Category: racism

Short plays about (racist) Ireland – 3

,
Ronit Lentin

On 20 June, International Refugee Day, Another mass deportation to Nigeria from Ireland took place.

According to Joe Moore of Anti Deportation Ireland (ADI: Hostels were raided at 5am approx this morning. The information I have to date is:

Carriick-on-Suir, one woman and her three children taken

Ashbourne House, Cork, one woman and her three children taken, she has been in Ireland for 6 years.

Portlaoise, two women, with three children each, all taken. One of the women has recently had a serious stomach operation. She became so distraught when the GNIB entered her room, that she attempted to harm herself with a knife. She was dragged outside, naked from the waist up, where she was severely beaten, peppered sprayed and handcuffed. As a result of the beating her operation scar opened. She was taken to hospital but after a short time she was brought back to the hostel, and she and her three children was taken to the airport by the GNIB. Her lawyer is in the High Court now trying to get her released.

The lawyer failed in reversing this deportation and the woman was on the plane!!

And now – Israel goes for African asylum seekers

Ronit Lentin

africans-attacked-in-tel-avivLast night right wing demonstrators, including Israeli membersof Knesset attacked African asylum seekers in the south of Tel Aviv

Africans attacked in Tel Aviv protest; MKs: ‘infiltrators’ are cancer

The statement by Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu last week regarding the ‘infiltration’ of African asylum seekers via the Israel-Egypt border, is indicative not only of Israeli state racism, but also of the West’s approach to asylum seekers in general.

If Israel does not stem the flow of African refugees and illegal immigrants, Netanyahu said in last week’s cabinet meeting, ‘the problem that currently stands at 60,000 could grow to 600,000’, threatening ‘our existence as a Jewish and democratic state, the social fabric of society, national security and national identity.’ Continue reading “And now – Israel goes for African asylum seekers”

Short plays about (racist) Ireland, 2

,
Ronit Lentin

micheal-martinMet Micheal Martin (Fianna Fail leader and former minister) at a do in Cork.
I: we did meet before in  2005, on a Questions and Anwers programme after the 2004 Citizenship Referendum, when you told me you knew a Nigerian woman who had quintuplets, had one in Nigeria and hopped on a plane to have the other four in Ireland (see After Optimism, Lentin and McVeigh, 2006, p. 101)

Martin: Oh, yes, I remember. I actually got a letter from an obstetrician about it…

I: But Micheal, how logical can this be?

Martin: No, really… He wrote to me that something had to be done about all these women coming to have babies in Ireland…

I: But…

Martin: Believe me, I can show you the letter

I raise my eyebrows, but Martin is not embarrased at all…