In all the excitement about the offensive nature of the recent Amnesty International campaign against racism, I have not heard it said that both the campaign and the survey conducted in conjunction with it exhibited symptoms of the very condition they were ostensibly designed to expose.
This survey, listing a number of ethnic groups and several religious denominations, asked: which of the following groups would you be reluctant to welcome as residents in your local area?
Has it occurred to anyone inside or outside Amnesty International that this is a racist question? Surely, if the term racism has any meaning at all, then any list of ethnic groupings offering the option of placing such groupings in an order of preference must itself suggest the possibility of a hierarchy of ethnicity and, therefore, qualify as racism?
I am reminded of the observation of the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard: "Racism is desperately seeking the other in the form of an evil to be combated. The humanitarian sees the other just as desperately in the form of victims to aid . . . The scapegoat is no longer the person you hound, but the one whose lot you lament. But he is still a scapegoat. And it is still the same person."
Racism is a form of scapegoating and is just as unpleasant when resulting from condescension as from contempt. How ironic that in supposedly seeking to highlight the issue of racism in Ireland, the hitherto unimpeachable Amnesty International should scapegoat the Taoiseach, Tanaiste and the Minister for Justice over an issue which is a collective rather than an executive responsibility.
There is racism in Ireland but it is neither as prevalent nor as widespread as Amnesty would seek to suggest. To place Travellers in the "racism" equation is a mistake to begin with as Travellers are not an ethnic group.
According to the Amnesty survey, 40 per cent of Irish people would be reluctant to welcome Travellers into their area. Two things strike me about this: (1) it is a ludicrous underestimate of the hostility towards Travellers; and (2) the question implies, against massive evidence, that objections to having Travellers as neighbours could result only from prejudice. Many of those who object to Travellers can point to evidence for their objections.
Secondly, the use in the question of the term "groups" creates a confusion which in effect neutralises this question altogether. There is an enormous difference between objecting to the presence of an individual or a family belonging to a particular ethnic or other grouping and objecting to the arrival of a group per se. The sudden arrival of a group of any kind might cause anxiety in any community.
One way of offsetting the negation of this question might have been to include in the survey a question about attitudes to the arrival of a group of Aryan nudists, which might have provided some perspective on the responses to the other categories. As it is, what is revealed may not be racism but respondents' legitimate regard for the integrity of their communities.
Much more than being a personal response, racism is a collective syndrome, born of the desire to feel superior. This desire is itself, paradoxically, born of the fear of acknowledging the darkness within oneself. The "psychodynamic" explanation for racism is in terms of a desire to project the "bad bits" of yourself on to another person or group, thereby allowing you to become cleansed of venality and imperfection and correspondingly superior to those you seek to disparage.
The most obvious context for this condition in the geopolitical arena is colonialism, where whole peoples were scapegoated by a small number of powers craving territory and dominion over others. It was this process which rendered racism a global phenomenon and, moreover, associated it primarily with the dominion of white over black.
But, of course, the Irish experience of racism is primarily from the receiving end. This is by virtue of our relationship with England, the most racist power on earth, and this experience was of white-on-white. One of the effects of enduring racism is the desire to offload the received feeling of inferiority on to some new scapegoat, and it is surprising that the evidence of racism in modern Ireland is not more prevalent.
It is odd that in purporting to address the incidence of scapegoating of particular categories of newcomers to this country Amnesty International should suggest an "involvement" in racism by elected representatives who have done no more than carry out their responsibilities in relation to immigration and asylum-seekers. This is in keeping with the notion of scapegoating as a way of offloading negative qualities on to some third party.
There now emerges in this society a disquieting, even sickening, attempt by certain sections to present themselves as superior to the majority by virtue of their self-advertised "tolerance" of immigrants and asylum-seekers. In most instances, this tolerance remains untested in real life, but remains in the realm of rhetoric and priggish denunciation of others, which is itself a precise encapsulation of the essential racist impulse.
It is a pity that Amnesty International has sullied its exemplary record on behalf of the world's downtrodden and dispossessed by offering itself as a cheerleader for this tendency.
jwaters@irish-times.ie