Sarah Harte: Our anti-racism plan must not be destined for the proverbial dusty shelf

Certainly, last week was a boost for the far-right. It started with the election of far-right president Javier Milei in Argentina. This was followed by Geert Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom winning 38 seats in the Netherlands election on an anti-immigration platform.

Then we had riots in Dublin, supposedly sparked by the grim stabbing of three children and a school care assistant outside a primary school. The riots were nothing to do with that stabbing. Those actors were waiting in the wings for some excuse to let loose.

We are now at a juncture where we need to come down hard on right-wing thugs and send a strong message through harsh sentences that this behaviour won’t be tolerated. As the migrant community fears going about their daily business or even just going out on the streets in Dublin, it’s time to get real about racism and anti-migrant feelings.

Migrants do not need virtue-signalling by privileged white saviour characters proving how compassionate they are. What they need is concrete action.

Our relatively new National Action Plan Against Racism (NAPAR) must be properly funded and implemented. The four-year plan was launched with much fanfare earlier this year with the aim of acknowledging and addressing the impacts of racism.

It has a laudable vision and clear objectives to help stamp out racism in this country. But if it is to be effective, this plan will need to become a living, breathing part of all of our lives. Otherwise, it is destined for the proverbial dusty shelf.

One assertion in the NAPAR plan is that there is a need to counter discrimination in law enforcement, specifically racial or ethnic profiling by An Garda Síochána.

This week, Justice Minister Helen McEntee announced her determination to fast-track controversial facial recognition technology (FRT) legislation, which will be of concern to human rights bodies here and internationally. These bodies have consistently questioned the accuracy of the technology when it comes to identifying black people and consider the technology could bring serious risks to fundamental human rights.

There would be a bitter irony if we were to introduce technology to deal with racist right-wing actors who foment anti-migrant feelings, only for that technology—as an article earlier this year in American Scientific put it—to “lead to increased racial profiling” and to “worsen racial inequities in policing”.

Cracking down on far-right agitators who operate outside the bounds of the law and incite others to do so will logically entail forcing social media companies to moderate hate content on their platforms more effectively.

The average revenues at the Irish arm of Meta, which owns Facebook, and Instagram, reported last week to be around €1.1 billion per week. The owner of X, Elon Musk, is the richest man in the world with a net worth of over $240bn. It’s fair to say that they have the necessary resources to ensure their platforms are not broadcasting hate speech.

We also need to figure out the masterminds behind the riots and other far-right outings. Because the architects are not the simple-minded, violent dupes who marauded around the streets, the foolish foot soldiers who weren’t loved enough as children.

A right-wing blog somebody sent to me was eyebrow-raising. What stood out was the cynical but clever insight into how to manipulate politicians and use them to further their cause. The anonymous writer explains how “mainstreaming”, getting their toxic ideas into the body politic by manipulating politicians, is recognised as a means of breaking into public consciousness.

Over time, politicians begin to echo the talking points, soon claiming them as their own.

In daily life, casual throwaway racism is creeping into the conversation, meaning carping about migrants with a suggestion that they are taking something from us or that they are a bunch of idlers coming to fleece the Irish State. On the contrary, migrants are ambitious people who make the difficult decision to leave their homeland, hoping for a better life often venturing out with their children into the unknown.

God knows plenty of us—our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents—did just that. For centuries we left Ireland looking to make a new life.

Some of our children are doing that now because they will never own their own home, or even be able to rent one. So, they have gone elsewhere to forge a life, and hopefully, they will be accepted and welcomed unlike some of their antecedents who were treated like dogs.

In post-war England, signs outside businesses said, “No Irish, no blacks, no dogs”. Oral history suggests that these signs persisted into the 60s. As Irish people, we should know what it’s like not to be welcome.

As for the rise of the far-right here, hysteria serves no one but complacency is not our friend. How many truly bad things have happened in the world because people were asleep at the wheel?

Last week, I discussed the election result with an older Dutch man who shook his head sadly. The Netherlands had a reputation for being moderate so he was shocked, but Geert Wilders’ ascendancy had been coming for some time.

The country has a housing crisis and pressure on public services, so while there are marked differences there are also certain parallels with Ireland.

Next year’s elections are going to be important. This month we were warned by the US State Department about Russia attempting to interfere in next year’s elections. Who knows who could be funding the right-wing thugs who orchestrated last week’s riots?

But we retain a degree of agency. When we make our mark on our ballot papers in the privacy of a booth next year—be that in a local, European, or General Election—we have a shot at deciding what kind of Ireland we want. Let’s hope we choose an Ireland for all.