A COUNCIL will this week take “the biggest anti-racism step in Scotland” as it moves to bring in measures to ensure all residents live “free from discrimination”.

Ruling Labour councillors and the SNP opposition in North Lanarkshire are expected to vote together this week on motions to “eliminate racial injustice and discrimination” and teach pupils “the full legacy of our history” including the atrocities of slavery and imperialism.

The motion would mean specialist training being rolled out to teaching staff and members of the ethnic minority population being brought in to a new working group aimed at changing the culture of the council and the area it serves.

If passed, this will bring about a critical re-examination of the area’s street names, statues, schools and other buildings which could change the face of the region.

It will also begin efforts to create a teacher-led classroom shift and press national agencies into changing the curriculum to encompass “the unadulterated history of our country with all its blemishes including our involvement in past wars, colonialism and the significant part we played in the transatlantic slave economy for over 250 years”.

A motion set to go before a meeting of the full council this week states: “We need to recognise the full legacy of our history and understand that teaching it will provide an accurate context to students of all backgrounds about today’s world and their place within it.

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“Ensuring this means we give the best possible chance for students to work honestly towards a fair and equal future for all. For true equality and fairness we must have full knowledge of the repercussions of the past.”

The proposals, put forward in two separate motions, are the work of councillors from both parties – Paul Kelly, Labour depute council leader, and SNP siblings Danish and Junaid Ashraf.

While a number of local authorities have stated their opposition to racism, saying they’ll consider making changes since the horrific death of American George Floyd sparked Black Lives Matter protests around the world, the three believe theirs will go further than any other.

Kelly said: “It’s a very significant move from the council. This is about society.

“Sometimes these issues are ignored, but we are going to do something about this. We want to create a North Lanarkshire where there isn’t racism and that inequality.

“I hope that what we’re doing might lead to other areas looking at it more closely and following our example. It’s easy to say ‘we’ll look at it’, but where’s the solution? Anything we decide to do will be based on listening to our communities.

“It’s taken the death of George Floyd in America to bring it back to people’s consciousness. Hopefully we’ll be able to look back and say this was a turning point for Scotland and for places like North Lanarkshire.”

WHILE statues have been toppled in places including Bristol, the move will see North Lanarkshire begin evaluating its past and current links to race-based injustice.

The local museums collection includes items connected to empire, slavery and servitude, such as brass collars, leg irons, Ugandan armlets and a whistle made from a thigh bone. Given to Airdrie Public Library and Museum in 1926, its original listing describes it as a “human thigh bone whistle (slave dealer’s) with thonging.”

It also includes news clippings advertising “negroes and stock” for sale and lists of the human beings traded between tobacco and sugar plantation-owning families the Dunlops and the Buchanans.

The Ashraf brothers are two of three councillors on the local authority from a black, Asian or ethnic minority [BAME] background and two of around 30 in the country. Both have experienced and witnessed prejudice and believe change must happen at all levels. Junaid said: “It took me two and a half years of being elected before I met someone from an ethnic minority who worked for the council.

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“For the first two years, zero out of 150 modern apprenticeships went to people from a BAME background, in the third year it was one.

‘‘People are shocked when you hit them with the numbers. There are a lot of things that aren’t being addressed because nobody thinks about them.

‘‘This is about allowing space for ethnic minority groups to discuss what’s needed to tackle these nuanced issues that aren’t discussed because they don’t currently come up.”

Danish said: “The sands are shifting and we need to fight racism and move from being simply not racists to being anti-racists. We’re asking all allies to raise the conversations wherever we can influence them be it in our workplaces, in our homes or in our friendships we need to address these inequalities we, each of us individually, need to be the anti-racist in the room.”

He went on: “We’re asking for nothing less than the truth of the matter to be taught.”