SUB-STANDARD BEHAVIOUR – BUNTING STIRS RACISM ON LEITH WALK

Submitted by Editor on Wed, 14/08/2013 - 16:06

Community activist Keith Hales put up some St George's Cross bunting outside his business on Leith Walk this morning.

The gesture was ahead of Leith Business Association's Leith Flag Festival which starts tomorrow, celebrating the diverse cultural origins of the area's inhabitants.

Within two hours, Hales had experienced nine incidents of racist abuse and been told he was stupid. He was also threatened with physical violence and had two threats made against his property.

A little later, he was asked by the Police to remove the bunting following a complaint, and informed by a community safety officer that it might cause offence and/or lead to violence in the context of tonight's England v. Scotland football match.

Hales wonders whether any other flag would have caused such a stushie. He describes it as 'a totally unacceptable and surprising eye opener ... Scottish racism at its best'.

His plight quickly drew support from some local businesses and politicians across the respectable spectrum.

SNP councillors McVey and Brock condemned the abuse, and urged Hales to report it to Police.

Labour councillor Nick Gardner commented ironically:'Great for a ward that's represented by two English, one Aussie, and one South African. With a Polish-English MP. And a Malcolm, of course'.

However, Gardner hoped one positive to emerge would be extra publicity for the flags project and a stimulus to get local people thinking about the issues.

Knee-jerk intolerance of the kind endured by Hales today is ugly in the extreme. Its purple-faced, spittle-flecked emergence on the day of a football match should not be excused, even if pantomime hatred fuelled by booze and bravado may partially explain it.

There is a ghastly merit to these incidents occurring in the middle of the Edinburgh INTERNATIONAL Festival, just as there was in June when Orange lodges rehearsing centuries-old sectarian prejudices swaggered and staggered past bemused summer visitors on the High Street. Cosmopolitan Scotland remains an aspiration not a reality. We shame ourselves in the gaze of the world and deserve to witness those visitors' disgust as a consequence.

Unfortunately, the issues cannot be wished away and should certainly not be hushed up. Spurtle therefore has no hesitation in publicising the problem, even if on this occasion it occurred a few yards beyond our notional northern news-boundary of Pilrig Street.

What do you think? Tell us by email spurtle@hotmail.co.uk on Facebook Broughton Spurtle or Twitter @theSpurtle

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Update

Spurtle was included in an email circulated this morning (Thursday, 15 August):

Good Morning All
Its good because no one died.
But I have no Flags. All Gone as promised.
Regards
Keith Hales

Later in the day, Hales emailed about the entry into his premises of a man waving the Evening News. (The paper today carried a version of yesterday's story here on pp. 1, 5 and 20). He threatened to burn down Hales's shop. Councillor Gordon Munro (Leith ward) advised Hales to report the incident as a matter of record to the Police. Councillor Nick Gardner asked sympathisers what they thought was the best way to show Hales 'support and solidarity'.

Hales also received messages from Sikh and Irish members of the Leith community who variously expressed shades of defiance and intimidation in the face of such racial abuse.

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Reactions

Swivel Eyed Broon ‏@Mr_Mark_Brown @theSpurtle Told by the police to remove the bunting? Whit?! And as for the community safety officer's comment - what absolute nonense.