Decolonisating universities, What does this mean?
By Paula Martinez
Recently I organized and hosted a panel discussion on decolonization and education in Ireland which was an incredible opportunity to hear what black and migrant students at UCD, Trinity and UL thought about the topic. The panel discussion was part of a Diversity Week I organized for UCD, as I was elected the first and new Diversity and Inclusion officer of the SU.
The fact that I am the first person to occupy this role says already a lot on the topic of decolonizing Irish educational institutions.
The topic of racism, xenophobia and decolonization seem foreign to most Irish people, it even seems that these three worlds have no space in their island as ‘Irish people are the ones that suffered not the ones creating it’. This mentality makes it very difficult to talk and explore solutions to these topics. There is often an initial rejection to speaking about them by Irish people. This has become very obvious as we see how UCD only created an Equality and Diversity Group (EDI) this year, or how this year is the first year the SU has a Diversity and Inclusion officer, even though it is a Global University in 2021. This disbelief of the issues Ireland needs to face was also obvious with the surprise and shock all Irish white people had to racism in May 2020 and how again and again in social media and other medias it was said that ‘That is an American problem’. Which received a strong comeback from the Black Irish and Migrant communities which had to open up to say all the racism that takes place in Ireland and to talk about Direct Provision to the surprise of many Irish people.
The belief that Ireland has no space on the other side of the story of colonization or discrimination because of their colonial past ,has worked in favor of the government to create an illusion that their country and governors are not the ones keeping people in Direct Provision, to see international students just as money bags and not people or not the ones to turn a blind eye to any possible educational or cultural integration plan for the migrants they made come here to work in jobs Irish people did not want to do anymore.
I am a Brazilian Ecuadorian migrant living in Ireland, it also happens that I am part of the African diaspora. The reason why I ran for Diversity and Inclusion officer is because I strongly believe education is a powerful preventative for racism and xenophobia. My goal is for there to be many events, seminars, talks, groups, book clubs, sport events and just general spaces to be created to promote and encourage inclusion and they are almost nonexistent in Ireland even though it is a rich, western country part of the European union. Every European country has a long way to go to tackle racism and xenophobia, but having lived in France and Spain and done studies on Germany and The Netherlands, at least continental Europe accepts it’s part on colonialism and promoting white supremacy. At least by accepting it these countries do promote and facilitate at least cultural and integration events for its young population as well as having a wider acceptance of refugees (ex: right to work for refugees and how a French judge had to push it to Ireland and still is pretty bad I wrote I paper on this).
There is a lot of work to do everywhere in the world about these topics, racism and xenophobia emerge as very different issues depending on the country and there is not one easy fix but to me, the big problem Ireland has is it’s inability to accept that it’s part of being a white western power in the world, and how this obviously comes with submitting many people to suffering in the global south and in Ireland as well.
Ireland has thrived in the world, a big part of this comes from their whiteness and the other to its geographical position; This does not mean they are not a hard working group of people or that they did not go through a lot, I am not saying that, but we have to understand the truth even if it is difficult. Other countries could not progress how Ireland did even though they had similar stories of migration. As what supported Ireland to become the power that it is now is its American ally (which happens to be one of the most powerful countries on earth) which fell in love with claiming coming from this remote white heritage. We see this again with how widely known it is that many white American supremacists are hugely proud of their white Irish heritage. Let’s also remember that everyone that is benefitting from privilege passively or otherwise contributes to the marginalization and discrimination to other groups. From the very good read ‘ How the Irish Became White’ by Noel Ignatiev, PhD Art Mcdonald an American man from Boston writes ‘It’s a sympathetic yet tragic story of how race has been a defining characteristic in U.S. culture and how the race question has also plagued the white working class in this country. One might say that it is a story of how the Irish exchanged their greenness for whiteness, and collaborated with the dominant white culture to continue the oppression of African Americans’. Not only this, but the whole base that Irish people have on their suffering that does not allow us to be able to have open conversations and look for solutions to racism and xenophobia in Ireland come from ‘ a way to white men in America and elsewhere to say, we were enslaved too,[…] Irish indentured slavery saw Irish people serving periods of 7 years of labour in the Caribbean and British North America in what is known as indentured slavery. After a period of 7 years, they were freed, unlike African slaves whose children, and their children were born into slavery.’ Anthea Butler, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Africana Studies,and the History of SlaveryUniversity of Pennsylvania, when she delivered the 2019 Annual Humanities Horizons Lecture at Trinity College Dublin on Tuesday, 1 October 2019.
Completely different to what actually happened all over the world for centuries to Black people. Secondly, the resistance of Irish people to see their part on colonization seems odd as anyone in a background on politics or economics would know how much Ireland progressed thanks to the European Union which gets all of their money from…? Colonization of massive countries and the exploitation of indigenous groups for centuries!
Even just talking about modern times, Irish people and companies have risen on the oppression of Black and Brown bodies as being one of the highest countries to consume Fast Fashion and to promote it (Penneys!).
Even though this might seem like I have an issue against Ireland it is actually the complete opposite. I want Ireland to work on its racism and xenophobia and not leave it on a side for this country to thrive on integration and equality for all it’s people. Not only migrants like me, or it’s refugees, but their Black Irish population their Traveler population, its working class. I want Ireland to not have to experience the segregation of big groups and then problems that come with segregation: poverty, violence, insecurity. I fell in love with Ireland after my first year here and this is why I do not want Irish people to not open their eyes to what Ireland could actually become for its citizens and to not buy weird narratives and stories about how its institutions where your tax money goes to cannot do anything about integration and inclusion. All I study and projects I work on are on researching and analyzing other successful cases of integration, economic and social integration, in different countries ( New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, The Netherlands, Belgium) and to see how they can be applied to the Irish landscape. I have found again and again that in Education there is a big answer to tackle this issues and this is why, as a Master student at UCD, I want to hold Irish Institutions of knowledge accountable and push to leave their present euphoria towards becoming business institutions and to re-focus on the knowledge part of their creation.
I feel Ireland has a bright future and that it is changing as it happens everywhere to a bigger more cosmopolitan place. I want Irish people to see the value in how integration instead of discrimination can be a huge impulse for Ireland not onlyeconomically but culturally too.