Statement by our spokesperson Dr Lucy Michael re RTÉ Primetime – comment from Fingal Communities Against Racism
On 25 June 2020, RTE Primetime showed a documentary called ‘The New Nationalists’. During the making of the programme, Fingal Communities Against Racism responded to the production team’s requests for information, advice and resources, and discussed issues about platforming the far right. This is our response to the editorial line that was taken in the end and the material shown.
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Full transcript:
On 25 June 2020, RTE Primetime showed a documentary called ‘The New Nationalists’. During the making of the programme, Fingal Communities Against Racism responded to the production team’s requests for information, advice and resources, and discussed issues about platforming the far right. This is our response to the editorial line that was taken in the end and the material shown.
My name is Lucy Michael and I am spokesperson for Fingal Communities Against Racism. I recently appeared in a documentary by RTE Primetime called the New Nationalists. The piece I believed was intended to expose the far right and show how central racism and fascism are to their agenda. I first spoke to the Primetime team on 3 February this year, ahead of a candlelight vigil organised in Balbriggan in protest of a meeting of the far-right organised by Gemma O’Doherty in the town.
From this point, I understood that the Primetime team were doing a piece to expose the far-right in Ireland and I offered what amounted to several days of assistance to them. I discussed with the team ways of highlighting far-right arguments without centring them. I aided them in locating online footage to demonstrate how central racism and fascism are to the activities of key actors. From the first time I got involved in discussions with the team, I believed that the community fightback against the far-right would be a central narrative.
Fingal Communities Against Racism was set up in autumn 2019 to directly counter the hate that O’Doherty was spreading in our communities, and to address the fear that had taken over after the firebombing of TD Martin Kenny’s car that same month after his Dail statement in support of migrants in the Mediterranean, and recent arson attacks on Direct Provision centres. Our central task is being able to expose the dangers of the far-right without giving them a platform, and we take it seriously. Our campaign literature during the two elections did not even name the far-right candidate, but instead tackled the normalisation of the language of hate.
The reasons I am disappointed in the programme is that it has done precisely what we have fought so hard not to do – let me set out what that is.
- The central arguments of the programme were those of the far-right, rather than those which centre racism and fascism outside of the normal sphere of relations of our society. The false facts and figures presented by far-right actors in the programme were not adequately countered. The emotive stories presented by the far-right were not matched by the human stories of the impact of far-right mobilisation in our communities.
- The central terms used in the programme were those of the far-right, with inadequate rejection of those terms.
- The focus on community fightback was cut to the minimum. Representations of community feeling in the programme did not reflect the success of community fightback in Fingal, either in terms of the Balbriggan meetings or in terms of Gemma O’Doherty’s failed election campaign. Footage used excluded the positive feeling of those demonstrations.
- The presentation of John McGuirk underplayed his influence through a Breitbart-style website which publishes false information about immigration. In the piece, McGuirk although introduced as a rightwing commentator was presented as the more measured voice after O’Doherty while he talked about so-called ‘genuine concerns on uncontrolled immigration policies’. There ARE NO uncontrolled immigration policies in Ireland. But there was no counter information provided to this. There were other key bits of information missed, which might have established the dangers of such groups more firmly for the audience, like John Waters platforming of Nigel Farage recently in Dublin, or like the connections between some of these actors and far-right groups abroad.
- The references to Swedish rape figures directly platformed a key recruitment tool of the far-right, which is to create a true-sounding story in another country, and use it as a warning. There was no counter information provided for this, nor was the fact of its being a key tool for far-right normalisation discussed in the programme. Balbriggan was presented more from O’Doherty’s perspective – against as a place of warning – than from that of residents, who have wholeheartedly rejected her description of the town. Even Pat Kenny, one-time fan of Katie Hopkins, last year noted the success of the town’s diversity at the same time as Gemma was running in the by-election in Fingal.
- Despite featuring recent footage of O’Doherty and Waters at the High Court over Covid, the programme didn’t mention the enormously popular online campaigns amongst the Irish public to reject O’Doherty’s claim of wide public support.
- And finally, the title reinforced the very image that the far-right want in Ireland for themselves. However you feel about nationalism, handing it directly on a plate to the far-right is a very dangerous thing to do.
In all, the programme failed to do what we believed it was intended to do, which was to expose the dangers of the far-right. Moreover, it centred the far-right’s anti-immigrant agenda, arguments and terms without adequate context, critique or analysis. It normalised their language, their racism and their violence. It portrayed them as mostly legitimate, if marginal. And it excluded almost every attempt by communities across Ireland to fight this hateful agenda, at great personal risk in many cases (particularly for minorities and migrants), almost completely.
It’s clear the producers believe that that question of balance is satisfied. But when it comes to platforming the far-right, we cannot allow racism and fascism to be just one side of a debate that is presented as a normal part of our society. The platforming that occurred in this programme undermined a lot of the work by groups across the country to decentre racism and fascism.
I’m delighted that some of the audience have been given a wake-up call about the nature of these groups. But it doesn’t counter the deep concern I share with many others about the ways in which far-right groups have been allowed to position the lives of our neighbours, friends and family as one side of a debate, filled with hateful language, violence and threat, while the Irish public keep rejecting their lies and hate every single day in our own communities.
In short, the combination of RTE’s legal position and the editorial line eventually taken in this programme suggests that the media in Ireland is incapable of exposing the far right without also providing them precisely the platform they seek.