The horrors of a ‘Them versus Us’ environment

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.

MichaelCommane

Anyone who has been in Dublin’s Mater Hospital will have some idea how huge it is. In recent years there have been large extensions built on to the hospital. 

And it is still a building site. It is such a large campus it has entrances on Eccles Street and North Circular Road.

I’m often in the hospital these days. Walking along a corridor last week I commented to a man about the ingenuity involved in such a building project. He was sitting on a chair watching a crane transporting material on to a roof. He agreed, adding: ‘It’s great to see it’s all being done by Irish people’. I was puzzled by what he said. 

Did he mean, that we, the people are fortunate as a State to have control over our own destiny or was he saying that indigenous Irish workers were doing the job? Then again he may have seen an Irish name on the crane and was referring to the company that was doing the construction work. I don’t know the answer. 

I did not engage with the man and kept walking.  I can only imagine many of the workers on the site were born outside Ireland. 

And maybe many of the contract companies involved are non-Irish with subsidiaries here.

We keep saying Ireland is changing by the day. When I was child one seldom if ever saw a non-native. But that does not mean there was not a ‘Them and Us’ mentality. Back then people living in leafy Ballsbridge or Sandymount seldom if ever knew anything about those living in the slums of the city or the new sprawling suburbs that were being built. 

And in the country too there has always been divisions among people, maybe not as explicit. It has often struck me that post primary education is far more egalitarian outside the cities. 

It has also crossed my mind how the churches run schools, which are only available to the wealthy. Then again the same churches have played a huge role in offering education to everyone irrespective of their parents pay packets.

Snobbery in Ireland? Of course, there is. Is it part of the human condition?

One day walking through another hospital I saw a large noticeboard with the names of staff members. 

Every doctor had the initials Dr before her or his name; all other staff were identified simply by their forename and surname. Why is that?

Retired journalist Vincent Browne is a wise man. I’ll never forget the day he said that once we give titles to people we give them power over us. That makes great sense to me.

Have I a chip on my shoulder? Maybe I have, but that’s one of those clichés that is a clever way in putting people down.

Think of the damage, violence and hatred that has been caused by a ‘Them versus Us mentality’. Just look at the evils of war;  it’s the ultimate madness/badness of the ‘Them versus Us’ syndrome.

Far too often we make judgements about people for the most bizarre reasons. If only we could have the sense and grace to sit down and listen and learn from the other. And guess what, that’s central to the Gospel message.