The Herald - The Herald Magazine
Culture clash
KEVIN McKENNA ON GLASGOW’S ROMA INFLUX
IN GOVANHILL, this disdained arrondissement on Glasgow’s south side, adversity has fathered a new language and one which may yet bring redemption to a distressed community. It’s been sprung in Annette Street Primary School, a handsome and robust three-storey Victorian building which looks like it’ll be good for another couple of monarchs yet.
The school stands in the midst of a knot of streets that have lately come to test Glasgow’s reputation for harmonious cultural diversity almost to the point of destruction. Here is where many of the children of the 3,500-strong local Roma community have come to learn. In many cases they are the first of their families, who come from Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, to have received any formal education. So what are children to do when a twist of history, a geopolitical kink has flung them together in a cold and far-flung schoolyard with many others who speak in strange tongues? You invent a new and common language, stupid. This one is a mixture of Slovakian and Romanian with an unmistakeable dash of raw Glaswegian. This could yet be Glasgow’s Rosetta Stone moment.
Shirley Taylor, headteacher at Annette Street, knew she faced a unique set of challenges when she took the job six years ago. There are no children of white Scottish parents, although more than 10 per cent of pupils are Scottish-born with parents from outside the UK. Since she began here, though, she feels she has collected a unique collection of rewards. “We have 207 pupils in our school of whom 171 are from the Roma community. Of these 118 are Romanian Roma; 50 are Slovakian Roma and three are Czech Republic Roma. We also have 31 Scots of Pakistani origin; two Italians; one Pole and two Dutch Arabs.
“Children will always find a way to communicate with each other rather than retreat into tribalism. I’ve heard some of the Romanian children and their Slovakian friends creating new words that they can use to communicate with each other and which can transcend the language barrier.”
Eventually, of course, English will become their new common language and Taylor is looking forward to the day when a pupil from her earliest days at the school returns after graduating from university to translate for another batch of eastern European Roma children. “I know that day isn’t far off now,” she says.
I KNOW these streets well. I moved into my first flat in Langside Road, the street that runs parallel to Annette Street, in 1985 and remained south of the river for the next 30 years. Even then, Govanhill was a rich and mesmerising mix of multicultural diversity. As England, it seemed, collapsed into racial civil war almost every summer, these streets on Glasgow’s south side had become defined by the colours, smells and languages of several continents. Multiculturalism was being lived here between Allison Street and Calder Street long before an Islington focus group created banners out of it.
The three-storey sandstone tenement blocks had first given to succour to Irish and Jewish refugees before the Italians and the Pakistanis made it their home. I have friends in both of these communities who each
claim that they preceded the other. All of them trace their lineage not merely to countries but to streets and villages. Inevitably, the call would go out to relatives in the mother country: Glasgow is a good place to live; you can make a family here. Even though Thatcherism and its handmaiden deindustrialisation were laying waste to its working-class communities most Glaswegians never reviled the new arrivals; instead the majority saw them as a blessing.
In recent years, though, the fabric of this neighbourhood has begun to fray and in the minds of people who have never been there Govanhill has begun to occupy the same place as Gorbals. The stigmatisation of an entire neighbourhood is under way. Yet many who demonised this district have failed to acknowledge that a unique confluence of economic, cultural and geopolitical upheavals spanning continents have come together to assail these streets.
The 2004 expansion of the EU to include the A10 countries, which included seven former members of the Eastern Bloc, meant a city like Glasgow with its reputation for openness and warmth towards migrants was always going to be near the top of desired destinations. Among those taking advantage of free movement within the EU were many from the Roma community whose main population centres lay across eastern Europe. This sprawling travelling community are reckoned to be among the world’s most persecuted ethnic groupings, their presence providing the scarecrow right-wing in many countries with an easy scapegoat for other social ills.
The UK’s largest grouping has located in Govanhill, attracted by the large number of privately-let flats. Their presence in such numbers has presented challenges to the Govanhill community and public services, and is giving the city’s credentials for welcoming minorities a thorough examination. They have been regarded as easy pickings for rogue and slum landlords, whose predatory behaviour has seen up to 20 Roma people comprising two or three families being squeezed into a four-room flat. The pressures of overcrowding on this scale concentrated in just a handful of streets have placed an unbearable burden on services, such as schools and rubbish collection. Few are entitled to benefits and common landings and back courts were never designed to cope with up to five times the numbers of human beings they would normally be expected to house. The language barrier and an innate sense of inferiority ingrained in centuries of mistreatment and fear of officialdom prevents many accessing public services.
FRANCES Stojilkovic and Liz Crosbie help run Govanhill Community Campaign, one of several groups established to address what they see as deeprooted cultural and social problems. They are passionate people whose lives and the lives of their families are intertwined with the recent history of Govanhill. “We’ve seen what was once a desirable neighbourhood go into a steep decline,” says Crosbie. “Rat and bed-bug infestation, piles of debris on the street, including piles of dirty mattresses, have turned parts of Govanhill into ghettoes. We know of three rat-catchers operating in this neighbourhood.”
Stojilkovic, though, is keen to stress that this isn’t about blaming the Roma people or any other ethnic minorities. “Look, Govanhill has been known for its ethnic diversity for generations. We’re not blaming these poor Roma people. They are being preyed upon by slum landlords who are getting rich on getting rent money from as many people as they cram in.
“And we’re concerned about the children of the Roma community. In Scotland every child, no matter what their background, has a right to an education, but there are loads of children being denied that because the schools are full up.”
At no time during our 90-minute long conversation in the Blue Bird cafe, pride of Cathcart Road, do I detect an ounce of racism. Instead there is a very human concern for the welfare of a group of distressed people who have made their home here. At the same time their pride in a beloved old neighbourhood has taken a battering and they are looking to the Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council to prevent it being lost for good.
The MSP for the area, which belongs to the Scottish Parliament’s Glasgow
Southside constituency, is Nicola Sturgeon. Thus, the problems faced by Govanhill have allowed a motley assortment of individuals with differing agendas to use them as a means of berating the First Minister.
Some websites belonging to genuinely concerned groups have been contaminated by openly racist remarks, which has led to the local Chief Inspector Graham McInarlin to warn people about the “need to be very careful about the language they are using”. The Roma, being outsiders who have always lived on the margins of society, are accustomed to being blamed for crimewaves in every country they have called home and being persecuted throughout generations.
Iliya Shterev, chair of Roma Society Scotland, agrees. “Roma are very familyoriented people. They tend to stick together for familiarity and safety. It is a very challenging experience to go abroad and settle among people you know nothing about, especially when you can hardly speak their language. As a member of a Roma family from abroad comes to live and settle here, the rest of their respective family members, relatives and friends are joining an existing network of Roma over here in search of a better life.
“Lack of suitable housing is a pressing issue for us. There are cases of overcrowding and there have been reports of conditions below normal living standards. Issues with rubbish and infestation are not far behind and the Roma are not always the cause of it. There are also issues surrounding a lack of education. These make access to services and employment close to impossible and make it difficult to integrate into society.
“Although there are many challenges facing the Roma community I am optimistic. There are some organisations rising to the challenge of helping the Roma contribute to Scottish society for the benefit of ourselves and the wider community.”
IN THE second-floor flat of a tenement building at the top end of Langside Road, near Queen’s Park, Nida Saleemi is already experiencing how education transforms lives. Seven years after arriving from Pakistan with her family, Saleemi will next year embark on a medical degree at Glasgow University, having secured an unconditional offer and a scholarship after attending Holyrood Secondary. She considers herself Scottish and loves Govanhill. “I want to become a gynaecologist and to work my whole life in Scotland: to give something back for what I’ve received,” she says. “I know there are some problems in Govanhill but I’ve never encountered any racial issues. I love the diversity in this community and I think it’s good to celebrate that.”
Local SNP councillor Mhairi Hunter believes the challenges facing her community require the cooperation of local and national government and says both are beginning to work together to address the Govanhill challenges. “The last thing the people of Govanhill want to do is to drive out migrants,” she says. “This area voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU; we know about the historic and cultural prejudices suffered by the Roma people in their own lands. We want them to receive better treatment here.
Rat and bed-bug infestation and piles of debris on the street have turned parts of Govanhill into ghettoes
“The biggest challenge we have is that they don’t have the same sense of entitlement we have. In their own countries of origin they are treated as second-class and third-class citizens. Accordingly, they are suspicious of authority. But both the Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council are beginning to get results, even though I fully concede that we ought to have started doing this a couple of years ago.”
Last week saw the first attempts to smash the hold of predatory landlords beginning to bear fruit. Six Govanhill landlords were barred from the landlord register after being found unfit to rent out property. They now face criminal prosecution and fines of up to £50,000 if they attempt to let their property.
Five of these landlords own property within the Govanhill Enhanced Enforcement Area, which has allowed council officers to impose higher standards of regulation on landlords operating within the area. In all five cases, the landlords failed to provide a range of certification that includes an enhanced criminal record check, buildings insurances, energy performance, gas safety and confirmation that tenants received tenant information packs. There were also concerns relating to the condition of the properties. The sixth landlord was barred from the register following his conviction for assault with intent to rape.
Last year a joint Glasgow and Holyrood initiative saw new grant funding of £4.3m over three years to implement an acquisition and repair programme in Govanhill where the local housing association will take ownership of properties acquired to let for a social rent. IN ANNETTE Street primary a group of children are shouting and clapping as each of them stands up to receive an attainment certificate. The little ceremony is taking place in what must be the happiest classroom in Scotland. A week after St Andrew’s Day, saltires cover one of the walls. On the facing wall 20 or so wee black and brown faces are grinning away surrounded by tapestries and friezes and montages influenced by places and people well beyond Govanhill.
Shirley Taylor talks again of the challenges of teaching children who can’t speak English but speaks more about the rewards. “I cannot begin to describe the joy of a little boy coming up to you after a few months and suddenly holding a conversation with you in English.”
For a few moments the clouds that have settled on this neighbourhood clear and I find myself caught up in the optimism that fills this school. And I imagine that these children might just hold the key to the healing of Govanhill. Many of those who enrol at Annette Street in P6 or P7 have never attended school before. “I love watching their parents beaming with pride at the realisation that their children are finally getting a good education,” says Taylor. “We reach out to the parents by inviting them to do school projects with their children and, for the first time, we have proper Romanian and Slovakian representation on our parents’ council.”
Perhaps for the first time in many, many generations these people have discovered a place that will treat them as equals; a city which will invite them to share in its assets and in its future. And perhaps their children will begin to educate their parents and help them take their places and make a contribution to our city and theirs. Perhaps too we can extend a little more slack to this victimised and benighted people and give their children some more sunlight.