EMER NOWLAN ROBERTS,
Sir, - Francisca Ribeiro's letter of August 17th struck a chord, as I experience the same silly jeering and name-calling from children in my neighbourhood regularly. The difference is that I am Irish, and have lived in a suburb of Lisbon, in her home country, for the past seven years.
I do not feel that the ignorant - as she rightly calls it - behaviour of children alone constitutes serious racism, but it is irritating, and were it to happen in conjunction with the disgraceful physical and verbal racist attacks her family has suffered, no doubt it would cause serious distress.
In reality I cannot compare my own experience with Ms Ribeiro's. As a white, English-speaking European, I have lived in many countries and never, thankfully, experienced the kind of racism I hear frequently described in this newspaper and by friends and family living in Ireland. I have gone, in the short space of five years, from being proud to be Irish to being embarrassed by it, on hearing of the disgusting reception asylum-seekers and other would-be immigrants, not to mention tourists, receive in Ireland these days.
What a pity Ireland could not have learned from the mistakes made by the UK and other European countries in the past. How we threw away the opportunity to get things right from the start, and make multi-culturalism the truly positive phenomenon it should be. Instead the childish name-calling is allowed to develop into full-blown racism in the adult population.
The answer to Ms Ribeiro's question, "Why are children so ignorant?" seems obvious: because they have not been taught. So let's teach them. If Ireland is to regain her dignity and good name abroad, racism must be stamped out.
This will not happen as the result of a Government poster campaign, nor by people politically correctly "holding their tongues". Real anti-racist education is what is needed, involving honest discussion of the issues as well as the teaching of fact, to combat the myths that currently abound.
While some Irish "grown-ups" may be slow to respond, we can at least ensure that the next generation is better educated, and therefore more civilised, by addressing this issue in schools now. - Yours, etc.,
EMER NOWLAN ROBERTS,
Lisbon,
Portugal.