(The Weekender, 12 January 2007)
David Ervine, leader of the Progressive Unionist Party, died on 8 January at the age of 53. A former loyalist paramilitary, he turned from violence to the political process after his release from Long Kesh prison where he had served a sentence for his activities.
Speaking at a meeting with Catholic clergy and members of religious orders in Belfast on 1 June 2002, he had much to say that was worth listening to. Although it was the Northern Ireland situation he spoke from, what he said had a wider potential application.
Among other things, he asked, ‘Is there anything more irrational than hating a person you don’t know?” A good point. Prejudice thrives on ignorance, and even more so if arrogance is added.
Ireland is becoming a multi-ethnic society. In the Republic in 2006, we had 150,000 Poles, 60,000 Chinese, 45,000 Lithuanians, 30,000 Latvians, 28,000 Nigerians, 25,000 British, 6,000 Americans, 5,000 each from Romania and the Philippines, and 4,500 from Pakistan. That’s about 360,000 in all, or some 9% of the population. It’s a big change from the days of being a nation of emigrants when our greatest export was people, a challenge to us to create unity out of diversity. The USA has done it, to its great advantage.
It’s a big opportunity also. I hope we don’t create ghettoes, but become a kind of large-scale Feis in which the different groups remain true to themselves, and yet contribute to the whole. I think the people with most to offer are those who understand and live their own tradition, while respecting the different traditions of others. Another word on this topic from David Ervine, ‘In a divided society, I cannot be defeated and I cannot win’.
Think of the widening of the gene pool as being one of the benefits if inter-marriage takes place, which I hope it does. Coming close up against other cultures can help to give us a better sense of our own identity, of what it means to be Irish. (What is Irish culture? It often seems to be measured in terms of, ‘The festival of X will bring so many million euro into the local economy”. )
Recently, someone – I don’t know who – said that Irish people without the Christian faith are barbarians, because we don’t have a civic culture – as they do in the USA, for example. There’s a lot in that, I think; we are living on the accumulated spiritual riches of the past. As we move from the Christian faith – and we are doing that – there’s a potential for a thoughtless drift towards a void. Meeting people of different cultures can serve as a useful check on such a process, helping us to stop and think about who we are, and what we stand for.
Which brings me back to David Ervine, saying, ‘The fundamentalists and the moralists always bite the ankles of the visionaries’. True. We have a national penchant for begrudgery, for belittling and sneering at those who would have us lift our eyes to a wider horizon. We suffer from nostalgie pour la boue. Ervine also said, ‘Within a distance of one mile, a death can bring tears or cheers’. In the Republic, the choice is not as stark as that – yet – but it could be, and it depends on the choices and decisions that the ordinary men and women of Ireland make today. Let us welcome immigration as an opportunity, not fear it as a threat.