*If you don’t have time to read this, skip to the bottom for resources + ways to help*

cn: direct provision, racism, blm, suicide mention, homophobia mention, transphobia, food, coronavirus

As a white person, it’s not my duty to weigh in on the U.S. protests – there are black people in America writing about what is happening with far more eloquence or insight than I can. What I want this article to do is to point out that focusing only on America, by those of us in Europe, is an easy way to let go of our own feelings of culpability. It’s great to see so many protesting BLM – but we can also have a greater impact on racial issues closer to home. Ireland doesn’t have the same problem with police brutality that America does, largely because the gardaí are unarmed, but our country remains systematically racist. This is true in many ways, but arguably the greatest injustice being committed in Ireland at the moment is direct provision. When we ignore direct provision and focus only on American race issues, we’re implying that American white people are the oppressors in a way that we’re not. We need to acknowledge that just being white is enough to make us automatically oppressive, and we have to acknowledge how we uphold systems of white supremacy in our country in order to dismantle it, rather than distancing ourselves from the other white people.

If you don’t know much about direct provision, that’s because the government doesn’t want you to. Direct provision is the way Ireland accommodates asylum seekers; it was an emergency measure of housing people that was only meant to hold people for a few months at most, but many inside direct provision have been there for more than a decade now. Direct provision centres are run by for-profit companies, and living conditions are horrific. Families are confined to one room, making it incredibly difficult for children to complete their education and get access to college. Everyone eats in a communal canteen, where the food is notably terrible – centres have come under fire for the size of portions, lack of nutrition and in some cases handing out bruised and overripe fruit portions to asylum seekers. Many of those who have complained have been met with racial abuse and told to be grateful.

https://nascireland.org/sites/default/files/WhatsFoodFINAL.pdf

This report details eating conditions in direct provision centres, saying that communal meals are eaten surrounded by security guards with walkie talkies, that the lights are turned off and people are forced out before they’ve finished their meals. Centres are not equipped with cooking facilities for asylum seekers. The report also says:

“Power imbalances in the relationship between some staff and residents were discussed as a daily reality of Direct Provision living. A majority of asylum seekers interviewed expressegnd anxiety or fear about speaking out about problems related to food at the Direct Provision centres due to a fear of retribution.”

This is a climate of fear, and one in which a racial hierarchy has been stratified and left asylum seekers, the majority of whom are people of colour, being treated as sub-human. The government’s record with LGBT+ asylum seekers is even worse; direct provision centres can be gendered, which has led transgender asylum seekers to be misgendered and placed in the wrong facilities. Perhaps the most awful case of this took place in 2018, when Sylva Tukula, a transgender woman, passed away in an all-male facility in Galway and was buried by the authorities in secret – you can read the Irish Times’s report here: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/woman-buried-without-friends-present-after-death-in-direct-provision-centre-1.3917038

Unsurprisingly, mental health conditions and suicides take place at a far higher rate in direct provision centres than they do in the rest of the Irish population, a rate which increases the longer asylum seekers are held in these centres. Asylum seekers can also be transferred from centre to centre at a moment’s notice, completely disrupting their lives, and asylum seekers have stated that this is a threat which stops them complaining about their treatment. It couldn’t get much worse anyway – adults are given a weekly allowance of under €40 a week, and children under €30, keeping them in a cycle of poverty exacerbated by Ireland’s refusal to treat them as Irish citizens; if you live in direct provision and want to get a third level education, you’ll still have to pay international student fees. More information about this can be found here: https://www.tudsu.tv/2020/01/27/direct-provision-the-facts/

Things have only got worse with the coronavirus – we still don’t have the facts about how bad things are in direct provision centres, but we do know that several centres have been affected by the virus, which is incredibly dangerous when so many people are packed so closely. Asylum seekers are also more vulnerable than the general population because of the likelihood of existing health difficulties based on trauma. Transfers at a moment’s notice means that the virus can spread incredibly easily between centres via the asymptomatic, and self-isolation is not permitted in facilities – asthmatic asylum seekers have been forced to eat communally. Furthermore, the government deliberately places direct provision centres in remote areas away from most of the general population; this is a well known tactic by governments all around the world, who place detention centres in incredibly remote and inaccessible areas to stop people protesting them or even thinking about them. Out of sight, out of mind – and it has largely worked. This is a part of our complicity. It also has meant that in cases of ambulances being called, although asylum seekers are entitled to healthcare on the HSE, in one recent case an ambulance took three hours to arrive. This is not an equal healthcare provision. It is disregarding people’s lives based on their race – a system of white Irish supremacy within our country, which is particularly disgraceful given that Ireland suffered from colonial rule for so long.

If you’ve got this far, I imagine despair is the prevailing emotion – it is with me, but there are things we can do to help. Just like people are sharing resources and donation links to help Black Lives Matter in the United States, we can put pressure on our own government and reject our participation in Ireland’s own system of white supremacy. Below are a list of petitions, ways to donate and reading resources – please feel free to share or message me to add options to it.

PETITIONS

Amnesty International to end direct provision: https://www.amnesty.ie/direct-provision/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxLLqyNDo6QIVh7PtCh04VAZpEAAYASAAEgL1SPD_BwE

Change.org to end direct provision, run by Say No to Direct Provision who you can also follow on Facebook to keep up to date with how to help: https://www.change.org/p/people-power-end-direct-provision-in-ireland

Uplift.ie to move asylum seekers into safe accommodation urgently because of the coronavirus: https://my.uplift.ie/petitions/stop-the-spread-of-covid19-in-direct-provision-centres

Avoca have come under fire because their parent company provides the catering for direct provision centres – there’s an uplift.ie petition to put pressure on them to cut ties here: https://my.uplift.ie/petitions/end-direct-provision-avoca

Amnesty petition to protect people living in direct provision from COVID-19: https://www.amnesty.ie/direct-provision-covid19-google/

As well as this, you can write to your local TD and to the Minister for Justice at charles.flanagan@oir.ie. If you’re not sure what to write, a template email can be found here, but the more personal the better! https://medium.com/@lukenolan/direct-provision-email-template-885a65bc0778

In addition, you can vote them out. Direct provision has been run in Ireland for the last 20 years by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, both of whom are institutionally racist and uphold racial hierarchies in Ireland. If you say you support Black Lives Matter, do not vote for these parties; your vocal support means nothing if you continue to vote these racists into power.

PROTESTS

Not everybody is able to protest because of the pandemic, but if you are protesting Black Lives Matter in Ireland, consider bringing placards that will start conversations about race in Ireland. It’s too easy for these protests somewhere like Ireland to become a mass of self-gratification, when actually we need to be questioning our own complicity. We can also have a much greater effect on our own government than we can on the USA, although that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t pressure our government to condemn America of course. It’s also worth striking up those conversations at protests and trying to use the momentum from America to start a national conversation about how we treat our own racial minorities.

As an additional note, if you’re protesting, please protest safely, with a mask, hand sanitiser, and as much social distancing as possible!

DONATING/GETTING INVOLVED

This is a list of some societies that you can either donate to or get involved with.

Say No To Direct Provision in Ireland is a grassroots campaign run by those with experience of direct provision: https://www.facebook.com/AbolishDirectProvisionIreland/

MASI is Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland: https://www.masi.ie/

Our Table was created by Ellie Kisyombe, born out of asylum seekers’ inability to cook in direct provision centres. It’s a non-profit that seeks to help asylum seekers gain employment through food, raise awareness about direct provision and promote a multicultural Ireland: http://www.ourtable.ie/

The Irish Refugee Council advocates for the rights of refugees in Ireland, and one of their key aims is ending direct provision. They are also focused on continued support beyond ending direct provision, including combatting homelessness and supporting LGBT+ asylum seekers, with whom our government has a notorious record: https://www.irishrefugeecouncil.ie/Listing/Category/why-support-us

RESOURCES

If you have Twitter or other social media, consider following those who live in direct provision or who have done and amplify their voices – this is a problem that isn’t being talked about, and the government relies on it being that way. Ellie Kisyombe is a great person to start with: https://twitter.com/elliekisyombe1?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor Apart from this, these are some great reading resources about race in a specifically Irish context.

Don’t Touch My Hair by Emma Dabiri is a fantastic book about racism in Ireland – it talks about Black history and culture all through the concept of hair. It’s also really helpful to understand how unconscious racism plays out in a country with such a large white majority and how we must learn to be better: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/305/305706/don-t-touch-my-hair/9780141986289.html

Correspondences – an anthology pairing Irish writers with those living in direct provision to share their stories, all in aid of MASI: https://www.rte.ie/culture/2019/1210/1098209-correspondences-the-anthology-giving-voice-to-direct-provision/

Disavowing Asylum: Documenting Ireland’s Asylum Industrial Complex by Ronit Lentin and Vukasin Nedeljkovic – a non-fiction analysis of the direct provision system bringing to light a lot of what the government is trying to keep hidden: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781786612533/Disavowing-Asylum-Documenting-Ireland%E2%80%99s-Asylum-Industrial-Complex

In addition, it’s really important to make an effort to follow Black Irish writers and artists as well as from abroad, not only to amplify their voices but also to challenge ourselves.