Poison of racism alive in Ireland

It will be over a week since Fine Gael Councillor Darren Scully spouted race hate on radio when this column is published. At the time of writing, he is still a member of the main party of government in the Irish state.
The latest information available states that a decision on his membership will be taken halfway through the month of December. This will be a good month after he made his statements over the airways. This is a clear indication of how seriously Fine Gael is taking his poisonous words. The fact that he was not immediately dismissed from the party and told that he was not welcome to be a member says a lot about the ideals the party and its executive holds to be its own.
What Councillor Scully said cannot be dismissed as mere ignorance. It was a shameful affirmation of a stinking undercurrent of hatred that resides just below the surface in Irish culture. The former mayor said that he would no longer represent the concerns of “Black Africans” in his constituency and then proceeded to ascribe a set of traits to that diverse group of people based entirely on their skin colour.
He did not make comments regarding any other groups from that continent based on the levels of pigment in their skin so we must assume that he holds only those of a darker hue in contempt. We will hopefully never be privy to his thoughts on all the African people descended from lighter skinned forefathers or those with a South American, Middle Eastern or Asian heritage. Neither did the elected representative define what he meant by black, he merely unleashed the statement and left it there.
As was said above, the bald ignorance of the statement is no reason to dismiss it as the ranting of a hardened bigot. This statement hides a far deeper and uglier truth. This man seeks election to public office through the votes of his peers. He seeks the nomination to stand through his party and in both of these cases we have all seen examples of people who will gladly reject their own principles and lie down on a great number of issues in order to stay within the fold.
This means that Mr Scully is either so trenchant in his racist beliefs regarding “Black Africans” that he is willing to sacrifice himself politically to stand up for them or we must consider the sickening alternative.
We can now see that this individual was so confident in the belief that both his party and his public would revel in his racism and support him in it that he made his public statements with confidence. This will not have happened overnight.
Clearly this man has been so reassured through his contacts with the voting public in Naas and his party that he felt they would be with him on this one. Perhaps he felt it was a little edgy to actually say ­publically what he had discussed ­privately with colleagues and constituents on numerous occasions before and that it might stand him in good political stead to shoot his mouth off while basking in the coverage-rich office of town mayor.     
In early October the Immigrant Council of Ireland released a report, which detailed the prevalence of racism in the daily lives of immigrants in the Dublin area. It makes for dismal reading and illustrates the levels of discrimination and hatred that people are facing daily on both institutional and personal levels.
When the statistics are laid bare, as they are in this document, they can be a little difficult to digest. When considered in the context of Scully’s statements, they make a lot more sense. On a daily basis in Ireland, people’s lives are being made miserable because of something as insignificant as the colour of their skin.
Why this kind of hatred has continued to exist is an interesting question and not one I can claim to have any single answer to.
When seeking the latest stories regarding the disgraced former mayor of Naas, this afternoon I did stumble across something, which I felt, might be a clue. A fresh report on the website of the Herald detailed the torment Councillor Scully has suffered since he made his racist comments. The article is an interesting one for a number of reasons. Quoting only a “family source” the piece essentially pleads for his political future saying that all he wants is a “second chance from the public”.
It speaks darkly of death threats against Mr Scully but never mentions if these are being investigated by the gardaí. In fact, the only mention of the gardaí is in relation to their investigation of Mr Scully for his comments.
The article is also careful to state that the “heartbroken” politician’s comments were “branded” racist after he made them. They were not branded anything; they were racist in the extreme.
The only thing, which remains to be decided, is if they constitute a breach of incitement of hatred legislation. This is a matter first for the gardaí and then for the courts if the gardaí agree that there has been a breach.
It should be acknowledged, to avoid any misunderstanding, that if this man has been subjected to death threats then those responsible should also face the full force of the law for their actions.
Bigotry based on ignorance and plain hatred trickles down through generations. Just like knowledge and beliefs are imparted from parents to children so the perpetuation of racism in politics, the workplace and everyday life is a bad sign for the future of the nation.
A statement such as that made by Councillor Scully is a remnant of a terrible past but also an indicator that the poison of racism is alive and well in Irish communities. Ireland is not alone in this but unlike many other areas of building the future of the nation, Ireland is free to choose how this will play out. Europe may control the purse strings but it does not control the minds of people.
These must be made up on an individual basis and the kind of hatred and ignorance vocalised by the former mayor of Naas can be banished by the population, on an individual basis, rejecting it in no uncertain terms.