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Showing posts with label Scotland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scotland. Show all posts
National Secular Society ✒ Using faith groups to deliver services for women experiencing violence may risk exploitation, the National Secular Society has told the Scottish government.


The NSS warned against outsourcing services tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG) to religious groups which proselytise to service users or fail to support women's equality in response to an independent review established by the Scottish government.

The review aims to develop a new funding model that will "ensure high quality, accessible specialist services" across Scotland for those experiencing any form of VAWG.

Women's groups must "constantly contend" with faith groups

The NSS said there are "specific concerns" regarding outsourcing VAWG services to religious groups.

It said many religious organisations do not support women's equality because they bar women from leadership roles or teach that women are subordinate to men. They may also oppose access to contraception and abortion, which may be "essential" to victims of VAWG.

The NSS said moves in England to give government funds to faith groups offering community services has attracted criticism from Pragna Patel of Southall Black Sisters, which defends the rights of women in ethnic minority communities.

Continue reading @ National Secular Society.

Don’t Let Religion Impede Women Escaping Violence In Scotland

Atheist Republic ✒ A study sponsored by the Humanist Society of Scotland revealed many Scots are departing from religion and religious identity. 


The study showed a stark difference compared to a similar survey in 2011. The survey conducted by YouGov, an international research data and analytics group, asked more than 1002 adults about their religious preferences.

The study administered an online survey from February 24 to 28, 2022. The survey was emailed to respondents, then directed to a link to take the survey.

When asked about what religious denomination they belong to, 56% of the respondents chose “None” in their response. In 2011, only 42% of the respondents responded “none” to a similar question.

In 2011, 53% of the adults in Scotland said they identify as Christian. The number has decreased significantly to 33% in 2022.

Of those who identified as Christians in the recent survey, only 28% said they “believe that Jesus was a real person who died and came back to life and was the son of God.”

The survey also showed that 70% of people aged 18 to 24 said they have no religion. This number was only at 50% in 2011.

The Scottish trend of departure from religion has been happening for a long time. Aside from not identifying with a religion, most Scotts are now married through “humanist marriages.”

The Humanist Society of Scotland said in 2019, there were 5,879 humanist marriages, compared to the 5,812 Christian marriages in the same year.

Continue reading @ Atheist Republic,

New Survey ✑ 70% Of Young Scottish Adults Have No Religion

Sandy Campbell ✒ with a piece first published in The Leither magazine.

A hundred years ago there were over a dozen busy churches and mission halls in Leith. The Alhambra Theatre in the old Kirkgate hosted packed evening services with congregations of over 1,000. Religion mattered.

Today, many of these churches are warehouses or offices, the fate of others hanging by a tenuous thread. That doesn’t mean, of course, that religion itself is threatened by extinction. Faith matters to millions, if not billions, across the world. But in Scotland, like in most of the western world, we have, at least on the face of it, gone secular.

So, I wonder - where are the echoes of that world today? Was the past actually how we imagine it? Were our antecedents really such fervent seekers of the grace of God? Or was their collective devoutness more often a matter of simply doing what was expected; going with the flow of what comes with belonging to your community.

The inside of a church was a familiar part of life a hundred years ago. It was where your people systematically came together to be reminded of the faith that bound you together. And in Scotland, it also clearly marked out your tribe: Protestant or Catholic.

In secular times it is difficult for us to understand the overlap between religion and ethnicity. In the Scottish Reformation of the 16th and 17th centuries Catholicism was effectively wiped out in the Lowlands. Then, after the defeat of the Catholic Jacobites in the 18th century, Lowland Calvinist missionaries set out to convert the Highlanders. By the mid 19th century Scotland was overwhelmingly of one denomination: Calvinist-Presbyterian. Yes, there were Episcopalians, mainly in the north-east, and some Catholics remaining un-converted in the Western Isles. But just like most nations of the time, Scotland was a country where overwhelmingly the dominant ethnicity worshipped as one.

That was all about to change. In the mid 19th century, literally millions of Irish fled the devastation of the potato famine. In a couple of decades Ireland’s population shrank by a third, and thousands upon thousands came to Scotland. Glasgow and the West were of course the destination for most, but not all. Many came to Edinburgh, and like any immigrant community, searching for a new life but starting at the bottom, they settled in the poorer areas: the Cowgate, soon to be known as ‘little Ireland’, and Leith, with the lure of ready work at the docks.

To many, the arriving Irish were seen as foreigners, bringing with them a religion which represented everything that Scotland wasn’t. More than that: it was Scotland’s struggle to break free from Catholicism which forged us a nation re-born in the 16th and 17th centuries. The overlap was total on both sides. To be Scots was to be Protestant. To be Catholic was to be Irish.

Nevertheless, like all immigrant communities, they changed the city they settled in. The fine football club they had founded, Hibernian FC, had won the Scottish Cup twice prior to the Great War and, along with their later Glasgow and Dundee offshoots, they had become a permanent fixture of Scotland’s sporting and cultural life. Edinburgh, the birthplace of the Scottish Reformation, the home to John Knox and the Covenanters, now had a settled and increasingly more confident Catholic Irish minority.

Meanwhile, following the Great War, all hell was breaking loose in Ireland. Britain was losing the southern counties, following the Easter Rising, ironically led by a son of the Cowgate, James Connolly, born of Irish immigrants in 1868, and forging his socialism in his young years in Edinburgh’s printing industry. Protestant Scotland, however, was on the side of its Protestant cousins in Ulster, descendants of Scot’s immigrants in the 17th century.

In Edinburgh today we tend to turn a blind eye to the Catholic-Protestant legacy in Scotland, labelling it conveniently as a west coast phenomenon, and packaging it tidily away under the term, sectarianism. Rangers and Celtic, Orange marches and Republican flute bands, Catholic Coatbridge and Protestant Govan? Nothing to do with us.

But there is an Edinburgh tale to be told, and from not that long ago, that helps to illustrate just how far and deep the Catholic-Protestant divide in Scotland went in our recent past. And it is a tale with Leith at its very heart.

In 1934 the voters of South Leith ward elected a new councillor to the City Chambers: John Cormack won by a clear majority under the new banner of ‘Protestant Action’. Later that year this new party won Central Leith in a by-election and another seat in Newington. Protestant Action, Cormack’s own creation, was on the up.

Then came the hot summer of 1935. Edinburgh’s Catholics had two events that year to look forward to. The first was a planned reception in the City Chambers for the city’s Catholic Young Men’s Society. The CYMS stood at the heart of the Irish experience in the Cowgate, with Hibs’ first team drawn from their ranks. They could also be relied upon to stand up to anti-Catholic hostilities and so, were no friends of Cormack. 10,000 Protestant Action supporters turned out on Cormack’s command to stop the reception taking place. The streets around the High Street became a battleground with the Gordon Highlanders barracked at the castle, and the Royal Army Special Corp at Leith Fort, all on standby in case the police became overwhelmed.

Then in June came the Eucharistic Congress of the Roman Catholic Church. The first ever to be held in Scotland. It lasted a week with violence every day, but the main event was to be on a Tuesday evening in the grounds of the Priest’s Priory on Canaan Lane, Morningside. At seven o’clock 10,000 worshipers faced a mob of 30,000 angry Protestants. This time the police had a plan and tricked the hostile crowd into believing the worshipers would leave by the Morningside Road exit. It worked, and most managed to make their escape through the back exists, only then to encounter gangs of Protestant Action supporters stoning their buses through the gentile streets of south Edinburgh.

With purportedly mesmerising powers of oratory, John Cormack had, almost single-handedly, sparked the flames of a veritable crusade against Catholicism in Scotland’s capital. And the voters of Edinburgh showed their support at the ballot box the following year. In the municipal elections of 1936, Protestant Action secured 9 councillors and 32% of the vote across the city. Labour were pushed into third place. Thankfully the momentum of Protestant Action began to peter out with events leading up to the Second World War - although Cormack himself continued as the Councillor for South Leith until 1962.

Looking back, it seems perplexing, if not downright unbelievable, to hear how anti-Catholic Protestantism found a political voice and burst violently onto the streets of Edinburgh, not so long ago. Thankfully, in these more secular times, when churches are turned into carpet showrooms, and the way you choose to worship is not something for others to be outraged about, those days are behind us.

But that’s not really the point. This is a story from Edinburgh’s recent past about mass immigration and the reaction of the indigenous citizens when hundreds of desperate people from a different culture, language, and way of worshipping, arrive seeking work and safety. It is also clearly a story of global relevance today, as similar scripts play out on our television screens every night.

And of pertinence to today’s independence debate, we should not forget that Irish immigration in the 19th century reshaped Scotland, just as Scottish immigration in the 17th century reshaped Ireland. Our two ethnically and religiously reshaped nations, inextricably entwined as we are, need to stop dancing around our unhappy progeny in Ulster and, dare I say it, start talking.

⏩ Sandy Campbell is a life long supporter of Edinburgh soccer team, Hibernian FC.

Edinburgh’s Secret Sectarian Past

Gary Robertson ✒ I was an awkward child, shy, retiring.

I didn't do people very well in all honesty. coming from a background of abuse with an alcoholic gambling addicted stepfather and a mother who by her own admission (much much later in life) was far too young to be a mum (15).

I found social interaction difficult. I'd spend hours fishing or just walking through the countryside watching birds, animals, just enjoying the solitude.

This was pretty much how it went for a long time. Friends were scarce and I found myself increasingly less comfortable as I grew in the company of others. I'd pursue pastimes that meant I didn't need to associate. One of these pastimes would gradually and eventually bring me out of my shell and help me find my place in the world - music.

John Miles sang in 1976 that "♫ music was my first love and it will be my last♫ and so it became for me.

I'd spend many wet, wild, cold afternoons in my bedroom listening to all kinds of music from silly love songs to grand operatic classics. This was the early 80s and whilst punk was still prevalent, new genres were springing up all over the place - literally every day something new. It was a great time musically to be alive and I embraced it as I guess most of us did.

Of course I had my favourites: The Cure 🎸Siouxsie and the Banshees 🎸 Joy Division 🎸 The Damned 🎸 Southern Death Cult amongst others, all bands already established from the 70s. The Ramones ... the list goes on. But for the turning point, the "big bang" if you like, we have to go back a couple of years to 1979 and Bauhaus. Probably to this day the greatest band to ever come from Northampton and Bella Lugosi's Dead ... this dark, gloomy, nightmarish feel burned into my young ears. It was like nothing I'd heard before and it felt right. This was the music for me - the sound for me. After yet another kicking from my stepfather I'd hide, curtains closed, under my bed, my small second hand battery operated radio clutched tightly as I'd listen to and sob along with the dreary lyrics of this music scene I was very quickly identifying with.

The one friend I did have was Alastair.

I'd known Alastair since I was 4 from the first day at primary school. He'd regularly bring chocolate biscuits to school and share them with me. Kids being kids would ask how you got that bruise or stuff like that.  Alastair was that kid and we grew close like brothers, the very best of friends.

We grew up in a very small village in southern Scotland, my parents having decided that Glasgow was no longer for them. My stepfather, through what he called "ex forces connections" (he was an RAF "man" in his youth) gained a job and a home in the country and that's where this really begins.

I won't bore you with the details of my childhood after all it's not a therapy session so let's hurry forward to High School/Secondary school.

By this time Alastair and I were heavily into our music and we tried to emulate our hero's looks Numan, Smith, McCoy, Murphy and others. The dark aesthetic fitted perfectly with us. After all, this was 1984 and 13 year old me was captivated by this "gothic music and look." We'd read what we could, we'd look for inspiration for new bands, new sounds ... Sisters of Mercy 🎸 Fields of the Nephilim Cocteau Twins 🎸 Jesus and Mary Chain ... these were exciting times.

The advent of Channel 4 and The Tube shows like The Old Grey Whistle Test ... even Top of The Pops brought new sounds: Depeche Mode 🎸 Soft Cell 🎸 Kate Bush were mainstream yet still edgy enough for us. We spent most of our teenage years together: we'd sit, drink, chat about everything from girls to ghosts, from aliens to Andi Sex Gang. We had each other our own little goth community - just the two of us - we didn't care and we loved it. Sure, he had "outside" interests, football, fishing, cycling - but we still had our bond, our club, our music. And not a dry evening went by when you couldn't find us somewhere, usually perched on the church steps in the graveyard, for safety's sake mainly so as not to get a kicking from the older guys or other guys who thought we were "queer" and "weirdos" Discussing everything and anything or just listen to music we had managed to record with the hovering finger from Radio1, Radio Luxembourg and others.

These memories, music, to this day, look, are still with me. And whilst life has taken many twists and turns I still smile when I hear these songs, these albums once more. For me, the quintessential goth track is Atmosphere by Joy Division. Sure, there were many before and after that, but its dark, dreary lyrics spoke to me and when people ask me for a place to start that's usually where I send them.

I hadn't seen Alastair much after that for a very long time. Other things sort of got in the way. But I ran into him one day not long before his life ended tragically, the way he wanted, by his own hand. And he asked me "Do you think we did goth right?"

Its taken all these years and finally writing this short piece to come up with a definite answer.

"Yes we did Ally yes we did." 

You see, there wasn't a code book nor a rule book. We did it our way and we had fun doing it. And in the end, isn't that what it was all meant to be about?

We were fledgling goths. We became adults and, now nearing 51, I guess I'm elder goth now. But all I have to do is close my eyes and there you are, there we are sharing orange "club" biscuits and being two kids again.

RIP my friend ... my brother.

⏩ Gary Robertson is a patron of TPQ.

Music And Alastair

UnHerd ✒ A bill brought forth by the SNP aims to police what citizens say at home.

Rod Dreher 

In the Soviet Union, not even the home was a refuge from the ears of the totalitarian state. Historian Orlando Figes, in his 2007 book The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia, quotes one Soviet woman’s memory of her childhood:

We were brought up to keep our mouths shut. ‘You’ll get into trouble for your tongue’ — that’s what people said to us children all the time. We went through life afraid to talk. Mama used to say that every other person was an informer. We were afraid of our neighbours, and especially of the police … Even today, if I see a policeman, I begin to shake with fear.

Decades from now, will a Scotsman brought up in Edinburgh or Glasgow offer a similar testimony to historians documenting our era? The question is by no means absurd, not in light of the Hate Crimes and Public Order Bill brought forth by the ruling Scottish National Party. In testimony before a parliamentary committee this week, Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf said that he believes the reach of the proposed law should cover words spoken in the privacy of people’s homes.

Continue reading @ UnHerd.

Scotland Is Leading The Way To Totalitarianism

Gary Robertson remembers the challenges growing up in a remote West coast Scottish village.

"Yer no gaun out dressed like that" the words of my mother still ring in my ears over 30 years later. Her insistence that "people would laugh", and my stepfather casting aspersions on my sexuality, made the rebel inside of me more determined to embrace this new found love of a developing subculture.

I grew up in a small west coast village in Scotland - barely 200 families. A picturesque place, a rather imposing church was the focal point from where you could look down on the houses below and feel like a "God" - master of all he surveys.

An awkward child, I was never a mixer: one close friend and that was it. We shared similar passions - we would walk for miles and innocently enjoy the world around us oblivious to the horrors happening elsewhere or at least unaware of the impact these things would have on us in later years.

Late in 1981 I was introduced to Bauhaus, a sound I had never heard before but one that resonated within my soul one that captured and captivated me. It became a drug. Add to this a sprinkling of Joy Division and already the dark seeds were beginning to bloom. Further sounds followed but I digress

Back to the story.

So there's 13 year old me, dressed head to toe in black, overly theatrical make up, standing in front of my disapproving parents trying to explain as best I could with a limited vocabulary that this was "who I am" - I had "found myself."

They were far from happy but decided as this was the 1980s perhaps it was time to modernize and accept youth culture (or least something like that).

So out I marched looking like a Poundland vampire, a long woolen trench coat flapping behind me, and proceeded to meet up with my friend who was dressed in almost identical garb.

Of course I would like to pretend it was easy, that we didn't get jumped, we didn't suffer violence from adults and our peers. Because the fact is we did.

Scars and broken teeth - a "burst mooth" was par for the course but still we stuck with it. For us, we had found freedom.

We would escape to the safety of the graveyard and watch the village below and sit and talk about everything and anything. Sometimes we would read, other times listen to music on a battered old radio I had been given by a neighbour.

When I look back now as I said over 30 years later and still very much interested in the gothic subculture, despite everything, I would change nothing.

Sure the hair has grown grey, my waistline has expanded, but inside still lives that young boy who found his place amongst misfits, a passion for music that remains and a fascination with things few stop to consider.

So why write this? To wander down Memory Lane? To lay some ghosts to rest? Perhaps a little of both but mainly to give hope.

To those struggling in crisis whether that be identity gender sexuality or whatever. there are allies. The world has moved forward and, whilst we have a long way to go, we are making progress. Never feel alone never feel your worth is less than that of another

You have a voice and you have a right.

Be your best you and do it for you "illegitimus non tatum carborundum." 

➽ Gary Robertson is a patron of TPQ

Do It For You

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