Sir, - RTE's Morning Ireland programme of May 11th featured a segment on the first group of Kosovar refugees to arrive in Ireland. The Minister for Justice, John O`Donoghue, spoke and his choice of words signalled cause for concern. In a rush of enthusiasm, Minister O`Donoghue stated that Ireland must be sure to "assimilate and integrate" these people after they arrive.
Whether by design or misconception, the failure to differentiate between assimilation and integration indicates a confused and possibly damaging approach to policy regarding the treatment of asylum seekers. Ireland`s modern history is, like many other states, a testimony to the dangers of ascribing homogenised identities to the people who inhabit the political space of "nation state".
Our collective identity, as it broadens to include the European sphere, and hopefully continues to broaden, must be receptive of "otherness". We must recognise the mutual learning experience that exposure to so-termed difference can bring. Party political rhetoric is currently awash with millenarianist metaphors of "the Ireland of the 21st century". There are signs that in envisioning this "New Ireland" we may be dragging along the residual paradigms of constructing national insider groups through the xenophobic sacrifice of outsider groups. The controversies surrounding the general treatment of refugees and asylum seekers here in Ireland is a reminder of that.
The model of one-nation-one-state has proven to be deadly politics as it disenfranchises those who fail to assimilate. In welcoming these people from Kosovo, it is surely urgent that we drive a wedge between the desire to assimilate them, and the willingness to allow them to integrate as they see fit. As Irish and European, we tend to pride ourselves on our practice of tolerance without admitting that tolerance is not equality.
Tolerance is a hierarchical perspective; a downward gaze full of self-serving moral posturing. Catherine McGuinness, as a member of a religious minority in the Republic, has made a very balanced and intelligent differentiation between "integration" and "assimilation". The latter belongs to the type of majoritarian politics of difference that has caused so much suffering in Ireland. - Yours, etc., Kevin Ryan,
Roscahill, Co Galway