Talking about pets is controversial: some people like dogs, while others like cats; some take their pets to the vet and grooming services, while others leave them to their own devices. It is impossible to agree on this topic because when it comes to pets, everyone does what they want, especially since pets do not speak -or complain, for that matter- and we will never know what they think about how humans treat them.

If we put aside the mysterious silence of pets and look at the places where their owners communicate with each other, we can understand what is happening.

I am a passive member of a community group on Facebook, and topics that have occupied the participants’ attention in recent weeks are related to pets. What catches my attention is not the pets but how people talk about their relationships with them. One person recently mentioned in a post that they were worried about how “abandoned” cats were hanging around the roofs. Another person told us they had found a dog walking alone down the street and brought it to their house to “protect” it from being kidnapped. Another person uploaded photos of a cat stalking the garbage on the road while he lamented: “poor cat feeding on garbage.” A separate genre is news about lost pets and messages of support and solidarity from members. Much water has passed under the bridge since pets were seen as mere animals.

On one occasion, I asked an old Irish farmer if he had any pets growing up (he had grown up on a farm surrounded by all kinds of animals), and he looked at me sardonically and said: “animals were for working, not for playing”. Since then, pets have gained a better lifestyle, especially in rich countries.

However, this well-being has also meant an overprotection that has kept pets away from their original destiny as animals. This improvement in pets’ lifestyle is also contributing to the climate crisis in which we live: today, pets consume one-fifth of the meat and fish produced in the world; that is, if all the pets in the world lived in the same country, this country would compare its meat consumption to Russia, Brazil, China or the USA.

As we can see, our innocent fondness for pets is also contributing to pushing us towards the climactic cliff. That is why we have to think about it. Isn’t our addiction to improving the lives of pets a weak substitute for something else? Isn’t it that we use pets for our benefit to hide our innermost anxieties and fears? Isn’t it that we make pets something functional, comfortable and malleable?

Isn’t wanting to transform pets into predictable and banal beings a way of believing in controlling the chaotic world surrounding us? While we prevent them from being what they are: simple animals in a wild, ridiculous and unpredictable world.

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Resilience, resilience, resilience. Is there a more favoured word when discussing the wellness everyone should enjoy? If one is unhappy, this is simply because we cannot be resilient. It is our responsibility, and that is the problem with resilience.

Let’s go by part; resilience is a concept that psychology has borrowed from physics. In physics, it refers to the characteristics of a material, mechanism or system to “recover its initial state when the disturbance to which it had been subjected has ceased”. So, for example, the materials with which a building has been built would be resilient if they adapt and tolerate the movement of an earthquake without collapsing and without deteriorating their foundations. But, so far, everything is okay because we are talking about bricks and cement.

The problem is that people also face “emotional earthquakes”, crises and situations that affect us in ways we are not fully aware of. Nor do we recover when we want to, but rather when we can and after long efforts.

When talking about resilience and applying it to people, we usually hear miraculous stories in which ordinary people, after facing stressful and harmful situations, recovered, learned fundamental lessons and, in many cases, ended up preaching their resilience so that others also become resilient beings.

The problem with it is not resilience’s almost superstitious or shamanistic nature. The problem is that this way of understanding crises and difficulties leaves untouched the roots of the hardships and inequities that affect people while making them responsible for their well-being.

Getting sick and having money to attend a private clinic is not the same as getting sick and going to a poorly lit emergency post. It is like having Covid in Mali or having it in Germany. So would you ask rich and poor people alike to be resilient?

Are not the poor less responsible for what happens to them than those who know they have a greater participation in shaping the crisis we find ourselves experiencing? So why do they insist on telling us that we are all equally responsible?

The causes of the social problems afflicting us have not originated within individuals but in operating a system maintained by the profits produced by perpetuating inequality, ignorance, racism and discrimination. A system that breaks the lives of the poor and then, to top it off, asks them to repair themselves.

Why should ordinary people be responsible for the consequences produced by the elite? Why do they have to learn to be resilient? Isn’t it like asking those sentenced to death also to decorate their grave to their liking and be happy to die? They don’t want to die in the first place.

Is there an alternative to the resilience preached to us from psychological pulpits?

I prefer the words of the writer Mohamed MBougar: “Resilience! Resilience! fuck you! I desire the truth of the long fall and the infinite fall. I do repair Nothing that has been destroyed seems repairable to me. I do not comfort or console. Hanging from my belt is the most effective reliquary against evil: the desire for truth, assuming that truth is death. I look for the ruins of old buried paths. Their footprints indicate yet another path. It is not on any map. But it’s the only valid one.”

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Lockdowns are over. It is time now for relaxation, but also concern.

In Ireland, restrictions will gradually be lifted starting today. The European summer begins, and this change is welcomed, especially by hotels, businesses, and the tourism sector, all of which were strongly affected by lockdowns. The vaccination rollout to the population over 60 has been successfully completed. The number of people in Emergency Units has dropped. The problems with AstraZeneca are being left behind, and other vaccine providers are supplying European countries. All in all, everything seems to indicate that something like a safe return to normality is beginning to take form. Today is Europe, and later, if everything goes well, it will be the world that leaves this unexpected and terrible pandemic behind.

Meanwhile, I read the short story ‘Autopista del Sur’ (The Southern Thruway)[1] by the Argentine writer Julio Cortázar over and over again, looking for a key to interpret this moment, which we could call historical. Let me share with you some of the ideas that the reading has proposed to me, but first, some brief notes about the story.

One Sunday, a sudden and terrible traffic jam occurs in the suburbs of Paris. The traffic jam lasts for days; the drivers and passengers in the cars begin to befriend one another, offering friendship, emotional support, material help, and so forth. An improvised small community emerges among the drivers and passengers, and they begin to speculate about the cause of the traffic jam and offer possible explanations. Little by little, food becomes scarce, and the group must begin to organise themselves to stay safe and survive; they create surveillance systems, help the elderly, and even face the death of a driver. The circumstances are terrifying, and the characters of the story must face what has been called, since the beginning of time, “the dark side” of human nature: evil, selfishness and abuse. The author also shows us the friendship, empathy and even the love and passion that emerges between two characters. The story ends with the traffic jam dissolving. Little by little, the cars begin to move, slowly first and later at greater speed. As the hours go on, characters forget what happened and move on. The preoccupation with survival is left behind, and characters are now imagining the shower they would like to take when they get home, the bed they would like to sleep in, and what they assume awaits them after this extraordinary traffic jam. None of them looks back.

Would you agree that this story can be taken as a key to understanding our current times? Or, in other words, our current “traffic jam” called Covid? Could we take this story as a kind of message contained in a bottle thrown into the sea in 1966, which reached the shore in April 2021?

It seems to me that our current times are represented by the story’s end. We have begun to emerge from the longest lockdown ever, the saddest and also the one that witnessed the highest number of infections and deaths. Normality begins to reappear, and I ask myself: Are we going to forget what happened during all these months? Are we going to throw away this experience? Are we not going to reflect on what has happened between us? Are we not going to think about the wrongs that were done to us, the wrongs that we did to others, the good we did not do? Are we now forgetting while imagining what we will do once the restrictions are lifted, once we are finally free? But free for what? I ask. To buy again, to be enslaved again by the need created by a system that doesn’t give a damn about us? Are we not going to change the way we live?

This pandemic is the most horrifying experience we have had in a long time. In Europe, it is only compared with World War II in terms of lethality. Many people, fathers, mothers, siblings, and children died, and are still dying in countries like India, Brazil, Mexico or the United States.

The only way we can learn from this experience is to go deep and reflect on what it has meant. Look back and look at its eyes. The only way to escape is not forwards, towards conspicuous consumption, but towards all the evil that this pandemic has made evident: the abandonment in which poor countries former colonies are, the private rights of vaccines that are in the hands of pharmaceutical companies, the selfishness shown by some leaders when it comes to privileging their populations, the benefits that some corporate groups have tried to achieve and the pressure of economic groups to open economies prematurely and a long etcetera. This is what we have to look at; this is the past we don’t want to repeat. In front of us, there is only a void, a desert, nothingness. And behind the darkness of our past. The darkness this Covid-19 experience shows us contains the clarity we need to illuminate what is to come.

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Currently, in Ireland, one in five people is foreign-born (20 per cent of the population, according to Census 2022), which poses a political challenge of integration for the country, its institutions, and communities. One way to monitor this process is to observe migrant participation in local elections as voters and candidates.

The last local elections in 2024 showed a positive shift:

* 1 in 20 (5%) of all candidates contesting the local elections were of a migrant background.

* Migrant women accounted for the majority of candidates of migrant background at 55%, which is an increase from 45% in 2019.

* 81% of candidates from a migrant background were contesting their first elections in 2024.

* 27 out of 31 local authorities have candidates of a migrant background, compared to 24 in 2019. (Immigrant Council, 2024)

This shift towards greater political participation of representatives from migrant and refugee communities is something to celebrate, especially in these times of increasing rightward shift and populism. The future of democracy always hinges on everyone’s active participation in the issues that affect them and beyond.

It is in this civic spirit that Ireland is celebrating another National Voter Registration Day today, the 30th of April. This initiative aims to promote voter registration and increase political participation in Ireland, with a particular focus on minority groups, disadvantaged communities, and young people.

Numerous NGOs, both large and small, and migrant-led organisations are calling on migrants and members of minority groups to register to vote in local and national elections through workshops, information exchanges, and events. While this could be seen as just another social event to feed the constant thirst for news on social media and in print media, it is also a necessary opportunity to discuss the more complex situations unfolding behind the scenes. I would like to share some of these concerns with you in the form of questions:

The first relates to the invitation itself: Are we inviting migrants and refugees to register to vote to strengthen a democratic system that treats migrant candidates as gatekeepers of traditional Irish political parties? When political parties promote a candidate from an ethnic minority, do they do so as a member of an ideological group (the party), or do they use them as a symbol and means to connect with this growing segment of the population?

We cannot forget that in the UK, many second and third-generation migrants have acted against migrants and refugees on behalf of the white British majority. How many Irish migrant-born candidates, in the same situation, would do the same in Ireland to align with the party’s agenda? We don’t yet know, but we must keep this example in mind. Skin colour doesn’t prevent one from adopting conservative views, nor does it naturally promote progressive ones.

Another question that arises with this campaign, especially in light of later government decisions, is: How can migrants and refugees vote for traditional political parties that support more restrictive legislation regarding migration and asylum? Moreover, how can we ask Ukrainian refugees to register to vote for the governing coalition after they’ve announced a reduction in their support and want to send them back to Ukraine?

I imagine the migrants and refugees participating in this campaign know what their interests are and why they support it. Collective solidarity and grassroots political participation remain the main channels for bringing about social change. Register, vote and participate!

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We go through life without paying attention to the messages of “what is not correct to say.” The problem is that those who don’t listen to criticism are always right.

On Christmas night, I watched this Christmas TV show. Musicians and artists shared the stage in a festive, emotional and positive atmosphere. At some point in the program, the presenter interviewed a couple of refugees from Ukraine and asked them, unsurprisingly, about Christmas away from their homes destroyed by war. The interviewees recounted the sadness and fear that had led them to leave their country and remembered the people they had left behind; they warmly appreciated the support and solidarity shown by people throughout the country. A big applause closed this emotional moment, or, as they said, “the show must go on”.

As the singers returned to the stage and the Christmas lights glowed in the studio, I wondered if I had heard everything these people had said.

Because while they clearly expressed gratitude for the economic, material, and social support they had received, that could not be the whole truth. Why? Because, as the good Alcaeus of Mytilene said, “the truth is not close when one does not hear what one does not want to hear”.

So, thinking about what was not said, I asked myself: what happened to the government’s erratic actions? With the accommodation crisis caused by the greed of some, and blamed on refugees? What happens to the refugees and asylum seekers spending this Christmas without knowing if they will be transferred to other centres or isolated rural towns? What about the growing atmosphere of hostility with which some communities have received the refugees?

It happens that this TV program opted to have refugees among its audience but decided not to say or ask any of these things. They opted not to speak the uncomfortable truths that could challenge the status quo. After all, they are talking to thousands of people. Instead, they decided to take the heartwarming road. The one that asks for common-sense questions that call for answers that will make the audience feel good.

Do you miss home? How could they not? How have people treated you? Are you happy to be here; are you grateful for the help received? How could they not? Every person from Ukraine who spoke that night felt thankful to the country that welcomed them and provided them with protection. But this is not the whole truth, and that is the problem.

The problem is that when we do what needs to be done without listening to criticism, we fall into a form of conformism that leads to passivity. As a result, our problems do not rest but increase while we tell ourselves we have already done our best, and whatever is left is not our problem. This is what happens with the refugee situation in Ireland. We cannot ignore the severe shortcomings in how the government, the media, the communities, and each of us have handled this “unprecedented” situation.

We cannot succumb to “self-praise” or force people to express their gratitude without giving voice to their criticism. We cannot turn a deaf ear to the possibilities of doing things better and more honestly by listening to criticism.

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Currently, in Ireland, one in five people is foreign-born (20 per cent of the population, according to Census 2022), which poses a political challenge of integration for the country, its institutions, and communities. One way to monitor this process is to observe migrant participation in local elections as voters and candidates.

The last local elections in 2024 showed a positive shift:

* 1 in 20 (5%) of all candidates contesting the local elections were of a migrant background.

* Migrant women accounted for the majority of candidates of migrant background at 55%, which is an increase from 45% in 2019.

* 81% of candidates from a migrant background were contesting their first elections in 2024.

* 27 out of 31 local authorities have candidates of a migrant background, compared to 24 in 2019. (Immigrant Council, 2024)

This shift towards greater political participation of representatives from migrant and refugee communities is something to celebrate, especially in these times of increasing rightward shift and populism. The future of democracy always hinges on everyone’s active participation in the issues that affect them and beyond.

It is in this civic spirit that Ireland is celebrating another National Voter Registration Day today, the 30th of April. This initiative aims to promote voter registration and increase political participation in Ireland, with a particular focus on minority groups, disadvantaged communities, and young people.

Numerous NGOs, both large and small, and migrant-led organisations are calling on migrants and members of minority groups to register to vote in local and national elections through workshops, information exchanges, and events. While this could be seen as just another social event to feed the constant thirst for news on social media and in print media, it is also a necessary opportunity to discuss the more complex situations unfolding behind the scenes. I would like to share some of these concerns with you in the form of questions:

The first relates to the invitation itself: Are we inviting migrants and refugees to register to vote to strengthen a democratic system that treats migrant candidates as gatekeepers of traditional Irish political parties? When political parties promote a candidate from an ethnic minority, do they do so as a member of an ideological group (the party), or do they use them as a symbol and means to connect with this growing segment of the population?

We cannot forget that in the UK, many second and third-generation migrants have acted against migrants and refugees on behalf of the white British majority. How many Irish migrant-born candidates, in the same situation, would do the same in Ireland to align with the party’s agenda? We don’t yet know, but we must keep this example in mind. Skin colour doesn’t prevent one from adopting conservative views, nor does it naturally promote progressive ones.

Another question that arises with this campaign, especially in light of later government decisions, is: How can migrants and refugees vote for traditional political parties that support more restrictive legislation regarding migration and asylum? Moreover, how can we ask Ukrainian refugees to register to vote for the governing coalition after they’ve announced a reduction in their support and want to send them back to Ukraine?

I imagine the migrants and refugees participating in this campaign know what their interests are and why they support it. Collective solidarity and grassroots political participation remain the main channels for bringing about social change. Register, vote and participate!

Share

Photo Sebastian Silva

https://a-visual-diary-for-tomorrow.tumblr.com/

Currently, in Ireland, one in five people is foreign-born (20 per cent of the population, according to Census 2022), which poses a political challenge of integration for the country, its institutions, and communities. One way to monitor this process is to observe migrant participation in local elections as voters and candidates.

The last local elections in 2024 showed a positive shift:

* 1 in 20 (5%) of all candidates contesting the local elections were of a migrant background.

* Migrant women accounted for the majority of candidates of migrant background at 55%, which is an increase from 45% in 2019.

* 81% of candidates from a migrant background were contesting their first elections in 2024.

* 27 out of 31 local authorities have candidates of a migrant background, compared to 24 in 2019. (Immigrant Council, 2024)

This shift towards greater political participation of representatives from migrant and refugee communities is something to celebrate, especially in these times of increasing rightward shift and populism. The future of democracy always hinges on everyone’s active participation in the issues that affect them and beyond.

It is in this civic spirit that Ireland is celebrating another National Voter Registration Day today, the 30th of April. This initiative aims to promote voter registration and increase political participation in Ireland, with a particular focus on minority groups, disadvantaged communities, and young people.

Numerous NGOs, both large and small, and migrant-led organisations are calling on migrants and members of minority groups to register to vote in local and national elections through workshops, information exchanges, and events. While this could be seen as just another social event to feed the constant thirst for news on social media and in print media, it is also a necessary opportunity to discuss the more complex situations unfolding behind the scenes. I would like to share some of these concerns with you in the form of questions:

The first relates to the invitation itself: Are we inviting migrants and refugees to register to vote to strengthen a democratic system that treats migrant candidates as gatekeepers of traditional Irish political parties? When political parties promote a candidate from an ethnic minority, do they do so as a member of an ideological group (the party), or do they use them as a symbol and means to connect with this growing segment of the population?

We cannot forget that in the UK, many second and third-generation migrants have acted against migrants and refugees on behalf of the white British majority. How many Irish migrant-born candidates, in the same situation, would do the same in Ireland to align with the party’s agenda? We don’t yet know, but we must keep this example in mind. Skin colour doesn’t prevent one from adopting conservative views, nor does it naturally promote progressive ones.

Another question that arises with this campaign, especially in light of later government decisions, is: How can migrants and refugees vote for traditional political parties that support more restrictive legislation regarding migration and asylum? Moreover, how can we ask Ukrainian refugees to register to vote for the governing coalition after they’ve announced a reduction in their support and want to send them back to Ukraine?

I imagine the migrants and refugees participating in this campaign know what their interests are and why they support it. Collective solidarity and grassroots political participation remain the main channels for bringing about social change. Register, vote and participate!

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Photo Sebastian Silva

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It is only me or someone else has noted the strange expressions that we learned this year. COVID bubble, corona-babies, new normal, lockdown, flattening the curve and so forth. Above all, the strangest one is “essential work”. Let me tell you why.

Let me start with a question. Why have these jobs, that only yesterday were synonymous with precarious, low-paid, long-hours shifts and little security, received the label of essential overnight? Workers such as health carers, fruit pickers, lorry drivers, cleaners, Deliveroo bikers, kitchen staff, to name a few, are, to a large extent, migrants, poor and vulnerable. These jobs have become more necessary as a result of the lockdowns and related pandemic consequences. Many of these workers, such as those in nursing homes, have been called heroes and cited by political authorities as examples of resilience and commitment. The working conditions of these workers, nonetheless, have not been addressed.

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a crisis across sectors of the economy, which have become more dependent on low-paid workers whose jobs were previously deemed essential. I remember the case of a large strawberry farm, which was questioned for bringing foreign workers amidst the first lockdown; despite coming every year and enduring crowded accommodation and related conditions, it was not until locals felt threatened by the potential health risk that they questioned their temporary living conditions. The farm’s management explained that every year they advertised the jobs but received few or no applications from nationals, so they depended on foreign labour.

Lockdowns have imposed changes and restrictions on the labour market, but workers in hospitals, nursing homes, kitchens, supermarkets, and delivery have continued working long hours, as usual. The difference was the fact that, this time, they were putting their life at risk because of the pandemic. They showed rigour, courage and strength when the situation was turning dangerous.

The question remains: have the people who do these jobs always been considered essential? Or only now, when they are needed, not to stop working and to carry on as usual, meaning putting their lives at risk, considered heroes, examples of resilience and so forth? Nurses, care home assistants, fruit pickers, cashiers and supermarket staff, nursing home staff, Deliveroo bikers, kitchen staff and so on. They have been working, long before the pandemic, away from cameras and publicity. They have been doing their jobs anonymously, and these jobs have always benefited society.

I remember the case of one migrant who was a member of the staff in a nursing home. He had been notified of an imminent deportation. The nursing home manager contacted the press, and some TDs took on the case. The manager explained that the worker, who likely represented many others, had been working day after day during the worst period of the first lockdown, and that he deserved better. In the end, the deportation was stopped, and, moreover, all deportations were put on hold due to the pandemic. People clapped at the decision. Do you think that this situation would be possible in normal circumstances? Health and nursing home carers are very much needed, and migrants represent a large proportion of them; however, the necessity of their labour did not stop earlier deportations.

Hypocrisy is a great problem in our societies. Maybe it is time to remember that every work is essential, not because it is profitable, but because it is performed by human beings who use their skills to help other human beings. It does not matter if this person is white, black or red, their work is essential because it contributes in different ways. Everybody’s work is essential in their own way, and it deserves recognition and fair retribution.

Maybe one of the teachings that we have to learn from this pandemic is this one.

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Within the tangle of data, opinions, and conspiracy theories surrounding migration in Ireland, many voices are lost in the noise. These are voices and stories that could make a substantial difference in how the public understands migration and refuge. These are not the sanitised narratives one finds in the mainstream media and news segments. Rather, these are intimate stories that directly affect Irish citizens because relatives are involved: siblings, children, and grandchildren.

For example, the stories of the nearly 2,000 Irish people who had to leave their homes in the Middle East overnight to return to Ireland in the context of the war in Iran, in an area where an estimated 24,400 Irish citizens live. What has been the experience of these Irish people having to flee the bombs and the war? Along with this more immediate experience, it would be worth listening to what their experience has been as foreigners living and working in a very different culture. Did they need to learn Arabic? Did they find it difficult? How have they felt about being treated by the locals? What has helped them cope with the overall experience? And more recently, how have they faced living under the threat of bombings or airstrikes in Doha, Oman, or Dubai?

Here are a couple of quotes captured by television at Dublin Airport, when Irish residents were brought back a few weeks ago: “It is a big deal when we are over there, lying down in bed and listening to bangs… It’s crazy, you would feel the windows shaking.”, “The last week has been incredibly distressing for our citizens in the Gulf.”

I think that listening to these voices could, in some measure, help broaden people’s understanding of migration. Why? Because they hear it from someone close to them or someone they see on the news, with whom they can easily relate. Perhaps seeing that “one of their own” can also experience the difficult experience of having to flee a country with no flights available, leaving their house without knowing it will be there when and if they come back, in sum, the insecurity of life regardless of who you are, perhaps then people can feel more open and available to have an honest conversation about the situation of refugees, migrants and those seeking sanctuary in this country.

Of course, there are many aspects that make the life of expats more sheltered than those of refugees or migrants workers from the Global South, but still, listening to the experiences of those close, connecting with their fear, homesickness, cultural barriers, and frustrations may help to go beyond the statistical and sensationalist simplification of a reality that resists being simplified because, ultimately, it is something that happens to human beings: Irish, Congolese, Syrians, or Venezuelans.

Broadening our minds could help open our hearts in a less selective way. Set aside our suspicions and be more open to people who seem different from us.

This exercise in radical empathy could help us, for a moment, ignore the differences that separate us and focus on what unites us: the fear of bombs and the desire for a better life for ourselves and our children.

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How confidently we go through life making plans, believing we know something, giving advice to everyone and imagining giving our children the best future possible. Without this directed effort, many believe that life would have no meaning. And well, maybe that’s why we cling tightly to the toxic belief that everything depends on ourselves, on our effort and that with perseverance and determination, one can “twist destiny’s hand” and achieve what one sets out to do without touching the roots of the evils that afflict us all, together and separately.

As we go through the busy days, months, and years doing what we must to meet our higher expectations, exhaustion, anxiety, and depression pile up like heavy dust on our shoulders. While our life is, little by little, disappearing. What is impressive is the extreme effort we go to silence the voices that show us that everything we love, everything we work so hard for, at the end of the day, is nothing but appearance, future ruins to be forgotten (Oh, Ozymandias!) and material that fuels the silent fire that consumes us as we go through life doing what we must do.

This may be what happened to a man from the city who one day travelled to a village lost in the middle of the Irish countryside. Tired of driving and lost on a country road, he suddenly saw a farmer grazing his sheep. The driver stopped and asked the man if that road led to town “A”. The farmer told him that that was the road to “A”. The driver thanked him, and as he began to move his car, the farmer whispered to him: “You are on the right road, but you are driving in the wrong direction.”

Like that driver, we are speeding in search of a life we believe will satisfy our desires and dreams, when, in reality, we only make them impossible to achieve. Why do we refuse to accept that we are in a climate crisis requiring immediate action? Why do we live as if nothing is happening around us when it is clear that the climate is radically changing and making life more perilous? Why do we accept or ignore injustices as something natural and without remedy? Why do we insist on supporting a system that enslaves us in cleverer and more brutal ways?

Why don’t we rebel, once and for all, and give a new direction to our efforts, creativity and dreams?

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I was recently talking with an Irish friend about the challenges migrants and refugees face in integrating into Irish society. We were discussing the two contested views on integration, one understood as a two-way street in which the migrant adapts to the local culture while contributing their own culture to it, while the other is a one-way street in which the migrant is expected to adapt and assimilate, with the host culture having no interest in the migrants’ own culture. We both felt these views lacked consistency and reality in at least three ways: first, because it assumes there is an exchange between equals and a balance of power (migrants and nationals); second, because it exoticizes the notion of culture, treating it as something essential and exclusive; and third, because we felt it was crucial to consider that countries in the Global North have often appropriated the culture of countries from the Global South and profited from it without acknowledgement.

At the same time, views that heavily emphasise culture as the main marker of integration can create expectations and false ideas about how migrants relate to their cultural heritage and whether they want to be seen in that light. Some migrants find that performing and celebrating their culture is a way to build a bridge with their new community, while others prefer not to, or dislike being asked the usual battery of questions.

The problem arises when we, as migrants, are expected to act and express ourselves in ways that can feel oppressive and essentialising.

Culture is not something static that can be considered separately from the conflicts it generates or the people who practice it. In this case, culture could be seen as the story of influences and their unexpected reception by people. This is what happened, for example, with Picasso when he adopted African art, with Gauguin when he painted the inhabitants of Tahiti, and with Van Gogh when he was inspired by Japanese painting. These artists adopted the perspective of art from another continent and used it to break with and modify their own artistic traditions.

My friend then mentioned something that at first seemed paradoxical to me: that, in his opinion, for some Irish artists, accessing Irish culture often meant emigrating from Ireland. Emigrating, for my friend, meant escaping what he called the suffocating presence of the Roman Catholic Church, nationalism, and the omnipresent interference of family and neighbours in their affairs. My friend mentioned James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, and Yeats as examples of this.

What challenges did these immigrant artists face in the societies where they arrived? Can their experiences help us move beyond a one-dimensional view of integration and show, in all its complexity, the positive impact that migration has on societies?

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Do you remember those Wild West movies that always had that scene in the town saloon with cowboys drinking and playing cards? The plot was more or less this: a man at the piano played a catchy and happy tune while the men drank at the bar or played cards, cheerful young ladies chatted with them while the owner served generous portions of whiskey. But, then, suddenly everything was silent, the music stopped, and everyone stared at the canteen door. Why? A stranger had come to town.

As he walked to the bar to confront the bartender, eyes weighed on this stranger. Where does he come from? Why is he in town? Is he dangerous? Does he have money? Will he respect the rules of the place?

In reality, this could seem like an extreme case of hostility towards strangers. However, there is something perennial in this scene that makes us always bring it to the present: the whole scene is based on the possibility that the expectations of those who evaluate the stranger are confirmed or refuted. If they are confirmed, and the lonely man turns out to be a poor man who works as a labourer, there is no problem, the party can continue and the joy returns to the canteen. The stranger is not a threat. But if the stranger is a rogue outlaw, then the sheriff or the local thugs will come after him.

There will be an uproar and surely a duel in the middle of the town’s central street.

Let’s imagine that we are in that street in front of the stranger, gun in hand. The stranger questions us while he looks us in the eye, smoking. He questions our expectations about what normal life is. When we accept and make our own the limiting expectations others have about us; or when the media tries to make us believe that we need things that we don’t need.

Aren’t we fearful and cornered in our certainties while wondering if this stranger will come to endanger these truths and securities?

Isn’t this duel lost beforehand? Isn’t this duel ending right here?

Someone falls to the ground, and a whirlwind of dust shakes the sand.

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Photo Sebastian Silva

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Awareness is something that cannot be bought with money, but sometimes it is given to us for free.

Some time ago, I met a man who showed great perseverance and dedication in helping migrants and refugees who needed support. Every week he was there to teach English with patience and kindness, always giving his best. We used to talk about different topics, and one day, when we were saying goodbye, I asked him, why are you committed to helping migrants and refugees? He replied, smiling: “I like being with the ‘underdogs’ We, Irish, had a tough time in England; I can put myself in their shoes, the underdogs’ shoes”.

His answer forced me to look at myself from a different angle because if he was conscious of the reasons that had led him to be there, was I too? Were our reasons similar or different? Were we refugees, asylum seekers and migrant ‘underdogs’? Was I an underdog in my own eyes?

Then I realised that one thing is to migrate, to move from one place to another, changing your language, habits, culture, likes, etc. But, still, another thing is to be aware – we could say to wake up – to what that means concerning one’s social class, exclusion, racism or Otherness in a different country.

This friend gave me that afternoon an external view, a “perspective” on us migrants. Because beyond the relationship with our subjective experience of migration (whose epitome is “homesick”), we are all part of a much larger phenomenon happening right now: the movement of people due to poverty, violence, climate change and war. We, migrants, can forget that because we are driven by our own motivations, dreams and the sheer need to survive. But we find ourselves in a world society where we are not part of the “favourite team”.

As underdogs, we started the race of life when some were three minutes from the finish line while we were 300 meters behind the starting point. However, the so-called “American dream”, or the idea that migrants can become winners due to individual hard work, can end up numbing the most combative leaders, as we know. This neoliberal vision could leave us isolated but paradoxically brings us closer. As “underdogs”, we migrants share that space with other marginalised minorities of the host society where we find ourselves. Marginalised minorities, Travellers, Black youth, migrants, asylum seekers and refugees share the agenda of the struggle for recognition but also the struggle for a just society on a global scale.

And what better way to gauge the chances of social change in a society than the ability of “underdogs” to ask themselves questions!

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Photography: Sebastian Silva: https://a-visual-diary-for-tomorrow.tumblr.com

The importance of who leads organisations that support migrants and refugees lies in the fact that representation is key to identifying and addressing their real problems. It’s not just about leadership, but also about ensuring that the voices of those who live the migrant experience are heard and seen.

Feminist groups are right: laws affecting reproductive rights, the right to a life free from gender-based violence, and economic and labour equality are often formulated by men with no interest in emancipation or gender equality. Similarly, those who represent migrants without being migrants themselves have an existential distance from the real problems they face. They don’t have “the skin in the game”. I use this phrase here also to emphasise that the colour of your skin matters.

The experience of migration and seeking asylum for those from the Global South means carrying a heavy cargo of disadvantages and discrimination that needs to be acknowledged by the host societies if we want to create genuine inclusion, mutual understanding, and acceptance.

Migrants face what can be called the “gatekeeping glass ceiling”, as if, in the eyes of organisations, social programmes, etc., they can be no more than gatekeepers, participants, or intercultural liaisons. Those who speak on behalf of migrants or refugees may have excellent gatekeepers, but do not carry an embodied understanding of the challenges migrants face and the resources and knowledge migrants possess to address them.

No offence. Not taken.

This is not a negative comment. It is stating a fact. Those who cannot escape their privilege cannot speak on behalf of the exploited. The exploited must speak for themselves and represent their collective struggle. That is what must be demanded: the opposite of whitewashing, the white saviour syndrome, or paternalism.

So, if we put a migrant in charge of the organisation, is that okay? It would be a starting point. But it’s not enough, and it is not a silver bullet. The test lies in the personal awareness of and engagement with the collective’s challenges. It’s not about essentialising migrants’ lived experience.

Migration is complex. Today’s migrants, governments and societies face unprecedented challenges and new obstacles, such as rising racism and conspiratorial mindsets. Now more than ever, countries and local communities are wary of migrants, especially when the matter of rights and equality is added to the mix. Infinitely more complex is the situation faced by asylum seekers and refugees. All in all, we need collaboration, alliances and solidarity. The more hands and voices, the better. Nationals and migrants need to work together, from the standpoint each occupies. However, this discussion remains stuck in its initial stages: national importance is acknowledged (“we need migrant workers to sustain our health system”) and resources are available, yet most organisations remain dominated by a one-dimensional perspective on integration and the eternal search for the “good migrant”. We haven’t reached the point where migrants (are allowed to) take the lead and become political actors, designing their own solutions as protagonists and not just as perpetual gatekeepers. Otherwise, we are creating a false image of inclusion, as William Blake warns in The Four Zoas:

“It is an easy thing to triumph in the summer’s sun
And in the vintage and to sing on the waggon loaded with corn.
It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted,
To speak the laws of prudence to the houseless wanderer,
To listen to the hungry raven’s cry in wintry season
When the red blood is fill’d with wine and with the marrow of lambs”.

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Throughout my life, I have had the opportunity to share with hundreds of people who have had to leave their homes due to political violence. First, in my own country, working with migrants and refugees, I remember conversations with people from Peru who opposed Fujimori’s government, some even taking more radical actions to defend their rights, and with people fleeing the violence of the clashes between the FARC and US-backed troops under the so-called Plan Colombia. I shared with people from more distant corners of the world, Palestine, Sudan, the Congo, families, men, women and children who wanted to make Chile their home.

Since living in Ireland, my experience has broadened through the opportunity to share with people from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, and other countries that suffered the horrors of war and foreign powers.

For those who have not had the opportunity to share with refugees and hear the stories they tell when they feel treated as human beings, rather than objects, I would like to share the following reflection.

Refugees are heroes. They are people who have survived extremely harsh experiences and have often had to witness actions that represent the most abhorrent acts humanity has to offer in this world. Despite this—and perhaps because of this dark knowledge—they cling to life with an energy and vitality that inspire me every day. I am moved by the way they enthusiastically and meticulously prepare their meals every day, the way they practice their faith and head to the market in search of some delicate spice that reminds them of the home they had to leave behind, but they never forget.

I am impressed by the way they organise their gardens, planting herbs for cooking, and how they decorate their rooms or homes, as if they wanted to make them speak the language of memory. As if they were inhabitants of a country that exists only in their memories. Each of their homes is like an embassy of their home country, a space where sovereignty is exercised through the treasured memories displayed as plants, photographs, and fundamental religious images.

I only want to pay a brief tribute to what I have been fortunate enough to see: the way each of them, with everything they do and say, they keep connected to their memories, the happy and unhappy. I know now, after all these years of sharing with them, that someone in another far place remembers them too, and that they know it.

If you see them walking down the street, you would never think that this person is a hero, a survivor who has had to learn and practice a thousand trades beyond what their diplomas claim: much more than an engineer, much more than a doctor or a humanitarian worker. Much more than a builder or a musician, these people are heroes who carry and uphold something invisible that we all need: the thing that keeps the world still in its orbit —hope. The refugees walk without looking back, focused on something they know, though they do not fully understand: a place where they can start over—a place where they can plant their attention and their memory.

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I was recently looking at the shop windows in a busy street. While looking at the items on display, I heard the conversation of the two young shop assistants. They talked about a group of young Roma women chatting loudly outside the store. While looking at them, one of the young women said to the other: "I couldn't lead the life they lead. Go figure. Getting up, going out to beg. They are poor because they want to, and the government helps them; they don't deserve it." The conversation continued in that vein for a while. At that moment, I left the store and continued on my way.

As I walked, I thought about the categories the shop assistants used to talk about those other young women: "those who deserve and those who do not deserve".

Why did they assume the right to judge the merits of those other young women almost the same age? We will never know, but we know they spoke without knowing what kind of life these young Roma women led: Were they forced to beg on the streets? Were they pushed by their parents to get married when they were still teenagers? Did they suffer situations of physical, psychological or sexual violence?

No, the young employees spoke without even realising the abyss that separated them, young white employees, from those other young women. They talked based on their assumptions. And when we do that, a sort of moral ground emerges, and people think they can place a person, a group, a minority, like the Roma women in this case, and judge their lives as if there were no differences, unbalances, and inequalities underpinning the world. The silent majority judges without knowing. They base their words on the stereotypical images inflated by the press and politicians.

Another example of this tendency can be seen when an attempt is made to highlight the case of migrants or refugees who have managed to integrate into society and are presented now as being "admired" by their neighbours and local communities.

The "good migrant" narrative is harmful because it makes migrants the only ones responsible for the success (or failure) of their integration, but also because it tries to make us believe that there is only one successful way to integration: that which appears in newspapers.

With the above, the responsibility and obligations of the institutional actors in creating egalitarian integration conditions are diluted, and all responsibility is placed on the person (the Roma girl, the unemployed migrant). It is as if we blame the drowning person because they do not know how to swim instead of saving them and doing everything possible so that no one drowns. Instead of doing that, we applaud the ones who know how to swim while we let the vast majority sink into the deep sea of silence and incomprehension.

I recently heard a person calling to normalise the idea of migration. With this, she was referring to the need to accept that migration is a normal state of life for people on this planet and that societies should be called upon to treat migrants as typical expressions of an advanced form of civilisation in which people and goods move across borders with a legitimate right and without drama.

What caught my attention in this person's words is related to the common opinion that migration is something voluntary for everyone and that everyone can afford it, and secondly, that the experience of migration is something that could be taken as something familiar, almost light-touched, as she said.

It always amazes me to realise the naivety in which European citizens take for granted that the world in which they live is "the best of all possible worlds" without considering that their perception of the world that surrounds them is primarily because they enjoy privileges that others have denied.

Can't they see how the world works? For instance, knowing that the goods they can afford and buy are inaccessible to the very people who produced, picked or packed them in some place far away? Many European citizens do not consider that people from poorer countries must migrate because they are escaping environments deteriorated by conspicuous consumption in developed countries, the lack of jobs, the cultural prejudices of their societies, conflict and violence.

In other words, migration, for them, is the search for the well-being that their countries of origin do not provide or that openly deny them. In this sense, migration is not about long-term tourism or a romantic option but simply about survival. On the opposite side, European parents lament that their 'expat' children must leave their country and travel to countries like New Zealand, Australia or the United States in search of jobs to find satisfaction with their professional and personal expectations.

These same parents complain that foreigners fill job positions in the country. We see bad faith in interpreting the migratory phenomenon. Why? Because the expectations of those who come to work in a rich country from an underdeveloped country are different from those of those who leave a wealthy country that, in the first place, have given them plenty of opportunities and advantages. The starting points of both groups are different, their passports are different, and even the names used to label them are different. Migrant workers and expats - two very different queues in the production line of the world.

We live in desperate times. The current climate crisis, the protracted war in Ukraine, the increasing cost of living and the refugee crisis do not suggest any improvement in the short term. However, this feeling that “things are getting worse” is reaching a level where people are exhausted and seem unable to empathise.

This inability is projected as powerlessness. “Why am I going to recycle or buy green products if the catastrophe is of such magnitude that my effort is nothing? I’d rather enjoy the time left while others work on global solutions.”

This hedonistic response to the feeling of helplessness is also expressed in the way of seeing those who are on the front lines of crises: inability to show sympathy for someone in trouble, inability to empathise with people who suffer racism or discrimination, or difficulty understanding the pain of those who are lonely, suffer from addictions or sleep in the street. What clearer lack of empathy for these people than the lack of adequate public policies to resolve these problems fairly and efficiently?

Why this lack of empathy?

It seems to me that it is due to two factors: the empathy fatigue that afflicts us by being exposed daily to a seemingly infinite amount of misfortunes that occur around us and that leave us exhausted, and second, a kind of self-preservation mechanism that leads us to turn off the television and close our eyes in the face of so much unmanageable misfortune due to its magnitude and nonsense. As a result, it seems much easier to ignore reality’s difficult, ugly and painful side.

But there is another more intimate element: empathy leaves us in an uncomfortable place: we are vulnerable in the face of painful situations beyond our control that we cannot change. To a certain extent, this situation shows us the reduced possibilities of power: even with money, we will never be able to give a mother back the child killed in a bombing in Kyiv or Jartum. Similarly, some people often think that only a person experiencing similar circumstances could be capable of genuinely showing understanding and compassion towards that mother.

But then, how difficult it turns out to be empathic when the needs are satisfied and when we have a thick shield of comfort ready to eliminate as soon as possible any symptom of discomfort in our existence. An army of substitutes waiting, just a click away. Yes, we can live forever under the influence of anaesthesia.
Or we can wake up.

One day, a woman told me she had recently been on vacation with her two small children on the Spanish blue coast. While she was bathing in the beautiful and brilliant Mediterranean Sea, she suddenly realised that the waters that washed her delicate skin were the same ones in which 40 people had drowned months before -among them, pregnant women and small children who were trying to cross to Europe in search of a life more or less similar to the one enjoyed by this woman and her children.

Did this awareness make her stop enjoying the sea? Did this woman stop and think about what she should teach her children about life? Maybe not, but this experience made her more aware of those useless deaths.

The more our values, actions and decisions (what we do, what we consume, our commitments, and so forth) are moved by empathy, the more we will be able to see reality with open eyes. Then, the change will follow.

Photo: Javier Bauluz (Beach of Tarifa, Cadiz, Spain 2000)

We are condemned to face and decide the same moral crossroads over and over again. While this happens, we get up every morning and look in the mirror. Are we capable of holding our gaze? Would we make the same decisions that brought us where we are today?

The Greeks created myths to help us face that mirror every morning. These stories reflect dilemmas that helped them remember that with each decision, one can degrade oneself or dare to live a dignified life. The myth that best helps us understand this is the myth of Antigone.

Creon, the king of Thebes, forbids, on pain of death, to bury the body of Polynices, Antigone’s brother, who was defeated when he besieged the city. Antigone then faces this dilemma: obey the king’s law, who wants her brother’s body to be devoured by vultures, or be faithful to her sisterly duty and give her brother a proper burial. So then, in Antigone’s decision, many things were decided: who she was, the values she had inherited from her parents, the expectations of her fellow citizens upon her, but above all, her ability to look at herself every day and live with the decision she had made. Should she obey the king’s law or the law of her blood? How far would she be willing to go to be true to herself?

This dilemma may seem distant and abstract, but it is not. The actuality of this story is very close to us. Last night, I saw the face of Antigone reflected in the face of a young man named Seán Binder.

Seán, a professional swimmer trained as a rescuer, travelled from Ireland to Greece in 2017 to join the NGO ERCI (Emergency Response Center International). The ERCI specializes in helping people who try to cross the Mediterranean Sea in precarious boats, giving them medical attention, food and blankets. As we sadly know, many of these migrants and refugees drown every day on the shores of Greece or Italy, while others are rescued thanks to the work of humanitarian workers like Sean.

After a year of working alongside the police and other European agencies, Seán and other volunteers were arrested, imprisoned and accused of espionage and human trafficking. Binder was arrested at dawn and kept with ordinary prisoners; he passed through detention centres without knowing what he was charged for or having access to a defence. After spending five years in Greece tied to a dubious, cumbersome and costly legal process, the charges against Binder were mostly dropped yesterday.

Yesterday, after the trial, he was interviewed. The young man was moved when the journalist asked if he felt he had lost part of his life after these years of legal battles and prison. Then, the journalist asked him if he would do it again, helping to rescue migrants and offering support. Without hesitation, Binder peered into the television camera and replied, “Yes.”

The faces of Antigone and Binder look at us from the other side of the mirror and ask us: Where does our compassion begin? How far are we willing to go to put it into practice? Where do the laws end?

We must answer for ourselves and our responsibility to one another.

Photo Sebastian silva 

https://a-visual-diary-for-tomorrow.tumblr.com/

Last Sunday, July 30, the Gaelic All Ireland football final was played between the teams from counties Dublin and Kerry, and we all know it. But only some know that also in Dublin last Sunday, another final was being played, this time in front of the O’Connell Bridge. 

This final had no publicity and had two unequally equipped teams against each other: on one side were the food delivery couriers, and on the other, the team made up of poor working conditions, theft of bicycles, and increasingly high levels of robbery and violence to which these workers are subjected to. Dublin against a weak and unknown team from the third world. 

How can these couriers – most of them young men from Latin American countries –  who during the Covid lockdowns were called “frontline” or “essential” workers be invisible? Only yesterday, people applauded them for working non-stop, delivering food to hundreds of people who dared not go into the streets. Today these same workers are forced to draw public attention as their living and working conditions have worsened to unsustainability due to low wages, the increasing danger they face on the streets, and the rising cost of living in the capital.

Many are unaware that these precarious workers earning €11.30 an hour are also fee-paying students at Irish English Schools. That is why the Irish Schools of English Students’ Union supported the demonstration. Looking at the underlying issue, the problem of international students/workers originates from a paradox. As workers, they are essential to keep the tourism economy and services running optimally (one of the sectors trying to recover after the pandemic). Still, their contribution is not appreciated, and they face poor conditions.

On July 19, one of these workers was stabbed when someone tried to steal his bicycle in Temple Bar. While this happened, the press covered an unfortunate attack in which an American tourist was seriously injured on Talbot Street. This latest incident caught the media’s attention and a statement by the US Ambassador to Ireland and sparked a campaign to get more police on the streets. Very few knew about the case of the injured student worker, one of many recent cases.

This unjustified difference in the treatment of the two criminal acts led to this protest last Sunday. The president of the Union of Students of the English Schools declared in a newspaper: “It’s up to the people of Dublin and Ireland to show that we don’t place the value of one life over another”. 

The other final was played, and well, you know who won.