Hmm. Entirely reactionary as this letter-writer may be, he does (probably inadvertently) make a good point about what is empirically proven to be the most negatively viewed group in Irish society. What would we do if Occupy Dame Street was a Traveller ‘encampment’ - one with no on-site services, on a busy street at the edge what’s largely euphemistically called the city’s ‘cultural quarter’, where the campers rely on access to local shops and pubs for basic everyday needs?
UK readers will presumably be familiar with Travellers, especially after the recent Dale Farm conflict - maybe less so after My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding; I don’t know what (other than this, which I’ve never heard of before) a US equivalent might be - Travellers aren’t immigrants, though possibly migrants, while the indigenous ethnic populations of North America have been historically eradicated, reserved or assimilated - although Americans are generically less ‘settled’ by comparison anyway.
One could say the Occupy protesters have the purpose and benefit of an explicit political agenda (aside from the generally middle-class privilege of being tolerable enough to remain in situ), but every illegal Traveller halting site is implicitly political. After all, which is more ideologically fundamental and/or logically reasonable: calling for the unilateral repudiation of Ireland’s banking debts and the deconstruction of its capitalist system, or establishing a real right to using public land for a traditional way of life* and an end to viciously widespread and persistent discrimination? (Trick question)
*traditional Traveller society does seem to be deeply misogynistic and intolerant, but so are some people in houses/the settled community - social attitudes, however in need of addressing, do not disqualify people from human rights.
