Open letter to Kevin Myers

Aragon wrote:

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

The letter from Miriam Cotton was cutting and insulting to Kevin Myers. I did not find it interesting though as it consisted of little more than name calling. Myers' article, for all of its inaccuracies and bile, was a lot more interesting and thought inspiring than Ms. Cotton's criticism of Myers.

And about the insults to Africans in Myer's article Zhou? Wasn't that the dominant factor from headline to conclusion? Doesn't that call into question the worth and intent of the article? Do you think any African person would not be offended that you should disregard the venomous insult to them and describe that piece as remotely 'thought provoking and inspiring'?

Aragon, I didn't say that. If you are going to put something in quotation marks then I suggest you cut and paste it as is. I said the article was more interesting and thought inspiring, which it was. I also said it was ugly and dangerous, which it also was.

Aragon wrote:

Your own subconscious racism is showing through - and it is always the racism of which people are not conscious that is the most deadly and intractable. Wasn't the letter just a little bit of a taste of his own medicine? Or are we saying here that it is alright for Kevin Myers to endlessly insult and offend others, as he does, and unthinkable for anyone to do a 'right back atcha, mate'. If you dish it out...

Just because I don't see the world in exactly the same way as you does not make it alright to call me a racist. I have said that Myers article was dangerous, offensive, unforgiveable, stigmatising, including repulsive characterisations with racist undertones. However, the fact that I think Miriam Cotton's attack was fairly useless seems to make you feel that I am a racist kow-towing to the establishment. Give me a break.

And another thing, I don't need to imagine talking to black Africans to be annoyed by Myers. I don't feel some kind of guilt or self loathing because of Myers' actions. I don't care if some black African wants to hold Myers comments against me. That's his problem. I don't need somebody else's opinion to know what is wrong and what is right. In fact, it is those that mindlessly adopt the opinions of others that do the most damage pointing to their champion as evidence of the rightness of their views rather than having to justify it themselves.

On the other hand, if a black African gives out about my country's stance at the WTO talks or the EU's approach to Africa, then I will feel responsible for any unfairness which I perceive.

Kate P wrote:

There's all kinds of aid, Zhou and all kinds of ways of making sure that it gets to the people who should get it where that is possible. Concern and Trocaire are good at this kind of work. The difficulty arises - as far as I am aware- with intergovernmental aid, which sometimes isn't about the people at all.

Country by country and situation by situation the needs and the methods of giving and using aid are different. Nobody is advocating that those who are starving be left to starve - the question that's being asked is whether we can do it better, more efficiently and more fairly, with all parties taking their responsibility.

I agree totally. I just think one has to take into account where people are not in a position to take responsibility for whatever reasons. The goal must be to foster stability and education. Education for women is a must if we are going to control population growth. The goal should be to help people rather than to force your political ideology on them. I say that not because democracy and justice aren't important but becase I do not think you can promote democracy through starvation and poverty. It is hard to rebel on an emplty stomach.

Myers' plan to let people die may not even be effective. Sure the population of the island of Ireland was lower after the famine. However, a lot of those who emigrated had big families elsewhere. It is open to debate whether the Irish "race" increased its global population after the famine. Is there any real example to suggest that war, famine or disease lead to decreases in population in the long term? On the contrary, it is the wealthy peaceful educated countries which are experiencing population slumps. Families were bigger When there was more poverty and infant mortality was higher in Ireland!

I must apologise for not coming to post this without figures, due to time, but it is my proposition that the value of the natural resources extracted from Africa by western ( and now eastern ) advanced economies outweighs the amounts of charity and IMF loans etc. many times over. Africa was expressly carved up into squares and rectangles and shared out between a few colonial nations over 100 years ago. The divisions had no regard to climate or tribal territory. Rubber, gold, uranium, oil, diamonds - you name it, we took it out and we've lived the life of Reilly on the back of these cheap commodities produced with slave, or near slave labour. Myers doesn't mention this because it wouldn't fit his racist message.

In the post war period, under pressure from fear of the spread of communism and national liberation movements, the colonial powers lost most of this territory to national independence movements. There was a period of growing affluence and development up to the 1960s after which poverty exploded in Africa in no small part due to the actions of the IMF. Since then the neo-colonialism of puppet governments like Deby in Chad has crept back and national governments have continued to be screwed by the IMF and World Bank - Zhou has described it well. There was a virtual investment embargo by the West in Africa with a consensus that its function was to be supplier of cheap raw materials, until China recently upset the apple cart by starting to build factories.
Myers doesn't mention any of this because it doesn't fit his racist message.

Myers talks about "voodoo idiocy", but doesn't mention the US "faith based" restrictions of Bush's anti- AIDs campaigns that are anti condom - Barrack Obama fell into line with these last week. Neither does he mention the role of the Catholic Church in Africa in spreading anti-scientific nonsense and campaigning against condom use - because that wouldn't fit his racist message.

Myers doesn't mention the failed harvests that are affecting previously rich agricultural areas in Africa that are the result of climate change resulting from our burning of fossil fuels for our benefit, because that wouldn't fit his racist message.

I am suprised that no one seems to relate the difficulties of post colonial Africa with our own in Ireland, where we for a very long time had a much lower life expectancy than any other european country (up until the 1990s).

I understand that Myers's in his recent biography brags about his sexual promiscuity. I read the subtext of Myers's piece as typical racist fear of powerful black men, exacerbated by the fact that some of them are armed, and therefore not altogether to be seen as victims. I read the article as genocidal in intent - saying that he wants mass destruction of this population, down to its children, by neglect and deprivation. I take it he is a backer of the Janhaweed in this regard.

I was in Paris last week and spent some time talking to some of the organised "Sans Papieres", the illegal immigrants, mainly young African men, who are widely employed at sub-minimum wages, but who have no legal status. They were bright, confident, in some cases well educated and full of energy, and had been educated to believe in "Liberty Equality and Fraternity". They had succeeded in getting acceptance from main stream Trade Unions in France. Spain legalised many thousands of its Sans Papiers several years ago without problem. With european populations declining, why should there not be a legalised flow of migration from Africa to the EU? The problem is not ours, its Africa's losing its brightest and best and most highly qualified. We haven't shown any scruple about mploying African doctors without reimbursing the countries who trained them. Myer's piece was written in the context of the EU formulating and agreeing a "Fortress Europe" regime with free trade when it suits us and a barrier to legal migration at the same time.

Myers entire article is based on a Big Lie of gargantual proportions that Africa is an indigent continent that kindly Europeans has nurtured and supported with unlimited charitable donations. It promotes racism as a justification for the destruction of populations. In Ireland it makes it easier for us to keep people shut up in Mosney unable to work or interact with us. I don't share his admiration for the promoters of "little black baby" charity which I think is another form of racism.

There is no satire about Myer's piece whatsoever. Swift's writing about eating babies as a solution to Ireland's unwanted poor was a wonderful enraged and furious challenge to people who think like Myers.

Africa has immense resources and needs to take hold of its own resources and develop itself, and we need to stop interfering and robbing. More security and family planning will limit population growth.

The greening of the Sahara due to climate change, if it can be protected through its first vulnerable stage, may mean big changes in agricultural production.

We need to put our own house in order and stop ripping off the continent and put in place fair trade regime. That is easier said than done because Irish agriculture in its present form seems to depend on trade restriction: I've started a thread on the WTO in the hopes of learning a bit more about the implications of that.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/07/un-report-future.php

According to the Treehugger article above, the UN have created a report which is 6300 pages long but foresees an era of prosperity, peace and so on through use of better technology and more communication.

They say it is likely to be derailed by humans with our proclivity to war, violence, inequality and environmental degradation.

Auditor #9 wrote:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/07/un-report-future.php

According to the Treehugger article above, the UN have created a report which is 6300 pages long but foresees an era of prosperity, peace and so on through use of better technology and more communication.

They say it is likely to be derailed by humans with our proclivity to war, violence, inequality and environmental degradation.

Auditor #9 - that is a great report. At 6300 pages, do you think it might deserve its own thread? In fact it may be the only thread we need.

Auditor #9 wrote:

They say it is likely to be derailed by humans with our proclivity to war, violence, inequality and environmental degradation.

So the answer is to get rid of all humans not just the Africans as Kevin suggested.

Lestat wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

They say it is likely to be derailed by humans with our proclivity to war, violence, inequality and environmental degradation.

So the answer is to get rid of all humans not just the Africans as Kevin suggested.

There is certainly a school of thought that views the human species as a destructive virus that is f***ing up an otherwise perfectly good planet

I think I have said elsewhere that I believe there to be less and less value put on human life as the century progresses. Kevin Myers is symptomatic of this. People are objectively analysing the planet's problems and coming to the conclusion that the main problems facing it are all caused by humans. It will not be long before they decide that the simplest way of securing their future is to lessen the numbers of (other) humans.

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

I think I have said elsewhere that I believe there to be less and less value put on human life as the century progresses. Kevin Myers is symptomatic of this. People are objectively analysing the planet's problems and coming to the conclusion that the main problems facing it are all caused by humans. It will not be long before they decide that the simplest way of securing their future is to lessen the numbers of (other) humans.

This has been youngdan's mantra for some time. Unfortunately I think the nostrums he offers would only hasten the collapse of the human species. Hurricane Katrina was a salutary lesson in what governments have in mind for populations hit by climate change. Personally I would prefer a heavily interventionist approach that did its best to adjust population size through control (later marriages and smaller family sizes) without millions of deaths.

Is it possible to actually control population size without going to the extreme lengths that China went to?

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

Is it possible to actually control population size without going to the extreme lengths that China went to?

Infanticide? Jared Diamond in Collapse spoke about Japan doing this until recently. Some cultures might have to resort to emmigration and infanticide on the way up but you'd imagine that ultimately it will amount to a tax on new children that will restrict births. We're even doing that now - I know people who refer to their children as 'mortgages'. It could be controlled by children's allowances which would be exhaustable each year so if you're gonna do any baby-making you try to get the tedious bit over by the middle of this year so your little one will probably pop out in the new year early enough to avail of the grants before they run out.

Kate P:

I read half way through your last post and quite honestly just had to give up - it doesnt seem to have anything to do with what I have been talking about. Perhaps we should just agree to differ.

Folks:

I posted this thread in the media forum, which was intended to suggest a discussion of Myers' journalism - the actual topic of the open letter to Myers - not the African issue per se. This is a DIFFERENT topic to the one that some of you prefer to discuss - not a different approach to what he says about Africa. It doesn't make it less valid, however. Understandably, the thread has wandered into the subject of Africa itself and it hasn't been possible to keep the subject to its original theme. That's life on discussion boards, I suppose but I certainly reject all criticism of the validity of the intended theme.

To continue with that and maybe move the subject back to its intended purpose, if anyone is interested, Myers is a public figure writing about incredibly sensitive issues in a newspaper that has the largest circulation of any Irish newspaper. That's a very powerful position to occupy in public life. He uses this power and access to the public mind to serve an aggressive and usually deliberately offensive agenda. I know some people think his unpleasantness is clever and witty and that the issues he writes about are better served by it. In my view, this is to completely misunderstand the whole point of how newspapers use people like Myers and how Myers himself is willing to be used. He is straightforwardly a propagandist for an extreme neo-con way of life - telegraphing ideas in a manner that, over time, actually end up normalising the ugliness in what he says and of the way he says it.

He chips away steadily at values that imply consideration for others in public policy - relying on threadbare cliches such as 'the politically correct' - to denigrate what is actually ordinary human decency - things like compassion, fairness, equality, transparency, peacefulness, negotiation and instead eulogises their opposites. These concepts are the enemies of unfettered capitalism and there are entire policy units dedicated to minimising and eradicating their logical expression in public life whenever and wherever they threaten uninhibted profiteering - always pretending to be doing the opposite of course. We need only take one look at it to appreciate the disaster that is the Bush administration - economically, militarily and in every way possible. But Myers is there to tell us it isn't true - that nothing nicer or finer has ever happened to the world than the Bush administration. His outpourings about Africa are tailored to that exact agenda. He is asking people to regard their compassion and sense of fair play as forms of stupidity - and lemming like, it seems there are herds of people who are willing to leap off the cliff after him because they manage to accept his boast that by being obnoxious about things he is in some way being clever and astute. Is there a word for that phenomenon? To see the opposite of what is actually right there in front of you?

Myers has powerful supporters in all this - the people over at IBEC for instance. We can depend on it that nobody gets a prominent column like that in The Independent who is going to write anything that upsets IBEC. You will never, see anyone with an opposite perspective writing as regularly or prominently there. Why not? Wouldn't genuine balance in coverage require it? Mr O' Reilly has openly boasted in Forbes magazine that because of his newspaper interests he was able to get the blocks of oil and gas resources he wanted from the Irish government. I think he paid thousands for them and subsequently sold them for 2 or 4 billion. A single human being has been facilitated by government, business and media to acquire ownership over an obscene amount of the world's resources - to actually take it out of public ownership in order to make it happen.

That is the sort of truth Kevin Myers is there to disguise and to put a put a gloss on. It puts his assault on Africa and the Africans into its real context. The problems of Africa are a direct consequence of the behaviour of the O' Reilly's of this world - the ruthless industrialists and the governments who serve them primarily. Instead of deliberately insulting Africans, why not take a cold look at the manifest sickness of activities of the O' Reilly's - they are inflicint far more devastation on Africa than anything Africans are doing to themselves. Like most Irish journalists, Myers is doing exactly what he knows he has to do in order to succeed in his world. His message is unoriginal and compliant.

On the same day there was an almost pathetic letter from a PD above Myers article - claiming, against all the known evidence that what is needed is more of the very policies that sank our economy. The Titanic analogy is not an original one but the guy was like one of its first class passengers at the prow of the ship looking in the direction of New York - oblivious to what was going on behind him and shouting out 'forward'. Nevertheless that was the day's star letter. The PDs of course are the political wing of IBEC who in turn are the true government of this country - and The Independent is their daily press release.

It's plain silly to pretend that we are not influenced, any of us, by what we read and hear in the media - and that it does not act as incitement to many different things - some good and some bad. The way Myers does his job is a relevant subject of conversation. It is also entirely appropriate that he should be held to account for it - and in the terms and style he prefers himself if need be.

Aragon can you tell us how you came to such a characterisation of him with regard to his agenda and beliefs and so on. I'm interested to know this as I agree that journalists have a responsible position in society and that this particular article, though crass and inconsiderate, is not in my opinion advocating anything like the evil you've mentioned with regards to a comparison with Hitler's actions. I just don't see such racism from that article - maybe yourself or cactus can point out where you see the overt racism. Is he not using a writers device as myself and Kate P have suggested in order to stimulate debate on a subject that is becoming fatigued? Couldn't use of such a device not inject life into that debate again or what do you think? Cactus has pointed out that his tone is devoid of satire though I'd argue that even that has become fatigued - after all, A Modest Proposal is 300 years old.

I do agree that his style could irresponsibly incite racism however, which is the question you wanted to discuss originally but which has gone way off track as is understandable given the emotional charge such topics have.

So is it possible that that particular article could incite racism? Of course it might be part of a culture which has more widespread acceptance but really - do you think the Irish people are liable to such crass nazi demogoguery if that indeed is what is behind Kevin Myers intentions?

Aragon - FYI, Myers is hosting George Hook's show again this evening. Perhaps you should email the show. Don't text though as you will be rewarding his comments with money.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Aragon can you tell us how you came to such a characterisation of him with regard to his agenda and beliefs and so on. I'm interested to know this as I agree that journalists have a responsible position in society and that this particular article, though crass and inconsiderate, is not in my opinion advocating anything like the evil you've mentioned with regards to a comparison with Hitler's actions. I just don't see such racism from that article - maybe yourself or cactus can point out where you see the overt racism. Is he not using a writers device as myself and Kate P have suggested in order to stimulate debate on a subject that is becoming fatigued? Couldn't use of such a device not inject life into that debate again or what do you think? Cactus has pointed out that his tone is devoid of satire though I'd argue that even that has become fatigued - after all, A Modest Proposal is 300 years old.

They have an archive of his columns on the Independent website.

Quote :

I do agree that his style could irresponsibly incite racism however, which is the question you wanted to discuss originally but which has gone way off track as is understandable given the emotional charge such topics have.

So is it possible that that particular article could incite racism? Of course it might be part of a culture which has more widespread acceptance but really - do you think the Irish people are liable to such crass nazi demogoguery if that indeed is what is behind Kevin Myers intentions?

I think Irish people are as susceptible to racism as any other - no more no less. The same was true of the Nazis and we'd all do well to remember it - they were ordinary men and women sucked into the same sort of propaganda fed to them in their media about Jews that Myers is spewing about Africans - i.e. disgusting caricatures of an entire group of people. Any Irish person who believes that they would not be as likely to do the same in the same circumstances is deluding themselves. The lesson of the Nazis and the Jews ought to be what it tells us about ourselves - the Nazis were not unique and neither are we.

Where I believe we differ in comparison to say the UK, is that racism is not something we have had to confront in ourselves until relatively recently. After living in the UK for 25 years, where a huge amount of thought has gone into it for the last 50 years, they just happen to be a bit further down the road with it - much more clued in to how they were getting it wrong - it aint perfect there but it is a lot better in many ways. It's very clear that many people seem to have a very superficial grasp of how it plays out. I'm not the first person to observe that by the way. Some people don't seem to get that racism can be insidious and unconscious but no less damaging for all that. A person who is being racist may not believe it or even intend but yet be very racist. The sort of thing that Asian and black people describe is working for someone who would never deliberately do or say a racist thing but who register undue suspicion, be disporortionately critical and less patient with them in general than their colleagues. This is a nightmare situation - a very common experience for black people. When they try to point it out the people responsible usually become obstinate, insensitive and accuse the person of imagining things or of 'playing the race card'. Others throw screaming tantrums and make life even worse for the person and a very few take it on the chin and try to do something about it. I think we'd all agree here that if you want to understand something, best go to the experts and the experts in this case are black people themselves. The idea that we should accept what we are told by black people about racism finds a lot of people out.

A lot of Irish people dont yet get that the centuries long depiction of black people in a very negative way has sunk very deep into our perception of them - just as the Irish stereotype has sunk into the English mindset. To be honest I'm stunned by what I've read on this site and would never have thought the people responsible of being capable of some of what they have written. So far as I'm aware there isn't a black person contributing here, sadly.

I'm certain that if Myers had written this way about an individual black person to speculate that, being from Africa, he was likely to be a sexually hyperactive indigent, or that his children dying of malaria might serve some purpose as a means of lowering the population, he would have been sued for it - at the very least the racism would have been harder to get past people. The principle holds good when doing the same to an entire continent though continents don't sue for libel/defamation - although ultimately it's at the individual level that the worst consequences are experienced. Do you think if he was in Africa he would have attempted to publish this? We could, if we were as unpleasant, talk about post colonial Ireland in the same way - huge families, raging poverty, high unemployment etc etc. We know what the reasons were for that and they are the same ones they are now in Africa. The letter below was sent to The Independent in response to a link to Myers article that I posted on an English website:

Quote :

Mr / Ms G O'Regan
Editor
The Irish Independent
Dublin
Ireland

Dear Mr / Ms O'Regan

My attention has been drawn to an article written by Kevin Myers and published in your paper on the 10th July 2008 and entitled, I think, "Africa is giving nothing to anyone -- apart from AIDS". My initial reaction is one of disbelief. Not so much that there are people with such opinions, there are probably more such people than most of us would care to acknowledge, but disbelief that your newspaper, the most widely read in Ireland, so we are told, should see fit to publish it. The whole article is an ignorant, racist, imperialist and inhumane diatribe against some of the most wretched and vulnerable people on this planet - it is not fit to appear on your pages, and you should be ashamed that it does.

What makes it particularly galling is that I consider myself one of a relatively small number of English people who really are ashamed by England's history in Ireland, and particularly the circumstances of the Great Famine. I find it astounding that an Irish journalist writing in an Irish paper doesn't appreciate the rich irony of this article, because you will know that exactly the same sentiments were expressed many times over by rich, smug, moralistic and hypocritical Victorians in England when Ireland was suffering a similar fate as Africa is now. Laissez-faire economics, moral and racial superiority and "famine-fatigue" were all part of the appallingly negligent, some say genocidal, attitude of so many in England at the time, Kevin Myers' same deplorable attitudes are what makes this article so distressing.

This is not the place to write at length about how Africa has been abused by generations of colonialism, as had Ireland, and how Africa continues to be abused by an economic colonialism, which has been equally destructive, or to reply to the many other slanders made in Kevin Myers' article against a whole continent of people; but I trust that your paper will print an apology, not only to the people of Ireland, who deserve rather better than to be tainted by association with Kevin Myers and your paper, but to the millions of people of Africa, who ask only for recognition as ordinary human beings who have the right to be treated with the same respect and dignity as anyone else.

Yours faithfully,



Dr John K Monro

Its called Free Speech and a Free press
-
I probably dont agree with over 60% of what I read - maybe 20-25% would disgust me -but I do not want other people deciding what is in good taste and what is proper for me to hear and what is not.

Aragon - I think that 20% of the time you are talking thru your posterior and the 30% of the time regurgitating somebody elses thought patterns - but I dont deny you the platform to expound those views - I dont have you on ignore because every now and again you do hit on a salient point of view and you do cause me to question my own belief systems and moral reference points -and that is good.

If somebody steps over the line -normally there will be a public backlash and that individual will suffer . The fact of the matter in this case , reading the number of letters going into the Indo and general comment regarding the article is that many people feel that , beside some OTT generalisations - Myers hit a nerve and made a lot of sense to a lot of people and it would appear to be that enraged "do gooder" "multicultural"and "aid industry" establishment are the ones out of step on this - kind of like the Yes campaign in the referendum just past.

Bringing up the Irish Experience and famine into this as some have tried is a double-edged sword - are you prepared for the fact that doing this might bring up more than the standard left wing tinged colonialism,imperialism drivel and that is probably the disaster of the famine that woke the Irish up to the fact that they could only rely on themselves and that their leadership was deficient and had to be replaced - thus paving the way for our independence and the responsibility that goes with that? - something that Africa badly needs to do itself in all honesty.

Sticks and stones - anybody who says that this article will lead to an increase in racism here is totally OTT and IMO trying to use the contraversy for their own opportunistic ends and the fact that General Public are not buying the howls and screams of indignation is enraging them even further.

Id say if that rumour regarding a complaint filed with the Gardai is true - well bring it on - its comical and there is no way the Indo and Myers should back down.

I share Aragon's surprise that the article is not immediately seen as racist and damaging. To be honest, if you can't see it it is very hard to explain it to you. Myers characterises the population of an entire continent as useless and disease-spreading. You really can't get more racist than that. The follow-on clichéd and deeply racist imagery of rampant "priapic, tumescent, layabout" black males is reminiscent of deep South slave-owner fantasy. His representation of Africa is a grotesque, unoriginal caricature.

Exactly what "thought provoking" is this article supposed to achieve ? After telling us how saintly he is to throw a few bob into the collecting tin, his only real conclusions are that famine aid should be stopped and that we should make sure none of them come here. If you heard these views from a taxi driver you would be shocked (my apologies to taxi drivers).

I've already posted as have others about the fundamental economic lie that the article is based on. The article quite deliberately is without any historic or economic context. It doesn't offer any basis to discuss what needs to be done, and not done, to allow Africa to solve its problems.

Edo, you sound like a nice, decent guy. Perhaps that's why you don't believe that racist propoganda, particularly when given space in the mainstream media, is seen by the ratbags of society as a license for violence. I assure you you are wrong. There is ample historic evidence to show that pogroms and gang beatings have followed on from racist incitement in the press.

I think that a complaint to the Guards should be made and would be happy to make one myself.

TBH, I have to agree with CF and say that I agree that the article is tantamount to racist propaganda / incitement to hatred. Myers is a well educated man (he hosted University Challenge) who writes a column for a mainstream paper. It is reasonable for people to think that there is some fact or research behind what he says. It is likely that many people do give weight to what he says.

With that said, I am not sure that I would agree with a law that would make the paper or Myers liable to prosecution. A free press is a cornerstone of democracy. Also, views like this have to be exposed to the light of day and open debate so that they can be discredited and so people can know the threats that lurk within our society.

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

TBH, I have to agree with CF and say that I agree that the article is tantamount to racist propaganda / incitement to hatred. Myers is a well educated man (he hosted University Challenge) who writes a column for a mainstream paper. It is reasonable for people to think that there is some fact or research behind what he says. It is likely that many people do give weight to what he says.

With that said, I am not sure that I would agree with a law that would make the paper or Myers liable to prosecution. A free press is a cornerstone of democracy. Also, views like this have to be exposed to the light of day and open debate so that they can be discredited and so people can know the threats that lurk within our society.

That's kinda my sentiments too and Cactus you make valiant efforts to deliver the racism in it to the likes of myself and Edo who are decent guys (well, I am - I don't think I have a racist bone in my body) but it might be a mark of a mature readership and society if this allowance of freedom of speech were to be debated properly as I feel it is both here and (mostly) on politics.ie too, thankfully.

The Indo reaches half a million readers per day or something huge like that http://www.finfacts.ie/finfactsblog/2007/03/irish-newspaper-readership-2007.html so it reaches a wide enough audience to be effective. Whether it is or not is another thing. There are hardly going to be immediate effects such as beatings or mistreatments in public but there could be a feeding of an insidious culture of racism as cactus and Aragon describe. Or could it?

How many people are out there talking about this now and how many people's opinions will be changed or hatred fuelled? Are these boards a good reflection of what the more widespread opinion will be? If so then I see a lot of care here, no overt racism and a good bit of facing up to reality. The conversations have been considerate and measured in terms of the freedom of speech and the possibility of damage to the victims as well as fair treatment of the subject matter itself. It'd be interesting to see what they are saying on boards etc. but here are three more opinions from p.ie which I feel reflect my own.

rockyracoon wrote:

I think Myers stinks as a journo. Can't stand the man. However, he has the right to express his opinions. It's a little thing called freedom of speech. Freedom of speech has nothing to do with PCism. The pc industry (not dell, etc.) is just gearing up in Ireland and this psuedo-representative group is throwing down the gauntlet. I'm thinking Myers and similar thinking people are smiling right now. The line has been drawn in the sand. Hopefully, it will blow up into one hell of an almighty row and go the whole way through the courts.

If Myers is silenced, many more will be silenced. Many worthwile topics will become undebateable. Freedom of speech is one of the cornerstones of democracy. Let the unelected psuedo-reps get the upper hand and our basic liberties cannot hope to survive.

Victor Meldrew wrote:

The indo will print anything. Myers therefore writes crude, juvenile articles and gets into trouble. Worse, the PC brigade silence debate. This happened in the Times

Michael1965 wrote:

The article was certainly ignorant, deeply prejudiced and insulting, but was it likely to stir up hatred? Personally, I don't think so. There is so much in the article that could be refuted, and indeed, other parts that need to be debated, but running to the courts, demanding censorship, is not the answer IMO.

http://www.politics.ie/viewtopic.php?f=164&t=38617&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

I had very mixed feelings when Kevin Myers was run off the Irish Times and when on form he can be a robust writer of some style. However I don't think he was run off by a PC brigade and I dont think he was a martyr. I think he progressively degraded his profession, himself and his readers to the extent that his tenure disintegrated and became impossible. IMO it was entirely an own goal. I am totally opposed to PC crapology, but most of what is reported frankly is mischievous invention and caricature when you follow the stories to their sources.

Myers has written an in-your-face piece that he knew was provocative and took a gamble on it. It was hardly a matter of principle to say what he did as it is factually without substance and is abusive on a grand scale. Look at it as trolling on his part if you like. Every one on this site accepts that there are limits and people should not just be abused. It is nothing whatsoever to do with freedom of the press in my view. Would you have been happy for him to post that here as a member of this site?

I accept the sincerity of people here who have said that they think there isn't an issue, but perhaps you should talk to a few black people in Ireland before deciding there isn't an issue of harrassment and violence. Most people in Ireland aren't racist in any kind of dangerous way, but there is a small core that is very nasty.
Anyone on the receiving end will tell you that when politicians or newspapers start with the anti black headlines there is a reaction on the streets in the following days.

I was thinking today about why people found his article within the bounds of acceptability. I think that maybe it is to do with growing up with the whole "little black baby" outlook to Africa, that I think in its own way is a racial stereotype as well. In Myers world there are only two types of Africans - the wide eyed and innocent baby (with its eyes on his pocket book) and the Black Buck with a Big Gun who makes him feel threatened in a different way. The African who is a tired civil servant, or a goat herd, metalworker, schoolgirl, shopkeeper, scientist, teacher, average politician, hotel worker and so on just doesn't exist for him.

Edo - I think that 20% of the time you are talking thru your posterior and the 30% of the time regurgitating somebody elses thought patterns - but I dont deny you the platform to expound those views - I dont have you on ignore because every now and again you do hit on a salient point of view and you do cause me to question my own belief systems and moral reference points -and that is good.

With no apologies to Kevin Myers and his recent article on Africa entitled 'Lets starve all those bloody wogs'

The Irish Independent is giving nothing to anyone - apart from making us wish we'd died of AIDS

No, it will not do. Even as we see the Irish Independent refusing to take action to employ someone resembling a journalist on that title, the begging for controversy begins again. It is nearly 25 minutes since it facilitated Kevin Garnett's last Feed My Ego campaign, and in that time his sense of self importance has grown to believe it is 78 million times more significant than it really is.

So why on earth should we do anything to encourage further catastrophic growth of that publication? What is the point of the Indo? There is none.

To be sure, there are indeed many things said in the Indo and none of them count. To be also sure, there are some which say buying the Indo equally doesn't count, that it can't do any harm. There are though two things which say that it does count.

One is my conscience, and the other is the picture, yet again, of another wide-eyed child, yet again, gazing hopelessly in fear, yet again, at the camera, which yet again captures the tragedy of yet another Kevin Haw Haw article being unleashed on the nation.

So, yes, my conscience has suffered terribly as I, like most of you, have shamefully on occasion bought the Indo, hiding it inside a pornographic magazine after purchase (usually in Bestiality With The Over 60s, but sometimes in Toilet Traders Monthly) lest I be seen taking it home with me. This has helped in facilitating a wild-eyed middle aged man, who should have known better some 20 years or so ago, siring illegitimate articles whenever the whim takes him. Won't somebody please think of the children?

Yes, there is, no doubt no good argument why we should prolong this predatory and dysfunctional title; and if there is, I do not know what it is. There is, on the other hand, every reason to write a column like this.

It will make me no friend of the self-righteous wrathful one who employs in his columns a defensive device which proposes that it is embarrassingly self-righteous and wrathful to not think that the best thing for Africans would be if they all just starved to death and stopped annoying us. So, as I say, there is every reason to write a column like this.

Within 20 seconds of him joining the Indo, its quality had dropped by another 30pc.

Alas, that wretched title is not alone in how bad it is. Somewhere, over the weekend, lies the Sindo, another fine 'newspaper' of violent, typewriter-toting, coke-snorting, crap-spewing, permanently bloated layabouts.

Indeed, we now have an entire collection of sexually hyperactive and indignant titles, worth tens of millions of Euros, but which can only survive with help from the outside world of newspaper buyers.

The lot of us are now -- one way or the other -- virtually all giving money to Independent News & Media, whereas IN&M is giving nothing to anyone, apart from making us wish we'd died of AIDS.

How much morality is there in bringing into the world another Irish child today, for it to survive to a life filled with Brendan O'Connor's brutal attempts at humour, to a poverty of any talent whatsoever in the newspapers of the company which pays him, to its violent fantasies and abuse of sexual images posing as news stories?

For self-serving morbid curiosity as to what Kevin Duke might have written today about those bloody gypos/Paddys/women/bastard offspring/wogs has been one of the curses of Ireland. The collection of titles has sustained a political party which would otherwise have collapsed.

It is inspired by Connor Cruise O'Brien's program to infect the country with West Britism, a disease which is, in the almost complete absence of self-worth, one of the most effective forms of control of population now operating.

If that program is successful, for millions of children it would have been better if they'd just died in infancy.

It is boasted that it will be successful. Oh good: then what? I know. Lets the rest of us move to Ethiopia. Yes, that's an idea.

Kevmyarse@Irishshinnerdependent.ie

Thankyou Slartibuckfast. Auditor #9 - a Nomination for post of the Month here...

Aw on go then

I usually can laugh at Myers' rants, but by feck I can't laugh at that one. Actually, and he did, spewing that tens of millions of people should be allowed to die of starvation or disease because they're, in his own diseased mind, too subhuman to live simply by vice of being (black) African... If this isn't the end of him as a commentator and if he is still after this accepted as some sort of authority on things, well then this country is on a very slippery slope indeed.