Lately I had reason (downright laziness, as a matter of fact) to find myself in my local chipper. After I’d placed my order and was standing there, waiting, in lurched a forty-something man, reeling drunk.
‘Bataburgaships,’ he shouted at the assistant.
‘Pardon?’ said the assistant politely.
‘Bataburgaships,’ repeated the drunk.
‘Pardon?’ repeated the assistant.
‘A f****** batter burger and chips!’ shouted the drunk.
As the assistant (who happened to be Asian) turned to fill his order, the drunk smirked over at me, a conspiratorial ‘jaysus-these-foreigners-don’t-understand-a-f******-word–of-English’ kind of smirk and said something to that effect. At least I think he did. I had as little chance of understanding his drunken mutterings as the Asian.
Now, I know nothing of either the young assistant or the middle-aged drunk other than what I saw. What I saw was a pleasant, presentable young Asian, who’d the courage and capacity to travel thousands of miles away from his native country to find work in a land where he was required to communicate in a second language. What I saw was a dirty-looking Irish man, so incapacitated with drink at two o’ clock on a Sunday afternoon that he could hardly speak.
Perhaps the drunk had good reason to be so intoxicated. Maybe he’d lost his home, his wife, his car, his job, all in that one week. But why should I care? Why I should I bother trying to see beyond the obvious? He didn’t. When he looked at that Asian he saw someone who spoke funny English. He saw a foreigner and, because of our shared nationality, he assumed I would join in with him at sniggering at this foreigner.
He’s not alone. Every day foreigners in Ireland are sniggered at, shouted at and ignored. Day in, day out, we hear people ranting on about foreigners sponging off our government, taking our jobs, crowding out our maternity wards and so on and so on and so on.
But do we ever put ourselves in their position? Do we ever put ourselves in the position of the new mother lying in the maternity ward, far away from where she herself was born, misunderstood by the hospital staff, bewildered by how different everything is, the subject of our hostile stares? Or do we ever put ourselves in the position of the forty-something migrant worker, here to make enough money to set her children up for a decent life back in the Philippines, but – in the meantime – missing out on their childhood, on her married life, on the simple comfort at being at home?
Do we even bother to try to understand why such people are here? Do we even try to understand the difference between those on work permits, those seeing asylum and those granted refugee status? Do we even care?
The majority of foreigners in this country have been invited by us into our country and not out of the goodness of our hearts either. They’ve been invited because our economy needs them. That’s the only reason they’ve been issued with work permits. They’re not here taking our jobs, they’re filling the jobs we can’t or won’t fill. The minute unemployment rates become a concern again, out they go. In the meanwhile, they’re our guests, though we mightn’t always treat them as such.
Then, there’s the minority of foreigners who’re either refugees or asylum seekers. A refugee is a person with a well-founded fear of persecution who is unable to return to their own country. Asylum seekers are people seeking refugee status who’re not allowed work but are given food and accommodation and an allowance of €19 per week while their application is being processed. €19! That’s all! What an Irish teenager might get in pocket money. Contrary to a somewhat popular belief, asylum seekers don’t receive assistance towards the cost of mobile phones, cars, socializing, etc, etc and, if they’re found not to warrant refuge status, they’re shipped back to whence they came.
Who in their right mind would leave their home and come to Ireland to subsist on €19 a week if they hadn’t good reason? Who would choose to hand over all their savings for the privilege of squeezing into a container with dozens of others, prompted by some shady stranger’s promise that he’ll take him to Nirvana or at least to a land where they’ll be given €19 a week? Where they’ll be made bunk in with people they don’t know and have nothing in common with? Where they’ll have no choice but to eat food which is alien to them?
Why can’t we step outside ourselves for a moment? Why can’t we use our imagination to consider what might have prompted each individual (for they’re individuals first and foremost, not foreigners) to come here? What did each of them leave behind? What do they hope to gain? For themselves? For their children?
Or are we, like the drunk in the chipper, simply too thick, complacent and selfish to see beyond stereotypes?
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