No place for inequality in my city, says Glasgow Girl

IT HAS only been 10 minutes since Roza Salih welcomed me in and offered me tea, and already she is in full flow about everything from women’s equality, zero-hours contracts and maternity and paternity rights, to refugee education and the unfair treatment of young workers.

Injustice, in all its many forms, makes Salih angry and she wants to speak up. She has much to say.

It is not surprising, given the 27-year-old’s background as one of the Glasgow Girls, a group of highschool students who, with the support of the wider Drumchapel community, forced the Home Office to stop dawn raids on asylum seekers back in 2002.

But Salih’s drive to change the world can be traced back even further, to her childhood in Kurdistan where she lived with her parents Saleem and Tania, and younger sister Raz.

“I come from a very political family,” she nods. “My grandfather and uncles fought against Saddam Hussein’s regime and were executed because of it. They died fighting and, because of them, I am here today.

“Both my mum and dad were political, too. There are not many women’s rights in my country but daily, my mother fought for them. She spoke out against honour killings, campaigned against domestic abuse.

“It did influence me, seeing what she did, listening to her stories, even though I was young. One story she told sticks in my mind, about a woman in our community who was imprisoned in a basement, tied up and locked up without any food, left to starve to death.”

Salih pauses, frowning: “All because she loved a man of her own choice. That was a strong image and it had an impact on me.”

Her smile returns. “My mother was named after a Russian activist. I am named after Rosa Luxembourg, the anti-war activist and revolutionary socialist. You see? I come from a family of Lefties …”

In May this year, Salih is hoping to become the first former asylum seeker elected to public office in Scotland. She is standing for the SNP in Ward 13, which includes the tower block she first lived in when she came to Glasgow in 2001.

“I remember looking out of the window and seeing Glasgow below, and it was really lovely,” she recalls. “We could see the city centre in the distance, and all the lights and the cars. The view is the only thing I miss about living on the 22nd floor.”

She laughs: “I don’t miss the stairs, or the lift that always broke down. But people were kind to us – we had nothing, knew no-one, spoke no English.

“We were told in London that Scotland was like Finland, and was always snowy and icy. But a social worker gave me colouring-in books, and my sister toys, and tried to make us feel better.”

Salih and her friends at Drumchapel High became known as the Glasgow Girls following a high-profile fight with the Scottish and UK Governments to end the deportation of asylum seeker children, often dragged from their beds in the early hours of the morning. When one of their friends was detained they enlisted the support of their teachers, neighbours and local politicians, sparking a media frenzy. The story has been turned into a television drama and a stage musical.

“I don’t think we realised at the time how big it was,” she says, simply. “We just wanted our friend back. But now, looking back, we were just high-school girls, and we made a difference. We were not voiceless and we changed things for the better. It definitely had an impact on me, on the path I have taken.”

Having experienced the worst of the asylum system and having seen the shortcomings of the political world first hand, Salih could be forgiven for running a million miles in the opposite direction. Instead, she wants to embrace it and, ultimately, influence it.

“It was empowering what we did, and what I have gone on to do in student politics and in my trade union work,” she says.

Salih, who was 19 when her family’s asylum application was officially approved, studied law and politics at Strathclyde University, where she was vice-president for diversity and advocacy.

She speaks three languages, Kurdish, Arabic and English, fluently – “four, if you count Glaswegian,” she jokes, and is currently working for MP Chris Stephens in his Glasgow South West constituency office.

“I want to speak out against inequality,” she says, earnestly. “I’m a very honest person. If something comes into my brain I say it.

She smiles: “People say this may not be such a good quality for a politician. My mum and dad have said – you know what you are getting into, right? But they would not stop me. Neither is that kind of person.”

Her decision to stand for the SNP comes, she says, from her deep-rooted belief in independence.

“I understand how oppression by another nation can affect people’s rights – often the most vulnerable people in society,” she says. “I see how austerity and social security cuts affect people in my community every single day, working here.”