Racism in These Islands

Racism in These Islands.

It could be that the British National Party has touched a raw nerve in the body of British and Irish politics. It is reckoned that the B.N.P. could obtain a vote of 22% in a British election. This issue has to do with a wide spread concern in working class areas due to an influx of new wave immigrants into their midst. There are those in Belfast and Derry who have been out protesting about the racism of the B.N.P. Such protestors should look at racism on their own Ulster doorstep first.

Is such fear of new wave immigration real or imaginary? The reality of the concern can be paralleled at home in Irish history. In the 16th century a people of different race, culture, religion and language came to Ireland in the plantation of Ulster. The whirlwind of this was reaped in the 20th century in a partitioned island, over 30 years of intercommunal (racist) violence and in the racist sectarian ghettoes of Belfast and Derry and elsewhere. This is the historic fruit of introducing an immigrant population into a country. But Irish history has another parallel. The Normans came to Ireland uninvited and settled here but in that case all was well in the long term because the Normans integrated with the native Irish and became “more Irish than the Irish themselves” This immigration was to the benefit of Ireland.

If the new wave immigrants to G.B. and Ireland become as British as the British themselves and as Irish as the Irish themselves then the migration will be of benefit to all. It would seem that the majority of new wave immigrants see themselves in that way. If however there are some who wish to live apart and separate from the indigenous people, as the Ulster planters opted to do, for the future health of these islands such people should be excluded.

Michael Gillespie. Derry