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| Press caricatures bolster attacks against Travellers | Press caricatures bolster attacks against Travellers |
| (4 months later) | |
| Racism against Travellers leads to violent attacks, verbal abuse and continued impoverishment. In 2011, hundreds of riot police evicted and destroyed the largest Irish Traveller site in the country, Dale Farm, leaving dozens homeless, including children. Over the past year, Romany people in Hungary, France and Italy have been attacked and killed by rightwing groups. Anti-Traveller racism is far from a laughing matter. That George Monbiot decided it was appropriate to devote an entire article to an anecdote about a Traveller man is unforgivable (The day my inner anarchist lost out to the bourgeois me, 26 December). | Racism against Travellers leads to violent attacks, verbal abuse and continued impoverishment. In 2011, hundreds of riot police evicted and destroyed the largest Irish Traveller site in the country, Dale Farm, leaving dozens homeless, including children. Over the past year, Romany people in Hungary, France and Italy have been attacked and killed by rightwing groups. Anti-Traveller racism is far from a laughing matter. That George Monbiot decided it was appropriate to devote an entire article to an anecdote about a Traveller man is unforgivable (The day my inner anarchist lost out to the bourgeois me, 26 December). |
| At length, Monbiot describes the Traveller man he meets as filthy, telling crude jokes, being interested only in animals, and as a thief. This caricatured sketch of a nameless representative of an ethnic group is as venomous as far-right propaganda against Muslim or Jewish communities. The apologia he offers the reader, by stating he has written about, and campaigned against, the harassment of Travellers, only serves to make this drivel appear more socially acceptable. The headline suggests that although his "inner anarchist" would like to be open-minded about Travellers, this is impossible due to the harsh facts of the "reality" he constructs through a generalisation of Travellers. One incident he recounts, in which a couple of men (who he describes as Travellers) are violent and dishonest, serves to criminalise an entire group of people. | At length, Monbiot describes the Traveller man he meets as filthy, telling crude jokes, being interested only in animals, and as a thief. This caricatured sketch of a nameless representative of an ethnic group is as venomous as far-right propaganda against Muslim or Jewish communities. The apologia he offers the reader, by stating he has written about, and campaigned against, the harassment of Travellers, only serves to make this drivel appear more socially acceptable. The headline suggests that although his "inner anarchist" would like to be open-minded about Travellers, this is impossible due to the harsh facts of the "reality" he constructs through a generalisation of Travellers. One incident he recounts, in which a couple of men (who he describes as Travellers) are violent and dishonest, serves to criminalise an entire group of people. |
| By contrasting the man's experience of the police assault that landed him in A&E with his portrayal of him as a thief and violent thug, he delegitimises reports by Travellers of police violence, turning the victim into the accused. | By contrasting the man's experience of the police assault that landed him in A&E with his portrayal of him as a thief and violent thug, he delegitimises reports by Travellers of police violence, turning the victim into the accused. |
| Despite having reported on years of police attacks against environmental campaigners, Monbiot has failed to allow these confrontations with the law to open his eyes. Instead, the prejudice of the police and the injustice of the state are omitted from his account; forces which would otherwise be suspect are now affirmed for the sake of Monbiot's monologue. | Despite having reported on years of police attacks against environmental campaigners, Monbiot has failed to allow these confrontations with the law to open his eyes. Instead, the prejudice of the police and the injustice of the state are omitted from his account; forces which would otherwise be suspect are now affirmed for the sake of Monbiot's monologue. |
| The petty version of revenge Monbiot enacts by writing this article only exposes further the intense inequality of power between the liberal establishment and criminalised communities. The Guardian is also implicated in this, which shows it to be as blind, ignorant and malicious as the other British newspapers which continue to print the material that bolsters both vigilante and state attacks against Travellers. Journalists should understand the situation Traveller, Gypsy and Romany people face and the role the media could play in helping to put an end to this "acceptable" form of racism. Ali Saunders Traveller Solidarity Network | The petty version of revenge Monbiot enacts by writing this article only exposes further the intense inequality of power between the liberal establishment and criminalised communities. The Guardian is also implicated in this, which shows it to be as blind, ignorant and malicious as the other British newspapers which continue to print the material that bolsters both vigilante and state attacks against Travellers. Journalists should understand the situation Traveller, Gypsy and Romany people face and the role the media could play in helping to put an end to this "acceptable" form of racism. Ali Saunders Traveller Solidarity Network |
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