textfiles/politics/SPUNK/sp001131.txt

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          **  Who are the Travellers?  **

ARE TRAVELLERS a distinct "ethnic" group with their own 
traditions and customs?  Very few people want to accept that 
they are.  This reflects the widespread racism towards them, 
a racism which insists on seeing them as "failed settled 
people".  They are seen as "problems" rather than a people 
who have been denied even the most basic rights. 
Irish Travellers are a very small minority group, 
constituting less than 1% of the population.  Their numbers 
currently stand at approximately 23,000 people in the 26 
counties and another 1,500 in the North.  There are also an 
estimated 15,000 Irish Travellers in Britain and 7,000 in 
the U.S.A.

 The criteria internationally accepted as defining 
ethnicity are:

*A long shared history of which the group is aware.
*A cultural tradition of its own, including family and 
social customs.
*Descent from common ancestors.
*A common language.
*A common religion.
*Being a minority within a larger community.

Irish Travellers meet all these criteria.
Travellers are often segregated into separate classes 
in school.  They are banned from almost every pub in the 
country.  They are routinely refused service in shops, 
cafes, cinemas, laundrettes and clubs.  Social contact with 
settled people is minimal because Travellers have been 
denied such contact.

The effects of this racism are not hard to find.  Most 
Travellers lack self-esteem.  Pride in their cultural 
identity is a very new experience and confined to the 
minority who have had some adult education.  For others, 
self-destructive and even anti-social behaviour arises out 
of this total experience of racism.  Less than 14% of 
Travellers currently make it into post-primary education and 
80% of the adults are illiterate.

Within the EU, Travellers and Gypsies currently form a 
population of over one million people.  Another million live 
in Eastern Europe.  These have faced, and still face, 
vicious persecution and racism which reached its peak this 
century with the murder of over a quarter of a million 
Gypsies and Travellers by the Nazis.  Today in Eastern 
Europe they are experiencing brutal racist attacks.  
Over the past decade we have seen the emergence of a 
small number of articulate, politically active Travellers.  
Until fairly recently, Travellers and their supporters were 
essentially fighting for little more than an end to the very 
worst forms of discrimination.

However the situation is now very different with 
Traveller groups  throughout the country asserting their 
right to be treated with respect as an ethnic and cultural 
minority with their own beliefs, customs and values.  By 
adopting this strategy, Travellers are finally aligning 
themselves with the struggles of nomadic and Indigenous 
peoples everywhere.   It is this new and very unacceptable 
demand for respect as a cultural and ethnic minority that 
has fuelled the latest outburst of racism against them.

In recent years, these concepts have gained acceptance 
from a growing number of people.  Racist descriptions and 
abuse on TV and in the newspapers have been challenged, with 
the result that TravellersÕ rights - as a separate minority 
group - have begun to gain acceptance in wider circles.  
Once it was no longer acceptable to define them either as 
objects of charity or as failed settled people in need of 
social work and rehabilitation, the alternative was to 
accept them as different with all the rights and appropriate 
services they require to live decently in accordance with 
their cultural values.  Such an idea really annoyed the 
bigots.

Ironically, settled society has always considered 
Travellers to be different.   Now that Travellers are 
asserting their right to be different but not inferior, they 
have provoked outrage.  Travellers' struggles for civil 
rights should be seen in the context of all the major social 
and political movements of the past fifty years and not as 
something separate or peculiar to Ireland or Irish 
Travellers.  Their struggles bear remarkable resemblence to 
those of Native Americans and Indigenous peoples throughout 
the world.

Anarchists have no great interest in who belongs to 
which ethnic group, except in so far as each tradition adds 
to a rich cultural diversity.  But we do understand that 
there will be no real equality until racism is uprooted, and 
all people are accorded the dignity they deserve.  Equality 
is certainly not about trying to make people deny their own 
history and heritage.

Patricia McCarthy


**********   Anti-Traveller racism ************
                   from Workers Solidarity No 39

ANTI-RACIST work is a major concern of the 
left in Europe at the moment.  Given the 
rise of racist attacks in Germany and 
France especially, this is important work.  
However very few groups or individuals on 
the left in Ireland understand that the 
situation of Travellers is the most 
explicit form of racism in this country. 
Because Travellers are white, people have 
difficulty applying the concept of racism 
to them.  However it takes no more than a 
quick perusal of recent press clippings to 
gather abundant evidence of the racism 
faced by Travellers.  A few examples are 
as follows: 
"A round the clock picket by protesting 
residents continued today to prevent a temporary 
site being set up for Travellers in Limerick".  
Evening Herald.
"The residents of an estate outside Arklow who 
are now to undertake a rent strike over the 
council decision to house the family of 
Travellers......"  Wicklow People.

"Residents of a housing estate in Rathfarnham 
will this morning place a picket on the entrance 
to land which is to be developed by Dublin 
Corporation as a halting site for 20 itinerant 
families'.  Irish Press.
"A horrific attack involving the spraying of 
foul smelling cattle slurry against caravans of 
Traveller families has been criticised by a 
priest... a Garda spokesman at Tullow described 
it as a minor incident."  Irish Independent.
The publican who barred 'Glenroe' actor Michael 
Collins from his pub confirmed last night he did 
so because he was a Traveller"  Irish 
Independent.
Recently in Clondalkin two Traveller families 
have been intimidated out of their houses by 
mobs.  Traveller camps have been petrol bombed, 
families have been physically attacked by 
farmers in Galway, all in the very recent past.  
Travellers are subjected to the most extreme 
forms of social exclusion and segregation which 
can only be described as apartheid.  
They are refused service in pubs, cafes, many 
shops, launderettes,  hairdressers, discos, 
hotels, cinemas and even some doctors refuse to 
serve them.  At an institutional level they are 
forced to sign on at different times to the rest 
of the population and in Dublin all Travellers 
who claim Supplementary Welfare have to do so in 
one separate health centre, Castle Street, 
whether they live in Bray or Balbriggan. 
Officially this is done to provide them with a 
service that respects their nomadic culture.  In 
reality nothing could be further from the truth, 
which is that it is done in order to 
discriminate against them more efficiently.  At 
school many Traveller children are taught in 
totally segregated classes which cater for 
Traveller children of all ages in the one class.  
Some notorious schools have gone so far as to 
paint a white line down the middle of the 
playground and Traveller children are not 
allowed to cross over it.
Racism is a particular form of domination, 
exploitation and exclusion.  Racism against 
Travellers and Gypsies is rooted in an ideology 
of sedentarist superiority.  This is the belief 
that the settled person's way of life is the 
modern norm and that nomadism is a throwback to 
less civilised times. 
Nomadic people also pose a threat to the values 
of property ownership and the accumulation of 
possessions.  Racism involves power domination 
by one group over the other.  Because Travellers 
are such a small minority of the population 
(0.5% approx) they are totally at the mercy of 
the settled population. The effects of this 
racism and exclusion can be graphically seen in 
the health statistics of the Traveller 
population.
Traveller infants have three times the infant 
mortality rate of the settled population.  
Traveller women have a life expectancy that is 
fifteen years less than their settled 
counterparts and Traveller mens' life expectancy 
is ten years less than settled mens'.  They 
don't fare any better educationally.  In 1993 
only a handful of Traveller children, about 50 
nationwide, have made it into second level 
education and there are still only three 
Travellers nationwide who have completed a third 
level course.  
About 80% of the adult population are illiterate 
and still only about 70% of the primary school 
age children get to school.  Schools still 
refuse to take them as a school in Dœn Laoghaire 
did in March.  These are the statistics of 
racism... a group of the population whose health 
and educational standards are at least 50 years 
behind that of the rest of the population.  But 
the best is yet to come as the official response 
to these kinds of statistics is to blame this 
scandalous situation on Travellers themselves 
and on their preferred nomadic lifestyle.  
A recent official report from Dublin County 
Council is a very good example of racist 
thinking.  In this report which went to all the 
councillors in January, Travellers' lifestyle is 
blamed for all the major social problems in the 
county, including unemployment!   The report 
concludes that it is time to break the cycle of 
Travellers' culture by discouraging them from 
marrying each other and forcing them to adopt a 
more responsible (i.e. settled) lifestyle by not 
building halting sites.  Given that there are 
3,000 families already on the housing waiting 
lists in Dublin alone it is not clear how 
exactly this policy is going to improve anyones' 
situation.  
Even within liberal and left wing circles there 
is a belief that there is nothing wrong with 
promoting the idea of quotas when it comes to 
Travellers.  The idea that only ten families 
should be accommodated in an area has been 
promoted by everyone from the Labour party to 
the 'Militant'.  Of course this is an inherently 
racist position to adopt.   It would not be 
acceptable to suggest that only ten black 
families should be housed in any one community 
and it is no more acceptable to suggest this for 
Travellers.  Likewise the idea of separate 
segregated and inevitably inferior services must 
be opposed.
Racism against Gypsies and Travellers goes back 
to the time they started migrating from India 
around the 11th century.  It reached its height 
with the extermination of a quarter of a million 
Gypsies and Travellers by the Nazis.  In Ireland 
the racism against Travellers is so deep and so 
all pervasive that few people even recognise it 
for what it is.  In the fight against this 
racism Travellers themselves and their 
organisations need to be centrally involved.  
They must set the agenda, deciding on what 
issues and how they want to fight.  They need 
the active support of the left, and especially 
of the trade union movement because they have 
very little muscle on their own.  There have 
been attempts over the past thirty years at 
Traveller self-organisation but these 
organisations were quickly smashed by the state.  
In 1963 the Gardai planted explosives on Gratton 
Puxon, the organiser of the Irish Traveller 
Community which was becoming a force to be 
reckoned with.  Nearly twenty years later they 
planted stolen jewellery on Nan Joyce, a leading 
member of the Traveller-only organisation 
Minceir Miscli.  Nan ran against a racist 
candidate in Tallaght in the General Election of 
1982 and got twice the number of votes as he 
did.  Currently the Irish Traveller movement is 
organising  around the country.  It remains to 
be seen if it will become a fighting body or 
confine itself to lobbying.  For left wing 
activists concerned about racism there is plenty 
of it to fight in relation to Travellers.

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            ** Moate mimics Mississippi  **
        **  Stand up for Travellers Rights  **
WS 47

THE PROTESTS against the housing of a Traveller 
family in Farnagh near Moate were racist.  The 
organisers deny this but then go on to say that 
their main objection is that they "were not 
consulted" by the Council about rehousing the family 
of Alice and Joe Joyce.  Do these same people expect 
to be "consulted" everytime a settled family is 
given a house?  Of course not.  

One of the ringleaders, local priest Fr Liam Farrell, 
even claimed that the protesters were concerned for the 
family, worried about their transition from an urban to a 
rural area!  More honest was the one who told journalists 
that he did not want "inferior people" in his town.
This gang of racists held their meetings in St 
PatrickÕs Hall (which is under the control of Fr Liam 
Farrell, who also represented the racists at meetings with 
Westmeath County Manager Jack Taaffe), and in a room 
attached to the Auld Shebeen pub.  Knowing full well they 
were doing nothing to be proud of, they organised everything 
anonymously.

At their meetings they threatened to withdraw children 
from the two national schools if any of the Joyce children 
were admitted.  Similar threats worked at nearby Clonbunny 
recently when locals heard that Traveller children were to 
be admitted.

The mob blocked the main Dublin-Galway road for two 
hours but, despite this being illegal, there was no garda 
action.  And given the way the ruling class treats 
Travellers that was no surprise.

Antagonism towards the Joyces was whipped up with 
claims that "Travellers contribute nothing to society" and 
"wherever there are Travellers there is trouble".  Exactly 
the same kind of hatemongering that was used against blacks 
in the American deep south thirty years ago.

Scapegoats are great for diverting attention away from 
problems like unemployment, low wages and poor housing.  
When you look closely you will usually find wealthy vested 
interests behind racist agitation.

Who was behind all the trouble in Moate?  Who was on 
the secret committee?  Alongside the priest were stud farm 
owner Michael Scott, shopkeeper Mary Flynn, Fine Gael 
councillor Tom Flanagan, restaurant boss John Joe Claffey, 
supermarket owner Seamus Dolan and farmer Mick Kelly.  In 
other words the type of people who live the good life at the 
expense of both Travellers and working class people.

Even middle class liberals get sucked into seeing 
Travellers, rather than the discrimination they face, as the 
"problem".  Nell McCafferty writing in the Sunday Tribune on 
June 11th said "there has been, equally, no official 
acknowledgement from government about the way a national 
social problem has been landed in dark of night - without 
warning or attempt to prepare opinion - upon the people of 
Moate".

Would she have come out with the same crap if it was 
another group of people who were being picked on by the 
bigots, if it was Bosnian refugees, or Pakistanis or Jews?  
Of course not.

We can protest against racism in other countries (and 
we should protest against it) but we also need to confront 
it at home.  It is not enough to decry the electoral success 
of the fascist National Front in France or the murderous 
anti-black attacks of the British National Party if we stand 
aside and ignore the problem on our own doorsteps.

Anti-racists have to take a stand in their own 
communities when the racists and their politician pals try 
to stir things up.  In Ireland's wealthiest constituency it 
is ÔliberalÕ Progressive Democrat TD Liz OÕDonnell who is 
stirring up opposition to the temporary halting site in 
Sandyford.  In Navan it is Democratic LeftÕs Christy Gorman 
who objected to the extension of the only official halting 
site in County Meath, and labelled Travellers "brutal, 
savage and threatening".

It is well past the time when these bullies in suits 
were told where to get off.  In opposition to their bigotry 
we have to publicly support Travellers rights to appropriate 
housing and services, we have to recognise that they have a 
cultural tradition that is as valid as any other.

We start by taking a stand every time we witness 
discrimination.  If a shop, cinema, disco or pub refuses to 
serve somebody because they are a Traveller we make sure the 
management knows they wonÕt get our custom and we walk out.  
Inside the MANDATE and SIPTU trade unions we should fight to 
commit our unions to defending any worker who refuses to 
operate blanket bans on any group of customers because of 
their race or ethnicity.  In the local authority trade 
unions we should work to get the same protection for workers 
who refuse to be involved in evictions.

Three decades of polite appeals to ÔliberalÕ 
politicians have changed little for Travellers.  It is up to 
anti-racists, trade unionists and other ordinary working 
class people to join with Travellers and deal a crushing 
blow to the politics of discrimination.  As Jim Larkin was 
fond of saying, "an injury to one is the concern of all".