In with the young ideas, out with the old ones

Teen Times: In every part of modern Irish life you will find them. They drive the bus you take to work in the morning, make your coffee and sell you your paper, build the apartment block you hope to live in, take your blood sample for tests in the hospital, clean your house and deliver your post, writes Hugh Farrell

What would we do without immigrants? They are the oil which greases our economy.

Our Celtic Tiger's hungry roar is clearly audible in places such as Poland and Lithuania. Non-nationals heeding Ireland's call flocked here in their thousands, like alcoholics to a free bar, in search of work. Of the 89,000 immigrants who came here in the months after the enlargement of the EU, some 87,000 found work.

Yet so many of us fear them as we would fear a secret army hell-bent on occupancy.

Of course, our turbulent history plays a role. We are by nature territorial. We feel threatened when alien peoples encroach on our land. We don't quite know how to react. Should we barricade ourselves in the GPO, raising, as Liam Neeson (playing Michael Collins) put it, "bloody mayhem" until they leave?

No! Having not yet, at this young age, had the opportunity to travel and experience a wide variety of cultures, I accept the influx of migrants with open arms. A book can teach you all you need to know about Poland but 10,000 Poles around you can show you what it's like. And anyway, our culture is so well established that I find it hard to believe that people think it is under threat.

We need to be more open-minded. The "youth of today", a huge group that lacks any real influence, have very open minds. As Bob Dylan put it, "I want people with hair to run my country". Our schools are full of non-nationals. While some of the cynical, balding older generations may see this as sponging, I - representing youth and those with shaggy manes of hair - see it as a great thing that makes school life more interesting and diverse. We even make friends with them.

So how is it that we the youth succeed in breaking down the barrier of acceptance and yet adults can't? What are they afraid of? Immigrants are not depriving us of "our" jobs; unemployment is at its lowest rate ever. They are not dispossessing us of anything we hold dear, so why the hostile, ignorant attitude?

I heard a comment made the other day that summed this up beautifully: "I don't like them because they can't speak English." Ah yes, true, some of them can't speak English, but aren't we supposed to be the educated ones? Don't tell me you're so incredibly arrogant as to say this when for all your education you can't speak a word of Polish.

Something's wrong in all this. Why can I accept and another can't? Are some people so conservative and protective towards their land, culture and tradition that they will ignore their own history?

When times got rough for us there was room for us at the inn (America). Well there's room for people here now. To quote John F Kennedy, if society "cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich".

Céad Míle Fáilte.

Hugh Farrell (18) lives in Stillorgan, Co Dublin