Letters / A question of priorities
During 1940, thirty boats travelled from German occupied Norway to Shetland, and landed 200 Norwegian refugees.
Shetland had food rationing, very little decent housing, and not much in the way of social services.
According to the shetlandbus.com website, “The ordinary Shetland people responded very positively to the arrival of the Norwegian refugees”.
In 2015 people are fleeing dire emergencies in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and others.
Shetland can’t help all of these individuals, but we can help some, and we can help a lot more than the paltry numbers being discussed by some local and national politicians.
We like to see ourselves as a safe and welcoming community, with initiative and determination. We certainly do have an unrivalled network of community halls with fully equipped kitchens.
Our health, police, sanitation and transport infrastructure clearly managed to cope with several thousand workers from the Total gas plant. Our piers abound with accommodation barges and cruise ships.
People in Shetland struggling to make ends meet, or living in inadequate housing, or having difficulty getting the health care they need may well ask “what about me?”.
The answer is that the needs of people who are poor, in need, or in crisis are not a political priority. Helping people in need changes this.
Helping people in need forces it to become a social and political priority. This helps everyone in need, refugees and Shetland residents alike.
Shetland does have the financial resources, it is just a question of priorities.
Help for refugees doesn’t have to be some gold plated exercise. We need a humane emergency response to a humanitarian crisis, and we need it now.
Now is a good time to show some of that Shetland hospitality and initiative. If you or your family had the choice between living under tarpaulin in a city square, or living in a safe, caring, wet and windy Shetland in a spare room, local hall or accommodation barge, what would you choose?
Kevin Learmonth
Scalloway
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