Blog and website by Ronit Lentin, a political sociologist, writer and an antiracist activist.
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Asylum seekers are not ‘things’
CONTINUE READING: Asylum seekers are not ‘things’In July 2010 the government of the Republic of Ireland began a review of its policies of dispersal and direct provision for asylum seekers. This may sound positive particularly in light of the criticism by the Free Legal Advice Centre (FLAC) in 2003, that the direct provision scheme is ‘gravely detrimental of the human rights…
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To Gaza: When is self defence not self defence
CONTINUE READING: To Gaza: When is self defence not self defenceEveryone who saw the brutal treatment of the passengers of the freedom flotilla attempting to break the blockade of Gaza, and heard the Israeli propaganda machine claiming this was done in ‘self defence’ should understand that this self justification has a long history. As an Israeli child, I grew up on myths of ‘self defence’…
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Is Irish antiracism re-awakening?
CONTINUE READING: Is Irish antiracism re-awakening?On 20 April 2010 I attended a roundtable run by the Equality Authority in Dublin to discuss antiracism. While several of us attending have sat in similar roundtables and other forums for the past 15 years to discuss racism and antiracism, Toyosi Shitta-bey’s killing on Good Friday has clearly moved the EA – curtailed and…
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Minarets and goldfish
CONTINUE READING: Minarets and goldfishReligion is fast replacing other ideologies such as Marxism-Leninism and anti-colonialism as determining social and political relations in our postmodern world. One result of the post September 11 world has been the demonization of Islam and the ‘politics of fear’ around the discourse of Islamic fundamentalism. This is despite the fact that fundamentalism, that potent…
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Race and State in contemporary Ireland
CONTINUE READING: Race and State in contemporary IrelandPaper presented at the ‘Better Questions’ seminar series in Seomra Spraoi, Dublin, Tuesday 19 January 2010 Introduction ‘Only one world… Let foreigners teach us at least to become foreign to ourselves, to project ourselves sufficiently out of ourselves to no longer be captive to this long Western and white history that has come to an…
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Migrant statistics and ‘integration’
CONTINUE READING: Migrant statistics and ‘integration’Since the onset of the recession, it became clear that the state’s integration policies and all the talk about ‘cultural diversity’, ‘interculturalism’ and so on were becoming redundant. What started with draconian cuts in the integration and antiracism sector and the demise of bodies such as the NCCRI very quickly turned into complete silence on…
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The Ironies of Irish multiculturalism
CONTINUE READING: The Ironies of Irish multiculturalismA letter I sent to the Irish Times on 24 December 2009 Madam Fintan O’Toole’s (spot-on as ever) article on the ironies of the Bishops’ multiculturalism (December 22, 2009, http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1222/1224261109443.html) has broader ironic implications. One irony relates to the church’s role in migrant integration. Having lost their key role in education and health service provision,…
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Support CDPs and Migrant-led organisations
CONTINUE READING: Support CDPs and Migrant-led organisationsCopy of a letter I sent to the Irish Times: Ronit Lentin Department of Sociology TCD Madam, The shortsightedness of the government’s plans to subsume community development projects in area partnerships (Letters, 25 November) was eloquently articulated by four community activists on Vincent Browne’s TV3 show on the same day. Cathleen O’Neill of Kilbarrack CDP,…
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Diversity and the turban, yet again
CONTINUE READING: Diversity and the turban, yet againAn Garda Siochána have again made it absolutely clear that they do not want foreigners in the police force. In 2007, having appealed for recruits from what is euphemistically called Ireland’s ‘new communities’, it refused to allow a Sikh volunteer to the Garda reserve force to wear his turban on duty. The Garda explicitly denied…
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