Academics reject ‘misleading fantasy’ that Scotland is less racist than rest of the UK
0 One of the book’s authors, lecturer Neil Davidson The belief that Scotland is “culturally different” and more welcoming than the rest of the UK to immigrants has been rejected as a “misleading fantasy” in a new book on racism to be launched at Holyrood today.
The authors of No Problem Here: Understanding Racism in Scotland claim Scotland has a higher rate of race-related murders per person than the rest of the UK.
But they say Scotland’s vote to remain in the EU in the 2016 referendum has given the “myth” that the country is not racist a “new lease of life”.
Glasgow University lecturer Neil Davidson, one of the authors, said: “Whatever our views on Scottish independence, a better Scotland will only be built by confronting the evil of racism rather than pretending it does not exist.”
The book, which will be launched at Holyrood’s Cross Party Group on Tackling Islamophobia today, states that in Scotland between 2000 and 2013 there were 1.8 racerelated murders per million people, compared to 1.3 per million in the rest of the UK.
It also argues that racism towards those with Irish backgrounds is not treated as seriously as it should be, because it is classed as sectarianism.
Mr Davidson said: “The idea that there is ‘no problem’, or at least much less of a problem, has grown for three reasons.
“One is that the Irish-catholic presence – the largest ever migrant group to settle in Scotland – tends to be discussed in the context of ‘sectarianism’, a concept which treats Catholics and Protestants as equivalent and ignore the racism directed towards the former.”
He added: “The second is the relatively small size of the migration to Scotland from the Indian sub-continent and especially from the Caribbean – which did not mean that migrants did not suffer racism, just that it was much less visible than in Birmingham or London.
“Finally, the movements for devolution and independence have involved the idea that Scotland is ‘culturally’ different from England, and that part of this difference involves the Scots being more ‘welcoming’, ‘tolerant’ and so on.”