Until a month ago Caio Benicio (name of the Roman emperor) was one of the 850,000 foreigners in Ireland, a 43-year-old Brazilian and middle class in his country, who bad fortune had caused him to lose his restaurant in Rio de Janeiro. Janeiro, and leave his wife and two children behind to deliver food at home with his motorcycle through the streets of Dublin. Today he has almost 400,000 euros in his bank checking account, he is a kind of Superman, and this is the happiest Christmas of his life.
On November 23, an Irishman born in Algeria who had lived in the country for twenty years attacked five and six-year-old children with a knife as they were leaving a central school in the capital (the police have officially ruled out a terrorist attack), leaving a five-year-old girl very seriously injured, with a knife wound to the neck, and her teacher. It would have been much worse if Caio had not passed by there a few moments later with his motorcycle and his Deliveroo order and, seeing what he thought was a scuffle, hit the attacker on the head with his helmet, leaving him half K.O. That same night, neo-fascist elements used the event as a pretext to turn O’Connell Street into a battlefield, looting businesses and burning trams and police cars shouting “Ireland is full.”
In the midst of growing anti-immigration sentiment (a few days ago a hotel in Galway that was going to receive seventy refugees burned down due to arson), Benicio has received all kinds of praise. More than that, he is the beneficiary of a fundraising campaign that to date, in gratitude for what he did, has raised 370,000 euros. With them he went to spend the holidays in Rio with his family (he has a 19-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son), although he has a return ticket to Dublin for next week. With his money he plans to start his own restaurant business, bring the family and stop being a food deliveryman.
In a very Irish spirit, crowdfunding was named “a pint for Caio Benicio.” Thirty-five thousand donors contributed amounts normally between six and seven euros (what a beer costs in a pub), although the most generous reached one hundred. A very Christmassy story, typical of films like Miracle on 34th Street, with a happy ending (the girl who was seriously injured, despite the Brazilian’s intervention, has a long recovery awaits but she has already left the ICU and her life is not is in danger).
“Ireland is a better place thanks to you and people like you,” says a message that accompanied a contribution of fifty euros. “You deserve every last cent, I am delighted that you are among us, while the fascists beat the police with sticks and threw Molotov cocktails at them, you brandished your helmet and risked your life to save someone you didn’t know at all ”says another. Benicio was not the only foreigner who intervened. Also, after he had already hit the aggressor with his helmet, a 17-year-old French chef’s apprentice did so, who has been congratulated by President Macron.
Net immigration to the country through June of this year has been 77,600 people, an increase of 31% over the previous year, and foreigners make up 17% of the population (almost half of whom have arrived in the last five years ). What was a country of exiles, especially in the United States, Great Britain and Australia, has become one of welcome. But people have a short memory, and have forgotten how their ancestors fled misery and famine by settling in distant lands. Chronic homelessness and the deterioration of public services have motivated an anti-immigration campaign under the slogan “Ireland for the Irish.” Although it is not structured into a political party and lacks parliamentary representation, the xenophobic extreme right is making more and more noise.
Apart from the money, which will radically change his life, what Caio has been most grateful for are the many messages of appreciation and affection. And within the messages, that of his son Breno: “Dad, you are my hero. “A Superman without a cape but with a helmet, the best in the world.”