So, you want to study in Scotland…

I remember when I first visited Scotland in April 2016. I spent four days in Edinburgh, and I remember being blown away by the city and decided there and then that this was going to my home. I was in my last year of high school and I was ready to leave the Czech Republic. I had a very negative outlook on our country, our politics, our society, and longed for the world outside of the Czech bubble, which would be more in line with my beliefs and values. Scotland seemed to tick all my boxes.

When I was walking around the city, it was three things in particular that got my attention. First of all, it was the amount, and the size of, green spaces I discovered. In Edinburgh, between the Meadows, Bruntsfield Links, Holyrood Park, and the Princes Street Gardens, you’re never more than ten minutes away from a bit of nature. Secondly, it was the beautiful architecture, which just screamed history. I recall wandering around the Old Town with its many mysterious closes (Scottish word for alleyways) and whole streets hiding underground, a massive castle looming around the city from an extinct volcano, or admiring the majestic Georgian buildings of the New Town, and I could not help but being taken back in time and imagine what stories these places could tell. Lastly, it was the diversity of its people that attracted me to Edinburgh. Sure, in comparison to other places around the world or even in the UK, Edinburgh would not be considered particularly diverse. But, for someone from a town of 50,000 people in the North of the Czech Republic, seeing people of all races walking down the street, speaking every language imaginable, women wearing hijabs and same-sex couples holding hands in public was a breath of fresh air for me.

At the time of writing this article, I’m nearing my four-year anniversary of living in this country and I still love Edinburgh for all of these things. I consider this place my home, I graduated from university here and I’ll be starting work for the City of Edinburgh Council at the end of this month. However, what I have learned in my time living here is that no place is perfect no matter how much you idolise it at first.

When I started branching out from the safety of the student and middle-class areas of the city, I quickly realised that while I have the privilege of choosing between which park I fancy on any given day and from which of the many nearby artisan coffee shops I’ll get my iced coffee that day, many people do not have the same options. Many areas of Edinburgh are heavily underfunded with limited access to green spaces or even something as simple as outdoor benches, and many of the most deprived areas (according to the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation) consist of a high immigrant and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities as well as Scottish working class families. I learned that the impressive streets that surround me hold a lot of history, including a dark past of racism. While true that Edinburgh was briefly a hotspot for Black activism with many famous activists and slave abolitionists such as Ida B. Wells Barnett and Frederick Douglass in the 19th century, it is also true that many prominent figures of the Scottish Enlightenment were slave owners heavily profiting of the transatlantic slave trade, with the profits used to build much of the city we see today. To this day, these people are commemorated all across Scotland. In Edinburgh alone, we have a massive statue of Henry Dundas, who was responsible for delaying the abolition of slavery for 15 years and there are many, many more examples. I also found that Edinburgh has a long way to go to match its diversity with acceptance and equality. On my social work placements, I’ve seen the acute lack of multicultural and multilingual services, the number of hate crimes against immigrants, People of Colour and the LGBTQ+ community. I’ve heard my fellow students describe the instances of everyday casual racism and sometimes downright harassment and assault at a university which prides itself on its international student body. I also still remember when a Scottish lady became aggressive at a bus stop because she was unhappy about Polish people coming to Scotland and I was afraid to speak out in case the hint of my Slavic accent would be taken as being ‘one of them’.

Scotland is a great country and I love living here, we do have a relatively progressive government and majority of the people I’ve met were lovely and welcoming, but I also know that until I start speaking, tell people my very Czech name or share parts of my identity, I benefit from the privileges of being white and straight-passing and that’s not a reality for many people living here. The intent of this article was not to talk you out of studying here, but rather to encourage you to see the nuances of living in Scotland and recognise that no place is perfect. I no longer see this country through rose-tinted glasses but appreciate it for what it is and going into social work to, hopefully, be part of change for the better. Through living abroad, I’ve also learned to love the Czech Republic better and not be so harsh on the country that raised me, provided me with opportunities and one that I’ll always enjoy going back to.

For information about the history of slavery referenced in this article visit @minoricity on Instagram and follow Edi BAMEfess on Facebook for experiences of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic students at the University of Edinburgh.