Two years ago Bute offered sanctuary to 24 families fleeing terror in their homelandA star has settled over a Scottish island this Christmas and once more people from the east are bearing gifts. Just before Christmas 2015,Bute, an archipelago off the west coast of Scotland in the Firth of Clyde, or opened its doors uncertainly to a battered group of 24 Syrian families fleeing the daily threat of death and persecution. Many among Bute’s 6500 people were alive to to welcome those who had endured horror. In some places the reception was chillier.
This reaction was fuelled by a degree of suspicion and resentment and given further oxygen by some media coverage which sought to sew fear and foment division. The editor of the local newspaper,The Buteman, was so appalled by the tone of some of his readers’ comments that he felt he had to face them head-on in a tough-hitting editorial.
Continue reading...
Source: guardian.co.uk