Ethnicity a key to Equality

ETHNICITY A KEY TO EQUALITY

Presentation to the Irish Traveller Movement AGM 2009,  Athlone, by Niall Crowley

INTRODUCTION

There has been much discussion as to whether or not Travellers are an ethnic group. This misses the key point. Ethnicity is an academic concept that has been relatively well defined. Travellers are an ethnic group by this definition. The discussion then changes to whether or not the Government recognizes Travellers as an ethnic group and to whether or not Travellers choose individually to be identified as a member of an ethnic group. But the starting point is that Travellers are an ethnic group and this is not something that is in the Government's gift, nor is it a matter of choice for Travellers.

DIFFERENCE

As a society we have a problem with difference. A range of responses to difference are evident. None are positive. They include:

• Discrimination:  the Traveller ground has been one of the highest areas for casefiles under the Equal Status Act since its enactment in 2000.
• Denial: the Government continues to deny Traveller ethnicity. Denial is also evident in the words of the teacher or other professional who sets out "I treat everyone the same".
• Segregation: this has been the experience, more in the past than now, of Travellers in the education system.
• Assimilation: this is about demanding that the behavior and values of the minority ethnic group conform to those of the majority group. Travellers have much experience of this approach to difference as do other minority ethnic groups. It is evident too in the words of a politician who stated "the children of today's migrants will in the future be more Irish than the Irish themselves".
• Stereotyping: this involves attributing fixed and unchanging characteristics to all members of the Traveller community.
• Tolerance: this is the dominant response to difference in Ireland. However it is problematic. When we tolerate we essentially put up with something that is otherwise unacceptable. Tolerance requires no understanding of difference and all too often co-exists with contempt for difference. As such the promotion of tolerance does no favours to Travellers.

We have a long way to go before we reach the necessary point of valuing difference-understanding that difference is something necessary, important and beneficial to society, understanding that difference within organizations is good for organizational performance. The key indicator for when difference is valued is when organizations begin to do their business differently so as to take account of the practical implications of difference.
 

A STRANGE SITUATION

We are in a strange situation when it comes to Traveller ethnicity. Everybody from Government appointed Task Forces to the social partners to the Dail to the United Nations has recognized Traveller ethnicity but the Government continues to refuse recognition.

In 1995 the Government Task Force on the Travelling Community reported. They recommended that the distinct culture and identity of the Traveller community be recognized and taken into account. They noted that the discrimination experienced by the Traveller community equated with racism in the international context. Culture and identity are the two pillars of ethnicity. The Task Force thus recognized Traveller ethnicity and put forward a valuing of this difference in seeking to have the Traveller culture and identity taken into account.

In 1996 the social partners agreed the Partnership 2000 national agreement. This included a commitment to achieving a new status for the culture and identity of the Traveller community. Again ethnicity is recognized and a new approach to difference is put forward.

Most interestingly, in 1999 the Dail passed the Equal Status Bill with an amendment that defined Travellers for the purpose of the Traveller ground. The Dail agreed to capitalize the "T" in Traveller and incorporated what is an ethnic definition of the Traveller community into the Bill:

The community of people who are commonly called Travellers and who are identified (both by themselves and others) as people with a shared history, culture and traditions including historically a nomadic way of life on the island of Ireland.

Gerry Whyte, a professor of law at Trinity College Dublin, noted that "This definition thus represents the successful culmination of a campaign by Travellers to be recognized as a distinct ethnic group, as opposed to an economically deprived group, in Irish society".

Despite this widespread recognition the Government, in a 2004 report to the United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, stated that "The Government's view is that Travellers do not constitute a distinct group from the population as a whole in terms of race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin". The United Nations Committee responded by expressing concern at the Government's position with regard to Traveller ethnicity and encouraged the "Irish Government to work more concretely towards recognizing the Traveller community as an ethnic group". The Government remains in defiance of this recommendation.

DOES IT MATTER?

There are three very immediate and visible implications of this position of the Government.

Firstly, while it is more widely accepted that Travellers have their own culture and identity this factor of cultural difference is not understood, not valued, and not taken into account at the point where services are delivered to the Traveller community. When Government refuse to recognize Traveller ethnicity, Traveller culture and identity remain a concept promoted at national level but that has not been embedded in local level practice. Traveller culture and identity becomes a concept that is effectively undermined by the refusal to recognize ethnicity.

Secondly, while the past decade has seen intense debate about cultural diversity in Ireland and how most effectively to manage this diversity, Travellers have been left out of this debate. In previous times Travellers and Traveller organizations struggled to get anyone to talk about cultural diversity and its implications. Now that this debate is happening it is deeply problematic that it takes no account of the situation and experience of the Traveller community. In seeking to promote an integrated society we now have an Office of the Minister for Integration that excludes Travellers from its brief. This is bad for Travellers but it is also bad for society when our approach to integration learns nothing from the decades of very difficult experiences of the Traveller community.

Thirdly the lack of recognition of Traveller ethnicity has hindered Travellers in seeking to exercise their rights. This was evident in the 2007 High Court judgement in the case taken by the Dohertys against South Dublin County Council, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Ireland and the Attorney General. The case was supported by the Irish Traveller Movement and the Equality Authority acted as amicus curiae. The case related to an accommodation issue. No discrimination was found or no failure by the local authority to fulfill their duties under housing legislation was found essentially because the local authority was able to show that it had offered the same treatment to the Dohertys as it would have offered to settled people. The practical implications of cultural difference were not taken into account and the judgement did nothing to resolve the unacceptable living conditions of the Dohertys.

A KEY TO EQUALITY

In seeking to identify how the recognition of Travellers as an ethnic group might be the key to equality for Travellers it is useful to first set out our understanding of equality. Equality encompasses a range of different objectives. These include:-

• Equality in the distribution of resources in society, resources such as incomes, jobs, health, education and accommodation. Travellers experience serious inequalities in this regard with high levels of unemployment, a low presence in third level education, low life expectancy and many families still living on the side of the road with basic facilities.
• Equality in relation to who holds power or has influence in Irish society. There are no Travellers in the Dail, Seanad, or judiciary for example. Traveller organizations are represented in social partnership but express increasing frustration at their lack of influence within social partnership.
• Equality in access to relationships of care, respect and solidarity with the wider society. Travellers' experience is one of relationships characterized by tension, disrespect, abuse and conflict with the wider settled society.
• Equality in the status and standing afforded to different groups in society. The denial of Traveller ethnicity undermines any status and standing for Travellers in Irish society.

It is important to understand that these different equality objectives are interlinked. Where a group does not have status or standing it will not enjoy relationships of respect with the wider society, it will find it hard to exercise any influence over decisions and it will experience barriers in seeking to access resources. In this way the recognition of Traveller ethnicity can be seen as a key to unlocking the struggle for equality for Travellers. The recognition of Traveller ethnicity will secure a new status and standing for Travellers that will shape new terms on which resources are made available to Travellers, that will shape new relationships of mutual respect with the settled community and that will underpin a new influence for Travellers in their dealings with the state.

The recognition of Traveller ethnicity won't secure equality for Travellers. However it provides a new and solid foundation from which to pursue equality for Travellers. It is key in:-

• Empowering Travellers with a new standing in society.
• Enabling Travellers to engage with the settled community in a context of mutual respect.
• Creating a new access for Travellers to resources including public sector services that take due account of the practical implications of cultural diversity.

The recognition of Traveller ethnicity is also a matter of some internal importance to individual Travellers and to the Traveller community. Recognition will serve to enhance personal self esteem, confidence and pride in one's identity and traditions. Recognition will enable a shared identity and a shared pride in identity which is important for any community seeking to take its rightful place in the wider society.

WHAT TO DO

The Irish Traveller Movement campaign is important in seeking recognition of Traveller ethnicity. It serves to build and articulate the demand for recognition. It assists a shared understanding of ethnicity as being about difference rather than separateness. This is important to address fears that have been expressed by Travellers about recognition. It enables alliances to be built so that the demand for recognition is being expressed in a wide range of different sectors. Most importantly it underpins a shared pride in Traveller identity, history, tradition and contribution to Irish society.

There now needs to be a high profile and committed recognition by Government of Traveller ethnicity. However this needs to go beyond a mere statement of recognition. It needs to be reflected in the inclusion of Travellers in the brief of the Office of the Minister for Integration. It needs to be underpinned by a new provision in equality legislation that requires service providers to make adjustments to ensure that their services take account of the practical implications of Traveller culture and identity.

ITM Ethnicity Campaign

The ITM ethnicity campaign was launched on International Human Rights Day on the 10th December 2008, by Traveller activist and actor Michael Collins and by the Philip Watt, Director of the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (which has been closed due to removal of funding).  The campaign was started following a motion brought forward and unanimously supported by the ITM members at the AGM in Donegal last June.  The aims of the campaign are to:

• CREATE AWARENESS AND DISCUSSION AMONGST TRAVELLERS and Traveller organisations on the meaning of ethnicity and what recognition could mean for Travellers
• CREATE AWARENESS AND DISCUSSION AMONG THE SETTLED COMMUNITY of Travellers distinct culture and identity and harness support.
• COLLECT AS MANY SIGNATURES AS POSSIBLE to present to the Minister of Justice Equality and Law Reform, calling on the government to recognise Travellers as an ethnic group.

There are two ways to sign the petition, on line by logging onto the ITM web site www.itmtrav.ie and following the link or by signing a hard copy.  Hard copies are also available on line and in Traveller organisations or by contacting the ITM office.

So far we have over 3000 signatures collected.  To ensure that we have as much discussion as possible, the ITM regional workers have organised regional discussions with Travellers and Traveller organisations and so far the reaction has been very positive. Regional Networks have been utilised to generate discussion on the campaign among members.  Membership workers are also giving inputs on the campaign to members by request. Travellers engaging within these discussions are expressing their opinions on ethnicity and the need for the campaign. They are also playing an active role in the promotion of the campaign and the collection of signatures for the petition itself.

The ITM has produced an information leaflet on ethnicity which can be downloaded here and  a DVD that can be used in workshops (which can be ordered by contacting the office and will be available on the website shortly) which explain why this is important and will create a discussion and answer questions Travellers have already raised about what ethnicity will mean.

Other key factors in relation to defining ethnicity and how they specifically relate to Travellers are:

• biological self perpetuation; in that Travellers typically marry within the group and group membership is determined by descent;
• shared fundamental cultural values in Traveller values in relation to self employment, occupational flexibility, priority of social obligations based on kinship, nomadism and distinctive pollution beliefs;
• a field of communication and interaction in that Travellers have their own language;
• a distinguishable category in that Travellers have a name for themselves as a group and know who belongs and does not belong to it, just as non-Travellers have names for Travellers as a group and know to whom these names apply.

ITM encourages all our members to promote this campaign whilst ensuring Travellers are centre to the discussions around ethnicity and the collection of signatures.  It is vital that we remember Travellers are the key players in this campaign seeking recognition of their ethnicity.

Sign the petition at: www.ipetitions.com/petition/itmethnicity/

[June 2009]

Ethnicity_Leaflet1.pdf

Launch of ITM Ethnicity Campaign

This short film was developed by the ITM to raise awareness of the issues that Travellers face and was projected onto buildings across Dublin City Centre as part of International Human Rights Day on December 10th 2008

Ethnicity

ITM Interntational Human Rights Day 2008 Film

This is the film that the Irish Traveller Movement developed to launch the Traveller ethnicity campaign. The launch took place on December 10th 2008, International Human Rights Day. The ethnicity campaign was laucnhed in Dublin City Centre to mark the 60th Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Film was Projected onto buildings across Dublin City to raise awareness of Travellers' rights and to promote the recognition of Traveller ethnicity.

The Causes and Consequences of Ethnicity Denial for Irish Travellers

The Causes and Consequences of Ethnicity Denial for Irish Travellers

Presented at the Irish Traveller Movement AGM 2010


Introduction

The emergence of the concept of ‘ethnicity’ has much to do with the decline of the term ‘race’. In 1942, while the horror of racial theory in practice was unfolding in Europe, Ashley Montagu, an anthropologist, published a book called ‘Man’s Most Dangerous Myth – The Fallacy of Race’, which opened with the line: “the idea of ‘race’ represents one of the greatest errors, if not the greatest error, of our time, and the most tragic.” The proposal to substitute ‘ethnic group’ for ‘race’ had first emerged in the 1930s, and Motangu and others argued that ‘race’ was an unscientific term with no correspondence in biology, and should be abandoned. UNESCO supported these initiatives, bringing out a series of statements on race in the 1950s which included the idea that ‘ethnicity’ would be a better term. However ‘race’ has not gone away, and there is a recognised need to identify and tackle racial discrimination, even while denying the biological reality of race. So what is the difference between these terms?



    It is suggested that race was developed as an exclusive criterion built on arbitrary classifications of populations, with the (at least initial) intention of drawing hierarchical rankings of groups. Ethnicity, by contrast, could be said to be based on shared culture and heritage, and should be considered an inclusive term through which groups identify themselves, and are identified by others. It should be noted, however, that ethnicity is as indeterminate as race. Neither concept has any basis in biology, for there are no discernible biological differences between ethnic groups or racial groups that have been found to be constant. They come together in the UN International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (‘Race Convention’), which defines racial discrimination as occurring on the basis of 5 grounds: race, colour, descent, national origin or ethnic origin.



    In the late twentieth century, the concept of ‘ethnicity’ took on a new importance in two contexts. In the first, the 1994 Rwandan genocide witnessed the re-emergence, after 50 years, of the ‘crime of crimes’. The 1948 Genocide Convention defines genocide as “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group...” The second is the political policy denoted by the term ‘ethnic cleansing’, which entered international discourse in 1992 to describe the situation in the former Yugoslavia. These events signalled the renewed importance of the concept of ‘ethnicity’ and the consequent need to identify ethnic groups. This is underlined by the fact that two international courts have pronounced on the issue; the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague.



    The Irish government’s denial of the ethnicity of Irish travellers is apparent. First, the government dismisses the arguments of traveller representatives that they are an ethnic group, while providing no evidence for this position. I will argue that this is a violation of the right to self-identification, as set out in the Race Convention. Second, the government’s position seeks to rely on the idea that ethnicity is not that important a concept, and there is little to be gained from being recognised as an ethnic group. While I understand the desire of some members of the travelling community to not risk further stigmatization by identifying themselves as discreet from the settled community on the basis of ethnicity, I will make the argument that the government’s position ought to be challenged. This is something that the travelling community needs to decide on for itself; I want only to make the arguments for continuing to fight for ethnicity recognition. I will try to make these as practical as possible.


    To sum up – the paper will briefly summarise the causes of ethnicity denial by the Irish government (which many audience members will be familiar with); and give some consequences of that denial, in particular my belief that traveller rights in Ireland should be located within the broader push for affirmative action policies that we see taking place in other states.



1.    The Causes of Ethnicity Denial

In its first report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in 2004, the Irish government stated that “In regard to the scope of the Report it should be noted that Irish Travellers do not constitute a distinct group from the population as a whole in terms of race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin.” While the statement applied to the five grounds specified in the definition of racial discrimination (given above) in the Race Convention, it represented an express denial of the ethnicity of travellers (they had already made a similar statement to the UN Human Rights Committee some ten years previously.). The Minister for Justice at the time argued in the Dail that “the government is not prepared to include in the Report a statement that it does not believe in, namely that travellers are ethnically different from the majority of Irish people.”



    CERD had dealt with similar statements from governments before. It had built up a practice of not accepting claims by states in their reports that certain groups do not qualify. In order to counteract this, it has issued a number of guidelines, called General Comments, which set out what it expects from governments in their reports. This includes a General Comment 8 on ‘Identification with a Particular Racial or Ethnic Group’, which reads: “having considered reports from States parties concerning information about the ways in which individuals are identified as being members of a particular racial or ethnic group, the Committee is of the opinion that such identification shall, if no justification exists to the contrary, be based upon self-identification by the individual concerned.” This Comment introduces the element of proof. In the Irish case, it holds that Travellers are entitled under the terms of the Convention, which Ireland is legally bound to observe, to the right to identify themselves as an ethnic group. It places the burden of proving they are not an ethnic group on the reporting state. It does not offer a carte blanche to all groups (as seen in the media, e.g. Cork people?!) to declare themselves as an ethnic group nor does it affirm or reject the claim of the Irish Travellers that they are an ethnic group. It states that Irish Travellers are entitled to view themselves as an ethnic group until justification to the contrary is produced. This is the result of a pragmatic approach which prevents reporting states from excluding certain groups from the scope of the treaty. It combines a subjective approach – self-identification – with an objective approach, that is, justifications to the contrary, such as social or cultural studies, which could disprove the claim. But there is a primary right of self-identification, which if exercised, the government must provide evidence to counteract. It violated this right in the 2004 Report.



    To return to the Rwanda and Yugoslavia tribunals raised in the Introduction; when the prosecutors were faced with the similar question of whether genocide against ethnic groups took place, two elements were set down to establish whether or not a group constituted an ethnic group. In the Prosecutor v. Kayishema case in Rwanda and the Prosecutor v. Jelesic case in the former Yugoslavia (1999), the prosecutors similarly decided on self-identification and identification by others as the criteria. Applying these to Irish travellers; I believe that although there is not unanimity, many if not most travellers do identify themselves as an ethnic group. I also believe that many sociological studies (‘identification by others’) also reach this conclusion. Finally there is the present anomaly whereby Irish travellers are recognised as an ethnic group in Northern Ireland and Great Britain, as per the Mandla v. Lee criteria, as objective evidence in support of the traveller claim. This recognition occurred in Kiely and others v. Allied Domecq [2000]. I would stress in conclusion that the emphasis, indeed burden of proof, is on the government to provide convincing objective arguments to the contrary.



2.    Ethnicity denial, Holocaust denial... Any connection?



The second issue I would like to look at is the process of denial. I am drawing from an excellent paper by Robbie McVeigh  which has looked at locating ethnicity denial of travellers within broader practices of political denial in Europe. He takes the example of the Roma. It is not my intention to equate Roma and Irish Travellers, groups that are as different as they are similar, but to situate the process of ethnicity denial in its historical context. McVeigh argues that denying Roma and Traveller ethnicity anywhere across Europe is immediately problematic because it resonates with a key legacy of what the Roma call the Porrajmos (the ‘Gypsy Holocaust’; the word means ‘great devouring’ in Romani). This is because a strategy post World War II was to deny the Roma were an ethnic group. By doing so – and returning to the point above about the definition of genocide – they could deny the genocide took place. Thus the denial of Traveller ethnicity fits within a broader process of Holocaust denial.
Most strikingly, in the federal Republic of Germany after World War II, the state decreed that all measures taken against ‘Gypsies’ before 1943 were legitimate policies of state and were not subject to restitution. Incarceration, sterilization and deportation were defined by the post-war German state as legitimate policies, and Robert Ritter, the Nazi racial expert on ‘Gypsies’, even returned to his former work in child psychology! (attempts to bring him to trial ended when he committed suicide in 1950). Finally, in 1982 German Chancellor Helmut Kohl recognized the Nazi genocide against the Roma, which McVeigh points out meant that the German state formally practiced Holocaust denial toward the Roma for 40 years. To re-emphasise, the key means of doing this was ethnicity denial – they were not an ethnic group and therefore could not have experienced genocide.



The idea of ‘Gypsy’ criminality informed this process. Austria, for example, issued an edict on ‘Gypsy nuisance’ as late as 1948, and reparations for complicity in the ‘Gypsy Holocaust’ were only granted in 1961. The ethnicity of ‘Gypsies’ there was only recognised in 1993. The suggestion underlying the denial was that these groups were interned and murdered because they were criminals rather than because they belonged to a specific racial or ethnic group. Ethnicity denial in the context of the Porrajmos has contemporary echoes across Europe. It is a specific intervention by a state to deny full protection afforded by EU and other international law. What might those protections be, or how does such denial operate to disempower Traveller groups?



3.    The Consequences of Ethnicity Denial



The meaning of ethnicity is not just an academic dispute; it is at the centre of how we are to address the unequal status of Irish Travellers. McVeigh points out that the reality of Irish Traveller inequality is rarely contested, but the reasons behind it are. Is racism to blame or is this inequality a function of Traveller culture, as often suggested by hostile media commentators?  The debate on ethnicity is behind the question of how Travellers are to become less unequal, and the continued government policy in the face of strong evidence has wider negative implications. It means that Travellers are excluded from the automatic protection of international and regional standards on racial discrimination. We can turn to the Race Convention – the focal point of the denial.


There are two provisions within the UN Race Convention on affirmative action. The first, Article 1(4), says that any affirmative action (which the UN calls ‘special measures’) taken by governments is not to be viewed as racial discrimination, a provision aimed at those states which had by that time (1965) already embarked on such projects. Examples include the United States, for African-Americans, and India, for the lowest caste groups, who used to be called ‘Untouchables’ but are known as Dalits (a Hindi term which means ‘the oppressed’). The second provision, Article 2(2), is more far-reaching – “States Parties shall, when the circumstances so warrant, take, in the social, economic, cultural and other fields, special and concrete measures to ensure the adequate development and protection of certain groups or individuals belonging to them, for the purpose of guaranteeing them the full and equal enjoyment of human rights”. This has been interpreted as meaning that affirmative action programmes are required ‘when the circumstances so warrant’; in other words, if certain groups who fall under the Race Convention definition are in a position of entrenched inequality, States are required to enact special measures to assist them.



What might these measures be? Let’s use the example of India. Prior to independence, there was a struggle over what to do about caste-based discrimination which affected hundreds of millions of people. The Indian Constitution was in fact drafted by a so-called ‘Untouchable’, B.R. Ambedkar, who had managed to get promises from the majority Hindus for affirmative action provisions. These take the form of reservations in three areas; legislative, employment and education. They require that a certain percentage of seats are reserved for the low castes; that a certain number of places in higher education are reserved for the low castes; and that a certain number of positions in the Indian civil service are reserved for the low castes. Imagine if the Irish Constitution had been drafted by a Traveller – I believe we would see similar provisions!



If Irish Travellers are an ethnic group, the argument could be made that the ‘circumstances so warrant’ some form of affirmative action provisions to tackle inequality. This would be an argument grounded in international legal standards of special measures. Travellers could call for at least one reserved Dail seat for example; a small percentage of places in universities; or even a small percentage of positions in the Irish civil service. There would certainly be constitutional questions around a Dáil seat in particular, but perhaps Seanad representation would be a realistic and far-reaching starting point.



The debate on racial discrimination at the international level has moved on from straight-forward non-discrimination, to the broader question of equality. Non-discrimination is still an important issue for Irish Travellers – such as access to services. But non-discrimination is just the first step. It does not tackle entrenched inequality. At the international level, it has been recognised that the next step is one of special measures, which involves targeted policies aimed at bringing groups in the long-term to a position of equality. India recognised this sixty years ago, and realised that it was not sufficient to simply say – there will be no discrimination on the basis of caste. For example, it was not sufficient to say no university can deny a low-caste person entry to a university, when virtually none were attending university anyway. Similarly it was not sufficient to say no low-caste person could be denied political office when very few or none were elected to political office anyway. Interestingly Ambedkar, mentioned above, was the first Dalit to receive a PhD in India. This was out of a population of some 150 million at the time.



Understandably, Ireland is convulsed by the economic crisis. But I see no economic arguments against making such concessions, in line with international standards on equality. If Travellers fall within the definition of the Race Convention by virtue of being an ethnic group, the ITM and other groups could start making the argument that the government has an international legal obligation to provide special measures in the form of, for example, small reservations within universities. What would be the cost of this? Nothing in my opinion. Similarly there would be no cost in representation in the Seanad for the Travelling community, with a view to opening the debate on the need for greater political participation. There would be no cost in reserving a small percentage of posts in the civil service for Travellers. These would be small gains with a significant impact. A Seanad representative would be present to put across the views of the community on legislation; civil service employees could protect Travellers rights in their respective domains; there are presently travellers in universities of course but the numbers are far too low, and any increase would have a strong impact.
   


Conclusion

In general, ethnicity denial in Ireland needs to link in to broader practices of denial across Europe, historically and in the contemporary context. More particularly, recognising Travellers as an ethnic group ties them in to an evolving discourse on racial discrimination, which has moved beyond non-discrimination, the founding principle of these documents. It is no longer sufficient for States to say – we do not practise racial discrimination. There is no State in the world, post-apartheid, which does have some form of non-discrimination clause in its Constitution. The task now lies with special measures; policies that go to the root causes of exclusion. The above are just examples of what kind of form such policies can take, and have taken in other states. If travellers are recognised as an ethnic group, it ties them into international legal standards which seek equalizing measures to bring excluded minorities up to the level of the majority. This is not a quick or easy process, but the present Irish government position means that legally, Travellers are excluded from it. It should be fought by Traveller representatives.

Internalised racism/oppression and its impact on mental health

Internalised racism/oppression and its impact on mental health

Thomas Mc Cann

At the ITM AGM 2012

What is Racism?

Racism takes many shapes and forms
Racism is a process, a condition, a relationship that violates its victims physically, socially, spiritually, materially, and psychologically.
Racism like oppressions negatively impacts on both self-development and self-determination and is very damaging to individuals and communities


Racism

There is Individual racism and Institutional Racism
It can be Conscious and unconscious
It can be Intentional and unintentional


Travellers’ experience of racism


Travellers have experienced racism, discrimination and exclusion on every level
This racism and oppression has been going on for generations
It has been reinforced at different times by the media, by Government policy and by the actions of state bodies whether this is the local authority, HSE, the Police or other public service services 


Travellers’ struggle with the effects of Racism


No Traveller has escaped this and if they have, more than likely they would have had to hide their identity in order to avoid it.  
So all Travellers are struggling with the effects of this racism, discrimination and oppression, every Traveller I believe struggles with the impact of internalised racism and oppression


Internalisation of racism /oppression


We turn upon ourselves, upon our families, and upon our own people, the distress patterns that result from racism and oppression of the majority society

Internalised racism supports the notion that the majority community is right, that it is superior and, that it is the standard. All of this can lead a self destructiveness

Internalised racism has been defined as self-hatred


Internalised racism

Once racism and oppression has been internalised it takes very little to keep it in place

We carry inside ourselves, the pain, the memories, the fears and confusion, the negative self-images and low expectations both of ourselves and of our community

We struggle with this internalised oppression every day of our lives until we liberate ourselves from it


Impact of internalisation of racism /oppression

Numerous reports have identified the negative impact of discrimination  on mental health, particularly depression

There is clear and compelling evidence that the long history of cultural oppression, Racism and marginalisation has contributed to the high levels of mental health problems found in many communities.


Combating Internalized Oppression

It is possible to unlearn and heal from the internalised oppression and racism

Internalised oppression and racism operates on two levels, how we feel about ourselves and how we feel about our community

Reducing the impact of internalised racism and oppression results in feeling much better about ourselves, our family and also about our community


The need to take action

But we need to take action in order to heal from the effects of internalised racism it does not go away on its and we will continue to struggle with it until we decide to actively change this

The consequences of not doing anything about it, will be poor self image, low self esteem, a lack of pride in ones cultural identity, feelings of not being good enough, a crisis of identity, stress, shame, depression and in some case alcohol and drug abuse

and although we still have to do research I  firmly believe that it is a contributing factor in the high rates of suicide among Travellers

So as you can see the internalisation of racism and oppression impacts on Travellers mental health in a very negative and in some cases detrimental way and we need to address this issue urgently


What can we do

We need to find ways of celebrating Traveller culture and identity

We need to take action against oppression and racism, we need to organize and campaign to ensure that we put an end to racism in all its forms

We need to recognize it when it is happening in ourselves or when we see it happening in a group we need to highlight it

We need to help and Protect young Travellers in dealing with internalized oppression and racism

We need to come together in groups and talk about our internalized oppression and how it has impacted on us and we need to support each other in doing this

And we need to put supports in place for individuals who are struggling with the impact of internalized racism and oppression


Conclusion

The need for culturally inclusive mental health services which need to take into account and address the effects of racism and oppression on Travellers mental health

Traveller organisations while they have developed good campaigns to address external racism they need to lobby for mental health services which address the impact of internalisation or racism and oppression

Travellers need to support one and other to overcome and heal from this internalised racism which they are trying to cope with individually

Racialising Travellers

Racialising Travellers

Dr Ronit Lentin, MPhil in Race, Ethnicity, Conflict

Department of Sociology, Trinity College Dublin

Introduction

In 2003 the Irish government axed the funding for the ‘Citizen Traveller’ project. Ostensibly, the project was wound up because the then Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell argued it 'didn’t fully embrace the objectives it had been set'. However, it was widely agreed that the real reason for ending the funding was the Traveller demonstrations against the 2002 Housing Act (known as the Trespass Law), which forbids Travellers from camping on any public or private lands, claiming it’s racist: ‘Suddenly, in caring Ireland’, posters read, ‘to be a Traveller is a terrible crime. This racist and unworkable law on trespass criminalises 1,200 unaccommodated Traveller families’.

At the same time the Minister for Justice said in Dáil Éireann that Travellers are not an ethnic group:  

"To suffer from racial discrimination, Travellers would need to suffer distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin. The government’s view over the years... has been that Travellers do not constitute a distinct group from the population as a whole in terms of race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin... "

The Minister further said that as a special ground – membership of the Travelling Community – on which it is unlawful to discriminate, was put into the Equality legislation’,  Traveller are ‘explicitly protected’... Despite being criticised by the International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the government, said McDowell, is ‘not prepared to include in the report (to CERD) a statement ... that Travellers are ethnically different from the majority of Irish people’ (Dáil Debates, 13 October 2003).

Travellers have campaigned long and hard to be considered a separate ethnic group, and this statement was a major setback, primarily because it deprived you of a coherent platform from which to conduct an antiracism campaign. The refusal to acknowledge Travellers as an ethnic group, itself smacks of racism in viewing racism as emanating only from biological, racial difference, though racism, as we know, is never only about skin colour. This major turning point comes after years of governmental attempt to settle and assimilate Travellers.

The 1997 European Year Against Racism triggered a brief period of optimism, when it was at long last admitted that racism in Ireland was indeed a problem. However, we are now in the ‘morning after optimism’ era when government programmes of interculturalism and diversity, triggered by accelerated immigration during the 1990s and early 2000s, have more or less petered out. Furthermore, concentrating on immigrants sidelines racism against Travellers, Ireland’s largest ethnic minority, and disregards your pioneering work on antiracism and equality.

What I want to speak about today anti-Travallerism as state racism. I will begin by speaking about racism beyond individual, or even institutional racism, and the role of state racism in racialising specific groups of people.  I will then address the racialisation of Travellers by the Irish.

Ethnicity denial is serious, as we know from what happened to Roma people during the Nazi times when the Nazis insisted that they were sent to concentration camps and exterminated not as an ethnic group, but as criminals. After the war the German state refused to pay reparations.

Although I recognise the importance of defining yourselves as an ethnic group, I want to ask difficult questions about culture and ethnicity. Can we define Traveller culture in static terms when culture is always changing? None of you, I am sure, does things the same way your grandparents did...? And is ethnicity a truly essential part of Traveller identity or a strategy of organising against racism – I hope we can discuss this topic later.

I conclude by outlining some ideas on how Travellers in today’s Ireland – bruised, and worried about its future – can return to their leading role in antiracism and what lessons we can learn from elsewhere.


Racial state and state racism

Racism is not easy to define. In the MacPherson report verncommissioned by the British government following the murder of Stephen Lawrence in Britain in 1993, racism is defined as

Conduct or words or practices which advantage or disadvantage people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. In its more subtle form it is as damaging as in its overt form (section 6.4)

Institutional racism, according to MacPherson, is

The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. It can be seen as detected in prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people (section 6.34).

MacPherson insisted that It is racism when the victim, or a witness, considers it to be so. So if you are refused a drink in the pub, like msny of Travellers, or ‘made a show of’ in a hairdresser’s or a shop, or if your wedding booking is cancelled, or if the Garda over polices Traveller funerals – simply because you are a Traveller – what you are experiencing is racism.

MacPherson does speak of institutional racism but does not name the state as such and thus takes the state off the hook. But I want to take the definition of racism a step further and link it to what David Goldberg calls ‘the racial state’. All modern nation states are racial states, in that they construct the nation as racially homogeneous, even though this homogeneity is really heterogeneity in denial – because no group, and no nation is homogeneous. In every group of people you will find internal differences – of gender, class, wealth, age, origin, ways of life. Thus, in my analysis of the Irish Constitution, I discovered that although Travellers are not named, the 1937 Constitution is aimed at ‘we the people’ who are white, Christian, and settled...

The racial state is a state of power, controlling those within the state and excluding others from entering the state. It does so through obvious means such as constitutions, border controls, the law, policy making, welfare and health policies, bureaucracy, census categories, invented histories and traditions, the educational system and the heritage industry – all of which are aimed at a specific image of ‘the Irish nation’. The racial state is not merely about keeping racialised others out, but also about legislating against the so-called ‘degeneracy’ of indigenous minorities – which explains the persistence of anti-nomadism and antisemitism...

My argument is that although there is plenty of individual racism against Travellers, from local councils and local residents who do not want Travellers to be accommodated near them, the chief offender is the state, in attempting to settle Travellers, in not providing sufficient halting sites, in prohibiting camping on public or private grounds, in not supporting Travellers in seeking second and third level education, and in denying Traveller ethnicity – but more of this later...

According to another theorist, Michel Foucault, racism aims to create a situation where state power regulates the life of the population (through looking after its welfare, health, education, pensions, childcare etc).

The modern state, according to Foucault, can scarcely function without becoming involved with racism, ‘the break between what must live and what must die’. Thus racism no longer serves one group against another, but becomes a tool of social regulation: a racism that society practices against itself, an internal racism – of constant purification and social normalisation. It is easy enough to separate locals from immigrants, particularly people with different skin colour, or those who wear veils or Muslim beards. But when it comes to people who look the same, the state needs to categorise them and differentiate people considered truly Irish from indigenous and nomadic people. And it does so by introducing specific policies aimed only at Travellers – in accommodation, health, welfare, education and so on.

And in order to separate and categorise, the state must racialise those who it considers not to fully belong. This is a huge contradiction between the realities of Traveller lives and the discrimination you face, and the insistence, by the Irish state, that Travellers are not a separate ethnic group.


The racialisation of Travellers

As I said before, racism is not easy to define. The easiest is to see it as individual prejudice rather than in political terms. But I would like to suggest to you that racism should be understood as a system of domination that assigns racial characteristics to certain groups and individuals (racialisation) with the result of limiting their opportunity to enjoy full equality. Racism emphasises the physical or cultural characteristics of groups and individuals and considers these to be static. Therefore, it does not only concern skin colour, but also appearance and way of life. Racialisation affects both dominant and subordinate groups: dominant groups assign racial superiority to themselves, the subordinated are being assigned racial inferiority.

These divisions between dominant and subordinate are sustained by harnessing racist ideas to the instruments of state power, such as the police and the military, but also the education system and the labour market. But importantly, racialisation also results in the internalisation of racial identity. Thus racially oppressed groups are not only discriminated against by the dominant group, they also internalise their oppression and contribute to their subordination.  

Travellers – who do not differ from the Irish in appearance or religion – have been racialised by the Irish who themselves were racialised and othered by the British and in their countries of diaspora. According to Sinéad Ni Shuinéar, popular images of Irish Travellers are the most extreme manifestations of an ancient Anglo-Saxon tradition of racialising the Irish. Her detailed study, ,which I won’t have time to go into here, shows that while the Irish were described as peasants, ‘white chimpanzees’, schizophrenic and sexually repressed, Travellers were depicted as having been useful to Ireland’s rural economy and – in modern times – redundant people who should make major adjustments, settle and fit in. She ends her study by arguing that Irish state and society, as well as several anthropologists, transferred the racialisation of the Irish to the racialisation of Travellers by the Irish. Regrettably, many Travellers have internalised their inferiority, and the result, as you heard from Thomas McCann, is mental health, drugs and suicide problems.

Race and ethnicity

The terms ‘race’ and ‘racism’ have been discredited after World War II and the Holocaust, and the term ‘ethnicity’ has replaced ‘race’ and ‘cultural relativism’ has replaced ‘racism’.

However, the notions of ‘culture’ and ‘cultural relativism’ actually obscure the link between racism and the state, in preferring to offer psychological explanations for racism rather than political ones. The African Caribbean sociologist Paul Gilroy who has gone against the use of the term ‘race’ by academics, suggests that resorting to ‘ethnicity’ or ‘culture’ equally means categorising populations according to a (racial) hierarchy and thus segregating them

Sinead Ni Shuinear (1994, 2002) argues, after Barth, that Travellers are definitely an ethnic group:

• You are biologically self reproducing (most marry Travellers, you cannot become a Traveller)
• You share fundamental cultural values (nomadism – even if you are no longer nomadic, self employment)
• You make up a boundaried social group in terms of communication (you have your own language, Cant or Gammon) – these boundaries are erected every time a Traveller is barred from a shop, a pub, or a hotel
• You identify yourselves (as Travellers) and are identified as a distinguished social group by others (often in derogatory terms...)

However, it’s important to remember that this definition of ethnicity is mostly about culture, not politics or power. And culture, as we all know, is never fixed, but rather dynamic and relational. I would hazard a guess that only very few Travellers live and behave as their grandparents did before them.  

Furthermore, culture is often used by the state in order to racialise nomadic people. Thus the Irish government has not fulfilled its 1995 Task Force promise to construct the promised number of halting sites, disregarding your cultural values.

Another example is the Naqab Bedouins in Israel who are not allowed to construct villages on land their tribe has lived on for centuries.  Thus the ‘unrecognised’ village of El Araqib has been demolished 39 times in the past couple of years by the Israeli government which insists Bedouins must be settled in government-built townships.


Traveller ethnicity and ethnicity denial: Identity or strategy?

Ethnicity, I would suggest to you, is never only about culture but rather about power. Travellers have defined themselves as an ethnic group even though the debate as to whether they are or are not an ethnic group continues.  Apart from the denial by the state of the status of ethnic group to Irish Travellers, some Travellers are not too happy to be defined as a separate ethnic group, considering themselves fully Irish.

This is an important debate. While I join people such as Micheál Mac Greil, the late John O’Connell, Sinéad Ni Shuinéar, Robbie McVeigh and others – in supporting your claim to be recognised as an ethnic group rather than a ‘subculture of poverty’, I would like to ask you to consider whether Traveller ethnicity is an essential part of your identity, or rather a strategic step towards recognition and equal rights?

Ethnicity denial must be situated in similar historical and contemporary denials with groups pejoratively identified as ‘Gypsies’ – Roma and Travellers. Denying Roma and Traveller ethnicity anywhere across Europe is problematic because it resonates with the legacy of the Porrajmos, the ‘Gypsy Holocaust’, when approximately 500,000 Roma and Travellers were exterminated by the Nazis.

In his article about ethnicity denial, Robbie McVeigh asks how can we explain the inequality experienced by Travellers – in terms of mortality, morbidity, educational achievement, income, and so on?  And how is this to be addressed? Is racism to blame and is Traveller inequality the fault of a sedentarist and racist society or of Travellers themselves?


Conclusion: New strategies of Traveller anti racism?

In his recent report, Micheál Mac Greil makes several recommendations towards the emancipation of Travelling people. The first is the removal of defining Travellers in terms a culture of poverty and deprivation and the second is the recognition of Travellers as a unique ethnic group within Irish society. In this he joins Robbie McVeigh who insists that ethnicity denial by the Irish Government potentially facilitates genocide in other places around the world. As Roma – who are European citizens -  are being deported from EU member states such as France and Germany, but also Ireland, must we wait for a European member state to stand before the International Court of Justice and say: ‘There is no case to answer – it was our view that they were not an ethnic group’?

I fully support Travellers’ claim to a status of an ethnic group as the basis for anti-Travellerism, but I would like to expand this and suggest further strategies of resistance by Travellers. Basing my proposal on the experience of Bedouin people in Israel, I would say that the most important component of the struggle is increased visibility. Travellers are visible only when there is trouble but your everyday lives and discrimination remain invisible. Particularly now, during the recession, very few settled Irish people want to know, and tend to blame Travellers for their own discrimination. So the first step is to revive the anti-Traveller racism campaign, and keep reminding people of your existence and experience –Traveller Pride Week is a step in the right direction.

There is little doubt that the Palestinian Bedouin citizens of Israel are a separate ethnic group. At 5.5% their birth rate is the highest in the world. Over the years, the Israeli government has contributed to the sedenterisation of Bedouins, aiming to transform them from shepherds into an urban proletariat – constructing seven townships in the Naqab. The result is that about half of the 200,000 Bedouins live in urban townships and the other half in 45 unrecognised villages which the Israeli government keeps demolishing. These unrecognised villages are not marked on any map, and are ineligible for municipal services such as electricity, water, refuse collection and roads.

Not unlike the Trespass Law in relation to Irish Travellers, the Israeli government is about to pass the ‘Law for Bedouin Settlement in the Negev’.  The law rejects Bedouin claims to ownership of most of their property, and will confiscate 80 per cent of the 240,000 acres owned by Bedouins, and legalise the destruction the homes of some 20,000 families, who will be transferred to undeveloped plots in ‘authorized’ locations. Although the state dealt harshly with Bedouins in the past by moving them from place to place, confiscating their flocks, destroying their homes and even spraying their crops with poison, these actions never resulted in an uprising, perhaps because these violations were small-scale: a family here, a clan there. However, earlier this month, the main Israeli daily predicted a ‘Bedouin uprising’

The strategies of resistance employed by the Bedouins include increased visibility – several Israeli and international Jewish and Palestinian organisations work with the Bedouins. Their issues are constantly reported in the media and supporters assist them in re-building their villages. Several Israeli Jewish lawyers and planners are working with them on the legal issues, holding meetings, and contesting land confiscations and house demolitions through the Israeli courts. The state has used enormous force to demolish the unrecognised village of El Araqib, but pictures from the demolition and the violence used by an Israeli officer against a Danish volunteer only helped the Bedouin cause. But force will not benefit the state, as no Bedouin will agree to build his house on land that another Bedouin still claims.

Another important resistance strategy is education. It is interesting that Bedouin women in the Naqab are accessing third level education despite their primary and secondary education being forcefully curtailed by the modernising Israeli state which ignores the needs of Bedouin women by not providing gender-segregated schooling and thus encouraging their parents to take daughters out of mixed schools for traditional reasons. This creates an internal conflict within Bedouin communities, even though this conflict is the reason for a large dropout rate of Bedouin girls.

2003 statistics show that 75 percent of Naqab Bedouin - men and women living in ‘unrecognisesd villages’ had no education at all and were illiterate. The figure was 25 per cent for the recognised villages. 90 per cent of Naqab Bedouin girls in unrecognised villages dr opped out of school at 13 or 14, compared with just 10 percent of the Jewish population, 20 per cent of the Arab population in Israel and 60 per cent forrecognised villages.

Sarab Abu Rabia-Queder, who got a PhD from Ben Gurion University, documents  Bedouin  women’s routes to resistance through returning to complete the education they failed to obtain as children: by 2007, 250 Bedouin women attended university. Despite the financial difficulties faced by Bedouin families, many families support their daughters’ education and Naqab Bedouin women graduates say they are treated with more respect, have more authority and are seen as community decision-makers and role models. Many now give public lectures to their villages on education and on physical and mental health.  This also means that the Bedouins participating in the struggle against discrimination are highly educated and include lawyers, teachers, doctors and academics.

To conclude: while I fully support Traveller claims to the status of an ethnic group, I suggest moving beyond this struggle, even though this is a crucial strategy. In addition Travellers should create and foster solidarity networks, keep your issues visible, and continue to resist discrimination through the courts – and campaign, together with your supporters, for the long-promised review of the weak ‘Incitement to Hatred Act’.  Another important strategy is education, which as Mairin Kenny said, is a ‘route to resistance’.

It’s not going to be easy, particularly during the recession, as even people engaged in protest and resistance tend to neglect and ignore Traveller issues. But this is precisely why it’s so important.

Travellers should also move beyond the partnership model, which Robbie McVeigh saw as ‘Traveller organisations headed by settled people’, and which ultimately meant jobs and positions for a small number of people, without empowering Travellers who experience everyday discrimination. In my opinion there has been too much of this. Moving from the partnership model towards solidarity may create a new model of Traveller self empowerment.

NTMAC Conference on Traveller Ethnicity

Ethnicity – The Core of Our Movement

Brigid Quilligan, Director, Irish Traveller Movement

Keynote address to the National Traveller Monitoring Advisory Committee Conference "Ethnicity and Travellers: An exploration"

Dublin Castle, 27^th September 2012

Good morning ladies and gentleman, The Irish Traveller Movement are pleased to have this opportunity to outline why Ethnicity is at the core of our Movement, and why we feel it is vital for the survival of Travellers in Ireland. Today I am going to present this input differently to other presentations we have made around ethnicity. We have delivered other Ethnicity inputs in an academic format and focused heavily on the law surrounding Traveller Ethnicity – these materials are available on our website or by contacting our office. All our member groups and most, if not all of the Government Departments represented here today will have also been in receipt of our material.

Today I want to deliver our message in the spirit of the consultations and workshops we’ve held nationally– and that is, straight from the hearts of the Travellers who participated in these and others are involved with us over the last 22 years. My name is Brigid Quilligan, I’m a Traveller woman from Killarney and I work as the Director of ITM. I am the eldest of eleven children and a mother of one son aged 13. Like all the eldest Traveller women in the audience, my role in my family has been one of being a second mother to all my siblings. I will refer to my family throughout my talk because ultimately when I think of ethnicity, I think of my family, past present and future. My family in this context could be any Traveller family. During the course of our input I will tell you a bit about the Irish Traveller Movement, clarify what the Irish Traveller Movement mean by Ethnicity, I will tell you about the impacts of denial of our ethnicity, the benefits of recognition of our ethnicity and I’m going to deal with some of the concerns Travellers around the country have identified with recognition of our ethnicity.


The Irish Traveller Movement is a national membership organisation with over 40  member groups. We formed in 1990 due to the need for Travellers to have a collective voice, not just a voice which dealt with the nice issues such as our art, our music or our storytelling, but one which highlighted and addressed the abuse of our human rights.  Our movement was formed when a few outspoken visionary people shared the dream of Travellers having the right to self determination, Travellers having the right to self represent and to Travellers having the right to equality.  From our conception, recognition of Traveller Ethnicity has been at the core of our movement. Why? Because we recognised that the terrible racism and discrimination Travellers in Ireland faced resulted from us not being recognised for the people we are. So, Who are we? We are an indigenous Irish people, our people were nomadic before the settlement policies, and some still are. We do not all agree on the different Gammon or Cant words we use to describe our people, we may identify as either Minceir, Pavee, or Tinker but we all agree we are Travellers. Like other Indigenous people across the globe, Travellers fight to be recognised for the people we are while the settled population tries to stamp out our ‘Travellerness’ and make us conform to settled way of living and thinking. As with the Aborigines in Australia, The Maori in New Zealand, the Roma in Europe and the Sami in Finland, our recognition will come. I have no doubt about that. What gravely concerns and hurts me and other Travellers is, how many of our people will have to die before this happens. I know some settled people get offended when we compare ourselves to the groups I just named because they feel we are nothing like those indigenous groups and have suffered nothing like their level of racism. It is widely believed by some that we deserve whatever hostility we receive – but you know, for a long time in these other groups home countries they were perceived the same as we are. Some still are.  We share many characteristics and when as a Traveller woman I meet people from these communities, there is an unspoken understanding and kinship – our experiences of marginalisation, racism and state denial of the authenticity and value of our people is startlingly similar.


What makes Irish settled people able to recognise an indigenous group in another country recognise their mistreatment but deny us the same acknowledgement? It’s Racism. Difficult for some to hear, but that’s what it is. In Ireland at every level, Travellers are subjected to racism, and people aren’t even embarrassed to speak of Travellers in a degrading way or to treat Travellers unfavourably. People in powerful positions abuse their power and discriminate against us without any consequences. What message does that send to people. While being a Traveller should be a wonderful, beautiful thing, most of the settled population think there are no worse people on this earth or at best that we need to become like them to succeed in Irish society. We self identify and others identify us as a group separate to other Irish People. This doesn’t make us any less Irish; this makes us less valued as Irish people. Despite all that has been done to us, we sing Amhran na bhFiann  and fly the Tricolour as proud as any other Irish person but we are not as equal in our own country as any other Irish person, why?, simply because we are Traveller.



The Irish Traveller Movement was founded on the principle that Travellers are an Ethnic Group and recognition of Traveller Ethnicity has been at the core of our movement for the past 22 years. Travellers have suffered racism in the areas of Education, Accommodation, Health, Employment and the Justice system for decades. We feel that the root cause of this racism is while we are recognised as different our difference is not celebrated. We are still seen as “failed settled people”, not as a proud indigenous people. In 2008 our members said enough is enough. It stops here. In order for real change to come our ethnicity needed to be recognised. Our ethnicity campaign as we know it began.



So having outlined who the ITM is, why we were formed and why ethnicity is at the core of our work, I now turn to the term ethnicity itself.
So, the million dollar question, what is ethnicity? There are many different definitions by various experts on what it is, and we will hear from some of those experts today. The word ethnicity in itself seems very exotic –we usually hear it used to describe someone of a different skin colour. Travellers are white and Irish so you wouldn’t automatically think of us as being of an ethnic group. However, when you look at what constitutes ethnicity, we most certainly fit the criteria. To be an ethnic group, you must be born into the group. For instance, many people opt out of being recognised as Travellers, but no one can ever become a Traveller unless they are born into it. Travellers have a shared history, culture and language. We acknowledge ourselves as being of a group different to settled people and settled people acknowledge us as being a separate group. While we share the same history and culture as many settled Irish people in Ireland they do not share our Traveller history and culture. That is our own. Ethnicity is our identity – it is who we are. Our culture changes – we are a different people than we were even twenty years ago, but our identity remains the same. It is often easier to define what we were than what we are now. The contrast is our Ethnicity, our identity. That never changes.  We may not be able to describe easily and for all Travellers what makes us Traveller but we know in our hearts we are. We feel it. It really is in our soul. Take my family, we’ve lived in houses since 1979. All my brothers and sisters live in houses, all my cousins live in houses, but we are none the less Traveller. The term settled Traveller is one which is often used to describe Travellers who live in houses. Well meaning people use it to infer that those of us who live in houses are better, more normal. But ask any Traveller here and they will tell you, if we are living in houses for a hundred years we are still Travellers. As a matter of fact, the term settled Traveller is an insult.  Traveller is our identity, and no matter if we live in a tent, a trailer, a chalet, in a council estate or in a palace, we are still Travellers, never settled Travellers.  As Travellers, our identity is something we have always had and always will have. It is not something that is for a government to grant. All we are looking for is for our ethnicity to be recognised and protected by law for the people we are. Travellers in the room do you feel valued and protected as a Traveller? If you don't, could you raise your hands. I have no doubt but that there are Travellers around Ireland who feel they are equal and that they are valued for being who they are. If you are one of these Travellers, you are indeed rare.

 
Having set out what ethnicity is, I am now going to talk about what some of the benefits of having our Ethnicity might be. We know that even if our ethnicity is recognised tomorrow, that we still have to struggle for our human rights. The difference we feel it will make through is that we will be fighting with a strong foundation. At the moment we are seen as failed settled people. No matter what is said about respecting our culture or our rights, the state seeks to assimilate us and by doing so oppresses us. Of course the state will deny this, but really any Traveller here can vouch that that has been our experience.

Above all other benefits, is there one which fundamentally could change the track our people are on. While we talk of the recognition of us for the people we are would result in increased self esteem and pride amongst our people. We all know of Travellers who are struggling with their identity. We see the effects this has on people. Some people look as if they are thriving, they are principals, doctors, lawyers, teachers, guards, but how must it be for them to live and work in a society where Travellers are openly spoken about in degrading terms? How must it be for them if they feel someone they teach or a client of theirs recognises they are Travellers? Could their whole world fall apart if their identity is revealed? The unfortunate answer is yes. So while we have some really positive role models who are open about their identity, we have many more that conceal it. This is not what I wish for my child. Given that he is male, you will not be surprised to hear that he has already suffered racism and despite him being my little gentle baby boy, he is seen as a 6ft thug by shopkeepers and treated like crap at times. So much so, that he now has changed his way of dressing. What next will he have to change and, at what cost? I want for my son what you want for your children. I want him to be able to stand tall and say I am a Traveller and say it with pride. I want my son to be able to provide for himself financially after completing college, I want my son to be free from drugs and other harmful substances, I want my son to have good mental health, I want my son to feel part of Irish society. I want my son to be a good man. I want my son to live a good, long, happy and healthy life. I can do my part, he can do his, but the state needs to step up and protect my son and your children.  

I’m ashamed to say it but have my expectations of my son dropped because society’s expectation have? Why do I pray that he doesn’t get depressed, why do I pray that he doesn’t do drugs? At 13? Why? I’ll tell you why, because like ethnic minorities across the globe who are marginalised, the young male absorbs the lack of value on him, the lack of opportunity for him and internalises it. What is the effect of lack of denial of our ethnicity?  We continue to be viewed as failures and criminals who will not tow the line. We internalise this sense of failure.  We continue to be made to feel powerless and useless. We are made to feel not good enough, not equal. Most of us do not have any faith in our government, our civil service, because we are in constant conflict and do not feel respected or heard.  Our people are forced into denying their identity to try to make a live for themselves.  Travellers have only so much of a fight; I know we say we are strong and proud. But which family here hasn’t been pushed to the brink? Which family here doesn’t have several crosses to bear, which family here doesn’t feel like you’re spinning out of control unable to stop the destruction to our people to our families? Our young people are poisoning themselves with drugs and alcohol, domestic violence is more violent, Traveller conflict is imploding and our finest youngest brightest people are taking their own lives. I am no psychotherapist, but I know this has everything to do with being an out casted people. A people marginalised, and not heard.

We have just looked at some of the benefits of having our identity recognised. Now, I want to look at some of the fears that some Travellers may have about having our identity recognised. Throughout the ethnicity campaign, the Irish Traveller Movement created spaces all across the country for Travellers to discuss ethnicity - what it meant, and what its recognition would mean for us as a people. Almost all of our experiences out doing regional workshops were positive. As mentioned earlier, some people had fears, I will address those fears shortly, but I would like to say that we are an organization and a movement which respect diversity and diversity of views within the community. We never have claimed that we speak for every single Traveller in the country. As a movement, we have tried to create spaces for these discussions. Often an argument used against recognizing Traveller ethnicity is that not every single Traveller in the country agrees with our campaign. However as with other movements, such as the women’s movement and the disability movement, total consensus is not necessary.  The ITM as a movement played a huge role in having Travellers recognised within the Equality Legislation. At the time, not every Traveller agreed with this- yet we went ahead as we knew what the long term benefits would be for the community as a whole. So while ITM always strives to create ways for all Travellers to get involved, the ethnicity campaign is and never was about waiting until every Traveller agreed on this. Why should we as a community have to bear an unfair burden to wait until every one of us agrees on this? As I said, other marginalized groups never have had to do this.


And as for the ethnicity campaign, nothing is being forced on Travellers. If the State recognises our identity, Travellers who don’t agree chose to can self identify as coming from an ethnic group or they can opt out. Some of the concerns we heard were would our Irishness would be called into question if our ethnicity was recognised? To answer that, No. First and foremost, we are all proud Irish citizens, despite not having the same rights in the island of Ireland, we love country and our ethnicity has nothing to do with our nationality. For instance, Irish Traveller children born in England are still Irish Travellers – their nationality on their passport is English, but they are Irish Travellers.  Why, because it is their ethnicity, Traveller is the name of the people they come from but English is their nationality.

Further division between settled and Traveller community has also been raised as a concern. Our answer to that is -  For the last 40 years the state has tried to assimilate us, to make us settled.  By holding on to our Traveller identity we have become victims of racisms, discrimination and state oppression.  We held our ground and onto our beliefs against great oppression. We are already divided. When our people die younger than settled people and when suicide is 6 times more prevalent amongst Travellers, what more divide could we have? Don’t be fooled by the plamasing about us being just as Irish as everyone else, we know that, but do we have the same rights? Don’t be fooled by the scare mongers, whether we like it or not there is already a dangerous divide. And now the scare mongers will tell us that we will create more of a divide by standing up for our rights, up for our right to finally be recognised for the people we are? ITM rejects the theory that there will be more of a divide with settled people. Long-term, recognition of us as a people will bring us closer together. Recognition and value of us as a people, our contribution to society, to culture, to history and arts can only enrich and build relationships. Slowly how we are a people are viewed will change. Our history books will need to tell our right history, we will need to be acknowledged and Traveller will not be a dirty word. Travellers have been an integral part of Irish society for centuries, acknowledgement of this would raise the self esteem of Travellers everywhere and create a wave of changed behaviour towards Travellers
We would no longer have to defend ourselves for being a Traveller.

There would be more protection under national and international law. Other speakers will go through this later, but as it stands we are protected under the Equal Status Act, but while it offers some protection, it is not enough. Remember how easy  it was for the Vintners to lobby for a change in that act which left us less protected when being refused entry to a licensed premises.  Attitudes take a long time to change, but behaviour changes more quickly when we realise there are consequences.


Another impact of recognising our identity would be to name the discrimination we face for what it is: racism. No one wants to be called a racist, yet the racism we face is denied as we are told “Irish people cannot be racist to Travellers, sure aren’t they white and Irish like us”. Again, recognition would not change things overnight, but it would help build a society where anti-Traveller racism would not be something that is proud to rear its ugly head. Another benefit that we would lobby for is Affirmative action programmes for Travellers. In other countries minority groups have successfully lobbied for affirmative action programmes in education, employment and politics. So for instance what would Ireland look like in 20 years if we had places in the Government put aside for Travellers? What would it look like if 5% of the jobs in the civil service had to be filled by Travellers? What Ireland look like if a certain number of places colleges were kept for Travellers, not unlike the positive action programmed in the Royal College of Surgeons.  Now what would Ireland look like after 50 years of affirmation action programmes for Travellers. Think Obama. I know I am.  If we were granted our ethnicity, every piece of legislation, every policy would have to be Traveller proofed. So for instance, the recent housing policy on not building new housing stock, if it were Traveller proofed would have specified that Traveller Specific Accommodation should be exempt from this legislation as there is not enough Traveller specific accommodation in existence to meet even the current needs.  We as a people would have future protection for our culture, our history, and most importantly, our identity. We have a lot of expertise in the room; we could spend today to discuss what know of positive actions ethnicity would impact on us. We need to dream and think big.   

 
I’ve spent a large part of my presentation, talking to Travellers about what ethnicity means, what the benefits would be to us as Travellers and fears that some Travellers may have about ethnicity recognition. Now I’m now going to talk to the settled people in the room. Often, we have been approached by public servants and members of the settled community, who struggle with understanding Traveller ethnicity. They often think that if we aren’t nomadic then that we aren’t really Travellers. And how being white, born in Ireland and speaking English, how could we be an ethnic group. Again, I’ll leave the definition of ethnicity to the experts, but before that, there is something very easy you can do to get your head around shared identity and ethnicity.

Practically every settled person has relatives living in the UK, the USA, Canada or Australia. I’m not talking about the very recent unfortunate situation where our young people, Traveller and settled, are forced to go abroad to seek employment. I’m talking about the Irish Diaspora, who emigrated generations ago. Practically every settled person here has an aunt or uncle or a plethora of cousins who were born and raised in the UK, for example. They are citizens of the United Kingdom, have UK passports, speak English, yet identify themselves, should they chose to, as Irish. Their Irish identity is something they are often proud of and celebrate, and what makes the Irish Americans or Irish in the UK has changed over the generations, but their ethnicity, their Irishness, has not. Some of them have never even been to Ireland and while their nationality might be English or American, their ethnicity is clearly Irish. And like Traveller ethnicity, it is something they are born into and chose whether or not to express it. They clearly identify themselves as a Diaspora community as separate to the majority population, and their Irishness marks them as different, even generations later.  They share cultures and values, and these values change over time, while their Irishness does not. And while they are white and speak English in predominantly white-English speaking countries, their ethnicity has singled them out for racism, then and now.
And if you were to ask any second or third generation Irish-American what made their identity, it may not be what you see as Irish, but it is something that is part of their identity, their beliefs and it, like Traveller identity, will change and evolve in the future, but it will remain something that their children are born into and that they will feel.


In my presentation, I’ve outlined the Irish Traveller Movement vision and where our ethnicity campaign has come from. I’ve outlined what ethnicity means to our member groups and to me as a Traveller, and how important it is for our identity to be recognised at a State level. I’ve outlined some of the positive impacts recognition would have for Travellers and society as a whole and I’ve also hopefully put to bed any fears Travellers might have about having our identity formally recognised by the State. I’ve also tried to make ethnicity clearer as something that isn’t based on nationality or colour of your skin in terms that everyone should be familiar with.


To conclude, I would like to say that over and over again we hear reasons why the state won’t recognise us a people. As a Traveller woman and activist, I find it hugely insulting and demeaning to be told ‘there is a divergence of views’. There is a tiny minority who haven’t yet supported the campaign. We don’t legally need consensus from every community member, to be protected by the state and recognised for who we are, and let’s be very clear about that. I have heard of people asking individual Travellers on the ground if they want ethnicity. Now that is a bit unfair. I didn’t know what the word was myself until a few years ago, but I knew that we were our own group of people, native to Ireland with our own values, culture, beliefs, language and history. So the next time ask someone if they share these characteristics and you will see for yourself the support for us to be recognised for the people we are. To back this up, a quote from a piece of research carried out by researcher Anita Pannell in Ennis in 2007 Traveller Perspective on the Clare Traveller Accommodation Programme ‘All Travellers interviewed in this research clearly saw themselves as a distinct ethnic group with a specific culture related to the Traveller way of life” So ask a question the right way, and you’ll get the right answer. Travellers know that the only reason the state will not recognise us a people, is because they do not want to face up to their responsibilities. Excuses have expired, patience has expired and we are a people pushed to the limit. Our children’s futures are at stake and we cannot afford the luxury of waiting for the next many years to be recognised. The longer this debacle goes on, the harder it will be for the reconciliation to begin.
 I would like to acknowledge the politicians, civil servants, academics and of course our beloved settled colleagues and friends who support Traveller Ethnicity. Thank you for your solidarity. Traveller Ethnicity will be a topic in the history books of our grandchildren and great grandchildren. Ask your selves, what part would I like to tell them I played?


Thank you ladies and gentleman.