I've come across this website where you type in your blog's URL, submit, and it somehow calculates what your blog is worth, then gives you a piece of html to advertise the site, with your very own  result in it. Maybe by doing this the value even goes up - who knows. I think it's hilarious, you can see it in the left column. So who's gonna give me the 2000 dollars? I'm waiting!

PS 360degreesofsky is worth a wee bit more. I'm so depressed.

I crawled out of bed yesterday lunch time after a long day/night partying in and gigging out (me yet another year older, oh dear oh dear). Extra hour thanks to reverting back to normal time or not, it was hard after too much of fermented grape juice. The nice day enticed us to follow up on the suggested Black History Tour which was to happen for the last time this year at 2pm. We just about made it, lucky us.

Black History in Glasgow - it sounds like an oddity. Glasgow is so white, and the only noticeable immigration is that of people from a Pakistani background in the last 50 years. Black people? nope. A few hundred asylum seekers/refugees, tucked away in the outskirts of the city, otherwise, Scotland is whiter than probably any other European country. So I didn't quite know what to expect. It all became crystal clear within a few minutes, when the link between tobacco barons, sugar trade, and later linen trade and slavery was made, the fatal triangle between Glasgow - West Africa - Carribean - Glasgow.

To me, as a citizen from a country that wasn't involved in the slave trade, slavery still brings up images of the old Greeks. It featured in history lessons, only as far as the Greek and Roman civilisation was concerned. Yes, we did hear about US American slavery in our English classes, but that was English, another continent and somehow more of a fictional story than anything else. It still gives me an unbelievable eyes wide open in amazement kind of reaction when I hear that two hundred years ago slaves from West Africa were sold to Europe, America, or used as workers in the Caribean, to get the highest possible profits, build big cities, make the legacy of cities and states. Glasgow is built on tobacco, shipmaking, sugar and linen - and all of these industries were connected to the slave trade. Ships were needed to get slaves from west Africa to the Caribean, where they worked on sugar plantations, tobacco plantations, and later in cotton plantations. It transformed Glasgow from a town of 10,000 to a city of almost 1 million. It gave the city its face, its architecture, its historical buildings, its identity. Yet it's forgotten that all of this involved slavery, because slaves were very rarely seen in Glasgow.

Thanks to GARA (Glasgow Anti Racist Alliance) for organising this, the tour really opened up eyes and a very important part of the city's history. Today, we still benefit from the riches made through slavery, and we still suffer the racist attitudes which were sowed within us two hundred years ago, when black people were dehumanised into slaves. Assault, physical, vocal or through media representation of black people is still common in Glasgow, as in many other cities and countries, and we all still have a long way to go to overcome this part of our history and the attitudes it forged.

Well, I know now why some of the streets in this city have odd names, such as Jamaica Street. What the Tolbooth steeple was for (weighing tobacco), and I've found out that there are pictoral representations of slaves, native Americans and Arabs right on the City Chambers Building, that the second Chamber of Commerce after the New York one was set up right opposite and that it displays a tiny world with a big ship, full of confidence of a world in one's oyster.

Quite impressively, it was self educated, ex-slave Frederick Douglass who delivered a mindboggling speech in Glasgow of all places to demonstrate the unconstitutionality of slavery. It was a landmark speech, by a very special person. And it's still there, 150 years later, for everyone to read.

More of these tours will be on again next year in October, during Black History Month.

Oh so much happening. Friends of the Earth have started their own big campaign against the M74 extension, of course they're also lead members of the JAM74 campaign and will be the main underwriter of the legal challenge against the Scottish Executive's decision to build this motorway. I'm still gobsmacked at the statistics that this 5 mile extension will cost every Scott (man, woman, child) over £100.

The Glasgow Volunteer Centre had it's AGM today, and it was just so motivating. I was particularly pleased to meet one of our own service users, who is being supported by a volunteer ESOL tutor through us and now volunteers with another organisation, and thus helps other people. The Volunteer Centre really does a fab job, not only does it run projects itself, they basically do all the advertising for us. For sweet nothing. And a smile comes with it like icing on a cake. We get so many enquiries of people interested in volunteering for our project through their website and directory of volunteering opportunities that we don't actually have to advertise our project anywhere else. With the only drawback that it favours the IT literate population and people who are familiar with the concept of volunteering - i.e. we don't get many enquiries from some sections we would like to reach, particularly refugees. So we still have to do some additional advertising and avoid to become complacent with the results from the great service the volunteering centre offers.

Another hour, another meeting, another networking opportunity, this time with literacies practitioners. As ever, it's so fascinating to find out about other projects and what other people are doing, and there's always links being made to potential future cooperation/partnerships, new projects. In fact, I have about 5 different projects in mind that I would love to see implemented, and each of them would really make a difference. The problem is getting organisational support for it. And we are too small to take on the responsibility of more staff, more activities etc. Or rather, our organisation isn't interested in growth, and quite happy with the status quo. For my part, I am too, but I can't help but see potential for doing more, getting new initiatives off the ground. I'm probably more easily enthused and excitable than your average punter. I'm attending a workshop series on community leadership at present, and more often than not I hear how individuals or groups should never be afraid to try and take the lead for change. It is easier said than done though - I don't have a confidence issue, but to get funding you need an organisation backing your idea and I don't think it's good to push your organisation into doing things they don't really want to do. I'll keep making suggestions though, and maybe some day some one will share my enthusiasm. 

Last night we had an open evening for prospective volunteer tutors and it seems I didn't scare anyone away. That's good I guess. I also found out that a homework group that I set up with two volunteers is now doing really exciting stuff: They've got a blog all up and running. It's so good because these are kids who hate anything to do with writing and spelling, and are so reluctant to write anything at all. But they can be excited about having their very own blog, and suddenly the writing bit is not an issue anymore and they love it. These are refugee kids who've only been in the country for a wee while, their spoken English is really amazingly good after such a short time, but they still struggle with the spelling (who doesn't...) and can't achieve their potential at school. It's a vicious circle - you're bad at spelling, you hate it, you get worse at spelling, you hate it more. Thanks to blogs, hopefully, we can break this circle, and they can all become doctors because that's what they'd like to be.

I'm a community councillor now. Yes, seriously. I don't know what came over me, maybe I took pity on low attendance, or on the average age of the current councillors (2 of them had passed away in the run of last yearm - by that rate, the council will have died out in three years' time!). They need new blood, and as a not yet 35 year old, hm, let's think, am I really new blood?

Anyway, it's a nice idea this community council thing. Residents meet up once a month and think about what can be improved in the local area, city councillors have an obligation to consult you and all that. Then comes the drawback of such "public consultations": a) the council is self elected (even tonight's AGM elections didn't as such happen, proposal/seconding of office bearer was sufficient and anyone wanting to become a community councillor was received with wide open arms) and b) the city council may have an obligation to consult, but none to act accordingly. This goes so far as decisions taken by the city council after consultation of the community council not being communicated back.

Still, it's democracy, and as someone passionate about community planing and development, I feel I should be there, to see it from the side of the resident, rather than the usual top down approach.

I also saw two sides of the world today. From the highest tower blocks of the UK and their eery fascination, somewhere between despair and hope, to the cosy middle class talk on parking, litter and publicly peeing Oasis fans and worries that tenement residents aren't sufficiently represented (they are now, nice to find out that I'm at the lower social end of my own community). I love this city for these contrasts, and all the people who live in it. As long as they don't drop litter in front of my green eyes ;)

Last night saw the public event in support of the Vucaj family who were deported from Glasgow after living here for five years, in a dawn raid (4 a.m.), to be brought to Yarls Wood detention centre, before being deported to Albania via Kosovo 17 days later. The family's destiny has struck a chord with the people of Glasgow, for many reasons. They are your average family, who have found their home in Drumchapel, in the suburbs of Glasgow. They don't ask much, just to be able to stay in Glasgow, be safe, go to school, get an education, be with their friends, have a life. All of this was taken from them in an instant, when without warning they were woken up, asked to get dressed and pack and removed from their flat by immigration officers. They didn't have time to pack all their belongings - not that they had a lot, but what they had was left behind. Another dawn raid, and they were deported to where they had come from, 5 years ago, to a Northern Albanian town, steeped in poverty, where girls are kidnapped and sold for sex.

They also struck a chord with so many people because there are 12,000 asylum seekers in Scotland who may face the same horrendous knock on the door. Many of them children. They are not the only family this is happening to. There are women with babies, whose husbands have been deported. There are people who are so scared of deportation they rather kill themselves.

In political terms, this is a bad joke, a very bad one. Scotland's population is ageing, and though not yet declining as often feared and cited, it is a country which isn't exactly overpopulated. Scotland is looking for immigration - people to work on farms, in the fisheries industry, for the National Health Service, in trade and industry, in the care sector and so many other areas. Why? Because the qualified workforce isn't there. Because well educated young Scots go abroad or to England to make a career, as career options are limited and salary levels low up here. There are intitiatives like "new talent" and "One Scotland, many cultures", all geared towards immigration. Yet there's this family, perfectly part of their local community, who is ripped out of their home and sent to a place they don't want to be, where they are not welcome, while their friends, neighbours and everyone with a heart wants them to be in Glasgow.

Yesterday's public event demonstrated how widely felt this support for the Vucaj family is in Glasgow. Hundreds of people gathered to watch the film Peter Mullan and Robina Qureshi had made when they visited the Vucaj family last week in Albania, and listened to 13 year old Saida ask why the First Minister would not speak to her, if he was scared of her and that he needn't be. Hundreds of people from all walk of lives. Neighbours, friends, schoolmates, refugees, teachers, people who work with refugees and have seen so many similar cases of pain and despair in the face of humanity being spat on. Politicians, filmmakers, campaigners, people with big hearts, people with children, people who are ashamed and angry at what is happening at their doorstep. Many tears were shed. Tony McNulty, immigration minister, who patronisingly labeled the language used by campaigners as intemperate, in contrast, was described as heartless and tearless. That you must be if you know of the Vucaj family and yet insist that the law is the law and removals are the only way if all legal avenues have been exhausted. Heartless and Tearless you must be if you refuse to comment on specific cases, when you claim asylum must be a faceless, abstract term, based on laws and enforcements, the principle coming before the human.

The meeting also brought to the forefront that it's not just about asylum, not just about one family who stand for so many. It's also a big row between Scotland and the UK government (or, as many will say, a row between Scotland and England, which really it is not). Asylum is an issue reserved to Westminster, however, it's the Scots who want the Vucaj family back, and would like many other refugees and asylum seekers to stay in Glasgow. This has historical reasons in the socialist movement in Glasgow, and Glasgow always has been a left wing, if not socialist, city, that felt unjustly governed by the more conservative rest of Britain, and England in particular. It's about national identity, pride and rage against being prescribed what to do by a government not chosen by the people of Scotland. As it was under Thatcher, so it is now. Scotland would be happy to take a more humanitarian approach to asylum, while the Labour government in Westminster prides itself with being tough on immigration. The first minister after having taken up the issue with Westminster, was heavily criticised for it, in spite of his diplomacy which enraged the campaigners as too soft and not taking a proper stance. The further criticism of the Scottish children's commissioner, for using unacceptable terms in describing procedures of removal and detention, brought Scotland to the boil. Yet again Westminster refuses to take Scotland seriously, whether it's the Parliament nor statutory organisations. This campaign no longer is just about the Vucaj family, though, I'm glad to say, it still is very much also about them. It is about the society we in Scotland want to live in and an aversion to being told what to do and what to say. It is about David and Goliath, as ever, and David is feeling strong and angry.

What worried me at the event was the canvassing for the SSP (Socialist Party) yet again. I can't help but get very annoyed indeed when I see Rosie Kane sell the Socialist Voice at the exit, when this is about the Vucaj family, about detention, Dungavel, asylum and refugees. It's not a publicity stunt by the Scottish Socialist Party, and it alienates me from them.
What encouraged me was the willingness to be vocal by school mates, young people, women and the inclusiveness of the event. Everyone contributed, and everyone felt able to, and it really brought the best of Glasgow together, regardless of labels that normally keep us apart.

As ever, the old song says it better than 1000 words: I belong to Glasgow and Glasgow belongs to me. The Vucaj family have been citing this a lot in the last month, and hopefully we will overcome and get them back here.

For background and coverage, the Observer has a good article,
http://www.focus-fen.net/
as has the Herald
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/49318.html
and Scotland Today brings us some video footage
http://scotlandtoday.scottishtv.co.uk/
(links to Parliamentary debate etc).

New photos from Albania can be viewed at
http://www.vucajfamilycampaign.blogspot.com/
while the main campaign website can be found on www.paih.org.

I'm struggling to find a title for this posting. I'm alone at work today because the volunteer who was supposed to work with me today was assaulted in broad daylight and is awaiting police and GP. She and her two children were beaten with sticks and so badly that they had to go to hospital. It happened at 2pm on Saturday, bang in the middle of shopping times, and the only reason for the attack was that she's black and as such likely to be an asylum seeker (there are hardly any black settled people in Scotland). Not enough of a reason?

Well, if the government is happy to talk about "floods" of asylum seekers, "illegal" immigration, "hard stance on immigration and asylum", and if the government is happy to detain asylum seekers who haven't committed any crime, if they are happy to stress the fact that one of the July bombers in London came to the country as an asylum seeker, if they are happy to handcuff ordinary people and dawn raid their homes to forcibly remove them, just because their asylum claim failed after five years of awaiting an answer, and feel it's ok to justify this practice on prime time TV, while simultaneously attack those of us who oppose this practice as untempered, naive and despicable, well then it is no surprise that young white males from not so well off areas may consider it justifyable to beat up a young mother with two kids, a mere 500 metres of my own home, which I so far have considered to be safe. Because I'm white.

Her handbag wasn't stolen, it was a violent attack for the sake of hatred and aggression. Her 10 year old daughter is so frightened she doesn't dare go to the toilet on her own anymore. I'm so enraged if I saw those thugs right now, I'd hit them harder than any woman has ever hit them before. They'd be screaming.

Yesterday, as I was carrying my bike up the railway stairs after cycling through the rain, close to home, I saw an elderly woman leaving her house all wrapped up against the rain. Like some significant coincidence, we smiled in the rain and started the ritualistic conversation about the weather. Just that, we both knew, yesterday was not a day to complain, even about floods, incessant rain, the misery of the mist: "Mustn't grumble," she said "with what's happening in the world right now,"  "we don't have a right to, do we?" I finished her sentence. She nodded gravely and I almost cried thinking of Pakistan/India/Afghanistan and Mexico/Guatemala. Then she gave me a spirited smile: "But we would love to moan anyway!" and we parted.

Today, as I was carrrying my bike up the railway stairs after cycling home through the glistening sunshine, close to home, I saw her leave her house again, all smiles: "and now we want to have more of it!" "And I'm sure we will!" I tuned in, a bright smile on both our faces, echoing the sunshine after the deluge.

I think the rain may have stopped. Not sure though, and I don't want to get my hopes up. I feel close to the hurricane countries now, not just because it hits harder if you've been there (Mexico/Guatemala and Cuba) but because the waters are rising here too and I'm glad there's no storm with it. A month's worth of rain in a day, and I'm still bravely cycling through it, I'm so proud of myself. In fact, I'm just lazy and getting the bus is simply a long nightmare and I'd rather not have those during the day as well.

So, what to do on rainy days: work, watch films, read books. Blog. One film to watch out for in the next weeks is Camcorder Guerillas new production by the name of Dungavel. For the non Glaswegian reader (I'm sure there's only one), Dungavel is a detention centre where asylum seekers, whose claim has come to a legal end, are put before they are removed from the country. Dungavel is in Ayrshire, in the woods and sticks, a prison, that houses far too many refugees for far too long. Kids included. There's no school of course, visits are made almost impossible due to location and lack of public transport. A place of no returns. It's dire and we don't wants it here in Scotland. Some brave people (braver than me in fact) visit detainees anyway and give at least some human face in an uneventful day amidst more uneventful days in the life of a Dungavel resident.

Some NCADC statistics: since January 2003, 7 people took their own lives while being detained. This compares to 4 self inflicted deaths from 1989 to mid 2003. 2155 people were detained at the last count, in 10 centres across the UK. 13% of beds were allocated to families. This means lots of children are being detained. Can someone tell me what for? Once in detention, legal advice is almost impossible to obtain, and the only resort detainees know is that of the hunger strike. And there've been many recently.

So Camcorder Guerillas have made a film about the one and only Scottish Detention Centre, to be premiered at the Glasgow Film Theatre on 5 November, at 2pm. Go there, watch it, be enraged. Do something about it, get rid of Dungavel and Detention. 

Asylum is not a crime, it's a right.