A weekly editor has hit back at “narrow-minded bigotry” over plans to re-home Syrian refugees on his paper’s patch.
The Scottish island of Bute is to become home to 15 Syrian asylum-seeker families due to arrive over the next few weeks.
But the move has led to what Buteman editor Craig Borland, left, termed “predictable grumbling” among some local people.
In an editorial in this week’s edition, Craig tackled the issue head-on, claiming the resettlement plan represented an “amazing opportunity” for the island.
Wrote Craig: “Bute is a hugely welcoming place, but, through no fault of its own, it’s not very multicultural. Few on Bute know much of the Middle East, fewer still of Syria itself.
“There have, predictably but depressingly, been grumbles about how we should look after our own first, how we should be spending our taxes and so on. But mostly these are just not-very-thinly-veiled ways of people saying “I don’t want them in my back yard”.
“Well, I do. I want Bute to be a place where people who come here with little more than the clothes they are standing in can feel safe and at home.
“I want Bute to be a place known not for narrow-minded bigotry, but for its warmth, and humanity, and willingness to help people with nothing in whatever way it can.”
His comments follow a talk by Dima al Mekdad at Rothesay Library last week which Craig described as “one of the most powerful things I’ve heard in my time on Bute.”
Dima, who was a student in the UK when the Syrian revolution erupted in 2011, tried unsuccessfully to return to the war-torn country in 2012 but eventually claimed asylum in Britain.
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Does it really help to bandy around terms like ‘narrow-minded bigotry’ to shut down debate with people who oppose migration from the MENA countries? It really is not so smart to think that one’s personal convictions about what is right trumps collective consent, though this is prevalent among editors of the national as well as local media at the moment. If I lived on Bute and had been told what to think by an incomer like Craig then I fear I would turn to some choice language of my own.
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For God’s sake, don’t teach them the bagpipes!
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David: “collective consent” is such a fancy phrase for mob rule that it almost sounds convincing. It has always been the job of such people as newspaper editors, churchmen, politicians etc, – leaders, in fact – to convince the masses otherwise. Without such people, we would still be burning witches. Incidentally, how do you know that Craig is an incomer? Doesn’t say either way in the story!
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Well said Craig.
Regional papers have an important role to play in educating people about tolerance.
Too many local and national papers fail to be balanced enough to make readers see both sides of an argument.
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I’m afraid Craig too easily buys into the present myth that multiculturalism is automatically a ‘good thing’ while dissenting voices are automatically ‘a bad thing’. No-one knows how this placement will turn out long-term for Bute. That’s the only fact of the matter. However,
taking against local residents who object to having refugees foisted on them, and calling them bigots, seems outrageous.
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And has anybody asked the refugees what they think of going to Bute?
At least if any are ISIS, they shouldn’t get up to much trouble.
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The word ‘bigot’, like ‘racist’, is now used to shut down debate on issues of legitimate concern.
Immigration in all its forms – refugees, economic migrants, asylum seekers etc – is now THE major issue as far as so-called ‘ordinary’ people are concerned.
Cultural differences can have a huge impact on small communities. In fact, whole ways of life can be seriously undermined by alien infiltration. It’s no use dismissing people’s worries with inflammatory epithets.
Even big cities like Leicester and Bradford can be changed beyond recognition within the space of a single generation. The people of Bute have a right to feel dismay, and an editor’s duty is to allow serious debate without calling names.
Regional editors should leave pseudo-liberal hand-wringing to the bleeding hearts on The Guardian and The Independent. Perhaps the bulk of refugees should be directed towards Islington, Notting Hill, Highgate and Hampstead.
By the way, have Yvette Cooper, Benedict Cumberbatch and Bob Geldof taken in their quota of Syrian lodgers yet? Thought not.
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Well done that man. Top work. An editor with balls.
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David, Wales. If Craig is an ‘incomer’, as you label him, he’s been there a heck of a long time for one. I filled in for him as editor of the Buteman almost EIGHT years ago while he was on his Honeymoon, and he was already a long-term fixture at the title back then. This is not someone who has blown in from the middle of nowhere and is foisting his views on an unreceptive public, but someone who everyone on the island has known for years. Judging by some of the other comments on here, I get the distinct impression that a fair few of the folk are commenting having never set foot on Bute in their lives. The people of Bute are among the most welcoming I have ever met – everyone on the island seemed to know me within two days of landing to fill in for Craig. I strongly suspect his comments are not out of step with the vast majority of local opinion.
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Well said, Brassington. And, might I add, places like the Cotswolds, Lake District, St Ives (Cornwall), Lyme Regis, etc. No? Thought not!
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Isn’t calling someone a bigot being bigoted?
His intolerance of intolerance seems rather intolerant.
And so it goes on, and on, and on…
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And guess what, Flossie? Of course the refugees going to Bute won’t be ISIS. Why would an ISIS member want to live somewhere like Bute, where he can’t do any damage? In fact, in view of what Cameron said months ago, chances are they’ll be Christian. This is precisely why the objectors can be legitimately described as racist bigots – tarring thousands of distressed refugees with a brush that labels them terrorists etc, just to disguise racist nimbyism.
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Has GladImOutofIt swallowed an entire edition of the Socialist Worker? The biggest Fascists are those who seek to shut down debate!
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I also found that comment a bit flippant to be honest.
Is that not best left to the Numpties?
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Steering clear of the depressingly predictable slanging match just for one moment, but isn’t it all a question of scale? According to Wikipedia this island has a population of nearly 6,500 so I can’t see two or three dozen Syrian refugees being capable of making a devastating, cultural-revolution style impact, even if they were that way inclined. A few HUNDRED Syrian refugees would be a different matter.
Of course, the HTFP article only makes mention of “15 Syrian families”, so from that detail alone it’s very hard to establish exactly how many people we’re talking about.
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Flippant? Oh no, I was deadly serious.
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Alienating a significant chunk of your readership by branding them bigots may be right morally and totally PC – but it’s also plain stupid.
You have to try and guide people down the right path, not browbeat them like some bible-bashing zealot.
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The real test of who is the bigot may come from questioning the refugees themselves.
No doubt we will hear of the suffering, etc, when the local papers catch up with them, but what about asking them about how they find modern Britain.
What do they think of living in a country where women have equality and typically must go out to work?
What are their views on gays and gay marriage?
How will they react to seeing hot young lesbians kissing during during Coronation Street?
Or two fit young lads getting friendly in the hay bales during Emmerdale?
Now, that could be illuminating!
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@ Flossie the Sheep
If you’re so hot and bothered about it you could always go and put those questions to the Syrians yourself, face-to-face. But we all know you won’t…
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For what it is worth: Come to the conclusion after 50 years in journalism that whatever happens people will always grumble – even if the “solution” is right. At the risk of sounding cynical, which I am, that the “grumbles” are often the mainstay of a story. I have lost count of the many times I have had a “good news” story only for the editor/news editor (or even myself talking to myself) to get a “protest” view. Let’s get real.
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I’m not getting drawn into the moral/ethical arguments, but from a practical point of view, what are the refugees going to do on Bute when they get there? Without having been to the place, there seems little going on unless it’s connected to farming or tourism. And I can’t imagine a place more different from Syria unless you shoved everyone up to the Arctic circle. It’s going to be one hell of a culture shock and I can’t imagine it will be easy for the refugees to assimilate into the local community. In fact, as someone from England, I’d find it difficult. People on Bute are going to have to be very understanding and very patient although from what Mr Borland is saying, I’m concerned that may not happen.
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If I, as a refugee, were to be dumped in Bute, I feel I should summon all available resources to get me out of there and out of Scotland generally. What could be worse than coming half way round the world to start a new life and find yourself among the likes of Craig Borland, Nicola (Krankie) Sturgeon Shrek Salmond, (the late) Charles Kennedy and a host of Wee Frees? Any right-thinking Muslim would be looking forward instead to a date with Jihadi John.
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