Letter from Thailand

I jumped out of bed at 5am last Sunday morning, climbed into some clothes and shuffled out into a still Sydney morning. I was looking for a pub – any pub. As long as it had a TV.

I caught a train to Sydney’s party central – the horribly seedy yet inexplicably popular Kings Cross – where I felt sure there would be proprietors cute enough to open his doors for the first leg of the France vs. Ireland World Cup play off.

Sadly, although the main street was still dotted with waxen-faced, stumbling revellers they were clearly close to running on empty and the Cross’ ample contingent of drinkeries were all locked up. I was fruitlessly rattling the doors of an Irish bar in the forlorn hope of entry when an idea came to me – I didn’t need a telly – I could catch the match on the internet.

I skipped past the grumbling morning road sweepers and haggard crystal meth prostitutes back onto the train. Within minutes I was in front of my computer with a live stream of the match – which was just three minutes in.

I’m known to get emotional when Ireland have a big game and I’m not ashamed to admit shedding a tear when we were knocked out of the World Cup by Spain on penalties in 2002. However, Ireland’s 1-0 first-leg loss to France didn’t upset me – I felt all along we would probably need a goal in Paris and this didn’t seem like an impossible ask given the performances of the two teams of late.

6am Thursday morning rolled around and I was perched, bleary-eyed with cereal spoon in hand, in front of my computer for the second leg kick-off. The Irish were immense and the French made to look like scared kids for much of the game. It was obvious a goal was coming and when it did, my flatmates and other building residents were wakened by the sound of an Irish bloke screaming intelligibly and knocking over his cornflakes bowl.

Then it went to extra-time, Henry handled and we were cheated out of a place at the World Cup. Like all Irish football fans, I was suddenly reacquainted with that deadening reminder of how a match result can break your heart as thoroughly as the souring of any teenage romance. Lost and hopeless, I pulled on my shirt and tie and went to work.

There was a bloke on the train with tears running down his cheeks. I knew he was Irish before hearing his accent when his phone rang.

Women are usually considered more sensitive than their male counterparts but football has a way of flipping the pattern. While my office’s male half expressed moral outrage and offered heartfelt sympathy, the girls were dismissive and oblivious to suffering such a turn of events might precipitate.

I really tried to get some work done, but I just couldn’t. Like a spurned lover who can’t help torturing himself with photographs and letters from his sweetheart, I spent the entire day reading every news report and piece of analysis of the game I could find. When I read an article with a suitably outraged headline or furious quotes from tearful players I at least felt some small level of vindication, but mostly they made me feel worse. Hearing Robbie Keane talk about how cheated he felt and realising he, like many of his fellow players, would most likely be too old to play in the next World Cup was truly galling.

Ireland deserved to win on the strength of their performance but only the score line matters and luck always has a role to play. Fans and players accept this, but what happened to Ireland in their World Cup play-off was something different. The outcome was not decided by the performance or luck of the players – it was decided by the referee and the game’s ruling body.

Although some might call it a conspiracy theory there is no getting away from the fact that the rules of the qualifying competition were changed mid-way through. If teams placed second in the group stages had of went into a straight draw to find who they would meet in a play-off, France and Portugal might be drawn against each other – and the World Cup would be missing one of its marque, revenue-generating teams. So the rules were broken and a seeded draw which would avoid this occurrence was adopted. This put Ireland at a distinct disadvantage – and revealed to the world the preferences of the sport’s king makers.

It’s not a conspiracy theory to say that Fifa forced Irish players to walk onto the pitch knowing their sport’s governing body didn’t want them to win – they chose to seed the draw and in doing so demonstrated a desire for a seeded team win. And then a blatantly offside player runs into the box and clearly handles the ball twice – a goal is given and the powers that be get the result they wanted.

It leaves the impression that it didn’t matter what Ireland did during the game – it was just a case of going through the motions. We were a side show that was never going to the World Cup.

There is something inherently unwise about investing so much of your happiness in something you have literally no control over and football is a temperamental mistress that will crush you at a whim. But the game, the planet’s biggest obsession, has always worth it. This time though, when the sport’s governing body rather than our opponents took a place in the World Cup from Richard Dunne and Damien Duff and Liam Lawrence, it just seems like a waste of time.

The thing is, Fifa can rescue the situation. The are a number of precedents of games being replayed in everything from FA Cup matches to previous World Cup qualifiers. The chances of them doing so however, are slim. The only way I can see it coming about is if the French step forward and say to the world that this is not how they want to be seen - that cheating their way to a World Cup is the wrong thing to do and that they're prepared to rectify it. In such a scenario, it would be difficult for Fifa to deny them.

The villian of the piece, Thierry Henry, should lead the charge. If he offers a replay the rest could follow. If he doesn't, I get the feeling this thing will hang around his neck for the rest of his days.

In all likelihood there will be no replay of the game. As a gesture at least, I think the FFF should offer to play Ireland again before the World Cup in a friendly - and we can at least find out who should have went.

I was on a bus a few days ago when three Indigenous Australians, also periodically known as Aboriginals, got on. The two guys and one woman looked about middle-age, were shabbily dressed and clearly drunk. They mumbled loudly between themselves and glared aggressively at fellow passengers. They staggered off after a couple of stops and I could see them stumble into a park as the bus pulled off.

“Smell very bad!” said our East-Asian driver who stopped the bus shortly afterwards. He produced a can of air freshener and marched theatrically up and down the aisle spraying liberally. It was an awkward, uncomfortable affair but unfortunately, pretty much typical of my experience with both Indigenous Australians and the reaction they seem to get.

There is no doubt that things are difficult for Australia’s native communities right now. There is little point in denying the fact that alcoholism and drug abuse are a disproportionately significant problems for them in comparison to the broader Australian people. Successive reports examining semi-autonomous, isolated Aboriginal communities in various parts of Australia have highlighted shocking levels of child abuse and family violence – way beyond what is seen in other parts of the country. These people also suffer disproportionately from a range of health problems and on average will die considerably younger than their non-indigenous fellow Australians.

The liberal, somewhat cosy option of saying Indigenous Australians and their communities are just like everyone else suddenly becomes a difficult one to defend. Centuries of chronic abuse and disadvantage means they are not the same – and pretending they are only prevents specific measures designed to tackle the problems they face from being introduced.

It’s difficult to grasp the magnitude of changes endured by these communities, in place for up to an astounding 70,000 years, since the arrival of Europeans. Unlike most other peoples around the world they were largely semi-nomadic hunter gathers with no tradition of agriculture or animal husbandry. With no command of metals they remained largely in the Stone Age. I’ve heard people describe this way of life as primitive, but I’m not sure that gives an accurate picture.

It’s entirely unreasonable to suggest that the indigenous Australian nations went 70,000 years without ever noticing that a crop grows when you drop seeds on the ground. Their avoidance of agriculture was quite clearly a lifestyle choice. A life of work on farms or in tool-making or other related industries was set aside in favour of a nomadic existence in which they could feed themselves just as easily. Their time was used instead to create elaborate languages, music, art, stories and religious rituals. They were for all the world, travelling artisans. Indigenous Australians were one of the only peoples on earth to not have a tradition of alcohol consumption and war and inter-national conflict were practically unknown.

Literally half their number were wiped out by smallpox and other diseases brought by European settlers and once the arrivals gained a foothold, the new colonial masters proved exceptionally brutal. Stories of farmers and rangers shooting Aboriginal men, women and children on sight were common, as were reports of slavery. Government sterilisation programmes and enforced Christianity were initiated and thousands of indigenous families had their children taken from them. Nearly a whole generation was handed over to white settlers or crammed into institutions. 70,000 years were almost wiped out in a single century – it’s hardly surprising that so many Indigenous Australians turned to drink and struggle with its by-products at present.

The Australian Government responded to these problems and of reports of endemic child abuse in particular by taking control of a 73 of the most troubled communities. Its plans involved a range of race-specific regulations so they declared a state of national emergency and suspended the country’s Racial Discrimination Act. They then implemented measures that can either be considered pragmatic, practical and brave, or as discriminatory throwbacks to the heavy-handed, counter-productive sterilisation and forced adoption programs seen in previous decades.

Among the actions taken were compulsory income management, through which unemployment and other benefits given to families are tied to certain necessities, and blanket bans on alcohol and pornography in problem towns.

There is little doubt that the measures taken by the Australian Government were racist – they only apply to certain Indigenous-dominated communities. However, it is also evident that these steps have improved the lives of many Indigenous Australians, particularly women and children. So where does that leave Australia’s race laws? They were designed to improve the lives of minorities but what if, as in this case, they threatened to prevent a government from taking direly needed steps to provide protection and boost the standard of living for one such group? It’s a perilously thorny issue and the stakes are high – intervene to protect children and women from appalling levels of abuse or stand back, respect the autonomy of the regions controlled by indigenous people and abide by the race laws that were introduced for very good reason. I don’t envy the Australian Government or people for having to provide the answers these questions pose.

Some strange things go down in my local park. You get your normal lunch-breaking office workers, truant teenagers and drunken homeless people swatting imaginary demons, but Belmore’s location directly across the road from Sydney’s Central Station and the pathways which dissect it mean it’s also a busy pedestrian thoroughfare.

My manual labouring career has been replaced by a desk job which means some form of recreational exercise is in order. Being a long-standing Muay Thai fan I decided to check around to see if there are any gyms in my area and a web search turned up an add for Saturday and Sunday morning classes in trusty Belmore Park. Saturday rolled around and I wandered over to the appointed place at the appointed time but there was nothing resembling a Muay Thai class on the go. There were however, over 1,000 Thai people all dressed in white assembled in the middle of the park.

I say they were all dressed in white but that’s a bit of an exaggeration. A group of children and teenagers were actually dressed in outlandish elfin-like costumes. These cheerful sons and daughters of Siam skipped around the perimeter of the assembled crowd carrying a giant plastic flower each. One guy in particular was wearing what could only be described as a gold cat suit and a matching bonnet. Was I witnessing the biggest Muay Thai class ever assembled outside its ancestral home? Surely not, I decided. You couldn’t train wearing that thing.

A stage lined with a row of seats had been erected and the purpose of this entertaining yet slightly alarming spectacle began dawn when a dozen monks sat down. The white-robbed Thais kneeled in neat lines facing the stage and some chanting got underway.

The Thais all carried plastic bags with various foodstuffs inside and the monks had brought large brown bowls with them. These facts, coupled with the bits and pieces of Thai I could understand, led me to conclude that I had stumbled upon an alms giving ceremony – when Buddhists earn karma points by giving food to the monks and doing various other associated good deeds.

Although most of the people passing through the park largely ignored the goings on, a group of interested parties gathered to try and work out what was happening. I was standing among them, wondering if the Muay Thai class I got out of bed for would kick off after the event, when I felt a tap on my arm. I turned around to see that one of the white-robed Thais – a cheerful, mid-thirties woman – had broken ranks in favour of a chat with a random spectator.

“Hi! I see you standing here long time,” she said with a mega-watt Thai smile. “Would you like to help me give alms to the monks?”

I’m not sure why she picked me from the gathered crowd of confused onlookers but she was delighted when I told her in Thai that I would love to; that it sounded fun. So I was escorted to a spot right in the middle and there I sat, delighted to have again found myself the only white lad in a sea of smiling brown faces. In a park in the middle of Sydney city centre.

The monks began to file up and down the rows and I couldn’t help but get slightly nervous as they approached. It reminded me of queuing up to get the bread from the Priest at mass when I was a kid. I strained around trying to see exactly what the drill was for handing over the food while my new buddy piled packets of instant noodles and Morro bars up in front of me. Everyone was doing the same thing: pick up food item as monks approach. Hold in both hands as if praying. Raise to your forehead when first monk gets to you. Carefully place in bowl with both hands. Bow to monk with hands in prayer position. Repeat for each monk. My alms giving passed without incident although I wasn’t convinced that you still get karma points for handing over food that wasn’t yours.

My self and my new-found karmic colleague got chatting and she mentioned that the temple, which had organised the event, held free Thai language lesions every Saturday afternoon to which I was welcome to come along.
“Sound!” I said, forgetting that she probably didn’t speak Dublinese.
“Excuse me?” she answered, wondering whether her English wasn’t as good as she previously thought.

“Sorry, I mean I would love to go,” I said.

I got the details of where the class would take place (in a centre right beside the park), and what I would have to bring (nothing because everything would be provided), before saying my goodbyes. I headed home tingling with positive karmic energy and what have you, while marveling at how friendly, generous and just basically bang on Thai people are.

This is an article I was commissioned to write for a Sydney-based newspaper called The Irish Echo. It's a pretty well thought of publication with a very healthy following among Australia's hefty Irish community.

Irish seasonal farm workers fall victim to exploitation

Seasonal farm work has long been a staple source of income for Irish backpackers and with second year working holiday visas available to those who complete 88 days in the agriculture industry, demand for 'fruit-picking' jobs is higher than ever. Robert Carry, who worked for four WA vineyard companies during the course of his investigation, reveals how this increase in demand has led to some employers implementing exploitative work practices.

“They had us living like animals,” recalls Sean Morgan, a qualified plumber from Dublin. The 22-year-old came to Australia in search of work when the Irish construction industry went into free fall. Unable to secure employment in plumbing and with funds beginning to dwindle, he turned his attention to seasonal farm work. He was among hundreds of backpackers who responded to an online classified add offering vineyard pruning work in Dandaragon, three hours north of Perth. The add promised free accommodation and piece rate payment in excess of $1,000 per week.

He and nine other successful applicants arrived to find that the free accommodation consisted of a filthy, semi-derelict farm house (pictured) and when work began it quickly became apparent that none of the staff would be earning the wages promised. In a number of cases, renumeration would equate to less than the minimum wage. The company gave guarantees of three months pruning work in the Margaret River area; enough to qualify for a second year working holiday visa. However, when Sean and the rest of the group made the seven-hour journey to the south-west town just 10 days in, the company's supervisors suddenly became impossible to contact. “They turned off their phones so we couldn't get in touch with them,” recalls Sean. “We left dozens of messages and sent a ton of emails but they basically ignored us.”

According to Australia's Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC), record numbers of working holiday makers are searching for harvest work in order to gain a second year visa. Yearly figures to June 2009 show the number of successful applicants has hit a record 21,727 – an increase of 84 per cent on the same period last year. The largest uptake was among South Koreans while the Irish, at 4,426, came in second. As a result, accounts like Sean's are becoming increasingly common.

The surge in numbers is good news for Australian farmers. Stories of fruit and vegetables rotting on vines due to shortages of pickers have been replaced by reports of farmers being inundated with requests for work. The National Harvest Labour Information Service, which assists job seekers searching for farm-related employment, normally gets between 2000 to 3000 calls per week at seasonal heights. The organisation is now reporting weekly calls in excess of 4,500. Migrant labourers have quickly gone from a scarce resource to being easily replaceable. The comparative scarcity of positions mean workers are now forced to tolerate employment practices which would previously prompted them to look elsewhere.

The Irish Echo uncovered a host of exploitative work practices in a number of wineries during the course of its investigation into working conditions on WA vineyards. Staff reported late payment of wages, incorrect payslips and mass dismissals with little or no prior notice. One Irish vineyard worker told how he was dismissed with one day's notice when the owner of the vineyard he was employed by decided to give his job to his teenage son.

However, the most commonly cited issue was that of pay rates falling below the national minimum wage. The low rates of pay meant staff were reluctant to take breaks and frequently worked through eight-hour shifts without stopping in order to make above minimum wage. Unfortunately, employers paying piece rate are exempt from minimum payment regulations under current employment legislation, so staff have little legal protection.

Australia's Fair Work Ombudsman's (FWO) office received a rash of complaints from vineyard workers in WA since the start of the year and eventually launched an investigation. Inspectors checked the books of 27 wineries and vineyards in the south-west region and according to its report released last month, a third were in breach of pay laws. A spokesperson for the FWO told The Irish Echo, “A recent WA wine industry campaign was conducted in response to worker complaints and information from industry associations... Employers in the Great Southern and South West wine regions did not properly understand their obligations.”

However, the organisation revealed that the The Great Southern Wine Producing Association and The Margaret River Wine Association – industry bodies of which a number of the investigated vineyards are members – were informed by the FWO of their plans to examine the issue before the investigation was launched. As a result, problems may be far more extensive than FWO figures suggest.

The FWO told The Irish Echo that it is opposed to employers using the piece rate exemption as a means of paying staff below minimum wage. A spokesperson said, “Employees must receive at least the correct minimum entitlements regardless of whether they are paid piece rates, by the hour or a salary.”
ENDS