Demonising the poor won't solve the asylum issue

Philip Schlesinger believes the media must focus on the inconsistencies of the political handling of refugees

THE Sighthill area of Glasgow has become synonymous with Scotland's crisis over asylum-seekers. Over the past month, the violent treatment of refugees in the city, mainly by groups of white youths, has steadily gone up the news agenda. Seventy attacks have been reported to police since the start of the year.

The overall electoral climate is not auspicious. Last week, Labour and the Conservatives outbid each other in proposing restrictive measures. The dominant UK political discourse is both xenophobic and ungenerous. Scotland as a nation has to go against this grain.

It was the Saada case, in which two Palestinian brothers ended up in intensive care after an attack, that gave the asylum story prominence here at the start of May. This was reinforced on 15 May, when Glasgow's Lord Provost Alex Mosson called together a task force after yet another serious assault on a refugee. Most news reporting has centred on incidents in Sighthill where the largest single group of refugees is concentrated. An undoubted effect has been to demonise the locals as Scotland's racists.

The Evening Times gave prominence to Mosson's convening of a summit of police, social workers and refugee counsellors. The paper took a strong editorial line against the "thugs". The Herald, in a leader on May 2, had earlier argued that there was "no room for complacency. But neither is Scotland a racist country". But there was little real analysis of its bailiwick when others were making the running. The paper only ran two long stories after officialdom had taken its new line. The Scotsman, from its Glasgow base, and with competition in mind, has given more consistent attention of late, including a moving story about widower Ghazi Hussein, a virtual prisoner at home with his children. Later interviewed on holiday in Scotland, he had been offered hospitality by a Scot.

Asylum has also crept up the broadcasting agenda, especially after Mosson's action and enhanced policing in Sighthill. Radio Scotland has aired refugee organisations' criticisms of police and council effectiveness, as well as enabling Sighthill residents to speak at length on the Lesley Riddoch Show on May 24.

Most news stories have been about men with broken bones, or worse, in hospital after racist attacks, or about women and children virtually imprisoned in tower blocks by intimidation, which has caused some to flee Glasgow. To date media attention has focused on the human interest dimension. After well over a year it's surely time for some basic policy questions to be addressed once more.

Why have refugees been brought to one of Glasgow's most deprived areas? Why has the exercise been under-resourced, and why did Glasgow City Council not prepare residents for the influx? Why have there been delays in allocating interpreters? Why do refugees need vouchers to shop? Only in passing are we told (by The Scotsman) that Glasgow Council's leader, Charles Gordon, has doubts about the government's refugee "dispersal" programme, driven by political pressure in south- east England. The human interest story can evoke compassion. But it is centred on victims and largely ignores how current immigration policy has given ideological backing for hostility to asylum- seekers. It also fails to explore the contradiction between fortress Britain and ministers' dawning recognition that more skilled immigration is needed.

Media compassion for refugees seems fashionably abundant just now, but demonising the poor, only some of whom are actually racists, lets off the hook those responsible for bad policies both in Whitehall and the City Chambers.

Professor Philip Schlesinger is co- author of Open Scotland? (Polygon) and director of Stirling Media Research Institute

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