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Ireland
DUBLIN, Ireland - Ireland elected
its first black mayor Thursday, the latest sign of how rapid immigration
is changing this once all-white nation.
Rotimi Adebari, a Nigerian who arrived in Ireland seven years ago as an
asylum-seeker, was elected unopposed to lead the council of Portlaoise,
a bustling commuter town west of Dublin.
Adebari, 43, who has been an independent politician on Portlaoise Town
Council since 2004, was backed by both the right-wing Fine Gael party
and left-wing Sinn Fein.
Adebari, who planned a post-election party Friday at the new parish hall
in Portlaoise, called it "a great honor to become the No. 1 citizen of
the town."
Little more than a decade ago, a black person in Ireland risked being
gawked at, so rare was the sight of visitors from different racial
backgrounds. But Ireland has absorbed more than 30,000 asylum seekers —
particularly from Africa's most populous nation, Nigeria — since the
mid-1990s, a wave attracted by Ireland's booming economy and its
relatively lax immigration rules.
These days, West African entrepreneurs run stretches of shops in urban
Dublin and other Irish towns and cities, and social activists like
Adebari are encouraging the newcomers to integrate into their
communities.
"I got involved in the community and I volunteered. It gave me the
opportunity to meet people firsthand and they got to know me," Adebari
said. "We all have to make an effort to reach out to one another."
Adebari traveled to Ireland with his wife and two boys in 2000 and
claimed asylum on the basis of religious persecution, citing bloody
clashes between Christians and Muslims in his homeland. His application
was rejected because of insufficient evidence he had personally suffered
persecution, but he gained residency because his third child, another
boy, was born in Ireland.
Asylum-seekers flocked to Ireland in part to gain European Union
citizenship on the basis of having a child born in the country. Ireland
in 2004 stopped granting citizenship to foreign parents of an Irish-born
child, a law that had been unique in Europe.
Adebari said he had trouble finding work at first — in part because of
an Irish law that bars people from working while they are seeking
asylum.
So he volunteered at a local tennis club, helped found a lobbying group
for unemployed people in Portlaoise and ran for office, winning a
council seat on his first try in 2004.
Since then he's finished a master's degree in intercultural studies at
Dublin City University, founded a consultancy advising authorities and
immigrant groups on how to work together, and hosts a weekly radio show
on his local station, Midlands FM.
"I want to encourage immigrants to be a force in their communities, to
engage with their communities," he said. "People will get to know you.
Their perception of you will change just like that. That's what happened
to me."
Coffee, the finest organic suspension ever devised. Star
Trek: Voyager
If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please
bring me some coffee. Abraham Lincoln
The best coffee in Europe is Vienna coffee, compared to which all other
coffee is fluid poverty. Mark Twain
It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine
medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently
view it as some kind of recreational activity.Dave Barry
Among the numerous luxuries of the table...coffee may be considered as
one of the most valuable. It excites cheerfulness without intoxication;
and the pleasing flow of spirits which it occasions...is never followed
by sadness, languor or debility. Benjamin Franklin
Coffee makes us severe, and grave, and philosophical. Jonathan Swift
Do Lipton employees take coffee breaks? Steven Wright
Like everyone else who makes the mistake of getting older, I begin each
day with coffee and obituaries. Bill Cosby
Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave
the coffee shop and go to jobs. Bill Gates
I never drink coffee at lunch. I find it keeps me awake for the
afternoon. Ronald Reagan
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