The Rise of the Irish Far Right

Victor

eamo127 wrote: »

Remember, the NAZIs were committed and loyal socialsts

Eh, no they weren't. The Nazis were only anyway socialist if you were an Aryan German and a party member. Which is quite the opposite of the accepted definition of socialism. The Nazis merely adopted hijacked the word "socialism" in the early days to gain a foothold amongst a disgruntled working class.

Overheal

come to think of it, as Catholic as the country is, its surprising how Left Irish policy is on the spectrum.

irish_bob

Overheal wrote: »

come to think of it, as Catholic as the country is, its surprising how Left Irish policy is on the spectrum.

not at all , classic catholicism is economically left wing , it is of course socialy conservative

djpbarry

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

I'm just not convinced the governent is doing anything to prevent ghettoisation...

Well, is there a real problem that needs to be addressed and, if so, what would you like to see the government do about it? Tell people where they should live?

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

...or mass immigration from countries with vastly different cultures to ours.

‘Mass immigration’ is another term that has been bandied about ad nauseam in recent years, but what exactly does it mean? How do we quantify it? And considering that the only countries we are likely to receive large numbers of immigrants from are the other 26 EU member states, is it not overstating things a little to describe any of them as being “vastly different” to Ireland?

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

He complains that no one is willing to discuss the implications of immigration to Ireland.

Last I heard, he took issue with the discussion of immigration being ‘suppressed’, while expressing his views via the medium of a national newspaper. I also seem to recall an appearance on The Late, Late Show. Go figure, Kev.

imokyrok

Does anyone else find their eyes glaze over every time they read the words "mass immigration" or "elites" in a post?

OldJay

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

mass immigration from countries with vastly different cultures to ours

This 'culture' chestnut needs explaining.
What 'culture' do people keep referring to? Language? Okay. There must be efforts to encourage non-English speakers to learn English if they wish to reside here. It must also be govt funded. I learnt Norwegian thanks to a healthy start from a state-run course. This was after I had been granted residency there.
What else though?

How integrated does someone have to be to earn the trust of someone else already living in a country? What other factors do the anti-immigration platform and campaigners decree as constituents of a decent migrant?

turgon

Victor wrote: »

Eh, no they weren't. The Nazis were only anyway socialist if you were an Aryan German and a party member. Which is quite the opposite of the accepted definition of socialism.

Well they weren't idealistically socialist for sure, but they had many common traits with the practical implementations of socialism. Given that hard socialism/communism inevitably leads to totalitarianism, in practice socialism and fascism arent hugely different.

Amhran Nua

djpbarry wrote: »

That depends on what people mean when they say “ghetto”; like “integration” and “multi-culturalism”, it’s a term that gets thrown around an awful lot without having any specific meaning attached to it.

Specifically the meaning in this case is of a social or ethnic group who are marginalised within a society, do not mix with the rest of the population to any meaningful degree, and as such remain on the back foot economically.

djpbarry wrote: »

While it’s unlikely that a particular area in say, Dublin, will come to be dominated by one non-Irish ethnic group (the historical meaning of the term ghetto, as far as I’m aware), there will always be areas in which a large percentage of the population are foreign, such as the northern inner-city.

Those two ideas are the same thing, surely?

djpbarry wrote: »

Areas such as these tend to attract immigrants for the obvious reason that (a) Irish people generally don’t want to live in these neighbourhoods and, consequently, (b) rents are lower than elsewhere.

Generally speaking we have two types of entrants to Ireland - we have the economic migrants who are largely short term revolving door types, they don't really care about integration because they aren't sticking around, with a few exceptions. Then we have the longer term immigrants who might be in the majority the refugees and so on, although I stand to be corrected on this.

From my own admittedly anecdotal observations, these people are being housed in social housing purchased during the boom by local authorities, which run the gamut from poor areas to decidedly middle class areas. There isn't usually a single concentration of them to form ghettos as such.

I believe its been shown that people identify more with accent than with skin colour or other cues, thus I would say that since there aren't cultural centres forming its quite likely that given a generation or two there will be a good degree of integration between communities, and nobody will care one way or the other.

I find it very hard to believe that there could be a rise on the right in such an environment, other than the usual headbangers. Cóir have shown their level of influence in the Lisbon treaty campaign, so their potential as a right wing group is likewise limited.

djpbarry

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Those two ideas are the same thing, surely?

I don’t think so, no. Suppose you take 10,000 people from a city somewhere in the world and plant them in the centre of Dublin – this area is likely to develop into a mini-<insert country of origin here> where it is likely that many of the residents will not mix with the natives or even learn English. All understandable, but still not desirable.

Now, suppose you take 500 people from each of twenty different cities around the world and mix them up in the same area – the same sort of enclave cannot develop as each individual group will have to mix with others during the course of their everyday routine, which will require a common language (most likely English). Furthermore, if they are forced to mix with other ethnic groups to ‘get by’, they are likely to be far more open to mixing with the natives too.

All of this is sounding like a weird social experiment, but I’m obviously speaking very generally to illustrate the point that I think there’s a big difference between a single ethnic group dominating an area and a combination of multiple foreign ethnicities outnumbering the natives in a particular area. I don’t think it’s the same thing at all and I say that as someone who lives in Dublin’s north inner city.

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Then we have the longer term immigrants who might be in the majority the refugees and so on, although I stand to be corrected on this.

Well, you’re muddying the waters between refugees and immigrants – they’re not the same thing at all from a legal perspective. Besides, the number of refugees in this country is tiny relative to the number of immigrants received over the last number of years.

Amhran Nua wrote: »

From my own admittedly anecdotal observations, these people are being housed in social housing purchased during the boom by local authorities...

Who are we talking about here; immigrants or refugees?

Amhran Nua wrote: »

I believe its been shown that people identify more with accent than with skin colour or other cues...

I’m not sure if it has been shown, but in my own personal opinion I’d be inclined to agree.

Amhran Nua

djpbarry wrote: »

All of this is sounding like a weird social experiment, but I’m obviously speaking very generally to illustrate the point that I think there’s a big difference between a single ethnic group dominating an area and a combination of multiple foreign ethnicities outnumbering the natives in a particular area. I don’t think it’s the same thing at all and I say that as someone who lives in Dublin’s north inner city.

So basically we're in agreement?

djpbarry wrote: »

Well, you’re muddying the waters between refugees and immigrants – they’re not the same thing at all from a legal perspective. Besides, the number of refugees in this country is tiny relative to the number of immigrants received over the last number of years.

Last time I checked it was in the region of 1:5 as a ratio, although its hard to pin down numbers on that. In any case we're not talking about the legal perspective, we're talking about the potential rise of a far right party as a reaction to foreigners arriving into the country.

djpbarry wrote: »

Who are we talking about here; immigrants or refugees?

In the context of the thread, both, and there is also an important distinction between immigrants and economic migrants, who are here for the short term, and who would constitute the majority of entrants to the country.

mike65

I'm one of a wave of immigrants who came here in the early-mid 70s when the economy was in a brief upswing. we forgot to leave. Many of those who arrived in the last 10-15 years will not be leaving.

Nodin

Het-Field wrote: »

Throughout my three year involvement with the PDs, I never met one individual who would have been able to settle with Coir. The issues of the latter would find far greater creedance amongst the more right wing elements of FG/FF

Though I despised the PD's with a passion, I have to agree.

About the only use for Coir is that might help other parties lose a few nuts, in a secure and friendly enviroment.

Amhran Nua

mike65 wrote: »

I'm one of a wave of immigrants who came here in the early-mid 70s when the economy was in a brief upswing. we forgot to leave. Many of those who arrived in the last 10-15 years will not be leaving.

Different situation now with wage disparities between Ireland and Eastern Europe.

Victor

turgon wrote: »

Well they weren't idealistically socialist for sure, but they had many common traits with the practical implementations of socialism. Given that hard socialism/communism inevitably leads to totalitarianism in practice socialism and fascism arent hugely different.

While we are possibly going off topic, I disagree.

Communism is about shared ownership of capital. In a communist system there is a presumption of equitable distribution, example Cuba. Of course, some animals more equal that other animals, etc.

Socialism is about the more equitable redistribution of the wealth created from the capital and is relatively neutral as to how the wealth is created and who owns the capital, example Sweden.

Totalitarianism can be any hue it wants and while communism is totalitarian out of practicality (you can't have partial communism*) fascism is inherently totalitarian. That is communism will only constrain those that don't want to share, facism constrains all.


* You can however a mixed economy with communism controlling only some sectors.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Lame Lantern

The progressive democrats saw their best results in elections prior to 1997 when the party (largely guided by O'Malley, Cox and Harney) was formed and sent to the Dáil on a ticket of comparative social liberalism on economic moderation. Prior to that, Fianna Fáil (our right wing party) kept taxes (particularly corporate tax) at an alarmingly high rate and funneled money into the public sector and small farming communities. This is not the behaviour of the Reagan/Thatcher right wing continuum.

It wasn't until McDowell's profile became high that the PDs came to resemble neocons or neoliberals. While Harney typically continued to advocate compromise and moderation, McDowell pursued immigration, law and order and "let the free market pave your roads" policies. And in 2007 the electorate resoundingly rejected this new identity.

Furthermore, Bertie Ahern would not have dared take some of the recent actions made by Brian Cowen in relation to the government's interaction with the markets. He was cut from an old timey Fianna Fáil perspective of appeasing the parochial vote. Cowen has signalled a distancing from this strategy, firmly announced by FF's move to Liberal International. And the public are in the midst of rejecting this new, middle-class, business, social-welfare-is-dispensible Fianna Fáil mainstream as well.

My point is that there are few areas of Irish politics that aren't eccentric when compared to the discourses of other nations. We have a far more reasonable electoral system that encourages politicians to skirt around the centre and attack each other on issues rather than amorphous ideology (even if our debate can get as silly as anywhere else at times). The importing of the international formula for neoconservatism has been met only with disdain by the public and we continue to see that reaction to this day.

On social issues, we're sucking because few mainstream politicians want to get into abortion or gay rights or disability/mental health issues at the moment. While frustrating, you can count your blessings that no (legitimate) party has taken up these issues in order to scaremonger and bully people into voting on the right. Weird as it is, such an obvious political opportunity missed suggests some hope for a further thaw in social policy much like we saw in the early to mid ninetees.

dsmythy

imokyrok wrote: »

Does anyone else find their eyes glaze over every time they read the words "mass immigration" or "elites" in a post?

Even the most PC hating person has to use the term "mass" immigration to avoid being labelled someone who hates immigrants full stop.

Tenderloins1

All the individuals involved to date in Coir have had little or no electoral success when campaigning on their own policies. Richard Greenes Muintir na hEireann was a failure, Niamh Nic Mhathúna was a failure, Justin Barrett was a failure.
Others such as the Christian Solidarity Party , Christian Principles Party and The National Party have been failures.

The Immigration Control Platform have been a failure electorally too.

djpbarry

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Last time I checked it was in the region of 1:5 as a ratio...

I’d be very surprised if that were the case. From 2002 – 2008, Ireland received about 80,000 immigrants per annum, whereas newly recognised refuges numbered in the hundreds each year (about 500 on average).

Amhran Nua wrote: »

In any case we're not talking about the legal perspective, we're talking about the potential rise of a far right party as a reaction to foreigners arriving into the country.

Indeed, which is why it is especially important to challenge certain perceptions.

Amhran Nua wrote: »

...there is also an important distinction between immigrants and economic migrants, who are here for the short term, and who would constitute the majority of entrants to the country.

I don’t know whether that’s true at all. I’m sure there are a large number of short-term entrants, but how can you be sure they are in the majority?