No 16 bus, Dublin city centre, 20 April. Bus stationary. Man sits at back of bus and shouts obcsenities.
Bus driver (probably of Indian sub continent origin) speaks on his radio:
I want him to get off the bus…
Man continues to shout. Man gets up and goes to front of bus, shouting:
You want me to get off the bus, you f… black bastard… You f… black bastard.
I: Stop it, stop being racist!!
No passenger comments.
Man gets off the bus.
Elderly woman: Poor man, he was doing nothing, why did he have to get off the bus?
Young woman: Yeah, poor man, what did he do?
Man: He was stinking of drink.
Young woman: Ah.
I: why didn’t you say anything?
On getting off the bus I say to the driver: Sorry about what happened earlier.
Driver: It’s not the first time. It happened many times before. Thanks.
I have written about the direct provision system several times. It is an inhumane system, in which hostel managers have the discretion to maltreat asylum seekers at will, and in which asylum seekers live in ‘zones of exception’ where the law pertaining to Irish citizens does not apply. Several reports have detailed the problems faced by asylum seekers in direct provision. However, although asylum seekers are never just victims of the system and although many have used inventive strategies to improve their condition despite not being allowed to work or study, only recently has a group of residents decided to spell the realities of their incarceration out.
Last week two racist and antisemitic extreme right YouTube videos appeared on the airwaves. Though mostly directed at the Minister for Justice Alan Shatter, I also co-starred in one of them, both of us described as ‘Jews destroying Ireland’. While the Minister was attacked for ‘shattering the nation with policy designed to deconstruct our ethnic and cultural identity’, for ‘fast-tracking bogus asylum applications’ and running ‘anti-Irish’ schemes, including one which aims to turn the country into a ‘Balkanised multiracial dystopia’, I was castigated for supporting immigration and calling for the destruction of the ‘Irish race’. One of the comments posted on the clip refereed to me as ‘rat-faced vermin’ and another congratulated the video-maker: ‘Top vid. Another eye-opener.’ (see http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/66081/irish-justice-minister-targeted-youtube ).
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