St Patrick, Masks, and Resisting Hate Agendas

Bren­dan Ogle: This week, a num­ber of unions start­ed dis­trib­ut­ing masks bear­ing the leg­end ‘pro-mask is pro-work­er’. It seems an obvi­ous state­ment.  After all, it is work­ers – espe­cial­ly in low-pay­ing sec­tors – who have  borne the eco­nom­ic and health brunt of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic.  Yet there are those cyn­i­cal­ly try­ing to con­vince work­ing peo­ple that they should oppose pub­lic health mea­sures and breach guide­lines en masse.
Mixed mes­sag­ing from pub­lic author­i­ties, and the com­plete mess made of the vac­ci­na­tion roll­out by the EU and our Gov­ern­ment, has height­ened frus­tra­tion at the restric­tions asso­ci­at­ed with Covid-19, and this has been com­pound­ed by the unequal impact of the pan­dem­ic.  While lock­downs have had a min­i­mal finan­cial impact on some work­ers, many oth­ers have lost their jobs and been forced to rely on state income sup­ports.
In this con­text the sum­mer and autumn of 2020 saw some peo­ple take to the streets of Dublin in what were dubbed ‘anti-lock­down’ or ‘anti-mask’ protests. Sim­i­lar protests took place in Dublin and Cork over recent weeks, and more are planned to coin­cide with St Patrick’s Day next week.
Many of those voic­ing frus­tra­tion on the streets or on social media have no hid­den agen­da. Like all of us, they sim­ply want their nor­mal lives back, and past expe­ri­ence means that they don’t trust the Gov­ern­ment to safe­guard either their eco­nom­ic or phys­i­cal well­be­ing. Nei­ther do we.
But Covid-19 chal­lenges us to sep­a­rate our legit­i­mate dis­trust of gov­ern­ment from the sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence which tells us not only that Covid-19 is real and lethal, but also what mea­sures need to be tak­en to save lives. Anti-lock­down protests have been large­ly dri­ven by online mis­in­for­ma­tion. Most of us will have seen the videos cir­cu­lat­ing on social media and What­sApp groups claim­ing that Covid-19 is a ‘scam­dem­ic’ engi­neered by a glob­al elite, or that masks are dan­ger­ous, or that vac­cines have been designed to implant con­trol chips.
And they are just some of the more mod­er­ate con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries!
But what many peo­ple shar­ing such mate­r­i­al or protest­ing against Covid-19 health mea­sures – from masks to lock­downs to vac­cines – may not realise is that those organ­is­ing such protests are often them­selves mask­ing their far-right polit­i­cal alle­giances.  The pan­dem­ic and oppo­si­tion to the restric­tions are sim­ply instru­men­tal for these far-right forces:  their real agen­da is to pro­mote their own eth­no-nation­al­ist and author­i­tar­i­an world view. In sum­ma­ry, they are using the his­toric fas­cist tac­tic of whip­ping up gen­uine con­cern to pro­mote divi­sion and hate. And they are quite hap­py to sac­ri­fice pub­lic health to fur­ther that agen­da.
The pan­dem­ic is not a con­spir­a­cy, and nor are the pub­lic health mea­sures imple­ment­ed to con­tain it.  There is only one con­spir­a­cy, and that is the cyn­i­cal con­spir­a­cy by far-right actors – some of whom may be based in Ire­land but take their ide­ol­o­gy and direc­tion from else­where – to fos­ter fear and divide work­ers.
There are many rea­sons to crit­i­cise the Irish Government’s response to the pan­dem­ic as too lit­tle, too late and too slow.  This union has been very crit­i­cal. The roll­out of vac­cines in par­tic­u­lar has been both delayed and hap­haz­ard, and the Gov­ern­ment must be held to account for their fail­ings.
How­ev­er, this should not deflect us from the absolute need to work togeth­er to beat Covid, not break asun­der and spread it.
When we wear a mask, keep our social dis­tance or take a vac­cine when it’s offered, we are pro­tect­ing our­selves and oth­ers.  It’s all about sol­i­dar­i­ty.
As we pre­pare to cel­e­brate Ireland’s nation­al hol­i­day, we need to resist those who are not only try­ing to divide us but who are also seek­ing to co-opt our nation­al sym­bols, appro­pri­ate our lan­guage and cul­ture and sow divi­sion to fur­ther their own nar­row agen­das of hate. His­to­ry tells us where the cyn­i­cal use of these tac­tics by the far-right ends. But Irish­ness is about inclu­siv­i­ty and sol­i­dar­i­ty. We know this. Be strong and resist the pur­vey­ors of hate.
St Patrick would wear a mask!
ENDS