Another roof torched, a family nearly burned alive, and the same rotten excuses bubbling up from the gutters. Drogheda’s just the latest in a grim roll call, Ashtown, Donegal, Mayo, Coolock, Limerick, Sandwith Street, Finglas, Wicklow, the list is endless on a map of fear stitched together by fire and hate. The same old poison dressed up as concern, peddled by grifters who’ve never known a hard day’s work or a hungry child.
Let’s call it what it is: racist arson, plain and simple. Working-class people turned against working-class people, while the real bastards the landlords, the speculators, the polished suits who gutted housing and sold off the city sit back and laugh. The State can’t wash its hands of this either. Their silence and their cowardice built the kindling. They let desperation fester until the mob lit the match.
Let’s call it what it is: racist arson, plain and simple. Working-class people turned against working-class people, while the real bastards the landlords, the speculators, the polished suits who gutted housing and sold off the city sit back and laugh. The State can’t wash its hands of this either. Their silence and their cowardice built the kindling. They let desperation fester until the mob lit the match.
This isn’t Ireland’s spirit. It’s the sickness that grows when solidarity is strangled and fear is fed. We’re better than this. We have to be. No tricolour ever stood for burning families out of their beds. The real republic we’re fighting for is one where no one’s left to sleep in the cold or run from the flames.
The arsonists, the agitators, the cowards hiding behind flags and Facebook pages: you don’t speak for us. And to the people of Drogheda, to every worker, migrant, and neighbour who’s had enough of the hate, keep your heads up and your hearts hard. The fire might rage for a night, but solidarity, real solidarity, burns longer.
⏩Pádraig Drummond is an anti-racism activist.
Are the People allowed to have a discussion on Immigration matters and if so would the Government listen?
ReplyDelete"the real bastards the landlords, the speculators, the polished suits who gutted housing and sold off the city sit back and laugh."
And this is why a Government should be afraid of the People not the other way around. While I agree with what you say it's largely the Governments responsibility to control the Nations borders.
There is a discussion going on virtually every second of the day about immigration and housing. The government listening is not the problem but how it responds.
DeleteA government afraid of the people will be in hock to the demagogues and populists. A people afraid of the government will be overly disruptive or overly acquiescent. Best to reduce the amount of fear in any society.
A national government in theory should be responsible for the area its governs. That area is delimited by borders. The ability of national governments to control their territory breaks down when global phenomena are at play. Migration is a one such thing, climate another. Autarky and retreat from the international community does not leap out as a solution.
People have a right to question any government policy including immigration. It is when people are targeted for hate as they often are that the hand of the fascist and racist can be seen.
Some of the online support for trying to murder the families in Drogheda was pure hatred. It is like something from the Goebbels era.
Steve, the People discuss immigration everyday on the bully pulpit of X, Tik Tok, Facebook and all the rest.
DeleteHow does the Government respond? Is it to do absolutely nothing like in the UK? (Save attack the people who try to discuss it)
DeleteBarry social media is a cesspit of misinformation sown by those who want nothing more than the people to fight amongst themselves to take the spotlight away from what they are doing.
Well said AM
ReplyDeleteSteve, the government's tightening up on Indefinite Leave to Remain and bans on asylum seekers working is hardly doing nothing.
ReplyDeleteBarry,
DeleteThe Government SAYS that's what they're doing. And who pays for the Asylum seekers? What countries are they escaping that they face persecution from and fear for their lives? They all seem to be healthy males between 18-30. Where are the women and children?