No Racism: Refugees Welcome Here

The St Andrew's Day Anti-Racism March and Rally this year has the theme 'No Racism: Refugees Welcome Here.' The rally will take place on Sat 28th Nov, Assemble 10:30am Glasgow Green. Below is a Guest Blog from Nicola Sturgeon MSP, the First Minster of Scotland on the importance of this March.

In September, just before a humanitarian summit on Scotland’s response to the refugee crisis I had the opportunity to sit down for a cup of tea with people who have made their home in Scotland after fleeing persecution and war in their own country. 

As we talked, it became apparent that they had been made to feel extremely welcome in Scotland and all of them were keen to contribute positively to society. Later, some gave powerful testimonies in the summit itself, describing how they had brought their families here to make a new home. 

Listening to their stories, it was clear that the decision taken by these people to leave their own countries had not been an easy one. Anyone who risks taking their family on what can be a treacherous journey does not do so without having exhausted all available options at home. 

That is why we must recognise that the desperate situation in which people arriving on Europe’s southern shores find themselves is a humanitarian crisis. These people come to Europe and the United Kingdom, not to “scrounge from our welfare state” or “steal our jobs” but because they have no choice if they want to keep their families safe. 

In responding to this humanitarian crisis, I have made it clear that we stand ready to accept our fair share of refugees. Indeed, we expect to take around a third of the total number coming to the UK before Christmas. 

That has meant an immense amount of work by local authorities and other partners such as the Scottish Refugee Council and the STUC, to ensure that those arriving in Scotland are able to integrate successfully into society. 

But it has also demonstrated the wider desire, across Scottish society, to pitch in with practical help to some incredibly vulnerable people. We have been inundated with offers of support from members of the public, businesses and organisations from all parts of Scotland. 

All of this has meant that, as the first people seeking refuge from the war in their own country have begun to arrive in Scotland, they have been assured of a very warm welcome.

Nicola Sturgeon

First Minister of Scotland 

No Racism: Refugees Welcome Here

The St Andrew's Day Anti-Racism March and Rally this year has the theme 'No Racism: Refugees Welcome Here.' The rally will take place on Sat 28th Nov, Assemble 10:30am Glasgow Green. Below is a Guest Blog from Kezia Dugdale MSP, Leader of the Scottish Labour Party on the importance of this March.

Scotland has a proud record of being a multicultural and welcoming country. The last few months, as the refugee crisis has escalated, we have seen this welcoming and empathetic culture at its very best.

A few weeks ago I joined a rally outside the Scottish Parliament, saying loudly and proudly that refugees are welcome here. Outside the Parliament were lined candles, messages of support and messages to David Cameron, condemning his poor response to some of the most vulnerable people in the world. I was proud to light a candle and immensely proud of the public response; young and old, of different cultures and different backgrounds, people coming together with one powerful voice. It is this collectivism and this inclusiveness that will always defeat bigotry and racism.

Scotland's response has been phenomenal. We have had families open the doors to refugees, volunteers collecting hundreds of bags and boxes of donations and fundraising pouring in. A particularly heartwarming response has come from our local authorities. Glasgow was the first UK city to accept Syrian refugees, In Edinburgh we've committed to support 100 refugees, in the Highlands 30 more, and these are just a few examples, there are countless more examples of solidarity.

Whether it was when Glasgow awarded the key to the city to Nelson Mandela or when crowds of public have lined the streets peacefully against the BNP or SDL, we have said no to racism before and I hope people across Scotland will continue to do so. We can never be complacent about bigotry, we can never assume that because we are tolerant others will be too. It is an activism that must be conveyed in or daily actions, we must all take it on ourselves to call out racism when we see it or hear it.

Silence condones it, our rallying and our protests condemn it.

Kezia Dugdale

Leader Scottish Labour Party

No Racism: Refugees Welcome Here

The St Andrew's Day Anti-Racism March and Rally this year has the theme 'No Racism: Refugees Welcome Here.' The rally will take place on Sat 28th Nov, Assemble 10:30am Glasgow Green. Below is a Guest 

Blog from Patrick Harvie MSP, Co-convener of the Scottish Green Party on the importance of this March.

Europe is facing the most severe refugee crisis for generations, and as winter sets in the human toll is already unbearably heavy. Yet in the UK and many other countries, the voices of racism and xenophobia are heard, including in government, denying the human dignity of those seeking refuge and seeking to close the door on them.

All too often people are encouraged to view refugees as a burden, rather than as fellow human beings. In reality, it is those who are forced to leave their homes, often undertaking perilous journeys, who bear a burden. Wealthy countries such as ours are in a privileged position in being able to help, and it is vital that we resist and oppose the hostility, selfishness and racism which is intended to undermine the empathy and compassion which should guide our actions.

I believe that most of Scottish society, and the majority of Scotland’s political landscape, does reject those racist attitudes. But we can never relent in making that clear and in challenging racism where it continues to exist, whether in a position of power or anywhere in our society. So the Scottish Green Party is proud to support the STUC’s St Andrew’s Day march and rally, and we will work with you to ensure that Scotland is united in offering refugees the welcome and the security which they need and deserve.

Patrick Harvie

Co-convener of the Scottish Green Party

No Racism: Refugees Welcome Here

The St Andrew's Day Anti-Racism March and Rally this year has the theme 'No Racism: Refugees Welcome Here.' The rally will take place on Sat 28th Nov, Assemble 10:30am Glasgow Green. Below is a Guest Blog from Ruth Davidson MSP, Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party on the importance of this March.

Nobody could fail to be moved by the humanitarian crisis which continues to unfold. 

The testimony of the men, woman and children who risk everything they have to escape an intolerable situation, is hugely affecting.

The UK is a moral nation and we fulfil our moral responsibilities.

I am proud that we are the first G7 nation to meet its commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of our economy on aid. I am pleased, too, that the UK is allocating £1 billion in aid and development programmes to help with the Syrian refugee crisis – more than any country bar America. The Prime Minister has also appointed a new Minister for Refugees

It is right too, that our country has offered sanctuary to 20,000 refugees, resettled directly from camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. 

Importantly, this approach balances the need to give shelter, with the need to discourage vulnerable families from making the dangerous journeys across the Mediterranean. 

But simply accepting refugees is not enough. 

We have to support our local communities, too. That is why we will use the foreign aid budget to help councils provide critical services, such as housing. 

The challenge now is to build on our commitments. Those coming here fleeing the worst of circumstances need to feel welcomed.

We must all continue to do our bit to ensure that Scotland’s cultural and racial diversity is seen as one of our nation’s great assets, rather than as a threat. For this diversity is something which makes our country, and, especially, our cities, such incredible places to live and work.

We all have our own part to play in championing this message. 

That’s why it is so important that this STUC No Racism rally - and others like it- continue to take place to ensure we can promote a future without racism. 

The STUC has long shown an admirable commitment to this fight and I stand proudly with them.

Ruth Davidson 

Leader Scottish Conservative Party

No Racism: Refugees Welcome Here

The St Andrew's Day Anti-Racism March and Rally this year has the theme 'No Racism: Refugees Welcome Here.' The rally will take place on Sat 28th Nov, Assemble 10:30am Glasgow Green. Below is a Guest Blog from Willie Rennie MSP, Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats on the importance of this March.

In recent years we have made substantial progress towards tackling prejudice and our country is a better place as a result.

But attitudes towards those seeking sanctuary in our country have been slower to change.

Too many people still view refugees as an unnecessary burden. With the Prime Minister and tabloid headlines warning of “swarms” of migrants coming to our shores, it is easy to see how these views can persist.

The refugee crisis is the biggest humanitarian challenge that Europe has faced since 1945. Our response to the crisis needs to match the scale of this challenge.

And just as we speak out against racism, we need to ensure that we are challenging those who would see us ignore our obligation to help.

We must not allow those who would use this tragedy as an excuse to pull up the drawbridge to win the argument.

We must not let prejudice and small-mindedness prevent us from helping people who need our support desperately.

The failure of the UK government to accept more than a fraction of the refugees we should be helping is enormously disappointing.

Britain has always been a country that welcomed refugees, from those fleeing religious persecution in the 17th century, to the children saved through the kindertransport ahead of World War II. Now is not the time to abandon these historic values.

We can do more to help. We must do more to help.

It is down to all of us who would see us react to the refugee crisis with tolerance, openness and compassion to speak with one voice and send a strong, clear message.

Refugees are welcome here.

Willie Rennie MSP

Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats

No Racism: Refugees Welcome Here

The St Andrew's Day Anti-Racism March and Rally this year has the theme 'No Racism: Refugees Welcome Here.' The rally will take place on Sat 28th Nov, Assemble 10:30am Glasgow Green. Below is a Guest Blog from NUS Scotland on the importance of this March.

NUS Scotland are proud to be supporting the St Andrews’ Day March, a demonstration of the strength of our united movements against racism and fascism. Migrants to Scotland contribute huge amounts to our society and it’s important that we celebrate this valuable contribution at every opportunity. St Andrew’s day particularly, gives us an important opportunity to show the strength of positive feeling that exists across our community to the importance of standing up for those potentially fleeing persecution, and seeking a better life, in Scotland. 

With the refugee crisis growing, and the disgraceful anti-immigration rhetoric we’re seeing from sections of the media and politicians across the UK, it’s rarely been more important to unite in opposing racism everywhere it rears its ugly head. Far too often we see negative stories about people risking everything to try and escape the destruction of their home countries, but we’ve also seen this met with positive actions to help those caught up in the crisis, a crisis caused by circumstances beyond their control.

The student and trade union movement has a strong history of supporting internationalism, and fighting racism and fascism. Even in the last few weeks, students and students’ associations across Scotland have mobilised in response to the refugee crisis we’ve seen, setting up “drop off” points, where students donated vital items to refugees in Calais. We’ve also seen campaigns up and down the country calling for better support for our refugee and asylum seeking students, leading to scholarships being introduced at the University of Edinburgh and Strathclyde. 

Our own Black Students’ Campaign has been instrumental in the campaign against the forced deportation of one of our students, Majid Ali, who was taken to Pakistan despite concerns for his safety in the country. While this is a distressing example of this government’s disgraceful attitudes to some of our brightest students, Majid’s is by no means a unique case, and it is a campaign we fight day in, day out. 

As the St Andrews Day March demonstrates, Scotland has a huge number of fantastic organisations and individuals campaigning against racism and fascism. However, it’s frankly a disgrace that the responsibility to support for asylum seekers and refugees, some of the most vulnerable members of our society, has been left solely to our grassroots activists while the government turns its back on them. 

We look forward to working in solidarity with partners across Scotland to change this, and fight the government’s appalling attitude towards asylum seekers and refugees. 

Vonnie Sandlan, NUS Scotland president

Sanjay Lago, NUS Scotland black student’s officer

We were all once refugees!

The St Andrew's Day Anti-Racism March and Rally this year has the theme 'No Racism: Refugees Welcome Here.' The rally will take place on Sat 28th Nov, Assemble 10:30am Glasgow Green. Below is a Guest Blog from Ephraim Borowski, Scottish Council of Jewish Communities on the importance of this March.

When you see the pictures of the tens of thousands of refugees fleeing into exile each day from the civil war in Syria, does it engage your compassion, or your sympathy, or your ideology? Do you truly empathise with their plight? Do you feel what they feel? Do you know what it is really like to be expelled from your home, to have to flee for your life and to risk your life to save your life, to have no-one to take you in?

Sadly, that’s a story Jewish people are very familiar with – Jewish history has more than its fair share of exiles, from the biblical narrative of the famine that forced Jacob and his family to leave their homes near Beersheba south of Jerusalem to buy food in Egypt where like so many of today’s refugees, they were subsequently forced into slavery, through expulsions by the Babylonians, Romans, the Crusades, the Inquisition in Spain, pogroms in Eastern Europe, the Holocaust, and, most recently, from Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and North Africa. 

Like many of today’s exiles, the Jewish people have always dreamed of returning home. The Exodus from Egypt is not merely an incident in history, but is mentioned daily in prayers, and commemorated in the three “pilgrim festivals” that recall each stage of the journey: the Exodus itself, on Passover, when the tribe of Israel became the Jewish nation; the revelation on Mount Sinai that we celebrate on Shavuot, and the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, recalled by the ramshackle shelters that we build and live in for the week of Succot. Although the biblical Exodus was for us a return, a positive experience, as history has shown it was, ultimately, only a temporary relief.

So we identify and empathise with today’s refugees because exile and homesickness are so ingrained in our identity and our faith and our history. We remember the precariousness of being a refugee, taking that risk because the uncertainty of surviving the exodus was preferable to the certainty of extinction if they stayed behind. For me that was echoed in one of the many tragic stories from the current crisis, of the Syrian surgeon whose wife and daughter had drowned, but who still said that it had been rational to take that risk.

The Jewish people went as migrants to Egypt; we escaped as refugees from Egypt; we were exiled again by the Romans. We travelled across Europe – and back again. My mother’s family came to Glasgow to escape pogroms in Russia, my father to escape the Holocaust. And we are not the only ones – nearly every family in Scotland has a story of migration, from the Vikings, the Saxons, and the Normans to the Irish, the Asians, and the Eastern Europeans. Who are we to close the door behind us? It’s not “There, but for the grace of God, go I”, but “Here, by the grace of God, came I”.

Ephraim Borowski
Director
Scottish Council of Jewish Communities

No Racism: Refugees Welcome Here

The St Andrew's Day Anti-Racism March and Rally this year has the theme 'No Racism: Refugees Welcome Here.' The rally will take place on Sat 28th Nov, Assemble 10:30am Glasgow Green. Below is a Guest Blog from Alastair Pringle, Equality and Human Rights Commission on the importance of this March.

Communities across Scotland have long played a proud and welcoming part in offering shelter to those seeking asylum. Our history of fairness, dignity and respect are shown in the recent outpouring of public support for helping those in need fleeing across Europe.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has written to the Governments at Holyrood and Westminster to offer our assistance and expertise as they develop plans to tackle the current refugee crisis. We, in towns and cities all over Scotland, have a role to play. We must demonstrate that refugees are welcome in this country, that we will support their inclusion in our society to make it a more diverse and tolerant place. This should be in keeping with the international laws for the right to asylum which must always be upheld.

Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights prescribes that everyone has the right to seek and enjoy asylum in other countries, provided it is appropriately invoked. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will support efforts that welcome refugees and protect their human rights.

Together, we need to recognise and challenge any attempt to discriminate against refugees, directly or indirectly. This might mean we need to look critically at our own actions and those of our friends, families, colleagues and neighbours. It might mean we have to challenge and speak out against hurtful language or deeds. It also might mean that our public services need to look again at how they provide essential health, care, education, employment and support services to these groups of people who come to Scotland seeking a safe and secure future.

We should continue to show compassionate leadership on this matter, reflecting our influence and the extent to which we benefit culturally and economically from migration so we can let the world know that refugees are welcome here.


Alastair Pringle
Equality and Human Rights Commission

Refugees Welcome Here

The St Andrew's Day Anti-Racism March and Rally this year has the theme 'No Racism: Refugees Welcome Here.' The rally will take place on Sat 28th Nov, Assemble 10:30am Glasgow Green. Below is a Guest Blog from John Wilkes, Scottish Refugee Council on the importance of this March.  

Scottish Refugee Council is proud to support the STUC’s important annual Anti-Racism march.

The theme of this year; No Racism: Refugees Welcome Here tells the story of how the refugee crisis in the Middle East and the Mediterranean has become a central issue for Europe in the last few weeks.

Until recently, the refugee crisis wasn’t on many people’s radar. That was until the heartbreaking image of three-year-old Alan Kurdi whose lifeless body was found washed up on a Turkish beach was shown across the world.
Alan’s [inaccurately reported as Aylan] five-year-old brother and mother also drowned on that perilous trip across the Mediterranean.

This Syrian family is not the first and sadly will not be the last victims of what is the worst global humanitarian crisis since the Second World War. Desperate men, women and children are risking their lives every day in a bid to reach safety.

However this image has galvanised public support and empathy and forced the UK Government into long overdue action. Scotland has been central to this and the Scottish Parliament and Government have shown great leadership on the response that is needed and continue to put pressure on the UK Government to do more. Scottish Refugee Council has experienced much of the positive compassion, generosity and support from the Scottish public at a scale rarely seen in our 30 year history.

Thousands of people across this country are saying loud and clear that they welcome refugees. These are not just empty words, but are being put into action.
But we’re also very aware of those who wish to play on people’s fears and who are using this as an opportunity to voice their racist views towards those seeking safety on our shores.

We need to speak up for refugees, address people’s genuine concerns, and stand up to those exploiting this refugee crisis to spread racism and divide people.

Scotland is ready and willing to play its part in welcoming refugees. We must remember that they are people just like us with their own hopes and fears. They are ordinary people living through extraordinary circumstances. Let’s make sure that all refugees are welcomed irrespective of race.

Scotland can be a beacon for how we treat refugees. Say no racism: refugees are welcome here.
Thank you for showing your solidarity with refugees today.

For more information on the developments on the crisis and to register your own offers of help please visit www.scotlandwelcomesrefugees.scot


John Wilkes
CEO of Scottish Refugee Council