GLASGOW // The sky is blue above the minaret of the Glasgow Central Mosque, a sprawling building on the banks of the River Clyde. More than 5,000 visitors a week pass through its gates, which bear the message: “God bless this city with peace and prosperity.”
The mosque is apolitical, but its courtyard is a key battleground of a referendum that could end Scotland’s 300-year union with England.
On Thursday, Scots will vote Yes or No to independence and almost 4.3 million – 97 per cent of the population – have registered to have their say.
The latest surveys suggest the outcome is on a knife edge. A poll by The Guardian and ICM published on Friday put the No vote at 51 per cent and Yes at 49 per cent.
Scottish Asians, most of them from Pakistan and Bangladesh, make up 3 per cent of the population, and campaigners from both sides have put Scotland’s largest mosque firmly on the campaign trail.
But the heckling two weeks ago of Alistair Darling, leader of the pro-union Better Together campaign, may support the results of another recent poll by Asian radio station Awaz FM: it found 64 per cent of Asians in Scotland would vote Yes, and 32 per cent would vote No.
Iqbal Khan, 36, an immigrant from Bangladesh who has lived and worked in Glasgow for eight years, is one of those who has been won over by the Yes campaign. His support for independence was secured after he met Humza Yousaf, the first ethnic minority minister in Scotland’s cabinet, in the Glasgow Central Mosque courtyard.
“The main reason I’m voting Yes is the way the UK government has dealt with international issues,” Mr Khan said. “And look at the way it treats immigrants! I would like to think Scotland would behave better than that.
“There has been a great energy around the Yes campaign. It grabs you and I’ve been feeling quite emotional. We’ve got this chance and we need to seize it.”
Rashde Ali, 35, is certain about one thing – she is going to vote on Thursday. But she is still unsure where to put her cross.
“A lot of our young generation go to other parts of the UK if they cannot get jobs in Scotland. Will this still be possible if we vote for independence?” she said.
“But maybe it’s yes. Maybe it could be different. We could be the 14th-richest country in the world,” she said, a claim made by nationalist campaigners. “Maybe there would be great benefits. It’s a very hard decision to make.”
But for Hamad Hussein, a shop worker from Pakistan who has lived in Scotland for eight years, it is not a risk worth taking. “I’m voting no,” he said. “It’s too big a price to pay. Why should we fight and struggle? Things are already good in our lives. We have so much to be thankful for.”
Michael Munnik, of Edinburgh University’s Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies department, said Scottish Asians had been given a high profile in the referendum campaigning, but he did not believe they were more likely to vote yes.
“Some of the major players have Asian heritage,” he says. “And their high-profile presence in the campaign projects something about modern Scotland. It is far more diverse and inclusive than before. You’ve got Humza Yousaf, a key cabinet member who identifies himself as a Muslim on one side, and on the other you’ve got [Labour MP for Glasgow Central] Anas Sarwar. They are both a similar age, have similar backgrounds and yet they are on opposing sides. You can’t peg the Asian vote on one side or the other.”
Mr Munnik said there were touchstone issues for this section of the electorate. International affairs, particularly the Labour government’s decision to go to war with Iraq in 2003, and the current government’s tough stance on immigration were issues about which Scottish Asians tend to be “more sensitive”, he said.
Mohammed Razaq, a Glasgow councillor for the Labour party campaigning for Better Together, admits Westminster’s attitude to international affairs has alienated some young Asians.
However, he believes they can still be won over.
“People are deluded if they are thinking that once we have a Yes vote we’ll change all that. We would have less power at the table to veto a decision made by Nato, for example,” he said. “We would be worse off.”
Mr Razaq also fears that racism would be worse in an independent Scotland. “In all cultures when something bad happens, whether it’s austerity or violence, visible ethnic minorities become a target. In a smaller country, people become more vulnerable to that.”
Try telling that to Tasmina Ahmed Sheikh, a lawyer and leading voice of the Yes campaign among Scottish Asians. The daughter of Scotland’s first regional councillor from an ethnic minority, she turned her back on the Conservative party she supported from the age of 10 and joined the Scottish National Party after moving from Edinburgh to Glasgow and seeing the need for a “fairer society”.
Quite simply, she said, the political union is not working. “We need the people who understand Scotland making the decisions, and we need to have a parliament that reflects our society.
“Our current immigration policy doesn’t work. We have five of the top 200 universities in the world but once our brightest foreign students graduate, we have no mechanism for allowing them to stay. And the level of earnings at which a spouse can join you in Scotland is based on salaries in London, which are not realistic here.
“Scots Asians feel part of this country, which has taken them to its heart. We have the chance to represent ourselves as responsible global citizens and we should grab it with both hands.”
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
