Scottish people have always been known for their friendliness. The official slogan of Scotland’s largest city, “People make Glasgow”, appears everywhere – on T-shirts, buildings, bus stops and mugs. And when I first moved to Scotland from India in 2018, I was immediately welcomed by kind strangers and helpful neighbours.
People showed curiosity, rather than intrusiveness. They respected queues; told me I fit right in. Music, art and cultural events were considered inclusive spaces in the city, with calls for diversity, creativity, inclusion – all the good things.
As an outsider, this was a dream come true: to be myself, to be alone, to have brotherhood and a community. I could do whatever I wanted, wear whatever I wanted, walk by myself at night, even. That is a luxury, especially for a woman.
But something has changed, particularly after Covid, a global recession and years of austerity. Now, I watch the steady rise of far-right, fringe violence and I feel a special scrutiny upon me. In June, we saw disorder and racists assaults in Glasgow as hundreds of masked protesters marched through the streets.
Asian business owners were harassed and people were attacked – according to the police – “because of the colour of their skin”. Later that month, a man was charged with attempted murder after allegedly attacking men leaving a mosque in Edinburgh. A video appeared to show him shouting that he was “protecting the country”.
In July, a delivery driver was assaulted after anti-immigration protesters, many of them masked, some shouting racist abuse, once again “rampaged” through Glasgow. We have seen mosques defaced with “hate graffiti” – one is attacked in Britain every five days, according to new data. We’ve heard a speaker at a protest outside an asylum hotel in Falkirk calling for a crowd to “keep Britain white”.
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