
