Miss Ethnic Ireland: Your Taxes At Work

Did you know that an Iranian Student named Sheelan Yousefizadeh recently won the Miss Ethnic Ireland beauty contest in Dublin? Did you, in fact, know that there was a Miss Ethnic Ireland beauty contest in Dublin? I didn't either, until I stumbled upon a copy of Yeah!, the intellectually-titled international student magazine, in Trinity College the other day.

Yeah! is a glossy,well-put together publication. Given that it is put out free of charge, one wonders where it gets its funding from. Its contributors seem to range from would-be eurocrats (‘Save Erasmus’) to fringe feminists (‘A night full of pictures; 16-days [sic] of activism on violence against women at NUI Galway’). The first above-mentioned article gives a hint as to where the funds might come from when it announces in its final section that ‘AEGEE demands an increase in the number of [Erasmus] mobility grants’. AEGEE is the EU-funded European Students Forum, whose stated aim is to “create a unified Europe”. It would be interesting to know exactly what the relationship between it and Yeah! is.

But back to Miss Ethnic Ireland. The lovely Miss Yousefizadeh claims to be “overwhelmed” by winning the prestigious prize, and is grateful for the support of the Iranian community in Ireland, who “backed her to the hilt.” I didn't think Iranians tended to be great fans of beauty contests, but there you are. Reading on, we learn that Sheelan is not some random Iranian girl who stumbled upon the contest by accident, but rather a fully-paid up member of the multicultural establishment: “Her passions are activism and she is working on a number of projects. These include working with the Immigrant Council of Ireland in the organization’s ‘Ambassadors for Change’ campaign, in which she is currently engaged.”

The article is vague about what the Miss Ethnic Ireland contest actually is. What, for example, are the criteria for entering? And what do the contestants have to do to win?  Yeah! does not go into such awkward matters, but it does ask an interesting question of Miss Yousefizadeh: what is the worst aspect of living in Dublin? The answer is worth quoting:

“Sheelan pauses to think. After a few moments she expresses the view that Ireland is much too localised in terms of how we see the world. Our cultural understanding needs to be broadened, she feels. By way of example she cites the coverage of the Middle East in the Irish media which, she says, is not adequate compared to other countries such as the UK. This, she concedes, is probably down to demographics.”

Right. So Ireland, despite having, at a time of unprecedented shortage of money, organized an absurd multicultural event which Miss Yousefizadeh has won, and which has also given her the opportunity (according to Yeah!) to work with the UN and Amnesty International, is still much too insular and bigoted. In contrast to Iran, where, presumably, the airwaves crackle around the clock with pundits discussing the internal affairs of Iceland, Singapore and Botswana. Can you name the president of Iran? I suspect most educated Irish people could. What proportion of Iranians, do you think, could name the president of Ireland? Iran is, incidentally, a country where non-Muslims are prohibited from working for the government or running their own schools. “Cultural understanding” does not exactly seem to be its strong point.

Unabashed, Ian Callagy (the author of the piece) continues his hymn of praise with a bit of unintended humour:

“With many university graduates racing to leave Ireland for foreign shores, it may be somewhat surprising to hear that Sheelan has no plans to flee the Emerald Isle.”

Not surprising to me, Mr Callagy. Not one bit.

Looking over the photographs of the event,with a portly Irish politician (is it Joe Costello?) standing alongside the Miss Ethnic Ireland contestants, I think of my colleagues at work. Ordinary people, who fondly imagine that the hard-earned money they pay in tax goes towards things like roads and schools and social welfare, as well as the bank debt. These people don’t read international student magazines. If they did, I wonder what their reaction would be.