Joyce Fegan: We need to send out the message of zero-tolerance towards racism

But these cyber wars that we believed, for so long, were confined to cyberspace, have spilled out onto our streets.

This week Irish courts jailed a man named Mark Wolf for 10 years, who held extreme far-right views, for possession of firearms components and images of child abuse. Gardaí believe that Mark Wolf, who also used the name Mark Peppard, was planning an attack.

In sentencing, Judge Martin Nolan said data on his phone “demonstrated this man had interest in violent means and had hostility towards certain groups”.

And a Europol report last year on terrorism described him as someone who “sympathised with right-wing extremism and had an interest in previous atrocities committed by right-wing extremists”.

It is understood to be the first conviction relating to far-right terrorism in our courts.

This might be the first conviction, but it’s certainly not a singularly-held sentiment. These kinds of hate-filled sentiments are typically shared mostly, and freely, on social media.

What was a niche space going back just five short years ago, when academics began tracking online hate speech here, has now grown considerable legs.

Those tracking the hate speech spoke carefully to journalists explaining key phrases and catchphrases that were being used by those consciously, actively, and knowingly pushing racist and discriminatory content online. There was a sense that such sentiment was too ludicrous and too hate-filled to ever grow such legs among our communities. That naive sense was wrong — such is the viral nature, and easily-accessible tools, of social media, as depicted by the father of modern linguistics in Belfast last Saturday.

Taking a stand

This week, a newsreader, not a politician or an activist, took a stand against racism in Ireland. A newsreader as a leader is another move some of us probably didn’t see coming.

RTÉ News broadcaster Sharon Ní Bheoláin said we should “actively support those in need”. She has just been named host of the Irish Red Cross Humanitarian Awards (IRCHA).

“In recent months, we’ve also seen an increase in extreme rhetoric — suggestions we need to push back against some who have arrived on these shores, as well as disinformation targeting those who have sought refuge,” she said.

The broadcaster said the awards she will host were a “crucial reminder” to offer support to any person in need.

“Let us all focus on our shared humanity. This event is a crucial reminder of the need to actively support those in need — regardless of who they are or where they are from,” Ms Ní Bheoláin said.

But social media, where this extreme rhetoric so often begins and festers, is not a place that exactly incubates a sense of shared humanity. 

It is the online disinhibition effect that leads people to say things online that they would not so easily say to a neighbour, friend, or even stranger they had met in real life.

What is said by some turns into a high-drama conflict with lots of commentators and even more onlookers, with some even imagining this kind of debate or rhetoric is making some form of ideological progress.

Wear Red Day

Today, in Ireland, is Wear Red Day. You can wear red, in support of the Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI)’s anti-racism initiative. Schools can do it, so too can businesses, workplaces and community groups or clubs. The idea is that Wear Red Day might start in-real-life conversations on racism and discrimination.

The act is physical, it occurs in real-life and can be seen by everyone around you, not just by those who engage with you online.

And why red? Today is one part of the ICI’s Show Racism the Red Card anti-racism programme.

Their anti-racism programme provides educational resources, workshops, trainings and awareness-raising activities for primary and secondary schools, workplaces and sporting stakeholders nationwide, not just today, but year round.

You might not hold racist or discriminatory views, but chances are you might not possess the most robust and effective tools were you to come across such sentiment in your workplace or community.

“With racist incidents on the rise, it is vital that we provide people with the tools and knowledge they need to properly deal with racism,” said Valeria Aquino, ICI’s integration manager.

This week, yet another report pointed towards Ms Aquino’s assertion of racist incidents being on the rise. Two in three international students here have experienced or witnessed racism. Of these incidents only one in 10 get reported to the authorities. At 42%, verbal remarks were the most common form of racism, followed by “indirect” racism at 39% — where a person is treated differently due to their race, especially in a work setting. And 12% of people surveyed experienced physical racism in the form of assaults or being spat on.

Called “Speak Out Against Racism”, the report was published by the Irish Council for International Students (ICOS), and it comes just a few days after racist abuse was directed towards members of the Republic of Ireland U15 side online.

The Football Association of Ireland (FAI) said they are in touch with An Garda Síochána over the “vile and horrific racist abuse” towards the teenagers.

It is exactly this kind of reporting, by a key group in Irish society, that will send out the message of zero-tolerance towards racism in Ireland.

And if you’re neither an FAI fan, nor a recipient of racism, but wish to be upstanding instead of bystanding, then maybe today is a day you could wear red in real life.