“It’s a different world, this social media thing…You talk to people at doors and you don’t expect people to be taping you.”
That was Bertie Ahern, looking back ruefully at a doorstep conversation he had with a woman in a Dublin constituency, where he was helping the Fianna Fail candidate go door to door. Help like Bertie’s you can maybe manage without.
Mind you, the woman started it. Whether she was just kicking Bertie’s hornets’ nest or whether she believed it devoutly, she blamed Bertie for “hordes of foreigners coming into our country” (Memo to woman: you live in a state, not a country. We know there are some wish the north didn’t exist but we do, and we are part of the country called Ireland).
Ever the placatory one, Bertie told her the Ukrainians were OK “because in fairness, Russia moved In and there is a war in their country…but the ones I worry about are the Africans. I agree with you on the Africans. We can’t be taking in people from the Congo and all these places. I think there’s too many from those places.”
Ah, the language of the common man. Racists – nasty, pointy-headed fucking racists have acted as cheerleaders for the prejudices against them wans out there with an absurdly black skin. And a faded, gentler form of it has recently come through in Bertie Ahern’s words. I mean, “the Congo and all these places” – could you find a better version of “All them people with different-coloured skins – it’s not just normal, is it?”
Having dealt with race, Bertie moved on to religion: “I don’t worry about this generation of Muslims. The next generation of the kids growing up, that’s when I think the problem will be.” Could Bertie actually have been thinking of the Africans, rather than the Muslims? You know, the Great Replacement theory and all that?
It’s a depressing thought: Bertie was actually voicing the thinking of a depressing lot of Irish people, who go a bit mad at the thought of funny-looking furriners coming in here and bothering our women and stealing our jobs.
Maybe when you’ve left the stage, best stay off it, Bertie.
Remember when the delightful Sammy Wilson talked to a constituent about there being too many ethnics? Didn’t do his political ambitions any harm. Donald Trump has a strong base of the racists and the stupid. That’s a lot of people.