Black History Month: Reclaim the Saltire, diversity is our strength!

Marking Black History Month, Khutso Dunbar challenges us to resist the use of the Saltire to vilify immigrants through ignorance and reclaim the flag as a symbol of inclusion.

Every month is Black History Month because Black history is part of our collective history. To relegate the contributions of racialized minorities to a month is frankly quite insulting, and ironically antithetical to the actual anti-racism practice the month claims to stand for. I wrote a piece two years ago saluting the contributions of racialized minority women in Scotland. This year, I would like to salute all Scottish racialized minority individuals, past and present, for their resilience and ongoing contributions to Scottish society.

We cannot only acknowledge the ill-gotten profits gained from enslaved Africans by Tobacco Lords to build Scotland’s universities, churches, and civic buildings in the month of October under a hashtag for Black History Month. Andrew Watson was not the world’s first Black international footballer, and the captain of the Scottish Football team for only a month. The Black soldiers, sailors, and pilots who fought alongside White Scots in both World Wars deserve equal recognition in the everyday historical narratives of our nation.  

So, this year, instead of disrespecting racialized minorities with this one-month appeasement of segregating their efforts from the established narrative of history, I will instead take this moment to highlight the current history being made in our streets that is undermining the sense of belonging for racialized minority communities in Scotland. As Saltires line the streets of our neighbourhoods hijacked by the far-right under the veiled racism of anti-immigration, it behoves us to remember that Scotland, like all of the world’s countries, is a nation of immigrants. From the Norse, Anglo-Norman, Flemish, Irish, Italians, Jewish, Polish, South Asians, Africans and all other peoples who have come to these shores to make a home, migration is a standard practice in human existence, and many Scots have likewise made homes abroad.

Andrew Watson

The hostile rhetoric whipped up by the far-right as they attempt to intimidate minority communities is one of ignorance, inconsistencies and illogic, which seeks to scapegoat immigrants and racialized minorities for all of society’s ills. We are led to believe that once all the immigrants are gone, Scotland will be great ‘again’. This is the fire beacon of delusion picked up from across the pond, where things are turning increasingly not great as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is weaponised against citizens in theatrics of terror, and the words of Nazi Goebbels are imitated in a national address without challenge.

The Scottish far-right is now emboldened to repeat similar vitriol, with the device and spectre of racist rhetoric being once again resurrected to malign the less powerful. To say the insidious language of ‘Keep Scotland White’ as is often shouted at anti-immigrant protests, makes me uneasy would be an understatement. Having survived the atrocities of white supremacy first-hand in South Africa during apartheid in my youth, I caution that this is a monster we would be wise to confront and dispel with urgency. Scotland comprises citizens with a multiplicity of hues, each deeply committed to building a strong nation. Scottish culture, like all cultures, is not static but dynamic – moulded and enriched by the diversity of each generation. An ideology that would deny, exclude and attempt to erase a whole swathe of people from belonging is an abhorrent, absurd, and illegitimate one. Indeed, the inherent psychopathic violence that accompanies white supremacy; from the holocaust in Nazi Germany, the vile lynchings of the KKK and the terrors of modern-day far-right groups, proves the untenable nature of racism. If we genuinely want to protect our children and our nation, as is the alleged motive of some of the flag bearers, then we must do everything to resist the abhorrence of white supremacist ideology seeping into normalcy.

Scotland Protest_Image by Andrew Becks from Pixabay

The reputation of Scotland as a warm and welcoming nation is being marred, and complacency in the current tensions is not an option. Swept up in the putrid politics of the moment, we are led to believe that without immigrants, Scotland would fare better. However, this ill-informed discourse completely overlooks the fact that, unlike England or other places, Scotland has a declining population with low birth rates, which risks national economic stagnation. Labour shortages are already being experienced in crucial sectors, such as Social Care and Healthcare. Scotland relies on immigrants to mitigate these challenges and ‘fill skills gaps that exist in the resident population and to complement the skills of non-migrants’ as stated on the government website. 

Immigrants of all trajectories contribute positively to Scotland. Only one-third of Scotland’s domestic population is educated to degree level compared to two-thirds of immigrants, and high-skilled roles depend on this workforce. Nobody is taking anybody’s jobs; these are jobs that cannot be fulfilled internally because there is a skill shortage. Ironically, the anti-immigrant sentiment of the far-right has also contributed to a decrease in international students attending Scottish universities, which is crippling the sector and undermining the possibility of educating home students to high-skilled roles if universities fold. These are the self-defeating inconsistencies of an ignorant movement. The retort being pedalled by the right is that only White economic migrants are serving these roles, but that is another racist fiction weaponised against racialized minority asylum seekers who are painted as a monolith of burdensome vagrants without agency or benefit to society. This narrative also deliberately ignores that asylum seekers are diverse people who are fleeing unsafe environments, but may be highly skilled and have occupied esteemed positions before their displacement, or that they may contribute in the future once settled. 

Debora Kayembe_Lawyer, Linguist_former refugee- image from Wikipedia

Examples such as lawyer, linguist and human rights campaigner Debora Kayembe who sought refuge in Scotland from the unrest in Democratic Republic of Congo, Dr Fatema a surgeon who fled persecution from the Middle East and is now retraining in Glasgow, or Henry, an asylum seeker educated to PhD level, prohibited by migration policy from contributing economically but currently volunteering with the Scottish Refugee Council to support those facing homelessness and destitution and Dr Saad Maida, who was training as an international student for his medical degree in Glasgow when the Syrian conflict made it unsafe for him to return home. Asylum seekers’ stories are varied and complex. Programmes like ‘New Scots’ by the Scottish Refugee Council, which supports refugee integration, the Refugee Doctors Programme by Building Bridges, which retrains medical professionals, and the At-Risk Academics programme by the Royal Society of Edinburgh are some of the few initiatives that recognise that asylum seekers and refugees have much to offer, and they support this demographic to contribute their skills in meaningful ways because they understand that people are Scotland’s greatest asset. 

This Black History Month, as we walk past the appropriated Saltires weaponised to ostracize the helpless, I repeat my call for us to remember that ‘Black history is our collective history and that we are writing the story of tomorrow today’. We will continue to resist the use of the Saltire to vilify immigrants through ignorance. The contributions of these new Scots must be added to our future historical narrative of how we are building up and moving our already great nation into a better future, with diversity as our strength.