Far from right to slap a stigma on all protesters
A CONVENIENT way to shut people down is to slap a stigma on them.
Racist, sexist, homophobe – serious accusations that should only be used when clearly needed are now weaponised by so-called liberals to label and silence.
Over time it has the effect of removing the power of such words, rendering them meaningless.
Such hysterics are dangerous – after all, if everything is racist or sexist, then nothing is.
The latest lazy, catch-all tag for closing off debate is to sniff at others as “far-right”.
Nobody really knows what that is, but that doesn’t matter. It’s handy shorthand for calling someone a fascist or a Nazi.
In fact, the far-right is an extreme, radically conservative political worldview of only a very tiny minority of head-the-balls.
I’ve met about three of them in my entire life and they’re generally sad characters, riddled with paranoia, fear, anger and victimhood.
They’re anti everything and they have no voice in western society in the 21st century.
To them, the world is a conspiracy and it’s all somebody else’s fault. They remind me of Mark Twain’s twist on Socrates: “The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the life too closely examined may not be lived at all.”
These are not my people but they are entitled to their position.
Yet despite the fact I’m a proimmigration, pro-social housing, feminist, I’ve been dubbed: “Far-right”.
I think this might be because I criticised Ireland’s longest lockdown in the free world and don’t believe abortion is good for women.
To paraphrase Fr Ted: “So I hear you’re far-right now, Father?”
While Ireland moves further and further to the left in successive elections, we’re supposed to believe the media and political-class narrative that right-wing extremism is all around us.
The latest group of people to be dismissed wholesale as “far-right” is anyone who questions State policy on refugees.
These have been people living in areas like Dublin’s Ballymun, East Wall and Tallaght, and regional towns, protesting outside centres where migrants are being housed in their communities.
So for all the shouts of “racist” is there also a touch of “classist” to this debate?
The locals’ concerns are the same from Drimnagh to Lismore – safety around the identities of those living there, pressure on already-stretched local facilities and lack of communication in the process.
Recent Department of Justice figures show more than 5,000 asylum seekers arriving here in the past year had false documentation or none at all.
Former Justice Minister Michael Mcdowell called the system “ineffectual” and said in any other country they’d be sent back.
Protests in towns and cities across the nation for the past few months are blamed on a few racist haters who have managed to infiltrate and brainwash whole communities.
But is it really “far-right” to have concerns over such seismic changes of the past year? Or just an entirely predictable response from a country already in its own crisis?
Is it not more likely that – despite an ugly faction – most people involved in demonstrations have legitimate concerns?
Is it easy to shout “racist” or “fascist” from an ivory tower at someone living in a situation that doesn’t happen to affect you?
The invasion
of Ukraine sparked the biggest refugee surge in the OECD since World War II.
Ireland is housing 73,000 – mostly Ukrainian – migrants, with the same number projected by the end of 2023.
The State’s emergency response is in stark contrast to its inertia on housing crisis which has rolled on for almost a decade.
In fact, its refusal to resolve that crisis has exacerbated refugee tensions.
Blame the Government, not the refugees seeking shelter, nor the “far-right”.