Are you interested in one week's work placement in The Irish Times? Transition Year students can learn first-hand about the workings of this newspaper if their submission is published in Media Scope's weekly Over to You column. Just send us a 200-word piece on a media-related topic - if it's published, the placement is yours.
Gary Byrne, Collinstown Park Community College, Clondalkin, Dublin.
For many years there has been a great pretence lulling around our Emerald Isle: Ireland has been perceived as the land of equality. Our economy is booming, our tourism is on the increase and Dublin is becoming as multicultural as London. However, all is not as it seems, for beneath the polished surface lies a bitter hatred and loathing for those who are different. Having grown up in Dublin, I have firsthand experience of surviving Irish schoolyards. Children will mock and ridicule anyone who is different; and it is these children who will grow up with the mindset that different is bad. What worries me is the high percentage of children I have encountered who seem to have racist tendencies - this does not bode well for the future of our State.
One would think that in a State with such a young population there would be a greater toleration of different races. Many's a time I have been in our city centre and seen black or Asian people heckled as they walked down the street minding their own business. Not everyone in Ireland is racist, but there is a greater number of biased people than we imagine.
I believe education is the way forward: schools and parents must teach children respect for others; however, quite often parents are the people from whom children pick up racist tendencies.
Only recently there was a flurry of Irish anger at the idea of our State having to support more asylum-seekers. Have we no compassion any more? Would we rather let innocent people die of starvation or catch terrible diseases because of their living conditions just because an element of our population doesn't want foreigners in the country?
What sickens me is the way our Government handles applications from such asylum-seekers, by slowing the process. A person can be waiting over a year before his or her application is processed. This kind of two-faced politics makes me ashamed to be Irish.
There is a saying that ignorance is bliss. Well it certainly is not for those of us who have to live with ignoramuses destroying our "liberal" State.
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media scope is a weekly media studies page for use in schools. Group rates and a special worksheet service (see `fax-back', right) are available: Free-phone 1800-798884.
media scope is edited by Harry Browne.
