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TÁNAISTE LEO VARADKAR has said he is concerned that increased rhetoric against public figures could result in violence, not just “having a milkshake thrown at you, I mean something much worse than that.”
The Tánaiste is one of several politicians who said TheJournal.ie That said, they wonder when the level of online abuse directed at politicians will turn into violence.
In an interview with this publication last week, he said he was not surprised by the graffiti directed at him, which was written on a wall in Belfast earlier this month.
Graffiti threatening Varadkar appeared on the wall of a shop on the Belvoir estate in South Belfast.
The graffiti contained threatening language against Varadkar, including that he would be “hanged” if he “set foot in Ulster”.
A second graffiti message addressed to the Tánaiste was later scrawled on a wall on Belvoir Drive.
Both messages are being treated by the police as hate crimes by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).
The Fine Gael leader said: “The sad thing is that it didn’t surprise me that much. Many people are contacting me to sympathize and express their support, which I really value. But I’m a little numb to that somehow. “
Varadkar said that what was written on the wall is not that different from the messages that have been sent to him online.
He said he’s concerned that increased rhetoric could result in violence, “by which I don’t mean getting a milkshake thrown at you, I mean something much worse than that.” (Last year, Varadkar was in Merrion Square when a The woman walked up to him and poured a smoothie on top, before running off.)
“I don’t want us to be a country where politicians need security all the time. I mean, I don’t have it anymore and I’m glad I don’t have it anymore. ”
Those with a platform should be aware of their tone in the political debate, he said, asserting that the narratives of ‘us and them’ or ‘the people against the elites’ can arouse hatred, saying that it “allows other people to develop thoughts that sometimes they become violent and I think they need to reflect on that ”.
Varadkar said things have escalated in other countries when it comes to politics and violence, and he wouldn’t want the same to happen here.
“Just look at American politics, not just the march on Capitol Hill, led by people who couldn’t accept the results of an election believing they had won an election when clearly they hadn’t, we see traces of that in Irish politics as well, But even long before that, American politicians were shot, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, for example, and that happens in other countries. ”
Giffords, a former congresswoman from Arizona, was shot in the head in 2011 but survived the assassination attempt.
“One thing I really regret about Irish politics is the extent to which that kind of personalized targeting of anyone, but particularly politicians, has become much more common. I think that certain political parties tolerate too much and, frankly, they encourage it too much, we have seen a lot of evidence of that. ”
Hazel Chu of the Green Party
Dublin Mayor Hazel Chu has also been open about the level of abuse she has received as a public representative.
Recently, a group of people approached Chu who criticized her for wearing a mask and referred to her as a “shape-shifting dragon.”
Talking to TheJournal.ie He said that threats, particularly towards female representatives, “have become more direct.” The women he has spoken to have said they have threatened to “rape them or something like that”.
Such threats would not have been made 10 or 20 years ago, he said, asserting that “people would not have been so blatant in doing so.” Now they have social networks to communicate that they can do it.
“In my case, I find that when he’s on social media and online, it changes pretty quickly, it turns into phone calls,” he said, describing an incident that happened to him last week.
“I got a couple of phone calls last week. I was in a meeting so I texted him and one of them replied saying, ‘Hi Chu Chu, you are not in a meeting, little yellow bitch.’
The mayor said it starts to make you think about what’s next, and it’s the next thing that shows up on your doorstep.
“When will that happen or will it happen in some way or in a different way, for example, someone hijacking events, outside the Mansion House, so that kind of concern?” Chu said.
He wonders where he will have to go “before someone leaves, okay, enough is enough. We are done with this, we have to fight it and I hope we have reached that point now. “
Chu said it is part of a larger problem, and it is something that impacts others who are not in politics, referencing the couple who appeared in the Lidl ad who received abuse and threats online that ultimately led them to leave the country.
“If we don’t control that problem, then your real problem is that it can happen to someone with a platform, it can happen to someone who doesn’t have a platform, but it is a growing problem that will get worse,” he said. .
Like Varadkar, Chu said he does not want security to become a necessity in Irish politics.
“Call it naive, or maybe call it idealistic, but I don’t want our politics to come down to that. The good thing about our politics, no matter what party you are from, is that politicians are accessible, “he said.
The solution for Chu is three-fold, stating that new hate crime legislation as well as Garda law enforcement and community education are critical.
The government’s proposed hate legislation will impose harsher sentences for existing crimes, where it can be shown that the alleged offender was motivated by hatred towards an ethnic or religious group.
The carrot approach rather than the stick approach is best, Chu said. You need to start showing that people and diversity should be celebrated while at the same time recognizing that there are real concerns in communities that we need to address, he said.
“We need to challenge the rhetoric about immigration, about mass immigration, about migrants taking people’s homes, about migrants taking people’s jobs. We have to challenge ourselves with politics, ”he said.
He said it is important to keep the conversation going in order to move forward.
“People of color or of a different type of origin or sexuality can talk about it, they can keep talking about it; the problem with that is that you will always have naysayers or even people who say ‘oh they’re just complaining again’. They’re just talking about it again. ‘ As more people talk about him outside of that sphere, people might say, ‘Oh, this could be a problem. This is something we need to look at, it’s something that will actively get worse if we don’t keep it under control, ‘”Chu said.
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Anne Rabbitte by Fianna Fáil
Anne Rabbitte of Fianna Fáil has previously described how she sits at home at night blocking internet trolls on social media who choose to abuse her.
Talking to TheJournal.ie, said: “It’s quite shocking what is happening right now, it has really escalated, you wonder where the next peak is.”
“I had my last peak about two weeks ago. It was the week of the report of the order of the baby’s house, they took screenshots of me claiming that I was asleep in the Dáil, I was not, because I have it in writing from the clerk of the Dáil. They [Oireachtas clerks] I checked the cameras, because I had to clear my name.
“I knew the photo had been tampered with… it went viral, but the amount of hate, the amount of hate speech directed at me was shocking. They were three days of hell, “said the Minister of State in charge of Disability.
She said the post was shared, including by local representatives, with horrible comments about it on various platforms, with some claiming that Rabbitte uses tablets to sleep.
Rabbitte said he always thought the people who shared those posts or wrote so much hate were “bots,” but he said he’s stepping away from that when there are other elected representatives sharing those things online.
He said the ramifications and consequences from the standpoint of credibility and personal integrity are “incredible,” with no recourse to defend himself.
When the abuse reaches such a level and is directed at you, Rabbitte says it begins to ask “Do I feel safe?”
“No, I don’t,” he said.
“I didn’t feel safe that weekend, the level of evil, I just call it evil. I would definitely wonder why we do this work and where it is going, ”he said.
“Play ball but don’t play with the man or the woman… so that someone really has to level that abuse, so that your voice is heard. That is not democracy, ”he said.
“You only need a hothead to blow a joint,” he said. “I really think it will only take one. So many people are in an anti-system, anti-political vacuum, those are the ones that I worry about taking action.
He said that there is a duty on social media platforms to protect public representatives.
“When I say protect, I mean a bit of balance. They have a different weight on us. As a public representative, you are expected to take more. I didn’t sign up for this job because of that. I give respect and show respect, I was always raised with those core values, but those core values are totally eroded on social media platforms. When they’re on any platform, it spreads to the wider community, and that’s what you see with Leo. [Varadkar] that is what you are experiencing.
“I wonder if I was ‘one of the guys’, would I get that much? I just don’t know, ”he said. Rabbitte also wanted those online who hurled such vitriological insults at their public representatives to remember that they are people, many of whom have families and children.
“We have to portray ourselves that we are actually human beings, we are not shit in everyone’s shoes,” he said.
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