Community Climate Action is an Act of Resistance
Originally published in our fourth print issue, Fraser Stewart sets why organising for climate action must be inclusive of all sections of our communities.
Photography: Kate Holford
By Fraser Stewart
I moved to Govanhill at the beginning of the summer of 2017. At the time, my partner and I had lived in both Dennistoun and the city centre and were looking to move somewhere more affordable, slightly further out of town. We had been looking around the Southside, as skint young couples these days are wont to do, and found a few places that looked a good fit. One of those places was in Big Bad Govanhill.
Before we had even been to the Southside, we had heard stories about Govanhill. Taxi drivers and many others were quick to suck their teeth and warn us of the state of the place; the litter, the run-down flats and closes, the hordes of menacing men lining the pavements of Allison Street. The more emboldened would begin tirades about sex crime and trafficking. As someone who grew up working-class in a scheme, I find myself naturally drawn to places with a “bit of character”, but the stories we were fed made Govanhill sound like a warzone.
Most of those horror stories came from people who it would invariably transpire had never actually lived there. Due to a combination of being highly ethnically diverse and falling smack-bang in the middle of Nicola Sturgeon’s constituency, Govanhill has served in recent times as a lightning rod for the ‘legitimate concerns’ mob. It’s hard to think of an area in Scotland that has been more baselessly targeted by racists, bigots and xenophobes than this one.
Whenever we spoke to people who actually lived here, though, they couldn’t speak the area highly enough. We heard about the festival, the various cultures and carnivals, getting fed inordinate amounts of midnight snacks from neighbours during Ramadan, the community work that goes on in everything from tackling food poverty to teaching English as a foreign language, and how the area is generally not what its detractors make it out to be. Without rose-tinting anything too much, this is far closer to the Govanhill we’ve come to know and love deeply in these last few years.
As ever with Govanhill, the story is complex. Govanhill is a nuanced, homely and lively place, full of contradictions and coalescence alike. There are still issues – the slum landlords, the people like us moving in and driving the meteoric rise of rents (and artisanal bakeries), as well as an infuriating lack of council services, mostly around bins – but at its core, it is an area of real heart, solidarity and hospitality.
It is also an area that is more active against climate change than many places I’ve lived in. Turn just about any corner in Govanhill and you’ll meet someone running a community garden or trying to wrestle derelict land back from developers to create new green space. At the top of Victoria Road we have South Seeds, which runs community gardens but also helps low income households bring down their energy bills through efficiency measures. Cross the street and there’s a veritable smorgasbord of cycling charities to choose from.
Undoubtedly, Govanhill is a place that cares about itself, its people and the environment in which we live. Maybe it’s a siege mentality, a response to people from the outside talking so often about what a disaster site Govanhill is that stokes that sense of pride and civic responsibility. Whatever drives it, it has generally become a force for good for the planet and people alike.
When we think about the climate crisis, it can be easy to get lost in despair over this enormous, planetary problem – a problem that feels insurmountable from our own homes and communities. But it’s in these spaces where real change begins. When we think about community gardens and cycling charities and outfits like South Seeds, all of whom do amazing work, it can be easy to think about how small their impact on global emissions is, compared to that of fossil fuel companies and governments intent on opening oil fields and coal mines. That’s fair. But these community initiatives mean so much more than that, especially in a place like Govanhill.
Climate action in communities serves a more fundamental purpose than reducing emissions or creating green, liveable spaces – important and positive as these things are. Community initiatives serve as social spaces, where people can come and feel part of something. Within those spaces, we can build solidarity and human connection. This not only makes us more resilient to deal with the pressures of climate change, which impact lowest-income and marginalised communities like Govanhill most sharply, but also more adequately equips communities to form the building blocks of the broad and inclusive coalition we need to make sure leaders act on climate urgently, fairly and equitably. It may feel small. It may feel insignificant. But community climate work serves a much bigger social, political and planetary purpose. And Govanhill has that work going on in spades.
There is one small caveat. While the work that goes on in Govanhill is visibly transformative, we still have a way to go to break out of the precarious middle-class bubble these initiatives can often unintentionally become. I mean this constructively and with love, and with awareness of the work being done to be more inclusive. But we still have more to do to bring along people from outwith the usual interest groups in the area and to recognise their needs, perspectives and concerns.
We can do more to involve the Roma community, to support them to take a lead in shaping their area, and to include diverse working-class residents who often find themselves on the outskirts of much of the work that goes on. We can bring more parts of the community on the journey, to bolster that solidarity and build something much bigger; to improve streets and homes and lives for everyone; to avoid squeezing local people any harder than they already have been by gentrifying forces; to take landlords and developers to task and to represent neglected perspectives more centrally in our community vision. This is crucial, and I believe key to maximising the wide-ranging impact this type of work can have.
In Govanhill, building those more inclusive networks serves one final, fundamental purpose. External forces have tried to create fissures between members of this community, stirring up xenophobia, racism and bigotry to seed division between the people that live here. Building solidarity and networks that are truly inclusive of everyone sends a powerful message. It strengthens our ties and lets all groups within the area know that we truly stand with them, equally and unequivocally. It brings together strands of a community in Govanhill that many have tried to rip apart. It makes clear that climate action is justice action, and that our vision for the future of this community is one that weaves these ideas intrinsically together.
With a little more work to bring people from all corners of Govanhill into the fold, community climate action can become an act of resistance against the growing pressures of gentrification and the negative forces of hatred, racism and bigotry that have long tried to pull us apart.