People make Glasgow

May 13, 2021 3:24 PM

The people of Glasgow gathered quickly, and peacefully, in their hundreds today, to save two asylum seekers from detention after a dawn raid on the morning of Eid. The two men were awakened in their flat in Glasgow's Southside at dawn by the Home Office Immigration Enforcement team and loaded into the waiting van outside. But their removal to a detention centre was blocked by five local residents who gathered in front of the vehicle, one then wedging himself beneath the van. Word quickly spread, and soon hundreds of local people had gathered peacefully in the street outside the men's flat, surrounding the van and calling for their release.

Starting with just a handful of neighbours, numbers grew as police surrounded the van and mounted police were summoned to wait nearby.

Soon, Kenmure Street was filled with hundreds of peaceful protestors, chanting “These are our neighbours, let them go.” On man lay beneath the van, with his bike, for eight hours.

After a day-long stand-off, the men were released from the van and allowed to walk, accompanied by a lawyer, to a nearby Mosque. One of the men, Lakhvir Singh, said this evening: "I'm so happy that my fate brought me to live here in Glasgow, where the people are so connected that they'll come out onto the streets to help one of their own."

The raid took place in the constituency of Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, on the day that new MSPs were being sworn into the Scottish Parliament following last week’s election. She was not impressed by the removal operation, which was carried out by the Home Office of the Westminster Government, which oversees and enforces immigration policy across the UK.

Glasgow's unofficial motto is People Make Glasgow.

[Apologies for the plethora of Twitter links - that was where most and the best of the footage appeared, so I'd rather credit the folk who took it by linking directly to them. The main link and the interview with Lakhvir Singh are the Guardian and ITV news websites respectively for those who don't want to stray onto Twitter.]

posted by penguin pie (43 comments total)

Fucking love my country. Thank you so much for this post, penguin pie. I was working on one but you beat me to it with a better job.
posted by automatronic at 3:34 PM on May 13, 2021 [34 favorites]

Couple of somewhat related things I forgot to add:

People from Glasgow are known as Glasgwegians, or Weegies. The term Refuweegee is sometimes adopted as an affectionate nickname for New Scots who have come to the city in search of safety.

As she left the polling station after casting her own vote on Thursday, Sturgeon was confronted by a far-right candidate. One of the far-right supporters was filming, so we got to hear Sturgeon turn and flatly call her out in the street, saying: “You are a facist. You are a racist. And the Southside of Glasgow will reject you.” When votes were counted, that same candidate received a grand total of 46 votes.
posted by penguin pie at 3:35 PM on May 13, 2021 [81 favorites]

These photos gave me life today.
posted by latkes at 3:43 PM on May 13, 2021 [8 favorites]

Here's a good article on the failures of the Home Office, as well.
posted by sagc at 3:44 PM on May 13, 2021 [3 favorites]

This is so inspiring.

Hooray for Bike Man!

I am so gladdened when I hear about hundreds of people doing something like this, standing up (or, in one case, lying down) for what's right.

Thank you so much for posting this, penguin pie!
posted by kristi at 3:48 PM on May 13, 2021 [6 favorites]

Not unrelated, I think: the affirmation the new MSPs must swear to take their seat in the Scottish Parliament involves an oath of loyalty to the Crown. Today a number made it clear they were doing so under protest. Scotland has increasingly had enough of London's bullshit.
posted by Hogshead at 3:57 PM on May 13, 2021 [35 favorites]

Good shit.
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:02 PM on May 13, 2021 [3 favorites]

This makes me want to visit Glasgow and just start doling out high fives until my arm falls off.

My fantasy city relocation list has been updated, my friends.
posted by furnace.heart at 4:16 PM on May 13, 2021 [19 favorites]

This all took place a minute away from where I live. I had to pop out for a bit when I got a chance with work. It was incredible to see it build over the course of the day.

I thought it might not end. I knew the initial protestors - including the amazing person squashed under the deportation van - would never leave. So I worried about what would happen in the evening. I've seen police provocation many times.

But when the door of that van opened, around 6pm, it was something else. I love where I live. I love that this community is on the side of justice. Have you ever been involved in a protest that won, on that very day, right in front of your eyes? I doubt it, because all over the world it rarely happens, but here you go, in Glasgow, this afternoon, there was a fucking great monumental victory. Make note of it. You could do it too!
posted by cincinnatus c at 4:22 PM on May 13, 2021 [117 favorites]

Sometimes and despite so many things, I really, really love some people.
posted by vers at 4:27 PM on May 13, 2021 [6 favorites]

It takes so many good people to save such a small number of people.
posted by obfuscation at 4:35 PM on May 13, 2021 [16 favorites]

Sniffling with joy and gratitude.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 4:39 PM on May 13, 2021 [2 favorites]

I love Scotland.
posted by thivaia at 4:44 PM on May 13, 2021

Thanks from all of us, people of Glasgow & keep up the good work.
posted by bleep at 4:45 PM on May 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

Everything Scottish is good....
posted by armoir from antproof case at 5:21 PM on May 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

I miss Glasgow so much!!! God, thank you for this pick-me-up, i hope the two men will be able to continue to stay.
posted by cendawanita at 5:54 PM on May 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

❤️
posted by supermedusa at 6:19 PM on May 13, 2021 [2 favorites]

❤️
posted by Tom-B at 6:42 PM on May 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

This reminds me of the stories of farm bankruptcies, where the bank would auction the lot, BUT the rest of the nearby farmers would show up [with implements] and you'd be a bloodied fool to put an offer up if you were anyone besides the indebted owner.

So this is amazing, full stop. But what's the lesson?

- Is it about local solidarity? Obviously

- Is it about local justice enforced with physicality? Is justice better in either of those ways?

How do we take something like this and contrast it with Zuccotti park? Was it just that OWS didn't have stated goals? Or is it more that this mode of protest/obstruction works but only if you have the chips and the pigs don't?

I really don't know
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 8:53 PM on May 13, 2021 [5 favorites]

I was watching this on Instagram, so pleased the protest worked, dawn raids on Eid are awful (always awful but especially evil).
posted by ellieBOA at 9:26 PM on May 13, 2021 [5 favorites]

But what's the lesson?

The lesson is that fortunately for the people of Glasgow, the UK Office of Public Intimidation remains less brutally efficient than its Australian counterpart.
posted by flabdablet at 11:08 PM on May 13, 2021 [4 favorites]

Nice one, Glasgow.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:50 PM on May 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

From the Guardian article linked above: The protests took place as new MSPs were sworn in to what has been described as Holyrood’s most diverse ever parliament, taking their oaths in British Sign Language, Arabic, Urdu, Punjabi, Doric, Scots, Gaelic, Welsh and Orcadian, and after an election in which refugees had voting rights for the first time in Scotland.

Thank you so much for this post, penguin pie. The whole thing makes me teary with astonishment and gratitude. Reading about the new MSPs was an unexpected bonus. Such support for immigrants does not happen here in Sweden. In 2018, a young student refused to take her seat on a plane that was deporting an Afghan asylum seeker but that is the exception in Sweden and, let's face it, nearly everywhere. This amazing Glasgow action, could never have imagined it. Go Glasgow!
posted by Bella Donna at 1:46 AM on May 14, 2021 [7 favorites]

The moment that the Solicitor Aamer Anwar went to release the men from the back of the van.

Horrid that this happens at all. Vans coming in the middle of the night to drag people away because they...don't have the right paperwork.
posted by vacapinta at 1:59 AM on May 14, 2021 [13 favorites]

There are some interesting political ramifications of this protest and its outcome. In this case the order to release the pair came from Police Scotland - on the grounds of public health and safety. Police Scotland are ultimately answerable to the Scottish government as opposed to the Westminster government who controls the Home Office. I expect that will not have gone down well with Johnson’s cabinet .
posted by rongorongo at 3:17 AM on May 14, 2021 [2 favorites]

Amazing story! Kudos to the people of Glasgow!

One slightly discordant note - were the two men Muslim? I only ask because there are a lot of references to Eid and not being allowed to celebrate it, as well as them being taken to the mosque at the end, but the one name I heard - Lakhvir Singh - sounds more Punjabi / Sikh to me than Muslim (I’m Indian but not from either of those communities so could be wrong). I think it’s important to get this stuff right which is why I’m clarifying.
posted by peacheater at 3:28 AM on May 14, 2021 [6 favorites]

On doing a bit more research - the men’s names were Lakhvir Singh and Sumit Sehdev. And apparently they regularly volunteer at their local gurdwara so indeed Sikhs not Muslims. Some pretty poor reporting out there and lots of mixing up of all the brown people together.
posted by peacheater at 3:35 AM on May 14, 2021 [26 favorites]

Was the protestor under the van inspired by Arthur Dent and the bulldozer?
posted by autopilot at 3:39 AM on May 14, 2021 [9 favorites]

I expect that will not have gone down well with Johnson’s cabinet

To be fair, the only thing that would go down well with Johnson's cabinet would be the charter plane they're all flying in after the pilot bails out.
posted by flabdablet at 4:19 AM on May 14, 2021 [6 favorites]

Yup, I'd twigged when I heard his name on the news that he was likely Sikh, though of course their actual identities were the last piece of the jigsaw to be publicly known, for most of the day they were just anonymous people locked in a van.

I notice that Nicola Sturgeon's statement mentions it being in the heart of a Muslim community rather than stating that the two men were Muslim, so I'm guessing at a stretch there was general ire at the insensitivity of this taking place in an area with a significant Muslim population, on a Muslim holiday, mixed in with some assumptions made on Twitter, while their identity remained unknown. And possibly on the weary, if lazy, assumption that Muslim people are very often on the receiving end of this kind of action, and the suspicion that Islamaphobia is one of the unspoken underpinnings of UK immigration policy.

But indeed, the online reporting should have been clearer once their identities were known for sure.
posted by penguin pie at 4:32 AM on May 14, 2021 [6 favorites]

Scotland has increasingly had enough of London's bullshit.

Enough of central government’s bullshit; most Londoners don’t like them either.

This is such a great story. Weegies are wonderful.
posted by Concordia at 5:19 AM on May 14, 2021 [3 favorites]

Oh - and I suspect the whole 'walking to the local mosque' thing was about getting them somewhere close by that they would feel relatively safe, and which would allow for crowd dispersal from the street itself once people felt assured they were under some kind of protection, for the short term at least. It's likely that a lot of the refugee support networks in Glasgow have close links with the mosques (and other places of worship) so it would have been fairly easy to arrange by people already on the scene, and I think it's very close to where it all took place so probably more convenient than getting to the Gurdwara. Taking them somewhere within walking distance avoided having them put into a police car, which the crowd would probably have blocked. And the fact they were taken to the mosque probably also fed into the assumption they were Muslim.

And of course possibly also a face-saving measure for the authorities rather than simply letting them go straight back into their flat.
posted by penguin pie at 6:10 AM on May 14, 2021 [4 favorites]

Refuweegies is killing me.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:31 AM on May 14, 2021 [5 favorites]

It takes so many good people to save such a small number of people.

...peacefully. That's what the miracle was in Glasgow yesterday, a city whose people just demonstrated their decency and humanity to the world.
posted by LooseFilter at 7:22 AM on May 14, 2021 [5 favorites]

Proud of my old neighbourhood. Here's tae us; wha's like us?
posted by scruss at 7:31 AM on May 14, 2021 [8 favorites]

How do we take something like this and contrast it with Zuccotti park?

Vastly different situations. This is an immediate, local response to a specific action in-progress: this van with these coppers are going after these 2 guys in this house, so we, the neighbors, will go stop the former from abducting the latter.

That's why it was effective, and its exemplary nature is in the way it focuses the struggle against oppressive power at a particular leverage point. OWS -- at least, as a local phenomenon in Zuccotti park -- was doomed to fade away because it was a protest against an entire global system, with no specific crisis point against which it could direct itself.
posted by Saxon Kane at 8:44 AM on May 14, 2021 [3 favorites]

Here's tae us; wha's like us?

Damn few, and they’re a’ deid!
posted by Happy Dave at 11:20 AM on May 14, 2021 [4 favorites]

That whole thing was really moving. (The Twitter links were great!)
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 12:44 PM on May 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

Particular thing about the gurdwara: I used to live next door to its previous location. To say it's beloved by the community is a colossal understatement. For the polis to come in and try to nab people connected to that place was a grave misjudgment.
posted by scruss at 12:51 PM on May 14, 2021 [6 favorites]

purely for clarity - the action was by the home office (uk) , police scotland were not connected to the removal of the men - they became involved (as mentioned by OP ) to protect public safety.

The solidarity by ordinary people and the decision to release the men for public safety creates an interesting precedent and leverage for further actions - this is a particular issue in Glasgow as it welcomes many refugees and is the only dispersal city in Scotland at the moment ...

https://www.refuweegee.co.uk/
posted by burr1545 at 3:30 PM on May 14, 2021

Should Scotland become independent, I'm seriously tempted to move there and see if I can trade my Brexitlandish citizenship for a Scottish one.
posted by acb at 3:58 PM on May 14, 2021 [2 favorites]

This is wonderful!
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 2:58 AM on May 16, 2021

I'm hearing rumours that the two guys released from the van have been evicted because of course Home Office come after everyone with any link to people they want erased.

And then of course there was the traditional "Rangers Fans Get to Fuck Up George Square With No Consequences" event.
posted by scruss at 1:05 PM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]