By New Worker correspondent
NEW COMMUNIST Party leader Andy
Brooks and other comrades joined members of London’s Irish community to protest
against attempts to portray the Irish famine as a comedy.
Some 30
demonstrators paraded outside the headquarters of Channel Four on Saturday to
voice their anger at the company’s decision to televise a tasteless “comedy” series called Hungry about the famine in 19th
century British-ruled Ireland.
The
picket was called by the Campaign for the Rights and Actions of Irish
Communities (CRAIC), whose chair Austen Harney said: “It’s outrageous that
Channel Four thinks it can get away with making a joke of the millions of
people who died or were displaced as a result of the famine…in British society,
they’re not really educated on the facts of the Irish Famine,” he said. “Irish
history is a very minor role here in Britain but we need to make people
understand the persecution and suffering that Irish people endured.”
Other
speakers included Phien O'Reachtigan (Irish Traveller Movement), Helen O'Connor
(Socialist Party), Peter Middleton (Wolfe Tone Society, international link of
Sinn Féin in London), Zita Holbourne (Black Activists Rising Against the Cuts)
and Pat Reynolds (Irish in Britain Representation Group).
It
would be unthinkable to reduce the horrors of the Holocaust to a sit-com but
Channel Four now seem to think that the Irish famine is an acceptable back-drop
for light entertainment. The portrayal of Irish people as simpletons or savage
terrorists reflects the imperialist mentality based on the centuries of
oppression under British colonial rule that continues today and stills fans the
flames of sectarian hatred in the occupied north of Ireland.
CRAIC
is going to hold more protests to urge Channel Four to scrap the series, which
is still in the development stage, and a change.org petition has been signed
online by almost 40,000 people, calling for the channel to cut all ties with
the script.
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