Sir, - The Government's decision to set up a consultative committee on racism and inter-culturalism is, as your Editorial of April 28th states, "a welcome recognition of the challenges that Irish society currently faces". It is also evidence that the State is at last taking more seriously its key responsibility under international law in not tolerating racism.
While your Editorial focuses on the fact that racism has become increasingly manifest in the form of physical assaults and threats against asylum seekers, it is also worth highlighting that those undertaking such attacks do not distinguish between their victims according to whether they are EU citizens of a different race, overseas students, tourists, programme refugees or asylum applicants. Hence, the human cost of the rise in racism, while often aimed at asylum seekers, goes beyond this minority group.
All this provides a special stimulus for the provision of appropriate education campaigns on the promotion and protection of human rights in this, the 50th anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This should include the schools, the non-formal sector, the media and the public in general. This is especially appropriate as Mary Robinson as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has assumed particular responsibility on behalf of the UN in the field of human rights education, which she recently described as "the fourth R" along with "Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic".
Speaking at a conference on the theme "Asylum - An Opportunity for Ireland" last June, the then President Robinson stated: "If our mind is right, if our approach is right, if we see the opportunity to be true to our own history, to our own stories and people, then we will cope with those practical problems and we will do it in the right spirit and we will do it in the right way." In short, tackling the "fear of difference" psychology on which racism thrives is vital in building an inclusive and pluralist society. - Yours, etc.,
Maura Leen,
Policy Analyst, Trocaire, Blackrock, Co Dublin.