A word that has lost its edges

“Racist” is one of the heaviest words in the language, and one of the most loosely used. In the media it can cover anything that touches on ethnicity, immigration or culture. The law is far more precise.

There is no legal definition of racism as such. The Equality Act 2010 protects people from being treated worse because of their colour, nationality, or ethnic or national origins. In Scotland, the Hate Crime and Public Order Act 2021 makes it an offence to stir up hatred against a racial group by threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour.

Notice what both laws protect: people. Neither protects a custom, a belief or a way of life from criticism. The 2021 Act expressly protects discussion and criticism of religion, even where it expresses dislike or ridicule. You may object to a practice. You may not mistreat a person because of the group they belong to. That line is worth holding on to, because it allows an honest conversation.

The unease is real, and it is not hatred

When the familiar changes quickly, people feel unsettled. That is a human reaction, not a moral failing. To find another custom strange, or even to dislike it, is not the same as wishing harm on those who follow it.

The concerns deserve a fair hearing. Rapid change puts pressure on housing, schools and health services. The American sociologist Robert Putnam found that fast growing diversity can lower trust between neighbours in the short term. Some imported practices do clash with equal rights, especially for women and girls, and saying so is not bigotry.

The other side deserves the same fairness. Most people who settle here come to work, raise families and live quietly. Many arrive to do jobs we struggle to fill. And every person, wherever they were born, is owed the same dignity under the same law.

What the Bible actually says

Some point to scripture for the idea that peoples should keep to their own borders. Acts 17:26 speaks of God setting the boundaries of the nations. The Tower of Babel scatters humanity across the earth.

Read in full, those passages say something different. Paul’s point in Acts is that every nation comes from one man, so all share one origin. The Old Testament bans on marrying foreigners were about worship, not ancestry. Ruth, a Moabite, joined Israel and became the great grandmother of King David.

The plainest instruction is in Leviticus 19:33 to 34. The stranger living among you is to be treated as one of your own, and you are to love him as yourself. The Bible accepts that nations exist. Its concern is how we treat the person who arrives at the door.

The inheritance we forget we have

Scotland is no longer a churchgoing country. In the 2022 census, 51 per cent of Scots said they had no religion. Yet the foundations remain Christian, whether we notice or not.

The belief that every person has equal worth, that the strong owe a duty to the weak, that rulers answer to a higher law: these grew from Christian soil. So did the parish school, which the Kirk pressed for and which made Scotland one of the most literate nations in Europe. Other roots matter too, including Roman law and the Enlightenment, but the moral instincts are largely inherited from the faith.

This matters for newcomers and for us. Values that seem like plain common sense here are not self evident everywhere. They are a particular inheritance, and an inheritance has to be explained and passed on, not assumed.

Welcome is the tradition, not a break from it

Here is the thought I keep returning to. If our culture rests on the command to love the stranger, then welcoming newcomers is not a betrayal of who we are. It is who we are, put into practice.

That does not mean anything goes. A confident host keeps the house rules. One law for everyone, equal rights for women and men, freedom to believe and freedom to criticise belief. These are the framework, and it is reasonable to expect all who live here to accept it.

Not everyone will agree with me. Some argue that the numbers are simply too high for integration to work, and that the pace should slow. Others argue that asking newcomers to adapt at all is unfair. Both views are held in good faith and both are lawful to express. My own view is that a culture sure of its roots can afford to be generous.

What works

The evidence on integration points to a few plain things:

1. A shared language. Speaking English is the strongest single predictor of settling in well.
2. One law, applied equally, with no exceptions for anyone’s custom.
3. Everyday contact. Hostility falls on both sides when people work, learn and live alongside each other. It grows when communities live apart, as the Casey Review warned in 2016.
4. A steady pace. Gradual change is absorbed. Sudden change in places already short of housing and services breeds resentment.

Closer to home

In a place like Caithness, community still means knowing your neighbour. That is our advantage. Integration is not decided in parliaments. It happens at the school gate, in the shop, at the village hall, one conversation at a time.

We can be honest about what unsettles us and still offer a hand. We can keep what is good in our inheritance and still make room at the table. Old roots do not stop a tree from growing. They are what let it grow.