Watching the harrowing footage of what would become Yves Sakila’s final moments of consciousness, it is hard not to be reminded of the agonising death of George Floyd. Sakila was declared dead in a Dublin hospital on 15 May, a short time after being pinned to the ground by security guards outside Arnotts, a city centre department store.
Congolese-born Sakila had allegedly been suspected of shoplifting in the store and fled. If we have any knowledge of what subsequently happened in the busy pedestrianised street outside, it is because video footage was captured by passersby. In these deeply distressing images, the 35-year-old is being restrained by a group of security guards for nearly five minutes. He tries to protest but his shouts are muffled in the concrete when one of the men appears to put his knee on the back of Sakila’s neck. By the end of the video, Sakila has stopped moving.
The cause of death has not yet been established – an initial post-mortem examination reportedly inconclusive. Nor is it likely that the police investigation into claims of excessive force will establish exactly what was going through the minds of those involved. Yet, this is what I would like to understand. What would compel someone who can see that a person is being forcibly restrained by several men, to kneel on the individual’s neck? Would it have been different if the man suspected of stealing had been white?
Six years ago we gathered and protested in the streets under Black Lives Matter banners. We were finally addressing the racism in Ireland that was overlooked for so long. Was all that in vain? We had to ask similar questions after the death of George Nkencho, a young black man who was shot and killed by gardaí outside his home in Dublin just a few months later.
As black people in Ireland, it feels as though we are repeatedly asked to sweep such horrific “incidents” under the rug, as though they are isolated tragedies, unconnected to any patterns or larger systemic issues. But Sakila’s death did not happen in a vacuum. The footage of the incident and what has happened since can help us understand this in a wider context of long-established racism.
Growing up in Dublin in the 1990s, I was welcomed by some and reviled by others. I was spat at, and verbally and physically intimidated by neighbourhood racists because of the colour of my skin. Like most Irish people of colour, I have felt the watchful gaze of security guards when entering spaces like Arnotts.
This was before social media offered a platform to the bigots. It predated the Dublin riots, the violent attacks on migrants and the burning of shelters for asylum seekers. Online radicalisation has made these voices louder than ever. At 37, I continue to navigate Ireland in fight-or-flight mode.
But even after an event that has drawn international attention, most of the country appears to be in denial. The taoiseach, Micheál Martin, offered his condolences, adding that “the situation will have to be thoroughly investigated” and that “a lot of people are clearly very concerned about what has transpired here”.
But showing no willingness to ask if racism may have played a part in Sakila’s handling lets the danger grow. Martin should take more decisive action in calling out and combating ingrained racism: but how, when he openly tries to shift the blame for homelessness and his government’s shocking housing failures on to migrants?
Just a couple of weeks before Sakila’s death, the former taoiseach Bertie Ahern, a party colleague of Martin’s, was recorded while canvassing for a byelection, sharing his concern over migrants. “The ones I worry about are the Africans,” he said on the doorstep, adding: “We can’t be taking in people from the Congo and all these places. I think there’s too many from those places.” Ukrainian refugees were different, he stressed.
Another factor to consider is that the events that preceded Sakila’s death apparently involved private security personnel working on behalf of a leading Irish company. A spokesperson for Arnotts, which is owned by the Selfridges Group, expressed condolences. “No loss of life should ever be the outcome of a retail security incident,” they said. “We recognise the deep hurt and concern this tragedy has caused within Dublin’s Congolese community and among the wider public, and we take those concerns with the utmost seriousness.”
Yet we are left with the feeling that the private property of a multimillion-pound business – the alleged stolen bottle of perfume – was deemed more valuable than a human life. Tellingly, the store said it was conducting a review of its security services. Will the multinational take responsibility or, like our politicians, try to outsource that on to its hired help?
Much of modern Ireland can be defined by the multinational corporate power that grips it. It is defined by income polarisation between the big tech and big pharma classes and everyone else. It is defined by a cost of living crisis that is becoming unbearable for regular people, while faceless multinationals enjoy generous corporate tax advantages.
Ireland’s media has covered the death of Sakila, but in a strangely muted way: its language is often passive (Sakila “became unresponsive”) as though this horror that unfolded in front of shoppers was a mysterious accident and not a cruel overpowering.
There are justified concerns about not prejudicing the investigation. But in a climate where former prime ministers join in the scapegoating of marginalised and often racialised communities for the shortcomings of decades of failed leadership, the lack of a profound debate about systemic racism risks enabling more violent behaviour in the future.
Whatever the intention, comments such as Ahern’s are xenophobic fuel for angry, disenfranchised people. People who are unemployed and unhoused, people desperate for someone to blame for their suffering.
Ireland maintains a pristine public image abroad: friendly, convivial, welcoming to the outside world. When I meet people on my travels, they are shocked to hear that racism is a reality for many Irish citizens.
How long before a case such as Yves Sakila’s happens again? Black people and people of colour fearing for our safety are angry. We want answers, but we also want to know: are white Irish people asking themselves the same questions?