Alison Thewliss is the Glasgow Central Candidate and a former SNP MP
All through the story the immigrants came
The Gael and the Pict, the Angle and Dane
From Pakistan, England and from the Ukraine
We’re all Scotland’s story and we’re all worth the same
Your Scotland’s story is worth just the same
We have a good conceit of ourselves in Scotland; we like to think we are warm, welcoming, and that we offer a hand of friendship. We look after our fellow human beings. But these past few months, there’s been a shift from being the proud Scotland of Kenmure Street, the Glasgow Girls and the Glasgow Grannies to a country where asylum hotels are attacked and mosques vandalised. So what’s going on? What has changed in the ten years since Glasgow City Council hoisted a banner over the doors of the City Chambers to proclaim Refugees Welcome? And what can we do to hold on to our values when the far right seek to divide us?
I thought I had seen the worst of the ‘debate’ about the rights of asylum seekers and refugees in the depths of the Rwanda Bill. Unfortunately, I was wrong. The Tories may have left office, but Labour have allowed Nigel Farage and Reform to set the agenda and have failed to set an alternative course of their own. The rhetoric has become tougher, harsher, crueller. In all of this, the stories of the people in the middle of this maelstrom have been lost, their voices unheard, completely dehumanised by politicians and media alike. It’s little wonder this has spread into our communities.
I’ve had the privilege of listening to the voices of asylum seekers and refugees over the years. Young boys alone in a country so far from what they knew. Families clinging to one another as they sought to navigate a system designed to break them. A father in tears about the son he had been forced to leave behind, a matter of days too old to qualify for family reunion. People who had been tortured, seen brutality, who are haunted by their experiences. I’ve also listened to the warmth of Maryhill Integration Network Joyous Choir, to the wee ones growing up with Glaswegian accents, to those who have found new life and purpose here in the safety of Scotland. I am convinced if more people took the time to listen, they would find common cause. The far right have always been adept at twisting a narrative for their own ends, setting us against one another. Resisting this becomes harder and harder in a world where algorithms spread hatred and fear. Rumours fly unchecked on community facebook pages, on youtube and tiktok, and the truth doesn’t get a look-in.
Now, more than ever, we need to step up. The community activists, the parents at the school gates, the folk who run the knit and natter. The colleagues around the table in the works canteen and the strangers standing in the bus queue together. Everyone who knows that Farage and Reform have nothing to offer us here in Scotland and are prepared to say so. People need to be informed and to be ready to share the reality of what’s happening. Those who seek to divide us rely on us being scared, or worried about what people will think. We need to bring truth, humour, and understanding while we argue for what we know is right – we have to bring down that heat and allow those who currently take the opposing view a way of changing their minds. In Scotland’s Story, the Proclaimers sang not just of those who came to Scotland but of the prejudices they faced when they made their homes here. All of us who believe in the rights of our new Scots need to be there for those who are facing that hatred and bigotry now – supporting them and making it clear that they are welcome. That hand of friendship and solidarity has never been more needed. We will remain a welcoming Scotland as long we all stand together.
Image Credit: Alisdare Hickson, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
