Unity over Division

On Wednesday, ROI Senior Officer Brendan Ogle submitted the following letter to the Irish Times for publication. It seems they decided not to print it, so we are publishing the full text below:

“Sir,

On page 22 of your newspaper (23 June 2020) you have a large photograph which bears the words ‘White Lives Matter Burnley’. These words and their presentation are a racist trope designed to undermine the global anti-racist ‘Black Lives Matter’ campaign. Worse, the photograph contains a large artificially superimposed sets of the words, as the original words are being flown on a banner behind an aeroplane over a football ground and are virtually invisible. These larger words were presumably superimposed by your newspaper or the photographer. In either event, they dominate page 22 of your newspaper.

Efforts by racists and fascists to exploit sport include the Nazi exploitation of the 1936 Olympiad and Franco’s adoption of Real Madrid as a football club to popularise his fascist ideology. Further, since at least the 1970s, British xenophobes and racists have sought to append their toxic agenda to some of the country’s football clubs. It is no surprise that, given the global effort to finally address the historic racism against Black people in the wake of the disgusting murder of George Floyd, these elements would redouble their efforts to introduce race hate into football.

The surprise is that the Irish Times sees fit to assist them with this shocking display. It is tantamount to your newspaper offering a free advert to English racists.

I want to register my personal shock that your paper saw fit to produce this image and I also want to do so on behalf of Unite Trade Union, an avowedly anti-racist organisation who are involved in fighting racism in many forms in workplaces and in our community. Perhaps the Irish Times will consider this publication and whether some acknowledgment of a mistake is appropriate in the circumstances.

Yours

Brendan Ogle
Unite Senior Officer – Republic of Ireland”