Over 100 people slept ‘rough’ on the streets of Glasgow in protest at the Westminster government’s brutal policy of forcing people into hunger and destitution in an attempt to force them to return to unsafe countries. This protest is Positive Action in housing’s contribution to the Still Human Still Here campaign to end destitution of refused asylum seekers, and ultimately bring change to legislation. Here, Robina qureshi, gives her recollection of the night.
When we first arrived at George Square to set up, i have to admit i got a bit nervous, thinking what’s the night ahead gonna be like, is it gonna be safe? But it was okay the more people began to arrive. Safety in numbers and to be honest there was no real trouble and the best defence was knowing how to handle people that got a bit verbally aggressive or troublesome. The stewards jackets provided by Unity and Raemond Bradford were a life saver and any potential tropuble soon backed off. So if your organising a sleepout in your city, remember stewards jackets are almost like police mens uniforms!!
Some of Glasgow’s indigenous scots and destitute asylum seekers also slept out with the protesters. This was actually great because there was a lot of conversation and sharing of experiences. One homeless scot, James, told me “there’s no houses for the people already here and its cos of ‘youse’ bein’ in our country”. “Naw”, i told him right back “if ‘youse’ sent ‘us’ back, you’d still be homeless - so don’t blame ‘us’ - blame the government”. J ames nodded aye and then we broke bread - i mean, sandwiches. Jamie O’Neill spotted destitute asylum-seeker Ibrahim from Kurdistan who sat a distance away from our base at first. Ibrahim had nowhere to stay that night and asked if he could spend the night with us. Towards the end of the night he ended up wearing a steward’s jacket and bewing at the heart of things. Jelina Rahman made marshmallows to sell as a contribution to the hardship fund and raised over £70 in addition to her sponsorship money. There was a good mix of asylum seekers, homeless sacots, campiagners, ordinary members of the public, faith leaders, politicians, journalists, actors, writers and musicians, nuns, tree huggers and even a fransiscan friar from Hawaii! Charity chief exec cath morrison came through from stirling to represent the Lilias Graham Trust which helps porr families requiring respite. SNP MSPs Bashir Ahmad, Sandra White, Bob Doris and willie Coffie also turned out to support the campaign and that was well appreciated.It was great cos there was so many people who were there cos they cared about the issue, many of whom didn’t know each other, and many of whom i had only ever ‘know’ via email.
The atmosphere was further buoyed by First Minister Alex Salmond’s statement in the Scottish Parliament earlier in the day that he wanted an end to dawn raids in Scotland. The previous Executive unfortunately paid lip service to the whole barbaric policy of dawn raids on asylum families and their children who live in permanent fear of being dragged from their homes, schools and community by heavy-handed snatch squads. Nothing changed and the Home Office or Borders immigration Authority as its now called is doubling the number of removals and carrying on regardless removing families on a ‘case by case’ basis without accountability or transparency. So we thank the First Minister for standing up for Scotland and the most vulnerable in our society.
When the speeches first began, the rain began dripping and then it started bucketing down - worst fear, was this going to go on all night?? So we all retreated to the marquee, people could barely be heard, we were all crammed in but it was a great atmosphere. As the speeches wore on, the rain subsided, the kettle was put on, and we shared drink and food, some of which was donated by the manager of a sandwich place with a french sounding name on condition that “you can’t say you got it from us!” Harvey brought a ton of food to share as well and some amazing fruit, including pink grapefruit and melon - thanks harvey!
Initially some of us were wondering whether we should really be sheltering from the rain when its a ’sleepout’ , but the action was symbolic and not lost on a single one of us. We all in our own way experienced a tiny, tiny bit of what it is to have no choice but to sleep on the streets. We are there in solidarity that was for sure and we all learnt a bit more about what refused asylum seekers are going through, being forced into homelessness in an attempt to drive them out of the UK back to unsafe countries. The rest of the evening was filled with talking about each others involvement with the whole asylum issue, talking to asylum seekers who were there and campaigners who are working at the sharp end in lobbying MP’s and MSP’s and helping with legal cases.
I met with actor Davy McKay during the evening, who earlier had texted me a quote asto why he was attending, ‘to be or not to be thats the question’ - i changed it to ‘to be there or not to be there, etc etc’. You didn’t did you? I did! i protested. Our chair, iain whyte was on top form and chatted the night away with his old pal Bob Holman. Tom Sheilds the Herald columnist turned out too. i like Tom, he’s dead supportive has great ideas, but i never know waht to say to him. A man of few words but it was great he turned up . The glasgow Girls turned up too and stayed the night. Aneela turned up too with her other half Andy, who i didn’t recognise atall cos of his cool hairstyle, he kept smiling at me but i was clueless, i told him jokingly he looked like a male model who was on big brother but had the second person to be evicted he took it well! Things settled down eventually with some people sleeping under the stars of george square and others in the tent. Others still sat on benches and around monuments listening to music. I went back to my place for a bit to pick up a toaster and some bread, butter and marmalade. I came back and Mannie from Kingsway and tim, who used to work for the CAB joined in making tea and hot toast for everyone as sunrise came at 4.31 am. A few words of thanks were said by Iain and we all went our separate ways.
Brodie, who i met for the first itme earlier in the evening, has given his account of the night, on his blog - so feel free to read it.
Jamie ll post some pictures soon, in the meantime im off to bed.
Please feel free to recount your experience of last night by adding your comment. we’d love to know.
13 responses so far ↓
Pat Bryden // June 22, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Well done, PAIH and others in Glasgow (’smiles better!)
We are soon to start our Edinburgh Sleepout, and the sun is now shining after a dismal earlier day. We have had a huge banner outside St Johns Church overlooking Princes St, where a lot of buses pass and tourists as well as the rest.
It says, Yes to Asylum, No to Destitution.
Have got in food and other supplies. Will be doing a playreading from Ariel Dorfman on
human rights and the need to resist abuses.
Have an exhibition (with some PAIH posters) in the Peace and Justice Centre below.
Don’t know how many will come, though. Not expecting more than about 20 so far.
Thanks for the great comments….
in solidarity,
Pat Bryden
St Marks Amnesty group Edinburgh and Peace and Justice Resource Centre
Stuart Blythe // June 22, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Robina
The toast and marmalade was a brilliant touch. Protest needs a bit of celebration. Glad to be there although I did not get there till about 12.00 some of the ongoing patter and ‘poetry’ was brilliant.
souad // June 22, 2007 at 3:56 pm
i really wish i could come and be with you, but when you have kids it is very difficult, believe me i was thinking about you.
Thank you very much Robina for organising this . We are not destituted , but we can not sleep properly cos we are waiting for any knock on the door, would you believe me if i tell you that since i came to this country i didnot have a proper sleep, we are traumatised, hopeless, sad,depressed and lost.
Souad, asylum seeker .
Harvie // June 22, 2007 at 6:11 pm
It was a great evening amongst wonderfull people. High points included Glaswegian street philosophy and steak al fresco. mmmmm tasty. I was appalled to learn of the plight of failed asylum seekers. If you ask me, they have’nt FAILED we’ve FAILED as a society to protect vulnerable familys from being mistreated by our FLAWED government. Disgusting.
marie // June 23, 2007 at 9:26 am
Dearest protesters - just a wee note from one of MANY i know who were with you in spirit that evening and night. i was meant to attend but work & stuff got the best and, eventually, the worst of me and i succumbed when i was meant to be in the square shouting wi my feet and munching marshmellows. read all the msp comments - including the Missing ones - and now this. well done and well fucking done! what more is there to say apart from whether i regret not being there or don’t regret not being there - that’s not even a question… danish emigre.
Michael Woods // June 23, 2007 at 11:07 am
One really cool aspect of being at such a gathering is to be able to put faces to what are otherwise just names. There was a pervasive sense of something worthwhile going on there and those I spoke with felt that quite strongly.
Assessment of the quality of intent of a gathering of people is one of the great tests we apply, usually subconsciously, to know whether or not we should be in that place.
I felt I very much should.
Well done you and thank you for making our aspirations more touchable.
Fiachra // June 23, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Fully enjoyable night. Plenty of characters from many backgrounds coming together to campaign for the same issue, thats what its all about, thats how we begin to change things. Met loads of really good people that it’ll be great to work with in the future. Some good discussions & ideas floating around also. In regards to your chat with James, Robina, the best way for us to tackle that racist mindset of believing that asylum seekers are to blame for homelessness here, is to be prepared to reach out to people on the ground and debate with them and get them thinking about what the real root causes are …that being the policies of the government! Yourselves in the PIHA (Cammy, Jamie, Shona, Omer et al) may have surpassed even your own expectations of what was achieved that night, by showing a little generosity mixed witha little debate, we were all able to slowly change some peoples mindsets and hopefully with similar events in the near future we can build on that. There’s more than enough space in Glasgow to house both the immigrants AND the indigenous. The problem is that the government would rather let buildings run into dis-repair, then sell the land to private contractors. They will in turn bulldoze over the buildings to make room for upmarket flats that most local people can never afford, never mind the homeless!!! The government needs a scapegoat, asylum seekers are their scapegoat. So lets get out there, campaign, and awaken people to the realities of our situation. Change is in our hands if we choose it to be. The sleep-out showed again what a few determined people can pull off when they put their minds to it & work together in a positive way.
A quick hello to all the great and crazy characters I met also. Brilliant to see everyone working together with no bickering or anything. Look forward to seeing ye’s all again very soon
Fiachra Fullerton
Solidarity/SPSC
Fiachra Fullerton // June 23, 2007 at 3:07 pm
A fully enjoyable night. Plenty of characters, from many different backgrounds coming together to campaign for the same issue, thats what its all about. Got to meet some really good people that it’ll be great to work with again. Lots of good ideas & discussions floating around. In regards to your chat with James, Robina, its by speaking to people like this on the ground that we change the racist mindset of believing that asylum seekers are to blame for homelessness. Yourselves in the PAIH (Cammy, Jamie, Shona, Omer et al) might have surpassed even your own expectations of what would be achieved on Thursday night. It was more than just a symbolic protest, it has also shown once again that a little generosity & compassion, mixed with a little debate can slowly change how people see things. There’s more than enough housing for the immigrants AND the indigenous. We need to get people thinking about what the root causes of homelessness are …that being the policies of the government! They are more than happy to let buildings lie empty until they run into a state of dis-repair so that they can sell these ‘useless’ buildings to private contractors who in turn bulldoze over them and build upmarket flats that local working-class people can barely afford, never mind the homeless!!! The government needs a scapegoat, the asylum seekers are their scapegoat. Its through actions like the sleep-out that we change people on the streets mindsets and slowly awaken people to the realities of our situation. Thursday night showed what can be done when some determined people put their minds to it. Change is in our hands if we so want it to be. We saw so many different people & groups working together without even a hint of bickering. I have to applaud everyone who made it happen. Will be great to see it all happen again in hopefully the not-too-distant future. Keep the flame lit & lets keep on building on the progress.
Oh and a quick hello to all the crazy & sane characters I met …the american dude me n harv got chattin to, the Glasgow Girls, Manny, the PAIH team, Gareth & Cas from the camcorder Guerillas, Tariq, Becky the photographer, Sandra, and anyone else that I’ve not been able to fit in!!
Fiachra
Solidarity/SPSC
Quickmail: 27th June 2007 « Latest News from Positive Action in Housing // June 27, 2007 at 1:14 pm
[...] turned up. You can read a few accounts of what the sleep out was like by clicking these links; Robina’s Account and Brodie’s Account! I have also stuck up some photos from the event, see them here! Thanks [...]
shokat // June 30, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Hi Robina
well done, for the good effort on the asylum issue, I see your name as an active person everywher in this matter, well I did’nt know anything about sleeping out on that night.
I would attend it, despite having a 4 months old baba . I am an iranian asylum seeker with unlimited fear in this country, I would like to be in touch with you cos I beleive you can help me more than my solicitor who is never optimistic and hopeful. I’ll be glad if I hear from you in my e-mail. thanks again
jo sullivan // July 9, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Up the Scots! Well done on your night. Sounded a real boost.
We at the Cardiff Sleep Out salute you….
Nicola Copeland // August 3, 2007 at 9:04 am
Congratulations to everyone who went the distance on the night - the event totally highlighted the impact of sleeping out in horrible conditions. I would definitely do it again for the cause. My dog Barkley became a celebrity with people calling him “Protest Puppy” and “Demo Dog”!! He’ll certainly be joining me in the future! Well done all!
Glasgow Summer Sleepout 2008 « Latest News from Positive Action in Housing // June 10, 2008 at 3:58 pm
[...] Over 100 sleepout in Glasgow [...]
Leave a Comment