Dublin riots aftermath: You’ll never see eye-to-eye with someone who thinks you’re an animal

Around this time the area was reeling from the death of Terence Wheelock in Garda custody, an event that deepened the already serious tension between local youth and the gardaí.  The Wheelock family was very unhappy with the results of a Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission investigation that found he had not been harmed by gardaí. They considered the State had been deaf to their plight, and organised and campaigned for years for an independent public inquiry while wider society ignored them.  Throughout this period the inner city was also still dealing with the fallout of Dublin’s destructive heroin epidemic, which tore lives and families apart and caused generational scars that are still visible today.The response to that crisis by inner city communities was also rooted in a fundamental feeling of abandonment by the powers that be; groups of locals marched to the houses of suspected drug dealers and forced them out under the banner of the concerned parents movement. Those same concerned parents’ signs were once more seen at anti-immigrant protests last year, this time signalling concern over migrants and asylum seekers.

There is a common thread here: many in the area feel they can’t rely on the State as decades of neglect and negative interactions have led to a deep mistrust. This is easily co-opted and manipulated by outside forces, be it dissident Republicans, as was the case in the 2006 riots, or more recently the State’s growing far-right movement.

It’s right to condemn the hateful message of the events of Thursday, but care must be taken that that condemnation doesn’t mirror the same hateful sentiment. It’s also right to decry the violence and seek justice, but we must remember that many present were among the most vulnerable youth in Irish society, many lacking the same tools to regulate emotions, whilst also feeling excluded from broader society. They are part of communities that feel unheard and unwelcome.

Why destroy your own city? Because it doesn’t feel like it belongs to you, you don’t feel welcome in it. The only way to fight this sentiment among communities that feel powerless in their own homes is to empower them, as compassion is a far greater tool against the far right than any amount of condemnation.

You can’t police away the problems that ail Dublin’s poorer areas — change must come at a political level. Curbing far-right influence in the city isn’t the job of the gardaí, nor is alleviating social deprivation in the city. Change can come only with compassionate and pragmatic efforts to improve the area, and the community has to be involved in that process. Bringing people in from the cold, listening to their concerns, justified or not, and treating them like any other community in the country is the only way out of this. Otherwise, they’re easy pickings for far-right fear-mongers.

Demonising and dehumanising these communities pretty much ensures this will happen again. Calling people names and questioning their right to exist in the city means they’ll never trust you. You’ll never see eye-to-eye with someone who thinks you’re an animal.

• Adam Doyle is an Irish artist operating under the moniker Spicebag, making work that engages with social issues in Ireland and beyond