The Far-Right Are Trying To Make You Feel ‘More Irish’
Words by Dylan Mangan.
Nationalism has always been one of the most effective tools for the far-right and fascism across the world. For the far-right to succeed, they need to create a sense of us against them. They need to dehumanise others to create a division between groups of people. It’s generally just the first step in a plan that ends with acts of genocide. Neo-liberalism and capitalism have created a vacuum of identity across the world into which the far-right have rushed. European countries like Hungary and Austria have seen huge success for ‘national’ parties, and even countries with a more recent history of fascist dictatorships, like Spain, have shown to be susceptible to the rise of the far-right parties like the hugely popular Vox.
This kind of political party is one that always rises as a result of a combination of fear and an ability to reframe political discussions to suit the narrative they are trying to push. The successes of Brexit and Trump have been well documented examples of playing on voter fear to gain support. The number of migrants - people living outside the country in which they were born - increased by 49% from 2000-2017, to an estimated 258 million people. This has been one of the main agendas which far-right nationalism has capitalised on - the new family next door that looks different is an easy target.
Ireland will always be considered a country of emigration given our history, but like most first-world countries, more people move here than leave, and like most first-world countries, the stage is set quite perfectly for a far-right political party to gain popularity. The pandemic has intensified existing tensions across society, and will continue to do so in the future, especially surrounding immigration. Irish identity has already become more salient to many voters, especially as Brexit helped push the 32 counties conversation further along, and more into the mainstream.
Far-right groups take up fringe positions as recruitment methods. Those on the fringes of society are generally easier to recruit, especially if they hold beliefs that are at odds with the masses. They will latch onto anything that helps them pull people further along their path to ‘freedom’, and are essentially fishing using your own unhappiness as bait. A commonly held view - lockdown is bad, for example - is used to get you to join a Facebook group or follow a Twitter account where you’re quickly told that not only is lockdown bad, but it’s an illegally manufactured situation designed to control you in advance of the Great Replacement. Quite a jump, I know, but that is the end goal of the far-right. They want you to join them in their righteous crusade against all non-white people.
It is in this drive that the Irish far-right are attempting to use Irish identity and Irish nationalism to achieve their aims. Racist and fascist views are wrapped up and presented as being pro-Irish, and they quickly jump on any opportunity to tarnish the reputation of people of colour. Yemi Adenuga was targeted after becoming the first black migrant woman councillor. She was harassed and told she wasn’t Irish despite literally being an Irish citizen. Every contentious issue is co-opted for the cause. George Nkencho’s murder prompted many to say he deserved to die while Hazel Chu - born in Dublin - is one of the only people who has faced targeted abuse following her tweet expressing sympathy with George Nkencho’s family. I wonder why?
The George Nkencho case quickly exposed Ireland as a racist country. Years of American/British media reports of black men as thugs meant Nkencho was immediately described as such.
Thug? Black is not a synonym for thug pic.twitter.com/d3qkgX9wCI
— Sneachta (@atarodobaddest) December 30, 2020
The speed at which misinformation - especially one image detailing ‘past convictions’ - about the shooting spread is frightening. The idea was to paint this man as someone who deserved to die, to dehumanise him, and while this case was the most high profile in recent memory, the same thing has happened before and will happen again. Just last August, an army of anonymous Twitter accounts tried to frame a house burning down in Balbriggan as the result of ‘tension between African gangs’ in the town. While the majority of the country would say they are not racist, the ease at which we collectively buy into these narratives is telling.
Irish national identity is based on a huge variety of things, ranging from trad music and pints to hating the English and a distrust of success, but one timeless aspect of Irishness is our love of and need to travel, to move in search of better things. Irish people have emigrated all over the world, integrating themselves into communities - and not without struggle. Our shared history is based on a collective memory of families forced to move to America or the UK or Australia in order to find comfort. Irish emigrants have faced plenty of discrimination and have historically had to labour for acceptance, but we are also one of the most popular and successful bunch of wanderers.
The far-right are anti-immigration, with the slight caveat that if you’re white you’re probably alright. The Irish Freedom Party ran on a campaign full of anti-immigration policies while also running an immigrant as a candidate, who’s ‘allowed’ to become a citizen due to “his family ancestry”. John Bowler’s acceptance is the exception to prove the rule, as their stance changes when the colour of your skin does. Party leader Hermann Kelly is widely reported to be a proponent of the Great Replacement conspiracy, despite his attempts to clean up his image, and much of the far-right’s success is dependent on reprogramming you to associate white with Irish.
Every time the far-right portray a person of colour as ‘non-Irish’ they do so in an attempt to convince anyone with even the slightest of racist tendencies that they are more Irish, more deserving of Irishness than anyone else. In isolation, this shouldn’t work, but every time a person of colour has their reputation tarnished à la Hazel Chu, every time a video of a stabbing is shared as an ‘African’ doing harm to ‘white Irish boys’, they’re slowly eating away at your consciousness. The far-right may be digging with toothbrushes, but they’re still digging.
The Irish far-right are weak. At least that’s what you’d think from a quick glance at last year’s general election results. Far-right parties like The National Party and The Irish Freedom Party got only 4,773 and 5,495 first preference votes respectively. Job done then. Not quite, as the rise of the far-right politically is generally a result of the rise of the far-right culturally. While current political attitudes and Sinn Fein hoovering up a big majority of nationalist voters means that there may not be a huge amount of space for a far-right national party, lockdown protests and increasingly public and brazen acts of racism show that there is still an appetite for the far-right in this country, however small it may be.
