to View - Griffith College Dublin

opinion |
opinion |
Are we all
a bunch of bigots
“We too often look down
our noses at them for the
negative behaviour”
Tinkers, Pikeys,
Knackers, Travellers;
all the pseudonyms
we frequently use to
describe our most native and
indigenous minority group.
With no knowledge of their
history or origins, uneducated
judgements are cast upon
them as our disdain for the
travelling community is bred
into us from birth by the
intolerance of those before
us.
Societies condemnation of
the travelling community
is a product of a history of
archaic government policy
which has blossomed into the
ignorance and discrimination
that prevails today. This has
also given rise to the anti
social behaviours that we all
too frequently associate with
Travellers in order to justify
our bigotry.
Why is that the Irish, often
referred to as a giving nation,
look upon marginalised
societies further afield with
such charity and sympathy
yet when it comes to a
minority group closer to
home the feeling is of disdain
and revilement
The obvious argument most
frequently used is as unsound
as it is ignorant; that the anti
social behaviour of travellers
is a just reason for our
disdain. Where this argument
is illegitimate, there lies a
failure to recognise the fact
that poverty is a breeding
ground for anti social
behaviour.
The focus of government has
always been aimed at solving
the “problem” of itinerancy,
assuming the community
wanted to be assimilated
into the rest of society,
thereby completely ignoring
the culture of the travelling
tradition. What the focus
should be on is solving the
problems of travellers.
Local political, and
residential opposition
to integrated living
arrangements for travellers
(residential areas shared
by both travellers and
the settled people) also
inevitably results in travellers
being forced to live in sub
standard living conditions
at the margins of society –
which in turn gives rise to
the anti social behaviour tag
people are so quick to attach
to the travelling community.
“It is all too easy for us, the
disciples of the status quo, to
scoff at others”
We too often look down
our noses at them for the
negative behaviour they
exhibit and the sub standard
living conditions in which
they live, yet these are
conditions which we have
over time created for them.
Forced to live outside the
innate snobbery of the
settled community, travellers
suffer social exclusion,
racism, poor access to
public and private services,
health, education, electricity
and heating. With such
poor access to the basic
amenities in life – for which
the government must be
held accountable - it is of
no surprise that anti social
behaviour is rife within
the travelling community.
How can anything else be
expected If you socially
exclude a group of people
from society you should
expect anti social behaviour
to be the result.
It is as almost as though
the travelling community
is expected to overcome
these social inequalities
without the support of its
settled neighbours or the
government, and to do so
without incident or friction,
whilst at the same time being
virtually ghettoised by the
settled community.
The combination of the
governments continued
failure to recognise and cater
to the nomadic tradition of
travellers combined with the
general public’s reluctance to
integrate with the travelling
community in any aspect of
living, is the precise cause of
the anti-traveller agenda that
prevails in society today.
It is difficult to see the
social gap between the
settled and the travelling
community narrowing in
the existing climate, where
infant mortality rates among
travellers are twice that
of the settled community;
where traveller life
expectancy among travellers
is now that of the general
population during the 1940s;
where only 7 per cent of
travellers sit their Leaving
Certificate examinations and
where subsequently travellers
encounter difficulties gaining
employment.
People forget all too quickly
that we are merely products
of our environment; without
the luxuries to which we
have become accustomed we
would be characteristically
different. It is all too easy for
us, the disciples of the status
quo, to scoff at others that
don’t follow the conventions
that those in power expect
us to follow. Instead we
disregard what we don’t
understand and from the
seeds of this ignorance grow
discrimination.
Understand this: that without
running water we would be
dirty, without electricity
we would be unhealthy and
without home provisions
from our government and
exclusion from “mainstream”
society many, if not most,
of us would behave what
is deemed as anti-social.
Society is accountable for
these conditions through its
lack of cultural understanding
and its innate discrimination
towards travellers.
So the next time a traveller
pseudonym is about to roll
off your tongue remember
you might just be the cause
of the very thing you claim
to hate.
________________
by Gus McSweeney
20