****************************************************** ** 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. ********************************************************** ** 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 ŌliberalÕ 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 ŌliberalÕ 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".