Blog

Our latest blog is personal view by Marian Pallister (author & vice chair of Justice and Peace Scotland) as a recent event led her to reflect on our need for justice.

I’m not quite sure how is happened, but suddenly the talk and workshop I was presenting at Lismore’s Taproot Festival morphed into an intense Justice and Peace meeting. It was a privilege to experience depth of feeling that filled the room in the island’s heritage centre - heart of a literary and music celebration. People really do care about this world’s injustices.

The essence of my talk was the importance of giving a voice to the voiceless. Today we have the means to capture the lives of what I call ‘real’ people, and I’ve spent a lifetime attempting to do that – the witness of women in Croatia who saw their husbands and sons slaughtered before their eyes; the matrons in Romania blamed and belittled for the pitiful state of the country’s orphans, while the real responsibility lay with a dictator who denied the orphanages funding; the dead-eyed girls violated in Bosnia’s rape camps; the dying in Africa denied the drugs that kept alive HIV patients in the developed world.

More recently, I’ve written social histories, and the more research I do into the past, the more I understand the importance of those ‘real’ witnesses to the world’s events. But when there are no voices, there is no real memory of the work conditions, the hardships, the attitudes and prejudices. And then there can be no evidence on which to base change to achieve justice.

At the Lismore event, I had told the story of a four, or perhaps five times great grandfather of mine who drowned in a mining accident after a sudden flood in one of the coal seams. A newspaper report from the early 1800s gave the basic details , but what did his wife think when they brought home his belongings? Did they tell her that when they recovered the body a couple of weeks after the incident, the body was so rotted by the water that his feet came away in his shoes? Shoes – not boots. No steel toecaps.

I also read out the witness statements of men who gave evidence of a fatal accident at a lead mine in Strontian. This evidence moves me to tears, even though I have worked with it for several months as I got together my next book, which is a history of mining in Argyll. It moved others, too. The voice of a miner speaking across more that 160 years, telling us that the foreman laughed when he suggested he moved the rock that caused the fatality. That the danger of this unstable rock had been mentioned time and again. That the team was told to go ahead and blast a tunnel right in the path of the rock. The words of the dying man as he lay beneath the stone.

Health and safety gone mad? That phrase makes my blood boil – and clearly this rare voice of a man involved in such a situation (most of our history is told by those in charge, those who could write letters and reports and tell their own version of a situation to keep their own hands clean) sparked the passion for justice within the audience.

The Piper Alpha disaster, the Thalidomide tragedy, the injustices stirred by vocabulary that lead to crimes of hate against refugees and migrants – these and more came tumbling out. The Gaelic poet and academic Donald Meek sat to my right, the poet and novelist Norman Bissell was across the room, but it was the rest of the folk, the ‘real’ folk, whose voices rang out seeking justice in poetry and prose. 

Every injustice deserves to be voiced and to be heard. And the truth of the injustices can only really be told by those who experience them. It’s our job to listen – and put our faith into action to sort the situation.

This week's blog is written by Thomas Catterson, a volunteer at the Glasgow Night Shelter for destitute asylum seekers and refugees.  A very thought provoking read in which Tommy gives his personal insight into the daily struggles of those seeking sanctuary in our country.

Turning the corner from St Vincent street I see ahead of me the church where the Glasgow Night Shelter is based. It opens every evening, all year round, awaiting the resident asylum seekers. The weather today has been bright and breezy with a few heavy showers.The night shelter opens at 8pm and this evening there are a few asylum seekers standing outside smoking.

I arrive slightly later as I have been at a rendezvous point waiting on a named refugee who has been placed in the shelter from the Red Cross. The location of the Shelter is not allowed to be publicised and so asylum seeker referrals from other agencies have to be met at a pick up point in this case the Mitchell Library.

The people who are looked after at the Night Shelter are refused asylum seekers who are not eligible for support and are homeless, non-EU migrants who because of their immigration status cannot access normal homeless services. Other non-residents with temporary accommodation also arrive at meal time to share in the hot dinner and to check if any mail has arrived so it is very crowded at this time.

This group of people face multiple difficulties; often unable to speak English; without any family or friends who can help them; unable to do paid work; with an insecure immigration status; not knowing their rights and often scared to draw attention to their plight for fear of coming to the attention of the authorities, they are blocked from accessing any support that is funded by public money. Many no longer report to the Home Office because they are afraid of being detained and deported away from their family in the UK so they are wandering around Glasgow and other cities without any contact with the authorities.

On entering the community area of the church I see that two of the volunteers are making a hot meal for the residents in the kitchen and walking down a long dimly lit corridor I arrive at the tv room where there are six people sitting and moving about the room checking mail and eating donated food which has been placed on a trestle table. This room is very cramped with filing cabinets, donated male clothes stacked under the table, a couch, plates and cutlery stacked on shelves and a long fold up table on which the hot pots/trays of this evening's food are placed. Because of the shortage of space most of the asylum seekers eat standing up as there is no room for extra chairs. 

Many of the refused asylum seekers are so tired that they come in from the street and go straight to the hall and bed down for the night.  There are no shower facilities in this building only toilets. They sleep on the games hall floor on mattresses with no privacy and most sleep in the clothes they are wearing, probably rain wet and needing washed. They are mentally and physically exhausted by the extremely difficult circumstances of trying to exist on a day to day basis with no money and walking around Glasgow from 8am-8pm.

At 11pm lights are out in the sleeping area and the front door is locked. During the night some walk about unable to get to get to sleep and many have their sleep broken by people snoring or calling out in their disturbed sleep coupled with the  banging of the hall door as they exit and enter. Ear plugs are supplied.

Morning comes and all residents have be out of the church by 8am.

You can find out more about the work of the Glasgow Night Shelter at:

The Night Shelter web site  https://glasgownightshelter.org/

or http://www.scottishrefugeecouncil.org.uk/support_us

Brian Quail has spent his adult life demonstrating against nuclear weapons and war.  As we approach 20th September and the ratification of the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty, Brian writes our latest blog and gives his personal views on the how Scotland should move forward to becoming nuclear free.