It All Depends on Which Minority

It is only right that the State, our Government, takes on board the concerns and worries of minorities.
It's what happens in a responsible democracy.
Indeed, the soon-to-be-law Civil Partnership Bill, has been introduced because of a long campaign by Gay and Lesbian organisations and, indeed, by the Irish Human Rights Commission.
We have long since passed laws outlawing discrimination on the grounds of sex, sexual orientation, colour or creed or physical ability or disability. It is right, for example, that young Muslim girls be permitted to wear a hijab to school in much the same way as a young Christian girl may wear a crucifix.
We have made tremendous progress as a society.
But you can’t help feeling, that it is only those minorities which are well organised and well financed, which have slick public relations machines or which are popular band-wagons for politicians, which have their cases heard and action taken.

We still, for example, do little or nothing for the mentally handicapped in our midst, or rather, not in our midst. As long as they are kept out of sight, most people - politicians included or even in particular - seen to be content.
We do little or nothing for the old. Yes, that old rogue Charlie Haughey thankfully introduced free travel and other benefits. But our pensioners are expected to live for a week on a sum equivalent to what a TD receives in (unvouched, untaxed) expenses, for two days.
We certainly don’t do enough for the homeless. If we did, there wouldn’t be homless.
And we don’t do enough for unfortunate drug addicts. We have about one per cent of the beds we need to encourage them to seek treatment.
The point of all this is that maybe we’re spending a little bit too much time arguing about whether gays and lesbians can have civil partnerships or whether they can get married. You probably know my personal view is that they can have partnerships and it’s only right. But marriage is and always has been between men and women.
We spend too much time wondering if travellers are a distinct ethnic group. They are not. And even if it was to be decided they were - after endless blathering and waffling - what difference would it make? It certainly hasn’t helped our Roma visitors.
Personally, I would rather we talked about the mentally handicapped, the old, the poor, the homeless and the addicted and, yes, the traveller and the Roma.
They are issues involving people who have nothing and less than nothing. They are not well financed. They have no slick PR machines. They have little or no influence.
Of course, nothing will change.
The mentally handicapped, the homeless, the addicted and, to a degree, travellers aren’t great for turning up at polling stations.
And as long as that’s the case, they will be allowed to rot.

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I Wonder

DID you ever wonder about the way we treat our politicians?
Did you ever wonder why we pay them so much?
Did you ever wonder why we allow our taxes to be used to pay for big cars and chauffeurs to drive them?
Did you ever wonder why politicians are, generally speaking, applauded when they walk into a room?
Did you ever wonder why we pay for their pr consultants, their style consultants and the consultants they consult to decide what consultants they need to consult next?
I wonder. I wonder all the time.
And I wonder why there are so many charitable organisations in rich countries.
Look at Ireland for example.
It is a wealthy country.
That’s what they tell us.

We’re the richest country in the world, some say.
Others put us third or fifth or eighth.
Few suggest we are outside the top ten.
I wonder why, then, that our telephone book contains pages and pages and pages of number for charitable organisations.
I wonder why it's something that doesn't seem to bother politicians.
I wonder why they think it's important they're seen at the opening of new buildings and roads and equally important that they're not seen near the homeless or the addicted or those in dire need of official help.
I wonder why so many people, so many of the disadvantaged, have to rely on charity to get by.
I wonder why politicians, who in Ireland gave themselves 22 pay rises in ten years, do nothing to help those who need help most.
I wonder why the St Vincent de Paul society has to run breakfast clubs for kids so that they get a decent breakfast every day.
I wonder why it has to provide resource centres in so many
Neighbourhoods.
I wonder why it has to provide education grants to those who cannot afford education, even at primary level.
I wonder why it has to provide holidays for poor children.
I wonder why it has to provide shelter for the homeless.
I wonder why those who look after children with Down Syndrome and Autism, have to beg the public for money to provide a service the government should provide.
I wonder why Americans allow George Bush to stay in the White House he having spent $800 billion killing Iraqis and the young men of America based on a lie.
I wonder why people buy products knowing they have been made by slave labour, sometimes even child labour.
I wonder why some people who are worth hundreds of millions want to be worth hundreds of millions more.
I wonder why African leaders applauded the despot Robert Mugabe a couple of weeks ago.
I wonder why, in the heel of the hunt, nobody is actually doing anything about Darfur.
I wonder why Muslim clerics don’t simply say that murder is wrong, that suicide bombing is wrong and that those who do such things offend Allah.
I wonder why doctors who swear to protect life, thing that killing fetuses, viable fetuses, is a good thing.
I wonder how the parents of whatever little boy it was who killed Rhys Jones in Liverpool, think they’re doing the right thing by not going to the police.
I wonder how governments, just about everywhere, can lecture about drug abuse, can pour millions into the frontline fight against heroin and cocaine and ecstasy and fail, utterly, to provide medical support for those addicts who want to stop.
I wonder why people hurt children.
I wonder why I never seen policemen on the streets anymore.
I wonder what politicians think when, as they sit in the back of their chauffeur driven cars, they see homeless people slipping under their cardboard sheets for the night.
I wonder why some wealthy people are generous and some are plain greedy.
I wonder why people throw litter on the street.
I wonder why gazillions of euro/pounds/dollars aren’t diverted from making things that kill people into discovering ways of keeping them alive.
I wonder.
I wonder.
I wonder.
But most of all, I wonder why, when you think of all the solvable problems there are in the world and in our countries, we treat our politicians the way we do, why we pay them so much, pay for their cars and applaud them when they walk into rooms.

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