Why criticism of our immigration policy is taboo

IT WAS not surprising that the Afghan asylum seekers in St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin should have used aggressive tactics in their demands for instant refugee status as similar tactics were successful in Belgium recently.

The hunger strikers were portrayed by sections of the media, humanitarian groups and the far left as victims of an inhumane asylum system. This was not because they were right but because they were vulnerable.

Therefore, critical questioning of their tactics was viewed as attacking them and those who did so were vilified as oppressors.

This is now standard practice in all matters relating to immigration in general and is the result of the institutionalisation of political correctness in all spheres of society.

Political correctness has established itself as a national ideology which sets the ground rules for debate on all issues. In Ireland it has rooted itself in every nook and cranny and is used by big business and its lobby in the media and the Dáil as a weapon to stifle and corrupt open debate as to what kind of society we choose to live in.

In particular it is used to promote a completely free labour market by allowing an open borders policy on immigration.

Notwithstanding the fact that this is designed to create a low-wage, open- market economy on US lines, it is lauded by the politically correct on the right and on the far left as an exciting adventure into a new intercultural society.

Ireland is considered to be a place where anyone who wants to should be free to come and live, regardless of the fact that our economy is about the size of greater Manchester’s.

The political class in the Dáil have been able to impose unregulated immigration on the electorate by using political correctness to inhibit discussion and to create an intolerance of dissent.

This has led to a rigid self-righteousness which curbs freedom of speech and instils a self-imposed censorship by attaching a sense of moral superiority to itself and a sense of shame to opposing beliefs. Moral superiority or not, this irresponsible experiment is ratcheting up problems for future Irish society for short-term gains and political correctness will only wallpaper over the present cracks.

Perhaps the fact that the St Patrick’s Cathedral hunger strike has now ended will encourage a more democratic debate on all aspects of immigration. We should not confuse facts with emotional morality.

Simon O’Donnell

7 Church Place

Rathmines

Dublin 6