Racism in Scotland

All is not well in bonny Scotland:

TWO years of anti-racism campaigning by the Scottish Executive have failed to make any impact on disturbingly high levels of prejudice.

Research commissioned by the Scottish Executive into the effectiveness of its £1m anti-discrimination drive has revealed that racism is just as much of a problem now as in 2001, before the scheme got off the ground.

One Scot in 10 believes there is nothing racist about attacking people from another cultural or ethnic background, and almost half think that words such as ‘Chinky’ and ‘Paki’ are acceptable.

The study shows that a significant number of Scots believe asylum seekers actually deserve verbal abuse and that almost 40% of Scots believe there is a real danger of race riots "occurring soon" in parts of Scotland.

Race equality campaigners said they found the figures "chilling" and claimed the anti-racism message had been drowned out by ministers’ warnings over the possibility of Islamic terrorism.

The concerns come amid warnings of a backlash from the Asian community in the wake of the trial and conviction of Dr Raj Jandoo, Scotland’s first Asian advocate and a temporary sheriff.

Jandoo was fined £2,500 after being found guilty of endangering an aircraft and of making bomb references during a journey from Edinburgh to Stornoway last March. Leading Scottish Asians have claimed he was unjustly treated.

The report, which was prepared for the Executive by System Three last year to analyse the impact of anti-racist campaigns, questioned 1,022 adults across Scotland.

It compared attitudes in 2004 with a study in 2002, shortly after the campaign had started, and with an earlier study in 2001, before the campaign had even been devised.

It found that although the campaign had initially changed attitudes for the better, it was losing its effect and that attitudes were no different than they had been prior to the advertising blitz.

Its disturbing findings include the fact that 43% of Scots do not think terms ‘Paki’ and ‘Chinky’ are racist and 9% do not believe it is racist to attack a person from an ethnic minority. These figures have not changed since 2001.

In addition, 28% thought it was not racist to speak negatively about people from other ethnic or cultural backgrounds as long as they were speaking in private to friends or family, and 13% believed there was nothing racist about being impolite or offensive toward people from other backgrounds. Again there had been no change since three years previously.

More than half of Scots (51%) admitted they would be worried if more people from other ethnic or cultural backgrounds came to live in Scotland. That compared with 52% who felt the same way in 2001.

A quarter of people (25%) believed that verbally abusing asylum seekers was justified, compared with 26% three years previously.

And 38% of Scots believe there is a real danger of race riots in Scotland.

This is why Scotland should encourage unionists from the north of Ireland to move to Scotland to help alleviate the problems created by Scotland's population decline. Since most unionists have Scottish ancestors this means that they will be more easily accepted in Scotland than immigrants from Asia and other parts of the world.