Friday, September 30, 2011
Two recent reads
Kevin McKenna’s piece in The Observer about the
positive impact of immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in Scotland makes
for good reading. His analysis is one
that focuses on positives, describing the way Scotland has benefitted from such
great diversity in the past ten years. It's the sort of stuff that usually doesn't make it into the news, affirming what has gone well, what is good about our community.
I enjoyed the following:
Even when they are sending money back to other family members resident in their homelands, the UK's ethnic population is still benefiting us; the total of such remittances eclipses Britain's entire overseas aid bill. Even those whose asylum applications are unsuccessful can benefit our nation by learning new work skills. There are many Zimbabwean citizens in Scotland waiting for the death of the tyrant Robert Mugabe. When that day comes they will return to their country and use skills that Scotland has given them to nurse Zimbabwe back to health – an outcome that will benefit the world.Everywhere you look in Glasgow, the benefits of cultural and ethnic diversity and of providing livelihoods for our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters are evident.The children of these families have rekindled life in schools which would otherwise have closed long ago. To them, education is a prize, a priceless commodity to be cherished and their enthusiasm for it inspires our own children. In the workplace, those employers who have engaged with the Bridges Programmes have come to appreciate migrant workers' enthusiasm, drive and charisma. They are rarely absent, unlike our own permanently knackered workforce. And for those businesses that encounter their customers face to face what better way is there of attracting ethnic shoppers than having them served by members of their own communities?
I recently
read a book that I stumbled across in the local library called This City Now
by Ian R Mitchell. The book tells the
stories of working class communities in Glasgow that have been more or less
forgotten in the city’s regeneration.
Mitchell’s analysis is clearly the fruit of much research and a love of
Glasgow’s working class heritage. The
book gives a historical context to the current state of areas like Springburn
and Possil; some of his insights are enlightening.
On the other
hand, Mitchell is prone to hyperbole, at times sounding ridiculous. For example, he describes the working clasess
in Edinburgh as “ghettoed into Bantustans.” His point is that Edinburgh’s working
class doesn’t have the same presence in the capital’s city centre (as it does
in Glasgow), but to draw parallels with apartheid in South Africa is gross overstatement.
Some of Mitchell’s insights are worth note though. His description of Glasgow’s localism within
a wider identity hits the nail on the head:
Glasgow, as are many big cities, is like a series of medium sized towns, whose inhabitants overlap at the city centre, or at places such as football grounds. This was even more so in the days when industries were identified with areas, and inhabitants of specific area tended to work locally. This multiplicity of apparent parochaialisms, is overlain, however, with a very strong sense of city identity. Whether from Parkhead to Partick, the ruling motto is ‘Glasgow belongs to me’ – and there are no no-go areas for the Glasgow working class.
It is also interesting how he links the memorial of
executed reformers John Baird and Andrew Hardie to the current situation of people seeking sanctuary in Glasgow from
places like Afghanistan, Zimbabwae, and Iran:
From the cemetery you overlook the housing of Sighthill, now home to many asylum seekers fleeing persecution abroad, and reminding us that even today not everyone has the rights and freedoms for which those like Baird and Hardie fought almost two centuries ago. Sighthill has had its tensions over this asylum issue, but indications now are that community relations are improving. Walking around there made me thing of the song Freedom Come All Ye by the late great Scottish writer Hamish Henderson, whose lines cite his hopes for the future:When John Maclean meets wi his freens in SpringburnA the roses and geans will turn tae bloomBlack and white ane till ither mairreitCan find bried, barley bree and painted room
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