Sometimes the obvious things don't come to mind. I should have taken the question a Positive Action in Housing activist asked me when giving a talk on Amnesty International's activities to protect refugees and campaign for a just asylum system as inspiration. She asked me what Amnesty's stance is on the so-called "dawn-raids" as a method of removal of those asylum seekers whose legal cases have come to an end and who have not acquired leave to remain. I had to say that I wasn't aware of any stand on this, or a statement, but knew for a fact that individual AI members in Glasgow were apalled by this practice and strongly opposed it. Subsequently, I asked both at the AIUK and Scottish Office whether such a stance or a statement exists, but clearly due to the Christmas break being near and all that I have so far not received a reply. Only just before setting off for Christmas did the obvious thought occur to me that either I as an individual or our local AI group, or even two or three Glasgow AI groups could actually submit a motion to the next AIUK AGM asking the UK section of AI to lobby for a protocol for dawn raids when families are involved, a family amnesty, and the general consideration of alternatives to dawn raids, as well as prior involvement of childrens' and educational services to insure a dignified and humane removal of "failed" asylum seekers. The problem is that the deadline is very near, and the AIUK office is closed until 4th January. It'll be a close call, but if I do get this through it may make quite a differance so I'll have a go anyway. I just wish I'd have had this idea a month ago.

Christmas Eve is a special day for the German in me. Full of memories of waiting for the Christkind, candlelight and Christmas Carols, decorating Christmas trees, leaving out nuts to feed the Christkind, waiting for the faint sound of a bell announcing that the Christkind was there and has left the presents for us. Then the excitement of opening the presents, the heaviness of the meal thereafter, the sparkling wine induced headache and tiredness, the inner fight to get up again to go to midnight mass, the overwhelming display of robes, incense, the coming of the light in the night ...   more »

Some festive trivia for you. (I can't bear to put any more depressive stuff on asylum policies or difficult neighbours up here you'll be glad to know):
There you have it. Germans like Christmas trees more than their families. Little wonder then that I feel incomplete without my wee tree in the living room.

I can just imagine what the survey looked like:
Q1: How important is it for you to have a Christmas tree?
a) essential  b) important c) middling  d) not important  e) would rather not have one
Q2 ...
Q3 ...
...
Q10: How important is it to spend time with your relatives at Christmas?
a) essential b) important c) middling d) not so important e) would rather not spend time with them

I feel you don't have to be German to be more likely to answer e) in Q10 than e) in Q1; or to be more likely to answer a) in Q10 than a) in Q1. Call me heartless, but you don't chose your family, but you can chose your Christmas tree ;)

Bye the way, I'm German, don't have a Christmas tree, and can't wait to spend it with my future in-laws and my dad, and admit to be glad they've both got Christmas trees! And this bit of Reuters' German bashing really cheered me up today! No irony, it did!

Merry Christmas and peace, justice, compassion, understanding, mindfulness, insight, clarity, truth, energy, tolerance, kindness, joy and happyness to all of you!

Screw that christmas tree, it's probably happier growing in the woods anyway. Screw those neighbours of mine who take pleasure in squeezing me for dosh the week before Christmas. And who accuse me of not caring because I have more urgent things to do than haggle for £20, like writing an annual report and three funding applications.

I feel like Chomsky, our hamster. We generously offered him a bigger cage for Christmas, to make up for the invasion of Kareni (biggish, lively and curious dog whom we're dogsitting over Christmas and who enjoys playing with cute hamsters). Like proud parents we presented it to him, with his wee house, full of cosy bedding. Not long after we went to bed, strange noises come out of the hamster abode. As good parents would do, we checked on him that all is ok. All is not ok. He's moved out of his house, has taken all the furniture (read: bedding) with him and has created a half burrow with bedding and saw dust in a corner of his new cage. He looks out of place, unprotected and cold. I'm heartbroken for him.

I feel that I'm being pushed out of my place too and have to take my cosyness in a make shift state, while outwardly arguing my case and becoming a pain in the backside for other people. Whether this is about asylum and my MP, my neighbours and alleged tenant's vandalism, or arguing for new funding/projects in a time of limited resources (human or financial). I love harmony and the sense of getting on with things, doing something useful. I hate arguments and debates. But the former isn't achieved without the latter. I have to put on my brave face and get over that fear of confrontation if I really care about change.

I sometimes wonder if this fear, this real physical sensation of sickness, racing heartbeat, shivering and trembling before difficult situations, is just a trick of nature and part of my character, or if it was brought about by nurture; or, beware, even female genes. Throughout society (in fact, societies), it's men who stand in the limelight, women are usually commendable exceptions to this rule. I don't think it's always to do with lack of opportunities, rather a choice to remain in the background. Why? Is it fear of exposure, fear of the male gaze, fear due to being the weaker sex? Why does a liberated, emancipated, highly educated woman like me still shrivel to insignificance at the prospect of a difficult conversation with someone relatively unimportant, when I know I'm in the right, and the worse that can happen is a smallish financial loss and annoyance? If I have difficulty facing this, how difficult is it to face important issues? How difficult is it for not so liberated, not so emancipated, not so highly educated woman to speak out in public?

It's a question we still haven't answered in a time which we believe should and does give equal opportunities to men and women. Yet women still shun responsiblity, plublicity and leadership. Is it really male dominated society that denies us access to these realms? Or are we happy and comfy in our cosy little world of women's magz, beauty, fashion, home and garden?

I still don't have a Christmas tree. Sometimes these things matter.

I'm hunting for one that's alive and potted, even though I haven't got the faintest what to do with it after Christmas. All the ones I find are dead. So dead that their needles almost come in a separate bag, if the netting didn't hold them in place until they are transferred into the boot.  I remember my old car, a boot full of old pine needles because they liked it so much there, nothing could convince them to move. How did they get there? Well, traditionally, in the early days of December, Germans in Scotland head for the Scottish pine forests to cut a few twigs of pine, in an effort to transform them into decorated bunches and candle displays. Like giant hamsters, they make their burrows cosy for winter. Sometimes these Gamsters get greedy and steal too many twigs, which then sometimes live in the car boot without a suitable sale, and simply become part of the furniture.

Interestingly, our hamster Chomsky is very keen on the current advent wreath. I haven't quite figured out if he considers it to be potential food or bedding for his house.

I'm gonna be incredibly unethical now and head to Asda over the hill, I'm sure that they'll have all kinds of trees.

Sometimes I wonder if this world is losing its sanity altogether, for sweet nothing but tiny amounts of money.

I've been trying for the past week to juggle responsibilites at work, meeting up with friends and colleagues before Christmas, lobbying and initiating policy reviews, and at least appear to be unstressed and cheerie, while inwardly panicking about Christmas presents and sending cards and save the date announcements, as well as the way the world is going in general. I've managed to stay calm, even if my daily sleep dosage has dropped to unchartered territories. But these two incidents take the biscuit:

First, ...   more »

The wariness of blogging - I'm always keen to keep people anonymous, and to a certain extent also my work. Now, what has been going to and fro in my head, has a lot to do with my work, but I also realise how useful blogging is to get my head straight and take the edge of anger, tension and the everyday frustrations.

Working for the voluntary sector means dependency on funding grants. They usually last between 1 and 3 years, job security is therefore relative. My project is successful and established, but still there are worries. Current funding  will run out in a year's time, and it can't be renewed. I will have to look for a new funding body. Usually, innovation is something funders are looking for, so they don't want to pay for an existing project (which, if successful, should be mainstreamed into statutory provision, paid for by local authority or national bodies), but prefer something new. Bad cards for my project, and my job.

Last time around, I chanced it. Although I applied for posts I declined the one I was offered, in the hope that we'd get funding after all. It worked out great. This time I'm not so sure. I would really like to have a permanent job, because I'm getting older, because I have a family now. I'm 35 and havn't had a single permanent job in my working life. I've never been unemployed either, so I've fared relatively well, and I'm not too worried about not getting a new job as such. However, my biological clock isn't going backwards, so what can you do? If I get pregnant now, I'll be close to bursting at my wedding day, if I get pregnant in three months, I'll not get maternity leave and lose my job, if I wait longer, I may have a chance to have a new contract which may allow for maternity leave. Or I may still lose my job. If I wait longer I may also not get pregnant at all or have a disabled child.

How many articles have I read about my generation of academic women who chose not to get pregnant. All these words for the simple truth: there's no job security these days or even if, the demands of any decent and responsible job are such that they are not compatible with motherhood. Women's lib me arse, we're still the ones who've got to bear the weans. If I go part time, I'll earn just enough to pay the creche. If I stay fulltime, I'm going to be a psychic mess and a shite mum. I may have to stay full time because my partner's job is even more insecure than mine. We both have postgraduate qualifications, and we are still not able to land a permanent and secure job, in our mid thirties. Little wonder that many women, in less fortunate situations than ours simply can't afford to have children. And children are a rare choice in my circle of friends.

If I post this, will I lose my job because I've expressed a thought of having children and possibly taking maternity leave, or even leaving for a more secure job? If my potential future employer, who I may have an interview with, googles my name and finds this blog, decides he doesn't want a woman with baby probably already on the way, will I remain unemployable because I have a womb and think I should have the option of creating and offspring? Or shall I just ignore it all, be poor, not work, live off benefits and do what we were born to do?

Not much has changed since I was a child of seven. Then, I wished I was a boy. No periods, no labour, no getting fat and wrinkly for having a baby. I still wish I was a man, for the same reasons, and for wishing not to be made a scapegoat for the economical disadvantage of employing a woman. After all, I didn't choose to have a womb. And would be quite happy to have a man bear a child for me and still call it my own.

I think I'm going to panic.

I don't have all my Christmas presents yet, which doesn't sound too bad on 12 Dec but with spending Christmas between two countries, it's disaster.

I don't have a Christmas tree. Not essential? Well, I've never had my own, and this year, I do want one. Because it's the first year I spend Christmas away from my parents, and I feel guilty, bad, uneasy, a monster, a cruel and uncaring daughter who's letting down her dad and condemns him to utter loneliness on the day that should really be about being all together as a family etc. Somehow I think the tree would make everything all right, the pain of being split between two countries, two families, two circles of friends, the people I love. But every time I stand in front of a tree longing to buy it, it doesn't fit on my bike.  

I want to see all my friends before Christmas. Some are almost already away to other countries, other are having lovely meetings. Problem: no time for making and writing cards, making nice presents and even less time for all those hated household chores. No time for baking cookies. I love cookie dough.

There are too many demos to go to, one for the right of asylum seekers to work, one against dawn raids, two events in a week for Amnesty, plus the usual meetings, which are now competing with work Christmas dinners. All of this in 10 days.

I haven't been at my PHP class for two weeks. I didn't have a clue before and surely won't have one now. I really have so much to do, should I just skive?

I'm starting a training course on teaching Adult Literacies and Numeracy in January, plus a course on PC maintenance, and a language school has asked me to do another evening class. All is important to me, but I can't do it all.

Gangland violence and vandalism, the effects on communities of drugs, alcohol and despair in Glasgow, the ever more restrictive asylum legislation as well as the inhuman face of immigration are doing my head in. At work, I see myself forced to campaign for better funding to get relevant ESOL provision established. It's like knocking your  head in against the four walls of a box room, you try to get out on all four sides, but your head is more likely to get smashed to jelly than the four walls you're trying to get through.

Tom Harris MP has given up on me - sent me a leaflet to come to his surgery, while he's now having to face the Scottish Voluntary Sector for his remarks that the Scottish Executive should review its funding policy for Positive Action in Housing, a voluntary sector, Black and Minority Ethnic, housing organisation who also took the lead in the campaign against dawn raids. It's rightly caused an outcry because funders should not determine the policies and activities of a voluntary organisation, so the SCVO is on his back now - makes Dr Steffi look less important so no more annoying letters before Christmas. I wonder, shall I send him a card?

I'm also getting married. Strangely, I'm not really panicking about that, although I thought I would by now.

I feel like someone has taken my brain and put it into a tumble drier. I can't think straight, make mistakes, forget stuff. Am I losing it? Probably not. Just the usual story of trying to juggle work, commitments, family life and personal space. Nothing special, just another heart attack candidate.

... let me tell you of something beautiful for a change.

It's funny how sometimes a simple story can be so true to the human spirit and move you so much. I love literature and after ploughing my way through a book which eventually I gave up (a very rare thing to happen), I started to read Anne Donovan's Buddha Da. I'd come across it while working in a book shop. For four weeks I helped out as a sales assistant in a university book shop, after completing my PhD, while teaching in real life, and job hunting for something more meaningful than my previous job of teaching undergraduates German (which incidentally I liked a lot). Some fancy notion in my head told me I might want to run my own bookshop. Because I like literature so much. So the ad at the university library came like a sign, the ideal opportunity to try it out, work in a bookshop for four weeks, no strings attached, for minimum wage. To cut a long story short, it was boring, the job consisted of working at the till, or stacking books, or doing sweet nothing. In the lunch break though, the staff all read books. I liked that. And we got a discount on books, not the same as the permanent staff, but still. In the times of few customers I browsed the small literature section and got intrigued by two books, Buddha Da and Seahorse. I bought Buddha Da and it's been lying about until recently, when I realised that the author was going to read for our Amnesty Group. Great opportunity to read it at last.

It's a very private story, of a father, a mother and a 13 year old daughter, who take turns in telling the story. It's all in Scots, and usually that to me means hands off because as a non native English speaker, it's usually a recipe for taking all enjoyment out of reading. Not this time, I suffered with the three people, with the Dad's exploration of spirituality and his aspiration of becoming a better person, Mum's desperation at the resulting estrangement of her husband, the separation, the daughter in the middle of it, finding her own life, Mum finding another aspect to herself too, and everyone learning equally from one another to come out the stronger and more mature from crisis. Lots of humanity, lots of spirit, lots of laughter, tears, anger, hope. I was mesmerised with the story, but it wasn't really the story as such that mattered, but the journey undertaken by the three people at it's centre, how it made them grow. I wish every book could be like this.

In the bookshop, where I deposited my dream of my own second hand foreign language/travel literature bookshop behind the stacks of law volumes, I met people whom I would otherwise not have met. I worked as a student at the age of 33, going out with my colleagues for Friday night pints and clubbing. Looking much younger, the day I answered the question about my age a bombshell dropped on my temporary colleagues. I sometimes wonder what they thought I was up to, but I thoroughly enjoyed the freedom of underpaid, no responsibility work. I didn't enjoy the work, but the space it left to focus and enjoy the times you didn't work, the hour of reading at lunchtime, the pub and fun after 5pm. Now, I love my work but it takes over my life. I read so much less. I wouldn't want to change it though, working in a bookshop was good for a short while only. 

At the reading for our Amnesty Group, Anne Donovan selected a story for us told from the perspective of another teanager, who discovers glitter glue at a time when her father is dying of asbestosis. A dear friend, who spent his lifetime campaigning for justice, made the campaign to compensate those who died from asbestosis his last battle. He won it, but didn't win the battle his heart gave him. He passed away in April. I couldn't stop thinking of Ian when I heard the story, with his wife sitting right behind me. He too loved literature, and he was an indefatigable campaigner for those whose rights were taken by those in power. His learning and vigour was inspirational, and he didn't lose this mental vigour even as his physical strength packed in. Maybe I'll post one of his poems here to honour him, so far I felt it wasn't the right place, but maybe it is after all.

Sorry for the lack of postings, I'm exhausted and simply didn't manage. And this won't be a great posting, just an outburst of anger. Yes, it's pure anger now, look at what Tom Harris, MP for the cartside covering constituency of Cathcart has said, and please remember, he's Labour:

"Glasgow Cathcart MP Tom Harris said: 'The rantings of Robina Qureshi, of Positive Action in Housing, adds nothing to this debate and instead cranks up the levels of ignorance that must exist for her arguments to be taken seriously.

'To claim that the Scottish police are doing the dirty work of the Home Office and the far right is confirmation that neither she nor her little private army of self-appointed guardians of the public conscience have any credibility.' " [Scotland on Sunday quotation, http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=2310802005 ]

So, alongside the thousands of campaigners that Robina Qureshi brought together, I'm therefore also not credible, just a little unimportant private soldier of a self appointed conscience. I mean, I don't agree with every word Robina says, or every single word other people involved in this campaign say (Tommy Sheridan, I'm not your sister. I'd know if I was). BUT: at least there is a campaign of people who are disgusted with what's happening in the name of immigration control, with the inhumanity of dawn raids, detention of people who are suicidal and what not, and we're not a private little army, we're hundreds, thousands of people. No radicals, just people who care. We don't hide between well wrought politician speak. We speak out according to how our beak has grown.

I also received a letter from Mr Harris claiming (without evidence - I know that because there can't possibly be any) that I would be asking for every failed asylum seeker to remain in the UK. I never, ever, said anywhere that I even ask for one failed asylum seeker to stay. It wouldn't be the end of the world if they did, but that's not what asylum is for. It's for refugees who have a well founded fear of persecution, and that is what I work on, nothing else. I do not want refugee status to be given to everyone, I do not want immigration control to stop removals. I do want detention to be used wisely and VERY carefully, and if possible, not at all. I would like to see voluntary return to be the only way people are removed, because they feel safe that they will be returned to safety. I also want the asylum system to be fair and those people who have a well founded fear of persecution to actually get refugee status, and this isn't happening at present. So we need to work towards improving things, and such statements do absolutely nothing towards making anything happen.

I'm starting to lose faith in my politicians. That should worry you, Tom Harris and Co. Yes, in fact it should. How about that for a rant?  Am I even less credible now? I don't have an army, but at least I do have a conscience, and Ahm no' gonnae apologise fae i'.

I think Mr Harris should apologise for being disrespectful to Robina, the campaign and myself, for suggesting I said things I never did, for labelling me a radical just because I don't agree with him and wrote him a letter explaining why. Maybe he reads this and this is why he labelled me a radical? That would be funny now. Next thing I'll get a fine for blogging in this oh so free country.