Most of us can confront the issue without resorting to the kind of generalisations Ahern did
Bertie Ahern speaks on the ‘Indo Daily’ podcast after making controversial comments on immigration while canvassing in Dublin. Photo: Owen Breslin
In recent years, victims of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been using poetry to process their trauma. They use pseudonyms for fear of retribution against themselves or their families. One of them, Soleil, writes: “But I hope that humans, rebellious as they may be/are aware of the psychological repercussions that a weapon can have/when placed on this innocent girl’s head/who was then asked to take off her knickers.
The brutality of war. That reality was lost amid last week’s headlines sparked by immigration comments from former taoiseach Bertie Ahern. Instead of addressing the conditions driving people from their country, we spent days debating whether his comments were racist. Quite a lot of people think they were. He does not.