Imasha Costa: 'I am not the reason your system is failing'
Members of the Irish far right protesting outside Leinster House in July. Picture: Sasko Lazarov / © RollingNews.ie
For the last few months, I’ve been watching my back, keeping a close eye on the news, making sure that what I see does not take a turn where immigrants who look like me are being assaulted and harassed online.
I find myself taking multiple safety precautions, forcing myself to double check my front door is locked, making sure that my friends and I do not always end up in the same pub, and making sure that I know the people serving me at the coffee shop or my local pub so that, if things took a turn for the worse, I would have an escape route.
This summer — which I would usually consider as a time of joy, enjoyment, and important period for meeting friends and new people — was filled with individuals calling me slurs, cars honking at me while flipping me off and calling me a "dirty immigrant", and sometimes being questioned about why I really moved to Ireland.
They would always ask if I was just sponging off the welfare system.
I moved to Ireland because I wanted an education that I knew I could not receive back home. I was the eldest daughter in a South Asian family, and the first woman in my extended family to receive a third-level education. I would not have been able to do that if I still lived back home, and would have ended up married and dependent on a husband to possibly get a further education.
I was privileged that I was allowed to continue my dream of becoming a journalist.
I got a job, I followed the rules, and it granted me the ability to stay here. I do not receive any social welfare. I pay my bills on time, I pay for health insurance, I contribute, and I have integrated into Irish society.
When the first spate of attacks against South Asian and Indian immigrants in Ireland occurred, my mother phoned me to ask if I was worried and whether I should perhaps come home.
It was upsetting to hear that from a person who lives some 7,000km away, asking me if I should leave behind the life I had created and just go back to where I would potentially be safe. I told her I was not going to come home, and I was not going to let a group of people who lived on creating fear take away my love for this country.
While I am determined to stand my ground, there are migrants who believe Ireland has stopped loving them back. They have decided to leave this beautiful country.
Many of these people are nurses, doctors, and other healthcare professionals, without whom the country’s healthcare system would fall apart.
“If you lose your nurses, your doctors, your care workers — don’t ask ‘why?’. You already know why," the open letter from one Indian nurse to Ireland said.
“We didn’t leave because of money. We left because we’re tired of being afraid. Tired of being ignored. Tired of watching silence win."
There has been an escalation of anti-immigrant attacks here. And yet there has been no action from the Government to de-escalate or to call out poor behaviour and rhetoric.
Migrants are being left to fend for themselves, and those who are carrying out these actions are getting bolder and braver. They are ready to cause any form of havoc and hate without any fear of the consequences.
They are out there, ready in their balaclavas and hoods, chasing people of colour and immigrants, and now the Tricolour is being weaponised by the far right.
Ahead of a scheduled protest by the far-right against migrants, Irish flags have popped up all over Cork City.
This weekend, the event is set to see thousands of individuals march down the streets in Cork spewing hate, with placards of "Make Ireland Safe Again" and "House the Irish first" — but we know it’s not the fault of the immigrant, but the fault of the system that is in place.
A counter-protest has also been planned which, if we look at previous incidents, could see a larger turnout than the anti-immigrant protest.
Migrants living in the city, like myself, have been given warnings and advice from their friends to stay safe, stay indoors, or even to travel outside of the city so that they are not caught in the middle of it all.
Every month, we see the amount of money being spent deporting people from the State.
My question would be: Could that money not be used towards hiring more gardaí in Cork City? To have more policing and a presence which can create a safer and better place, so that nobody needs to be afraid walking home or becoming a target of a hate crime.
The Dublin riots scared migrants, and I was one of them. I was afraid to leave my house. I have been watching my back, and there have been moments when I was unable to stand up for myself.
One incident included being called a hate-filled slur while I was sitting out in the beer garden of a well-established Cork City pub with a friend. We were minding our own business, enjoying the sun and the conversations with others there, when a man decided to call two of the only people of colour in the vicinity the n-word.
I was appalled and flagged it with the bar staff. He got barred and was refused service.
Two weeks later, he was back at the pub. I questioned the bar staff again as to why he was let in, when they said they did not have the space for hate in their space. Nothing was said.
I have since stopped going to this venue. A place where I found comfort before is now a sour taste in my mouth.
Now, while I see the tension rise, there is no solution in sight. Migrants are once again being blamed for a failing society.
Throughout history, this has always been the case. We are being told that migrants are the reason there is a lack of housing, lack of adequate services, and that is why everyone is emigrating.
But it’s not my fault, nor the fault of other migrants, that this is happening; it is the greed of those who only want to seek profit, that has led us to where we are now.
Migrants are being told we are welcome, we are needed, and we are loved by a country of a thousand welcomes, but we are drained as we see individuals become bolder and do anything they want without thinking about consequences.
I am not the reason your system is failing; the system is failing because nobody in charge is taking action.
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