Aontacht Editorial: Race, Class and Responding To The Death of Yves Sakila

Big business and shady politicians want to divide us. If they can split us into tiny groups based on our race, where we come from, the languages we speak, and who we love, it becomes easier for them to distract us from the big questions: like why there are over 80,000 empty homes in Ireland during a housing crisis, why families are paying more than ever to heat their homes while energy companies make record profits, or why governments across Europe can afford weapons but not hospital beds.

They would love to distract us with the tragic death of Yves Sakila too. They want us to think this is about shoplifting, or migration, or even worse, that because Yves was from the Congo, he wasn’t like us. Powerful people know that if they can distract us like this, they will avoid the tough questions this tragedy raises.

Questions such as how brutal Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael austerity means our safety has been left to private, multimillion euro security companies instead of the State, and how under Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan, the government is spending millions of euros of our money to ‘look tough’ on immigration, instead of investing in our communities like Coolock and East Wall.

Ireland is a great country, but it is also a country with a lot of problems right now. And they affect us all. The Black Irish community has been saying this for years. As Chris Kibiadi, from Lusk, Co Dublin said at the vigil yesterday, what happened to Yves ‘could happen to me, it could happen to you. It’s not black, or white, or anybody.’ Benedict Mputu, from Sandyford, Co Dublin, said, ‘I'm disgusted that the country I call home could treat someone like this. It doesn't matter if they were white, black, yellow... it doesn't matter. This is a human being.’

Powerful people, with the media and state behind them, do not want us to realise that the thing we have most in common is not our race, our gender, or our sexuality, but our class. They will never put working people first, all of us - whether we are black or white - will always come second to their bank balances. As Chris said: it could happen to you.

Far-right groups have nothing to offer working people in Ireland or anywhere in the world. They are not interested in taking on big business and dodgy politicians to fight for our communities. Hatred does not get us hospital beds, school places or more GPs in our communities.

Even worse, some on the Irish left try to speak over Black communities by reducing our complex identities to simplistic racial categories that divide working people rather than uniting us. They play right into the elite’s game, dividing us into tiny groups, where we are unorganised and cannot fight for what we and our communities deserve.

Nothing we can do will undo the tragic and untimely death of Yves Sakila. But if it pushes us to look at what we have in common, and take on big business and dodgy politicians to fight for our communities, we will make sure that it can never happen again.