LAST weekend was a really tough one for me, marking six years since I lost my father. Sheer panic and pain swept over me like a sudden wave when I received a phone call on the morning of June 13, 2014 from a London hospital, letting me know I should make my way there from Glasgow immediately.

This was followed by the anguish and helplessness of receiving a second call in the car, just as I reached Carlisle, letting me know that it was too late and my father had slipped away. This heartbreak gives me total empathy with those who lose loved ones but are denied the opportunity to say their goodbyes and offer comfort and love in those last moments.

That is exactly what so many have experienced at the hands of this cruel virus over recent weeks.

I know the personal hurt of that will never ever leave me.

My dad, as far as I am aware, was the first person of colour to be elected as a regional councillor in Scotland, no mean feat at the time, and he served his constituents of New Town and Stockbridge in Edinburgh for two terms with great pride. I wonder what my father would make of where we are in the world right now in terms of BAME representation and racial equality.

I think he would be, as was always his way, quietly disappointed.

It seems apt, therefore, to take this opportunity to celebrate new Scots and old and to focus on Refugee Week 2020 as a counter balance to the current chaos and division across the globe.

The organisers of Refugee Week in the UK describe their annual celebration as an opportunity to recognise and applaud the creativity, resilience and societal contributions that refugees bring to our nation.

These celebrations are part of a wider global movement to encourage positive encounters between communities, so we can learn from each other and understand our differences and our shared humanity. And they couldn’t have come at a better time. If you watched the news at the weekend, you wouldn’t think Scotland was a very welcoming place for migrants.

The gaggle of hate-filled, ignorant and aggressive thugs that swarmed in Glasgow is a tiny minority but a noisy one. And this is in a city that also hosted a lockdown session in support of the Scottish Refugee Council and Refuweeges the same weekend.

Glasgow St Pauli and Unite Scotland’s annual #LoveGlasgowHateRacism gig, with artists such as Billy Bragg, the Bluebells and The Fratellis, has so far raised more than £10,000 in support of refugees and asylum seekers. More of this Glasgow please. And more of this Scotland. We need to fight back against division and discrimination, against uneducated and unchallenged bigotry and those political leaders who would seek to harness this ignorance and use it to their advantage.

The question is, how do we reach out to communities characterised by this fear of difference? How do we get the angry mob to see new Scots and second, third-generation Scots as part of their shared future rather than a threat, for the better of

all of us? Moves are now afoot to properly address Scotland’s part in the oppression and deaths of tens of thousands of African people, not to mention our imperial role as the “butlers and enforcers of empire” in the sub-continent and across Asia. Only by knowing who we are and recognising our past failures can we truly move forward.

That should be balanced with recognition of our not inconsiderable achievements as a nation – universal education, the enlightenment, the trade union movement – many of the inventions which have shaped the modern world and the medical advances which have helped save it.

For example the morons who daubed “racist” on the Bruce monument at Bannockburn would certainly be oblivious to the fact that Scotland’s hero king was responsible for the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320, unique among medieval documents in articulating the concept that all human beings are equal in the eyes of the almighty.

Education in our own national history is the antidote to bigotry and ignorance. Unfortunately for Scotland, we are currently tied to a far from enlightened UK Government, run by a party which has done its utmost to whip up xenophobic fear and antagonism in its 10 years in power.

From Theresa May’s hostile environment, to Windrush, to the failed efforts to tackle Islamophobia in their party, to Johnson and his dog whistle rhetoric, to “pretendy” commissions and reports into structural inequalities whose recommendations never see the light of day – it’s a catalogue of failures and deliberate intransigence.

With this in mind, it’s all the more important we do a root and branch review of our own structures across the public and private spheres, in education, in law and order, in our society as a whole as well as reaching out to all groups that feel disenfranchised.

Trust me when I tell you racism in Scotland is not restricted to the mindless mini-mob on display last weekend. It is deeply-ingrained in respectable middle-class institutions across our society.

We need to open up lines of communication, propose opportunities to meet and discuss hopes and fears, myths and real lived experience. Citizens’ Assemblies are one way of doing this, as is building on some of the powerful community projects across our nation that challenge structural inequalities and push for change. I’d like to commend the sentiments of Labour MSP Anas Sarwar, who recently delivered a powerful speech in Holyrood on the lack of diversity in the Scottish Parliament and indeed across leadership roles as a whole.

As a father of two daughters and brother to four sisters, my dad’s support of women’s empowerment, representation and rights was a source of constant encouragement to me, even in his absence, and I was privileged to go on to become the first female BAME MP from Scotland at Westminster.

But so far, there have been no female MSPs from the same community at Holyrood, a shocking indictment of blocks to equality and progress in our nation. This and the lack of opportunity for BAME Scots and new Scots across our society needs to be addressed, not just in the political world but across the board.

As Sarwar said: “Silence is no longer an option ... there is no hierarchy of prejudice ... let’s have actions not words.”

A Scotland that recognises its problems and takes proper steps to address inequality is a Scotland I want to be part of and proud to celebrate. And I know my late father would agree.