There is always someone to hate

The Irish actor Richard Harris told a story of his experience of the bigotry directed against him in his days as a young actor. He was playing a small part in Macbeth, just a walk on and a single line.

The lead actor had relentlessly upbraided him for his accent to the point that he really had to get back at him and the opportunity came at a critical time in the play, Harris was acting the role of the doctor and the one line was he had to deliver was “The Queen, my lord is dead,” confirming that the queen had successfully killed herself, suicided. Harris took the opportunity to get his revenge.

“She’s fine
She’s grand
She’s great, terrific,
She’ll be great…”

And knowing that he had just lost the part made his way to the exit and was last heard yelling ‘Taxi’ as he left the theatre.

Life as a young Irish actor in in England in the 1950s was not easy, the racism directed at the Irish was similar to that of being African American in the US southern states under the Jim Crow laws.

The animosity has its roots in British colonialism.

Ireland was one of the first British colonies, an early possession of what became the greatest Empire in history with colonies stretching ‘from sea to shining sea’. Through a gradual process, beginning with the Norman invasion in 1169 until 1922 when most of Ireland gained independence from Britain. Only Ulster remains as a British territory.

All the usual discriminations occurred, being Irish meant being dispossessed of the ancestral lands, the indigenous reduced to serfdom, peasantry, working the land for their British landlords in return for renting a small allotment, while the landlord exported livestock, barley and wheat across the Irish Sea.

The peasantry had small holdings, cottage gardens to grow their own food, and the most productive was potatoes which became a mainstay in their diets. Only one variety of potatoes was grown, and in 1845 a blight struck the crop which spread from farm to farm.

There had been famines before, the last of last year’s crop of potatoes were perhaps inedible as the new crop ripened. But this was different.

The potato famine struck hard.

For five years the blight poisoned the crop and desperate families sought refuge by travelling to the Americas, Canada and the USA. Many who stayed died of starvation while the landlord’s crops and livestock continued to be exported. The population of Ireland in the “1841 census was about 8.4 million. Five years later the population was 6.6 million. About 1 million people died and an estimated 2 million emigrated.”

During the six years of the famine there was enough food exported out of Ireland to sustain at least the population which starved. The bulk of the produce, cattle, butter, wheat, barley, vegetables went to markets in England. Land owners and politicians determined that ‘market forces’ should dictate the economic outcomes. The starving Irish could not afford the food at market prices.

Religion became a great divider, with King William III, the Dutch William of Orange who hated Catholics and who contributed to the Penal Laws in 1695 which stripped the Catholic Church of its holdings and barred Catholics from purchasing land. Heaping trouble on trouble, the religious discrimination between Irish Catholics and Protestants increased the tensions which ultimately led to independence in the south, but the continuation of that conflict in the north, in Ulster.

Apart from the potato famine, which caused so many Irish to leave, the treatment of them by the colonist, the severity with which they were marginalised led to ongoing battles. Insurrections and rebellions which from 1791 through to 1860s saw about 40,000 transported to Australia, effectively political prisoners.

Many more free Irish settled in Australia during that time, 228,000 were counted in the 1891 census, many arriving through a subsidised immigration scheme, the forerunner to the ‘Ten Pound Poms’ of the post war era.

After gaining independence in 1922 in Dublin and the south, the discrimination continued in the north; Ulster and Belfast. An annual display of Protestant power is still performed each year on 12 July, commemorating the victory of William of Orange over the Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. An annual reminder of Protestant power, a reminder of their ‘superiority’, in effect, the on going assertion of colonial power, a source of controversy and tension, perceived as provocative, leading to as one commentator recently stated, that ‘relationships are probably the worst they’ve been in about 20 years.’ A reminder that ‘The Troubles’ are not a distant memory, but the idealist nationalist notion of a united Ireland is still an unrealised dream for many Catholics.

The British, the Irish Republican Army and Sinn Fein fought hard to finally reach the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 which led to a power sharing, with Sinn Fein being seen as a political movement rather than a terrorist organisation, and yet the annual 12th of July marches undermine the the agreement, reminding Irish Catholics that they may still be somehow less than their Protestant neighbours.

Eight hundred and fifty six years of being marginalised.

Eight hundred and fifty six years of subjugation.

Eight hundred and fifty six years of being dehumanised.

As in the War of Independence and the years leading up to them, the rebels would today be called terrorists. They suffered the same fate as those we call terrorists today, yet as with so many so defined groups are they really terrorists or are they freedom fighters.

When we look at the various conflicts around the world, we see that colonialism, in one form or another is alive and well, and with it the displacement of people as refugees as they are pushed off lands the colonials have their hearts set on. And those who resist are seen as terrorists. Those who flee, as somehow a lesser human than the rest, lesser because of perhaps language or accent, lesser because of skin colour or some other defining feature. Lesser because of religious beliefs.

But to stand up to the oppressor, to stand up for the right to exist carries the threat of being branded a terrorist. Someone to be feared, unreliable, untrustworthy.

The worst of today’s terrorists appear to be the people of Gaza and The West Bank in their conflict with Israel.

Not all Palestinians are members of Hamas, yet they all suffer the fate of being terrorists, having their homes bombed, being shoved from one location to another to allow the IDF to continue the bombing and demolition of any semblance of somewhere to live, of safety.

In an on again/off again war, that conflict has been on going since 1948. That is seventy seven years of insecurity. of marginalisation, of being dependent on Israel for basic human rights to food and shelter being compromised.

Seventy seven years of being treated as less than human.

Seventy seven years of insecurity.

Seventy seven years of being virtually imprisoned for being Palestinian.

We are fortunate here in Australia that there are no terrorists lurking in the wings, ready to light a fuse of insurrection… But we do have the same sense of superiority when it comes to dealing with our indigenous peoples.

Each year we throw a huge party. Fire works, aircraft fly-bys, music and dance, a huge festivity including the citizenship ceremonies for those immigrants who have taken the plunge to become fully fledges Aussies.

January 26. Australia Day.

But to some it is Invasion Day. For our First Nations people it is not a day of celebration.

While there are no so called terrorists among them, we have effectively marginalised them, we have in effect criminalised them, having them eat the scraps of the wealth from the lands we have stolen from them.

There still persists the sense of superiority and entitlement, especially from some politicians, members of the Liberals and National Parties as well as One Nation.

Two hundred and thirty seven years of dispossession.

Two hundred and thirty seven years of being seen as less than human.

Two hundred and thirty seven years of marginalisation.

Nothing seems to change, colonial and post colonialism hubris remains.

The marginalised continue to be marginalised and insulted day by day.

The seemingly innocent remarks, probably a bit of teasing, aimed at Richard Harris all those years ago were probably seen as a bit of banter by the actor throwing the insults, but to be subjected to such ‘banter’, constantly, in one way or another, to be refused rental accommodation because of your accent, to be refuse admittance to a hotel because of the colour of your skin, to be sneered at because of the hijab being worn, and so on and on it goes, leads to retaliation in one form or another.

And it will continue while we have politicians taking sides, refusing to accept the human rights of the dispossessed, refusing to acknowledge the inherent links to this land through a simple acknowledgement of the lands we are on as being the traditional lands of a people who are still among us.

It will continue while leaders stand silently by while a people are treated so inhumanely that they do a despicable thing like cut through the razor wire of their prison and attack ‘innocent’ people partying on the lands once farmed by their parents and grand parents and back through generations. Calling the attackers terrorists when all they have endured is terrorism from their oppressors.

Hate and power work well to generate long lasting hatred.

 

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