Comments on: More fabulous debate from home

By: Kenneth Cassar

Kenneth Cassar — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:04:05 +0000

Take a look at this: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080919/letters/colour-is-not-an-issue

See the comments. Apparently, writing “Blacks Out” on walls is not racist, according to some enlightened fellow co-“patriots”.

By: Amanda Mallia

Amanda Mallia — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 14:56:24 +0000

Aaaah, Daph, but he probably gloats that he’s there legally.

(Daphne – Yes, he does. And he wrote about the trauma of leaving Malta when he was a child in 1971, hearing his grandmother screaming in the balcony and seeing his grandfather crying at the airport, knowing that he would probably never see them again. He said that this was the worst day of his life. You would think that experience would cause somebody to have more empathy, not less.)

By: Corinne Vella

Corinne Vella — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 14:10:14 +0000

Dennis Catania lives in the USA. He’s organising a protest “in front of the Maltese Ambassador to the UN” – presumably because he believes that that is the best way to help immigrants in Malta get to countries where they have opportunities. You can’t say his heart isn’t in the right place. I’m not too sure where his head is.

By: Kieli

Kieli — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:22:24 +0000

@ Denis Catania: “So basically the e-mail that you received, calls for Africans to do the work, that the Maltese don’t want their kids to do, remember your friend said this not us.” The comment quoted by Corinne Vella said no such thing; that comment was a statement of fact, that immigrants are filling jobs that the locals do not even want to look at, let alone do. There is absolutely nothing ‘racist’ in that statement. This is a process that happens with immigrants everywhere, cf London Transport depending on Jamaicans, food outlets staffed by Filippinos. Far from being a burden on local tax-payers, these immigrants are contributing to the economy – and actually contributing to the unemployment benefits paid out to those ‘Maltese catholic christian saints’ who instead of taking up said jobs, without any twinge in their saintly conscience, choose to continue to defraud tax-payers of hard-earned funds.

As to ‘exposing them to the African Americans’ the resultant mass display of ‘rude bits’ should certainly provoke some reaction – though not perhaps in the way DC intended.

As a matter of incidental interest ‘Denis’ derives from the Arab word ‘dennes’ meaning ‘to taint’ [cf Maltese imdennes], while Catania obviously refers to Sicilian immigrant origin. DC might wish to ponder on the realities of his own family roots. Or maybe DC consders it is alright in his case because his antecedents were just swarthy, not brown or black.

(Daphne – I believe that Catania is also an immigrant, because he regularly refers to the fact that he lives in the USA.)

By: Andrew Borg-Cardona

Andrew Borg-Cardona — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:56:15 +0000

All the xenophobes seem to be the type who go abroad and spend their time worrying that these filthy foreigners are going to screw them. Get used to it, people, the world is made up of people who are of a different colour and culture to you and if you lived anywhere but within your insular minds, you’d understand that.

(Daphne – Yes, they’re like those Little Englanders who view onions and olives with suspicion and talk in loud, clear voices to Foreign People.)