Racism-and-racist-attitudes-in-Northern-Ireland-web

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growing, minority ethnic population, which census data puts at around 1 percent of the total. Thus, as Figures 2 & 3 above strongly indicate, the level of race hate incidents in Northern Ireland is abnormally high. It is often the case that the true horror of racism only really hits home when one is confronted with personalised, case study evidence. To take some of the incidents that have occurred in 2014: 28 JANUARY 2014: Cars belonging to Polish, Slovakian and Afghan nationals are burned out in the Whitewell Road area of North Belfast, forcing two of the families affected to move flee their homes. 31 6 MARCH 2014: A sympathy card containing a bullet is sent to Tobermore Primary School in Magherafelt, County Derry, as a warning over an elder sibling of a foreign national child at the school. The elder sibling is believed to attend a Catholic school in the Mid Ulster area, and may have been seen in school uniform outside Tobermore primary. The threat is thought to be racially motivated and is being treated as a hate crime by the PSNI. 32 6 MARCH 2014: A swastika, gun and message reading ‘Polish out!’ is daubed on a wall in East Belfast. 33 30 April 2014: A Romanian man has faeces thrown at him as he cycles along the Lower Newtownards Road in East Belfast. 34 1 JUNE 2014: Following Pastor James McConnell’s description of Islam as ‘heathen’ and ‘Satanic’ and depiction of Muslims as untrustworthy, the home of Pakistani man Muhammad Asif Khattak is targeted in a race attack. Later that day, Mr Khattak is subjected to racist abuse by a group of people before being chased into his Parkmount Street home in North Belfast and assaulted. 35 31 Chris Kilpatrick, ‘Hate crime: Child’s woolly hat lies amid the charred aftermath of a racist arson attack on family’, Belfast Telegraph, 20 January 2014, http:// www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/hate-crimechilds-woolly-hat-lies-amid-the-charred-aftermath-of-a-racist-arson-attack-onfamily-29963830.html (accessed 22 June 2014). 32 Gerard Stewart, ‘Spotlight on racial violence: Northern Ireland’, Institute of Race Relations, 10 April 2014, http://www.irr.org.uk/news/spotlight-on-racial-violencenorthern-ireland/ (accessed 22 June 2014). 33 Ibid. 34 David Whelan, ‘Yob throws faeces at Romanian man cycling through east Belfast’, Belfast Telegraph, 1 May 2014, http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/ local-national/northern-ireland/yob-throws-faeces-at-romanian-man-cyclingthrough-east-belfast-30232506.html (accessed 22 June 2014). 35 John Mulgrew, ‘Pakistani man in hospital after being assaulted at Belfast home hours after house targeted in race attack’, Belfast Telegraph, 2 June 2014, http:// www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/pakistani-manin-hospital-after-being-assaulted-at-belfast-home-hours-after-house-targeted-inrace-attack-30320300.html (accessed 22 June 2014). 9 JUNE 2014: A Nigerian man is verbally and physically assaulted close to his home in the Sliabh Dubh estate, West Belfast. After telling him to ‘go home to your own country’ and threatening to burn his house down as well as run his daughter over with a car, the gang knocked the man to the ground and proceeded in beating him around the head with a bottle. In response, the West Against Racism Network staged a public display of support outside the victim’s home. 36 17 JUNE 2014: Michael Abiona, a Nigerian man active with anti-racist and minority ethnic groups in Belfast, is greeted with ‘Local Houses 4 Local People’ banners outside a Housing Executive home earmarked for him and his family in Glenuce Drive, Knocknagoney. Mr Abiona has now been forced to look elsewhere for a property in Belfast, his home for four years. 37 30 JUNE 2014: A Ku Klux Klan flag is erected on a lamppost off Island Street in Ballymacarrett and is subsequently removed following discussions between the PSNI and community representatives. The appearance of the flag is described variously by political representatives as ‘sinister’, ‘insulting and disgusting’, ‘blatantly racist’, and condemned by First Minister Peter Robinson as the work of ‘idiots’. 38 To the surprise and shock of many, a KKK spokesperson was later interviewed on Good Morning Ulster, claiming that he had been in contact with supporters in Northern Ireland. This prompted Unite official Jackie Pollock to criticise the BBC Radio Ulster for giving a platform to an organisation that ‘promotes a destructive and reactionary ideology’. 39 Belfast Trades Council and ICTU Youth organised a protest outside BBC Broadcasting House to call for an apology and a pledge that such views will be given no coverage on BBC Northern Ireland programmes in future. 28 JUNE 2014: BNP and ‘Enoch Powell was right’ flags appear on lampposts close to the site of the Lanark Way bonfire on the Shankill Road. 40 36 Ciara Quinn, ‘Community unites to reject racist thugs’, Andersonstown News, 23 June 2014, http://belfastmediagroup.com/community-unites-to-reject-racistthugs/ (accessed 23 June 2014). 37 John Mulgrew, ‘Nigerian man too afraid to move into east Belfast house after “blatantly racist” banners erected’, Belfast Telegraph, 18 June 2014, http://www. belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/nigerian-man-tooafraid-to-move-into-east-belfast-house-after-blatantly-racist-banners-erected-30365923.html (accessed 23 June 2014). 38 Amanda Ferguson, ‘First Minister condemns “idiot” after Ku Klux Klan flag appears in east Belfast’, Belfast Telegraph, 2 July 2014 (accessed 2 July 2014). 39 Henry McDonald, ‘BBC Radio Ulster criticised for KKK interview’, Guardian, 2 July 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jul/02/bbc-radio-ulster-kuklux-klan-interview (accessed 2 July 2014). 40 Connla Young, ‘BNP and Enoch Powell banners on bonfire’, Irish News, 28 June 2014, http://www.irishnews.com/news/bnp-and-enoch-powell-banners-on- 8
RACISM AND RACIST ATTITUDES IN NORTHERN IRELAND 29 JUNE 2014: Racist graffiti appears on a wall in Moygashel, Dungannon. It reads ‘Attention landlords: Leasing property to foreign nationals will not be tolerated.’ All local political representatives roundly condemn the graffiti. 41 11 JULY 2014: A bonfire in East Belfast carries a sign that reads ‘Anna Lo ate my dog’. 42 28 JULY 2014: East Belfast is hit by a series of racist attacks involving graffiti and criminal damage to property. The windows of two houses in Bloomfield Avenue and Chobham Street off the Upper Newtownards Road are smashed; paint is thrown over the second house. Two cars are damaged in Rosebury Street and Ravenscroft Street. The words ‘Romanians out’ and ‘C18!’ appear on gable walls near Chobham Street and at a junction of Elmdale Street and Bately Street. The vehicle attacked in Rosebury Street is covered in paint and has all of its windows shattered. Superintendent Mark McEwan said the attacks were ‘orchestrated’ and ‘clearly designed to intimidate’ the Slovakian and Romanian victims. 43 In support of this anecdotal evidence, existing studies suggest that the majority of racist attacks have taken place in areas that are Protestant and working class. However it is also the case that that recent migrants tend to live in predominantly Protestant residential areas. 44 The persistent shortage of social and affordable housing stock in Catholic working-class 45 areas has created a situation whereby new migrants, refugees and asylum seekers tend to move into the more readily available private accommodation in Protestant inner-city Belfast, for example. Following decades of segregation and living in relatively homogenous bonfire-1364007 (accessed 14 July 2014). 41 Shauna Corr, ‘More Dungannon graffiti warns landlords – “leasing to foreign nationals will not be tolerated”’, Mid-Ulster Mail, 2 July 2014, http://www. midulstermail.co.uk/news/local-news/exclusive-more-dungannon-graffiti-warnslandlords-leasing-to-foreign-nationals-will-not-be-tolerated-1-6154491 (accessed 7 July 2014). 42 ‘Adams hung in effigy’, Irish Republican News, 12 July 2014, http://republicannews.org/current/news/2014/07/adams_hung_in_effigy.html#.U8OW_fldXdY (accessed 14 July 2014). 43 ‘Racist attacks “designed to scare”’, Belfast Telegraph, 29 July 2014, http:// www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/racist-attacksdesigned-to-scare-30468012.html (accessed 3 August 2014). 44 Ronit Lentin & Robbie McVeigh, After Optimism? Ireland, Racism and Globalisation (Dublin, 2006); Bill Rolston, ‘Legacy of intolerance: Racism and Unionism in South Belfast’, 10 February 2004, http://www.irr.org.uk/news/legacy-of-intolerance-racism-and-unionism-in-south-belfast/ (accessed 23 June 2014). 45 Barry McCaffrey, ‘McCausland challenged over special housing preference for loyalist areas’, The Detail, 18 June 2012, http://www.thedetail.tv/issues/102/mccausland-challenged-over-fast-tracking-for-loyalist-areas/mccausland-challengedover-special-housing-preference-for-loyalist-areas (accessed 2 July 2014). neighbourhoods, members of these communities are now faced with the challenge of integrating ethnic minorities and foreign nationals. A localised study that draws on ‘white flight’ experience of Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit and other US cities may be useful in explaining the hostile reactions triggered by the arrival of migrants to these areas. 46 Research conducted by Poole and Doherty suggests that Protestants adjust to the threatened implications of increased residential mixing or ‘Catholicisation’ of their area ‘by moving house just enough to ensure that they continue to live in the same kind of local environment as before … the average Protestant is trying to maintain the same degree of isolation as he or she enjoyed previously’. 47 Undoubtedly, the legacy of the conflict, patterns of deindustrialisation, social decline and educational underachievement have played a part in fuelling Protestant working-class alienation, a sense of grievance and therefore resentment towards the ‘Other’, perhaps causing communities to close ranks. 48 The perception that Protestants have lost out in the peace process is further exacerbated by the dearth of Unionist workingclass political representation, which contrasts sharply with Sinn Féin’s dominance of Catholic working-class politics. These factors, along with ongoing cultural and constitutional disputes, neoliberalism and austerity, provide a backdrop to discussions of racism in these locales. However, this should not and cannot lead to the conclusion that such sentiments are justifiable. Richard Reed and colleagues have noted that ‘the UDA and UVF are complex organisations often united by little other than their opposition to Irish republicanism and a fragmented and loose series of alliances, structures, and political convictions’. 49 However, following a spate of racist incidents in South and East Belfast early this year, Assistant Chief Constable Will Kerr laid the blame squarely at the door at the UVF, which he said ‘has been actively involved in orchestrating these attacks’. 50 There is little reason to doubt this assertion. Meanwhile the PUP, historically the political wing of the UVF, has been 46 Antero Pietila, Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City (Chicago, 2010); Dave Ravitch, ‘The “White Flight” Controversy’, The Public Interest, Vol. 51 (Spring 1978), pp. 135-149; Amanda I. Seligman, Block by Block: Neighborhoods and Public Policy on Chicago’s West Side (Chicago, 2005). 47 Michael A. Poole & Paul Doherty, Ethnic Residential Segregation in Northern Ireland (Coleraine, 1996). 48 Gareth Mulvenna, ‘The Protestant working class in Belfast: Education and civic erosion – An alternative analysis’, Irish Studies Review, Vol. 20, No. 4 (2012), pp. 427-446. 49 E. Rosemary McKeever, Richard Reed, Samuel Pehrson, Lesley Storey & J. Christopher Cohns, ‘How Racist Violence Becomes a Virtue: A Discourse Analysis’, International Journal of Conflict and Violence, Vol. 7 (1) (2013), p. 111. 50 ‘Dramatic rise in racism attacks in NI’, UTV News, 15 April 2014, http:// www.u.tv/News/Dramatic-rise-in-racism-attacks-in-NI/7d3f7b94-61df-40e8-b8bfd564a9584703 (accessed 24 June 2014). 9
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