Irish Traveller culture to be promoted through school curriculum: Posted on BBC website!

TomTomTim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120320776#Comment_120320776

The thread is just an excuse to talk about anything else about travelers but the curriculum.

Everything we've mentioned is a part of their culture, and far more prominent in their culture than tinkering and playing music. This course will likely be a deeply satanized view of the overall culture, and not the everyday culture that most of us know. "Traveller culture" is in the headline, and we're discussing said culture, we couldn't be more on topic.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120321018#Comment_120321018

Sure there's no suggest thing as climate change, it was freezing out this morning.

As long as I can remember it's been cold and wet it Ireland.

There's some observations and selective patterns. There's nothing hateful in those particular statements, but they are ignorant, and lack any kind of insight, context or critical thinking.

Are you ok with those?

And I didn't say 'it happens in the settled communities too'. I said show me where it criminality is different in poorer, disadvantage parts of the settled community. To a point where we could start to identify being a traveler as a causal factor distinct from being poor.

Economics101

Maybe they should make Shelta a 3rd official language. That would be 2 out of 3 spoken by about 1% of the population.

I know, prepare for incoming!

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120321018#Comment_120321018

And if treating women badly is one of those issues, suddenly feminism seems to be forgotten.

I remember on here a traveller girl was trying to give some insight into her life and things were going so well that she was encouraged by a handful of posters to do an AMA. Couple of hours later it was all set up, and things were going well. Then she gave her opinion on abortion.

I’ve never seen people distance themselves so quickly from being initially all supportive to distancing themselves from her as they realised she was not the poster girl they were looking for. It was funny in a tragic sort of way, funny in the sense that the posters who initially were all supportive while she was making all the right noises, quickly turned on her when they realised she didn’t share their views, and was just as forthright in expressing her own opinions as she had been. They just weren’t the right opinions.

Beasty

batman_oh threadbanned

Calahonda52

From Tom Tom Tims post, my emphasis

Everything we've mentioned is a part of their culture, and far more prominent in their culture than tinkering and playing music. This course will likely be a deeply satanized view of the overall culture, and not the everyday culture that most of us know. "Traveller culture" is in the headline, and we're discussing said culture, we couldn't be more on topic.

Nice one!b beats sanitised anyday

nullzero

I don't see any problem with this personally.

That said, there needs to be a more cohesive approach to dealing with the issues affecting travellers than the current thought process of "we better not cause offence" that currently exists in Irish society.

Ultimately Ireland has an enormous issue with criminal behaviour across our society, being a criminal is a reasonable life/career choice in Ireland and this is disproportionately reflected with travellers.

Look at any rough area in Ireland, there's almost always a halting site/traveller accommodation in or beside it. You have settled criminals living cheek by jowl with travellers engaged in criminality.

Start locking people up for serious crimes for reasonable lengths of time and you'll see a reduction in crime generally and within traveller groups as well.

Unfortunately the two are linked, and we'll never have a society with properly integrated travellers while we have revolving door prisons.

One thought experiment might be to relocate travellers from the aforementioned rough areas to more affluent parts of the country and see what the affect might be to their own ability to integrate and avoid the lure of criminality.

We have everything backwards with how we're dealing with this issue. Like everything else, take a group of people that we don't really want to have to deal with and lump them into a space with all the other similar groups in society and look dumbfounded when it all goes horribly wrong and then make anyone who takes issue with it look like some sort of horrible bigot for pointing out the obvious problems that have been created.

Let's learn about traveller culture but let's also stop the rot in our society and encourage a buy in to main stream values from travellers instead of just ignoring the rife issues surrounding them.

Enda Kenny gave them a separate ethnic status but in reality nothing has changed beyond not being able to say certain incidents involved travellers in news bulletins.

We're making all the right noises but not putting our money where our mouth is as usual.

MegamanBoo

I was listening to an interesting podcast lately on the re-emergence of the far-right in Germany.

One of the features of these neo-fascists is a sort of pseudo-intellectualism around culture. Rather than talk about certain groups being genetically inferior or lesser as previously generations of skinheads would have, today's far-right like to talk about groups being part of an inferior or dangerous culture.

Sound familiar to anyone here?

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322177#Comment_120322177

Generically inferior?

There's always someone on threads like these raising the spectre of the far right and linking attitudes of the likes of foreign neo fascists with Irish people's negative experiences of travellers.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322224#Comment_120322224

So are the far-right in Germany wrong when they talk about Jews or Muslims or Africans being culturally inferior?

But Irish people are right when we talk about travellers like that?

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322283#Comment_120322283

You're making statements that have no basis in reality.

Travellers are disproportionately involved in criminal activity when compared to wider society.

This is happening because in general criminality in Ireland is rampant due to the fact that it's profitable and sentencing is lax in the extreme.

Observing that fact doesn't put a person in the same category as German Neo fascist loonies.

Only a complete and utter [insert preferred insult here] could possibly believe that.

JP Liz V1

Didn't travellers participate in the Ireland Welcomes All protest, anti racism discrimination protest for refugees immigrants etc., but I doubt anyone would welcome them living with or near them

farmingquestion

I think most of the population are already well educated on traveller culture.

pjohnson

With time wasting like this in schools is it any wonder youngsters are admiring the Love Island/OnlyFans career options.

The standard of "Education" leaves them thick as blocks.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322355#Comment_120322355

But homeless people and long-term unemployed would probably have similar levels of incarceration, are they 'culturally inferior' too?

What about African Americans in the states? They'd be disproportionately imprisoned too, 'culturally' inferior?

Also a rallying cry for the far-right, the awful Bradford grooming in the UK, is it ok there to make generalisations about Muslims?

I'm well aware there have been terrible cases involving traveller criminals, I just don't see that they been any worse than any poor or hated group in Ireland, or elsewhere.

Straight Talker

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120320525#Comment_120320525

That's an awful sad story. I'm approaching my 40's now, and i have experience of these people going right back to my primary school days, there was one time i had them as neighbours. I've dealt with these people many times in my work as well. My experiences of the travelling community are overwhelmingly and resoundingly negative. That's an opinion that i apologise to no one for having.

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322444#Comment_120322444

You're the only person using the term "culturally inferior".

All you're doing is trying to crowbar in a narrative that has no relationship to this issue.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322478#Comment_120322478

There's plenty of negative comments about traveller culture in this thread.

I'm just comparing them to arguments made by the far-right throughout Europe.

I'm using that term because it encapsulates an ideological approach, one clearly on display here.

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322508#Comment_120322508

You're trying to equate people sharing negative experiences with travellers to far right activists in Germany.

To you that's a reasonable thing to do, to everyone else it doesn't make sense and you're handling of it comes across as messy and poorly thought out.

thegame983

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322508#Comment_120322508

There's plenty of negative comments about travellers because.....we've all had exclusively negative experiences with them.

There's a reason they reviled. It didn't fall out of the sky.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322532#Comment_120322532

We must be reading I different thread. I've seen plenty of references to traveller culture here.

Peoples talking about their experiences have not placed them in any kind of context.

And that's exactly what the far-right across Europe are doing and feeding on. You can bet your ass there's plenty of chat groups and threads out there about people's awful experiences with specific groups, be they Africans, asylum-seekers, Muslims.

buried

I don't think its going to be entirely beneficial to anybody, settlers or travellers themselves to have the travellers actual historical culture taught in school. For one, settlers are going to be bemused at the historical showcase, because the modern world of the self identified traveller literally resembles nothing to the historic one. Two, the vast majority of travellers themselves don't care about their actual historical culture, they want to get as far away from that world as possible, and they have. So what's the point?

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322575#Comment_120322575

People sharing negative experiences of travellers = neo fascism, is what you're saying.

That has no basis in fact.

Whatever chat groups or threads exist on other platforms about other groups of people have no relationship to this issue.

I'm all for talking about traveller culture in schools but I'm not for sugar coating the realities of Travellers either.

All you're doing is saying that one thing appears to be a bit like the other therefore they're the same.

Everything is the fault of or related to the far right according to some people.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322540#Comment_120322540

And I don't doubt for a second there's people just like you in Germany right now talking about how they've only had negative experiences with Syrians or Africans. Or in the UK talking about Pakistanis or what have you.

It seems in Ireland and you just don't have to be part of a far-right group to have discussions like that about Travellers.

I've heard it's the same in Australia where there's a generally accepted national racism about aborigines.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322627#Comment_120322627

I've no problem whatsoever with people talking about negative experiences with Travellers.

My problem is when people draw generalisations from it, won't put it in context, or focus solely or predominantly on it.

The suicide rate amongst traveller is horrific, don't think that's had a mention in this thread. Could you call that a fair and balanced conversation then?

thegame983

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322643#Comment_120322643

Congratulations. None of that means anything.

hoodie6029

Very interesting comments in this thread. Let me put on my tinfoil hat.

The fear of Traveller culture and additional rights and privileges that travellers are getting or are perceived to be getting is the greatest con the media has pulled here. Politicians want you angry and worked up about this stuff. Because if you are maybe you won’t be out protesting the terrible housing situation, ‘free’ college education that costs families thousands every year, pollution in our air and rivers, cosy contracts for friends of ministers etc etc.

Asking kids to learn a bit about a culture? ‘Where’s the outlet for my outrage over this??’

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322684#Comment_120322684

Draw generalisations like saying people are neo fascists for saying anything other than complimentary things about travellers?

Suicide rates, domestic violence, education, organised crime, alcoholism, fueding violence could all be discussed here. None of these things are positives and they're all relevant.

If we want to integrate travellers into our society it won't be achieved by politicians housing them next to every rough housing estate in the country and then making the right noises about things like ethnic status and education about culture blah blah blah and doing nothing to make any material changes to their actual lives whatsoever beyond telling the rest of us how naughty we are for describing the behaviour in front of our faces that is in turn caused by politicians and left wing spoofers who wouldn't want to have them for neighbours themselves doing nothing but paying lip service to the actual issues.

Round and round we go with this and drawing comparisons between people sharing their experiences and neo fascist groups allows the spoofers in the Dail and oh so well meaning social justice activitists off the hook for all their failures.

buried

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322820#Comment_120322820

What "culture" though? That historical culture that the same political establishment want to now teach is literally dead. Nothing exists today that anyway resembles it. The travellers don't even care themselves.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322838#Comment_120322838

I guess I must have hit a nerve because that's not at all what I said, and I've clarified this already.

This is what I said, just a few post back...

I've no problem whatsoever with people talking about negative experiences with Travellers.

My problem is when people draw generalisations from it, won't put it in context, or focus solely or predominantly on it.

I raised the point about suicide because I think it highlights how Travellers suffer, how they're vulnerable just like us, and it raises the question of what causes that suffering.

But just repeating "traveller culture = crime, crime, crime" is the same as what other neo-fascists do and I make no apologies for calling that out.