One Scotland – Many Cultures
If they come for us at night and you do nothing, they will come for you in the morning.
As Primo Levi warned, "Every age has its Fascism" and we are sleep-walking into ours with our “Lib-Lab” government. What a disgrace. This is day 9 of the incarceration of the Vucaj Family at Yarls Wood Removal Centre, England. The family was snatched from their home in Glasgow by a team of sixteen at four in the morning.
As Robina Qureshi of Positive Action in Housing has put it : “I am sorry to say this but the current silence emanating from the Scottish Executive is not only deafening but disgusting.” The campaign to have them released is being led by school pupils at Drumchapel High School.
Today (Thursday) it seems the Executive have woken up.
Someone must have pointed out to Union Jack McConnell that this was a really bad way to enter the final week before the "Firestarter By-Election” in Cathcart. Complicity with state actions reminiscent of the 1930s or a work of fiction isn’t going to do down too well on the doorstep, or the telly, and hiding behind the mantra “It’s a reserved matter” just isn’t going to cut it any longer.
On the day Lord Ha Ha is going down for 16 months in the clink, the Executive is lecturing children about rules and regulations. This is the same lot who run advertising poster-campaigns preaching cultural tolerance.
But what the case clearly exposes is the gap between the acts and culture of the British State and the sensibilities of modern Scotland. They’re just incompatible. Talk about a gift for the independence parties.
The details still emerging regarding the treatment of the Vucaj Family are shocking. As PAiH says: “What’s the point of so called devolution if human rights abuses reminiscent of Nazi Germany are allowed to take place on Scottish soil under the banner of ‘reserved matters’. “
McConnel has said he was confident the executive could strike a new agreement with ministers in London, to ensure future cases are handled more sensitively in consultation with Scottish authorities.
But if he couldn’t act before how come he can act now? And we wouldn’t be so sure that the British State – used to pandering to and panicking Middle England - will be so happy to have the double standard of enlightened policy North of the Border, smash and grab dawn raids in the South.
The Vucaj family have lived in Glasgow for five years. The three children Saida 13, Nimet 16, and Elvis, 18 speak with Glasgow accents and regard Glasgow as their home. Though this is hardly the point, the question is raised who is this action for? Who does it benefit?
Go here to the family’s campaign site, and read this extract from a letter sent to all MSPs from Positive Action in Housing:
“The current campaign has stopped the family being deported this week. They may however be deported next week and so we are keeping up the pressure. In the meantime there is the danger that their flat in Kingsway might be repossessed which makes a release from bail even more unlikely.
All I have seen of this family, their friends and community is courage – they are the finest demonstration of ‘one scotland – many cultures’. This current campaign exposes more inhumanities about what has happened – a ransacked home, doors kicked down, a little girl watching her father crying and broken for the first time in her life, a little girl pleading to a sixteen strong immigration snatch squad that she has to go to school and can’t go to detention. They can take them to Dungavel, Yarls wood or another planet but at the end of the day the friends, neighbours, family and community left behind will protest their outrage with photographs of happy memories.
No matter what their status, the Vucaj Family are human beings. They can contribute to this country with its fastest declining population in Europe, if we let them. I demand that we let them. For a family to survive five years under threat of deportation is surely a remarkable achievement."
