It is about a year since almost three dozen failed asylum-seekers were put on a plane home to Nigeria. They had come to Ireland in the hope of building a new life in a prosperous western country, but came up against the system and failed to make the grade.
No doubt they put forward what they believed were convincing arguments for their right to remain in this country. But despite citing the hardship and hazards they would face on deportation, their applications failed.
The likely reason for this decision was a judgment that the people involved were fleeing economic deprivation rather than personal danger. It might seem harsh to reject poor, desperate people on what seems a legal technicality, but that is our law. Even though it has its critics, it is generally considered to be a fair one.
The principle redeeming feature of any such instrument, particularly one designed to regulate the most extreme human crises, is that it be applied without fear or favour. The public cannot be expected to respect a law that determines matters (in some cases, literally, of life and death), unless it is seen to be administered fairly and firmly.
The 35 Nigerians involved were deported after the minister for justice examined their applications and decided they had no legitimate claim to asylum. His decision was upheld by an independent appeals board.
Even though Michael McDowell had the law on his side, the minister allowed one of the deported applicants to return to Ireland on a six-month visa. The adjudication of asylum status requires the minister’s opinion in each individual case, so he is probably entitled to change his mind every now and then. In this case, however, he didn’t change his mind. He had it changed for him.
This asylum-seeker was Olukunle Elukanlo, or Kunle as he is known to his many friends and supporters. Twenty years old at the time, Kunle had been studying for his Leaving Certificate in Palmerstown, where he had lived for the preceding three years. When he was given his deportation order, his fellow students began a campaign to allow him to remain here, a campaign that was latched onto by fringe left and anti-racist groups.
Kunle’s battle came to a head in Holy Week, traditionally a quiet period for the news media, and his plight made headlines in both broadcast news and print. Where headlines lead, opposition politicians are quick to follow. In no time at all, Kunle had become a cause célèbre.
If McDowell hoped the fuss would die down once Kunle was safely back in Lagos, he was wrong. The archbishop of Dublin made a crucial intervention and the justice minister caved in. Kunle was allowed back on a six-month visa to finish his exams with one proviso. It was to be a once-off gesture because of the unique circumstances. The deportation would go ahead once the six-month period expired.
Amid scenes that would not be out of place in a community centre welcoming home All-Ireland victors, Kunle’s return was greeted with televised scenes of jubilation. The hype continued beyond the Leaving Certificate, with reporters turning up at his school when the results were posted to find out how he had fared. A coy Kunle would only reveal that he was “very pleased” with the outcome.
By last October Kunle had run out of road and was due to meet his second date for deportation. Predictably, the clamour to let him remain in the country started again.
McDowell, again, finds himself cast as the villain of the piece. And if truth be told, the justice minister deserves everything he gets because he has acted unfairly. Not by refusing to embrace Kunle as a welcome refugee, now that he has passed through the Irish exam system, but because he allowed him to return from Lagos to sit it in the first place.
The other 34 Nigerians who shared that original flight with Kunle might wonder where the justice was in their own cases. How they must rue their foolishness in failing to engage with the poetry of Patrick Kavanagh and the mysteries of differential calculus, or whatever it is that makes up the Leaving Certificate curriculum these days. What a shame for them that they didn’t make lots of vocal Irish friends, particularly in a community college packed with teenagers, parents and teachers keen to encourage their participation in a novel civics project.
If there is discrimination here, it is not against Kunle. It is against all the other faceless, nameless refugees packed off on midnight flights because they’re not clever enough, photogenic enough or armed with enough media savvy to win our sympathy and earn themselves a reprieve.
There is something distastefully patronising about this exercise in academic apartheid — the bright, charming ones get to stay. The dull, inarticulate, friendless ones get shown the door. Don’t we measure our humanity by the way we treat the most vulnerable? Kunle may have passed the Leaving Certificate but he has lacked the wit to keep out of trouble with the law. He was recently convicted of a second road traffic offence, this time for driving without tax or insurance.
What really bothers me is that attempts to have a rational debate about the government’s asylum-seeker policy usually descend into name-calling and accusations of racism. There certainly are pockets of racism in the country, but the government has been genuinely proactive in attempting to address it.
Our equality legislation is super-sensitive to the mildest examples of discrimination or racism. Initiatives like the National Action Plan Against Racism, steered by tough cookie Lucy Gaffney, are evidence of a real determination to promote inclusiveness for immigrants of all colours and creeds.
McDowell has frequently argued that a weak-kneed policy on asylum would be more likely to foment racist sentiment than the tough-but-fair approach. And since we already have ample evidence of resentment and suspicion of the motives of asylum seekers — witness the huge support for the 2004 referendum on citizenship — that is a perfectly well-founded proposition.
To counteract ignorance and prejudice, the minister needs to be able to point to a policy on asylum that is humane, transparent and firm. If people are sent back to the countries they’ve tried to flee, they must be returned for a good reason. Similarly, if they are allowed to stay we must also trust that this decision has been taken for the best of reasons.
In that context, the ability to pressurise the minister by mobilising the church, opposition politicians and anti-racism lobbies does not count as a good reason. The only people making an issue of Kunle’s colour are the ones who raised the “racism” barb in the first place. The case of Olukunle Elukanlo does not centre on race. For those 34 Nigerians deported because they weren’t sitting an exam last year, it’s a question of justice.
