Sammy Wilson attacks victims of Belfast race attacks

antrim | racism & migration related issues | news report

Monday September 07, 2009 11:12

by Davy Carlin - WSM - - Workers Solidarity 111

wsm_ireland at yahoo dot com

The DUP’S Sammy Wilson has recently accused anti-racism groups of exaggerating the scale of racism to access public funding. This statement comes not long after more than 100 Romanians were forced to flee their homes in South Belfast due to racist intimidation and attacks.  

Mr Wilson is known for not holding back about his views and recently as Environment Minister he had made it clear that he believed that humans where not responsible for climate change. Yet given that Mr Wilson is now the Northern Ireland Finance Minister, attacking what he calls the ‘anti-racism industry’, this particular rant is alarming on a number of points.  

Firstly by suggesting that anti-racism groups are exaggerating the scale of racism he is, in effect, giving succour to the racists. Even before the Romanians had to flee from Northern Ireland the scale of the racist attacks had been increasing year on year.  

Mr Wilson’s remarks have been received with glee by not only racists but also by some of the micro fascist groups here, which has even seen some of them promoting the ‘debate’ on Mr Wilson’s remarks on their web sites. For them it just another avenue for their hatred to be aired, albeit this time sparked by the comments from our newly appointed Finance Minister!  

Secondly what is interesting here is that given the huge ‘peace funding’ society that we live in, Mr Wilson has chosen to attack some of the most vulnerable.  Therefore it can be asked, is this ‘sector’ being singled out for a reason?   

Sammy Wilson’s words on the ‘anti-racism industry’ attack those immigrants who seek a better life for themselves and their families, it attacks those who seek political asylum away from persecution, and it attacks those who come here to do the jobs many of our locals will not do.   

Yet given the fact that the anti-racism groups are segmented it means that each of them have to fight for the little scraps that are given from the table. Secondly, given that they need funding to secure their existence, little can be done to rock the boat when it comes to activist agitation against racism.  

In fact, as seen in recent months, such groups can come out and condemn actions by those who seek to mobilise and defend against attacks.  

This was the case when a spokesperson for the Traveller community, Derek Hanway, condemned the actions of the local anti-racism activists who sought to defend the Romanian community at their time of need.  

This was when little or no support was coming from statutory bodies. In fact, it was only with that initial intervention from grassroots activists that statutory agencies where then moved to react and provide assistance like temporary accommodation.  

While anti-racism groups should rightly be fully funded, we anarchists will focus our attentions within working class communities. While we will challenge and confront racism and any emerging fascist activity in both words and deeds, we will also continue to challenge the conditions that give rise to it.

That means working within and with working class communities to challenge social and economic deprivation, unemployment, unfit housing, the poverty and alienation which is increasing in our working class areas as the recession really bites.
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This is the first online publication of this article from Workers Solidarity 111 which is now available for download from http://www.wsm.ie/attachments/sep2009/ws111northernwebf...l.pdf

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Comments (1 of 1)

75% of anti-racism groups in NI don't get state funding! = nationalise the anti-racism industry?

by iosaf

Tue Sep 08, 2009 13:21

Or equally considering the geographical thing you could unionise the anti-racism industry . Last month when Wilson made these remarks they sparked a blog from the BBC Davenport whoquoted Patrick Yu of NICEM as saying "75% of the groups in this sector get no government funding". http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markdevenport/2....html

I admit when I first read about this news yesterday here (thanks Davy) I wondered at the " - industry" thing. It almost made me think of the "H word industry". Like most really well reported offensive comments it comes just a tad short on precise and specific meaning which I suppose is why it offends a broad range of us. It's quite a proper wee verbal dumdum shell.

If there is such a thing as the anti-racism industry then it's fair to presume there's a certain level of competition and even that there is a racism industry as well for those who don't like -isms that come with an antonymic prefix but not proper root.

Alessandra Mussolini who as we know is the grand-daughter of il duce and currently is serving in the Berlusconi government has this week blocked the distribution of "Francesca"a movie made by one of Romania's wealthiest men, the cinema director Bobby Paunescu.

Amongst Alessandra Mussolini's verbal dumdum shells in the past was the line almost to awful to type out and quote "breaking the law is a lifestyle for Romanians". Of course I don't know if she said "Romanian" with a capital "R" or a little "r" you'd have to write a letter to her parliament office and request an interview with whoever sets her teleprompter. In contrast to that she also declared that most Romanians have rape in their DNA . Now that's a very different kind of insult because when you think about logically - we all have rape our genes .

The Italian racism industry led by Mussolini argues that some of the script of the movie in which its protagonists, some young Romanian girl contemplates making her way in Italian society to setting up a nursery, is not only deeply offensive but actionable. One of the characters says '[ Mussolini's grand-daughter] is a whore who wants to kill Romanians'

well that's not a wee verbal dumdum shell, but the language is pretty strong. Most Italian women are very offended when people call them whores. Yet the particular scene in the movie is reported as having drawn applause from the audience who did see its premier at the Venice Flim Festival. For their part the film industry distributors have said ‘The entire work will be defended as well as the author’s freedom of expression.......We intend to release the film in its entirety at the end of October’......If the judge obliges us to modify something I think we will find a solution with the director.’ Meanwhile the movie is nominated for the Orizzonti award, second to the festival’s main prize.

Now I would go out on a limb and say in this tale from Italy we see industries at work, like proper big time money making ones. Whatever, the movie may end up with a subtitled version..,

Alessandra Mussolini the grand-daughter of the man with the same name.

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Sammy Wilson attacks victims of Belfast race attacks

Comments (1 of 1)