Behind the rural idyll
by Colin Turbett
Scotland's countryside may be an ideal holiday destination or second
home location, but behind the glorious scenery is a story of inglorious
poverty and despair.
For the people who live there, rural life can be rife with problems,
from scant housing to social alienation, dying communities to disappearing
amenities.
Official figures reveal that hits rock bottom in picture-postcard Dumfries
and Galloway, and that other indicators of poverty and inequality feature
commonly in rural areas: low income and chronic ill-health for pensioners,
and mortality rates for under-65s.
The Highlands have been described as the suicide capital of Europe.
The population is ageing, a trend likely to increase with the onset of
recession and the hemorrhaging of younger people to the cities, and health
and social services for older people are being slashed because of never-ending
rounds of public spending cuts.
Shelter, the housing charity concerned with homelessness, has condemned
the lack of council, social and affordable housing in rural areas of
Scotland, where housing has become a speculative investment opportunity
for the well-off rather than a right for ordinary workers.
In some Highland and Island communities, the majority of houses are second
homes, whilst those on low incomes languish in caravans or sub-standard
tenancies.
Meanwhile, women become trapped in situations of domestic violence because
of the implications of the housing shortage.
If they need to move, generally they have to move far, thereby uprooting
children from school and friends, and themselves from their own family
and social support.
All of which is killing our rural communities.
The process of resuscitation must surely involve compulsory land purchase,
if not appropriation, and investment in building houses for ordinary
people.
The spin-offs in terms of the job creation would be enormous.
But other measures are also necessary to make rural communities more
than just dormitories or holiday locations.
SSP strategies for immediate implementation, such as the policies we
originated that are being implemented by the present SNP government for
free prescriptions and free school meals, are practical solutions to
social inequalities.
Which is why we call for public transport to be free and brought back
into rural areas, to end isolation and dependency on cars.
The practice of charging more for petrol in various rural locations should
be ended by regulation of the petrol retail sector and the establishment
of price controls.
At the same time - as we approach ‘peak oil’ - efforts should, and must,
be made to ensure that alternative fuels for private vehicles are cheaply
available.
The current experiment with Road Equivalent Tariff on ferries to the
Western Isles - which should result in a ferry journey to and from an
island costing no more than the equivalent land journey - should be extended
to all island communities.
Another important issue is the disenfranchisement and marginalisation
of young people in many areas of rural Scotland, where a culture determined
by those with local power is often unsympathetic to their needs and aspirations.
Often, young people are seen as nothing more than a nuisance when they
are not working or at school.
We want young people to take ownership of their communities and feel
that they have a stake and a future in them.
We call for measures that include them, meet their needs for recreation
and leisure, and involve them in decision-making.
We also need to make villages and rural communities viable for ordinary
people to live in. Yet many are now bereft of shops, local hospitals,
post offices and other amenities, including schools.
This must be reversed as part of a general move back to regeneration
and localisation of the rural economy.
As socialists, we are for public ownership of the utilities and large
corporations, but we also want to support and revitalise the small local
businesses that serve rural communities.
The trend away from High Street shopping, in favour of large out-of-town
supermarkets and retail developments, has been keenly felt in Scotland’s
rural areas, leading to the closure of rural shops.
The Co-op hase a long tradition of providing shops, including some large
ones, in Scotland’s remoter communities.
Their idea of using large distribution networks to supply and support
smaller, privately-owned shops should be investigated.
This could be of mutual benefit: both are under attack from the predatory
big supermarket chains and, whilst the Co-op often behaves badly as an
employer, it still has democratic routes in the broader labour movement.
We are also totally opposed to the privatisation of the post office delivery
service, as this will inevitably be followed by the removal of services
to remote areas.
Another issue that must be tackled if we are to render the countryside
an area fit for modern life is racism and discrimination.
It is shameful that our oldest ethnic minority, Scottish Gypsy Travellers,
find themselves struggling for basic recognition and acceptance of their
identity and differences in their lifestyle.
Against a background of long-standing discrimination, many Gypsy Travellers
have given up the unequal struggle and allowed themselves to be assimilated
into the life of the settled community in the hope that this might give
them access to the opportunities available by right to others. Over recent
years, they have lost their traditional stopping places, been herded
into a decreasing number of public permanent sites, lost their traditional
seasonal occupations, and suffered harassment at every level. The official
message is very much “conform or suffer the consequences”
Sadly, the current SNP administration has shown little more than very
token interest in continuing the momentum of previous parliaments, whose
Equal Opportunities Committee published a report in 2001, subsequently
endorsed by the Government, that made 37 recommendations concerning the
treatment of Gypsy Travellers by legal and public bodies.
This called for full legal recognition, a demand that should have been
met years ago.
The SSP has shown strong support for Scottish Gypsy Travellers and we
remain determined that this community, which has enriched Scottish life
and culture over generations, should not be allowed to pass into history.
As internationalists, we condemn the discrimination their brothers and
sisters of the Roma people are suffering in Italy and elsewhere in Europe.
We recognise that the state-sponsored assaults on the Roma people in
Italy only differs from the treatment of Scottish Gypsy Travellers by
a question of degree.
The SSP is opposed to racism in all its forms and we stand proudly in
the tradition of welcoming those from other countries who choose, or
are forced through circumstances, to come and live in this country.
Scotland has plenty of space and its rural and remote areas have the
capacity to support more people than they presently do.
We want to see an end to the situation where rural life is restricted
to those who can afford it, and we welcome the integration and recognition
of other cultures and languages that this involves.
We have no wish to create a monoculture, and we welcome efforts to preserve
Gaelic language and culture and, in the year that we celebrate Robert
Burns 200th birthday, the recognition of lowland Scots as a living language
in its own right.
Socialists have a long tradition of support for rural struggles and
that continues through the SSP to this day.
We have a healthy network of rural activists and the debates over how
our policies will shape a socialist future will continue.