An excellent article – read it, please
The Times, Wednesday, 22nd October 2008
Do we let them drown?
Simon Busuttil
To say that I am concerned on immigration is to state the obvious. Were I not, I would have just turned a blind eye and concentrated on other, less controversial, more vote-catching, issues.But there is one challenge that I find even more grave than that of immigration. And this is the impact that this phenomenon is leaving on the very social fabric of our society as a result of the rising tide of xenophobia and racism. These feelings, which are now commonplace among the men and women in the street, are being whipped up by various quarters. From the commentaries on the web-based version of this prestigious paper to the rhetoric of some prominent people, in politics and outside, who should know better.
Just consider this fact. A vast majority of immigrants arriving in Malta do not actually come here, still less want to. They are saved at sea by our Armed Forces, by fishing boats or by ships when they find themselves in distress. And since the country from which they embarked, Libya, refuses to take them back, we have to bring them to shore here in Malta. (Much the same applies in Lampedusa, where arrivals have topped the 15,000 mark this year.) This means that we have no choice whatsoever as to the number who come here every year for the simple reason that most of them are saved at sea. So, if anything, our Armed Forces should be lauded for engaging, every day, on our behalf, in perilous and heroic missions that save lives, hundreds of lives every year. But I hear very little of that.
Now if, for the sake of argument, Malta had to ignore its moral and legal obligation to save them, we would be looking at far more manageable numbers reaching our shores every year. Perhaps around just one quarter of the 2,400 who arrived this year. But, of course, letting people – be they Maltese or African – drown at sea is not an option, at least, not for a civilised European country that we claim to be. So populist statements to the effect that we must refuse entry to illegal immigrants or that we should push back their boats to the point of departure, knowing full well that Libya is not accepting them, are very dangerous by far. And, when put in the context that not doing so would betray our national interest, these statements become truly inflammatory.
For perhaps innocently or perhaps less so, perhaps unwittingly or perhaps knowingly, such statements suggest, imply or insinuate that immigrants should be left to their own fate; to drown at sea. Let me be clear. I, for one, find these suggestions nauseating. And at this rate we risk going down a slippery slope into the abyss of racism and xenophobia. It may well have started as some sort of joke, innocently watching funny snippets of seditious speeches made by some eccentric individual. Then it turned into gatherings, YouTube and even songs and messages making the rounds on the net. Before you know it, it’s out of control.
Many people write to me to express their apprehension about immigration. Fair enough. They claim that they are not racist. Probably they mean it. But then they go on to state that we should not let them in. And even in the words and the feelings expressed, they suggest that immigrants are lesser beings. Claims are also made to the effect that there are too many of them, that they have mobile phones, are well dressed, are not even tired when they land in Malta, that we pay through our noses for their food and accommodation (in detention), that they reduce the price of property in the neighbourhood…Worst of all, claims are made that immigrants pose a threat to our religion and to our identity without the slightest realisation that these very words are completely out of synch with both of them.
We have to be very careful in the choice of words. These words dehumanise immigrants and induce fear and hatred of foreigners. Hence, racism and xenophobia, which are now a real and present danger for our society. And the sooner we shake them off the better. But pray, where have our values gone? Where is the Church in all this? Where are the intellectuals? Where is our government’s educational campaign? And where are the Socialist principles of many a Labour columnist whose writings befit the ravings of the far right in Europe?
All those who are truly moderate and progressive should stand up against xenophobia and racism. The question is: Are we ready to stand up to be counted?
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I totally share in most of what Dr. Busuttil writes but, however, I have two points to pose for consideration:
a. What are we going to do with the increasing number of people who – willing or not – are coming here and staying here? How much more people – legal or otherwise – can these islands of ours hold?
b. Speaking from personal, first hand knowledge and based also on what can be ascertained, I do agree that initially, all immigrants coming by sea wished to carry on to mainland Europe but the situation is particularly different today especially where certain groups are concerned: The organisers of trips need not just be in Libya or any other country of transit but a few might be in our midst in Malta as well.
I couldnt agree more with the article!
Just because they were born geographically unlucky it doesnt make them lesser human beings than us.
We need to put ourselves in their position to fully understand how desperate they must have flet, to flee their own country with the hope of a better life. Unfortunately when they hit the other shore it is not the case. Most of them are treated like crimminals or like lepers.
Every society has good and bad citizens and they are no different, but in saying that we shouldnt put all of them in the same basket.
I am no expert but i think that something must be done for us to co habit with our fellow humans.
Very good article. I would only disagree with this: “we risk going down a slippery slope into the abyss of racism and xenophobia”.
I think we’re already there.
@ Religio et Patria:
Until someone finds a better workable, just, legal and humane solution, we keep on doing what we are already doing.
@ Simon
“Where is the Church in all this? Where are the intellectuals? Where is our government’s educational campaign? And where are the Socialist principles of many a Labour columnist whose writings befit the ravings of the far right in Europe?”
Well done Simon for speaking up and standing up to be counted.
It is indeed shocking to see elements of both the Labour Party and the Church turn into FarRight extremists. Lawrence Gonzi and Simon Busuttil are , however ,the only Nationalists who have publically stood up to be counted on this one.
It is quite strange that we now have a socialist Party in government which calls itself the “Nationalist” party, and an “Extreme Nationalistic” party that calls itself the “Labour” party. Maybe they should agree to swop names and stop confusion their european counterparts.
[Daphne – You’re right about this business of the party names. Our Nationalist Party – a name that denotes far-right xenophobic politics – is edging left of centre. Meanwhile, our Labour Party has moved right of centre and is xenophobic and regressive, while still speaking about being ‘progressive’. It’s ludicrous.]
The last two paragraphs should make us think and, hopefully, act. We need a sustained concerted effort by Government, Church and civil society to stamp out racism which, as Kenneth Cassar say, is already here (and has been for some time).
I’m probably being naive but there could be a kind of ‘anti-racism pact’ between NGOs such as band clubs, sports associations, political parties, trade unions, etc to launch – within each village – common initiatives that educate the public and promote zero tolerance to racism.
Please note that a lot of these people do not come from a geographically unlucky region but in a lot of cases it is a politically unlucky one and they find themselves in badly managed, to say the least, country. I do not think that we should let them drown but I think we should expect their co-operation after all there might, and I stress on the might, be runaway criminals amongst them. Moreover, I would like to point out that if one lives in the Birzebbuga area and needs to use the bus, one finds him/herself in a very difficult situation since during peak hours the buses are filled with irregular immigrants from the Hal Far Open Centre and there is hardly any room for the locals. This is not xenophobia but a fact that the locals are not getting the service they used to maybe changes need to be made to the schedule. Moreover, if you are a girl/woman who ends up in a busload or men coming from a different social background and one of them actually tries to prevent you from getting off the bus and once you get off he follows you home, I do not think it is being racists if you say that something needs to be done.
[Daphne – Oh Daisy, Daisy – haven’t you ever been followed by Maltese men? They’re the worst. But even worse than the ones who follow you are the ones who sit in the bushes at the beach – or right next to you, even – bring out their willy and play with it. How do we know they’re Maltese? Because to attract your attention they say imaginative things like ‘Ghandek hin, hi?’. Your thinking definitely leaves a lot to be desired. A bus which is too crowded is too crowded, full stop. It is not ‘so full of irregular immigrants that the locals can’t find space’. What you’re speaking of is the need for more buses, not fewer immigrants.]
@ Kenneth Cassar
Yes sure, is there any space in your world for tolerance towards persons with a different opinion than yours?
I do agree that we need more buses. But this is a cultural issue as well. I am afraid, or rather not, that I was never followed home by a Maltese man although I do agree that some are pests themselves. But somehow I feel that I can handle someone from the same cultural background as mine while I do not know what to expect from someone with a different background. I suggest that you do try to take the 5.30pm or 6pm bus to Birzebbuga and see what it is like. It is not racism but we do have to face the fact that a new situation has coem up and we need to do something about it before something bad actually happens.
@ I.M. Dingli:
“Yes sure, is there any space in your world for tolerance towards persons with a different opinion than yours?”
Of course there is, and anyone who knows me personally or through my writing, already knows this.
If this were not so, I would come to blows with other people on a daily basis.
I M Dingli: in my view, the answer to your question to Kenneth Cassar is that it depends on the opinion. I personally have lots of tolerance for other views but none at all toward opinions based on deliberate misrepresentation, hatred, racism and xenophobia. I am speaking in general here rather than addressing you personally.
@ Daisy:
“I suggest that you do try to take the 5.30pm or 6pm bus to Birzebbuga and see what it is like”.
What is it like?
[Daphne – It’s a bus, with black people on it. You know, like in Memphis c. 1950.]
I lived in Sliema for a while a few summers ago and some mornings I would wait 45 minutes to catch a bus to Valletta, because they would all pass by packed with tourists and language students. I never heard anyone complain about that.
Of course something should be done about the bus to Birzebbugia, simply because the demand far outweighs the supply. Race should not enter into it when it is simply a case of scheduling incompetence.
This is the whole problem. This country seems to relish catering to the lowest common denominator. Instead of analysing a situation carefully and discovering the true cause of a problem, the Maltese immediately go for the easy option (which in this case is going to turn out to be the hardest).
[Daphne – Yes, I was about to say that. Everyone complains about the Birzebbuga bus because the locals are crowded out by black people, but nobody complains about the locals being crowded off the No. 62 bus by thousands of white EFL students. Funny, that.]
It’s too late already. Racism (mostly related to skin colour) has not only crept in, it has charged in and taken over most of our society.
As Dr. Busuttil ponts out, our politicians, the Church and the Establishment have failed miserably to take steps to halt this galloping racism from overwhelming our country.
Having said that, there is a case to be made for action to be taken to allay the fears and genuine concerns of a lot of people who are faced with the situation, for the first time, of trying to absorb a largish group of people who come from an unfamiliar cultural background, into our society.
A society dominated by parochialism, selfishness, greed and graft.
“[Daphne – Everyone complains about the Birzebbuga bus because the locals are crowded out by black people, but nobody complains about the locals being crowded off the No. 62 bus by thousands of white EFL students. Funny, that.]”
Maybe because EFL students are birds of passage? Do EFL students form part of the official number of “tourist arrivals” per year calculated by the minister of tourism?
[Daphne – Yes, they do. And no, the reason there isn’t a similar fuss about the No. 62 bus is because they’re not African.]
Oh Daphne, Daphne it is very clear that you have not taken such a bus because this is not the 1950’s and this is not Memphis. We are not speaking about segragation here and I fully agree with Alex. However, I must say tha in my 33 years I was never the only female on a busload of man of any nationality, race or religious belief and never has anyone on the bus decided to hold my hand to prevent me from getting off or followed me home. This is a situation which I have encountered recently due to the fact that the demand for the bus to Birzebbuga after work has increased and most of the irregular immigrants who work, and who thus use this service, are men. What I reiterate is that we have to rise to this situation and cater for it and not simply disregard all complaints as racism or xenophobia especially those of us who are not living in the Albertown area or Hal Far region and are not living this reality but seeing it from a distance.
[Daphne – That’s because you’re 11 years younger than I am, and never had to use the No. 62 bus when it was full of young Libyan men from the Ta’ Giorni College and Egyptian men heading for the Egyptian embassy in Ta’ Xbiex. And Maltese men heading for wherever in the days when they were even less correct than they are now, and shoved their hands up your skirt and down your top and made loud and obnoxious comments. Nobody can handle a pass like a woman who was a teenager in Malta in 1982, I can assure you. At 33 you should be able to handle a man’s forward behaviour without panicking. Come on, you’re not a kid.]
The article is question is really good.
I have one question though, why is there no mention of how the traffickers should be tackled whenever the matter of illegal immigration is discussed both at National and International events? Aren’t they the real illegals!
@ Daisy, the following is a friendly advice, I suggest you go knocking on another door next time round. I do understand your point but the example put forward by Alex is on the same plane and the complaints are of a different matter when it comes to EFL students.
Daisy: Given your concern about the dangers of being followed home, I doubt you come from the sort of background where it is considered normal to exhibit odd behaviour you describe. Why, then, do you say that a Maltese person who behaves oddly and in a threatening manner comes from the same cultural background as you do, yet a black person who does neither of those things does not?
Of course it’s necessary to have more buses on the Birzebbugia route, but it isn’t the only one that’s overcrowded. It’s just the only one that is heavily in demand by immigrants. “Locals” don’t find a place on the buses when there are other people ahead of them at the bus stop, not when those people are black.
I was just going to write exactly what Alex and Daphne
wrote. Not only are the buses in St. Julian’s full of
language students, but if they’re Italian one get’s off the
bus with a headache. The noise they make is unbelievable.
It’s a bit like not complaining about all the people who
came from former Irom Curtain countries. They “stole” lots
of jobs from us poor Maltese but not many complaints.
Well done Simon Busuttil. I agree with every word he wrote.
[Daphne – At least twice recently I was on a plane full of Italian students. I had to hum one of those ‘Ommmm’ things to stop myself running down the aisle thwacking them all. I went home, swallowed two Syndols and slept. If there’s one culture that’s really alien to me, it’s southern Italian – all that endless twittering, noise and paroli. I just can’t stand it.]
Why all the hassle?
Human beings are human beings whatever the size or colour.
Being responsible for the human resources department I have daily contact with these immigrants. As a matter of fact we have more than thirty in full time employment. I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly. But being also in daily contact with the local employees I can saw that the bad are not as bad and the good are better than the locals. Sometimes even the ugly are not so ugly. During conversations I have with these foreigners I am very often struck by their outright frankness, honesty and politeness. What strikes you in the face most is their willingness for work, whatever type as long as its work.
Rarely do I encounter one who doesn’t say – sir, thank you or please. They do not even sit down if I do not ask them to sit.
Yes one gets the odd apple in the cart, but compared to the locals it is surely a far cry.
I can say that up to now I have come to know about two hundred of these foreigners.
I am happy to say that I have gained a little insight into the cultures of other countries like Togo, Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Ghana, Bangaldesh, Ethiopia, Gambia, Iraq, Nigeria, Mali, Philippines, Somalia, Sudan; the whole lot.
Amazing countries, cultures and more amazing human beings. One shouldn’t be afraid, humanity has survived mainly due to diversity. Every individual is just a blip
in the grand scale of nature.
What these people really need is someone to listen to them.
@Alex “simply a case of scheduling incompetence”. I couldn’t agree more.Yes for as long as I remember(living in Sliema by the age of 3)buses were over crowded.There was a lot of talk but no action. Now that this situation has expanded to the south area (in particular)B’Buga, people point out that it is the “other” (colored)people who infest these buses!!!It as clear as crystal the LACK OF BUSES is the main problem, well the lack of concern actually. We have to go green, this that and the other…..in actual fact people still prefer to use their private vehicle as buses are not a reliable alternative!!! some time ago I heard an absurd comment about deploying “special” buses for the “irregular” immigrants, WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? if you treat a person as less equal he/she will start acting as one!!! what we really need is less talk and more action as to minimize xenophobic reactions from the less mentally capable beings!!!
[Daphne – We don’t say coloured any more. We say black. Maltese people are coloured, incidentally – even though some are clearly white. It’s on the same principle as Mariah Carey calling herself black when I see blacker people in the supermarket queue, speaking Maltese.]
@I.M. Dingli “the complaints are of a different matter when it comes to EFL students” I agree totally, one point in question is that the EFL students are “clients” and are a source of income for Malta!!! the other is that they are of the “right” colour. Very often people tend to point fingers and come to wrong conclusions as soon as they see a “stonger shade” coloured person. For me this is pure racism!!! I’ve been working part-time with EFL schools for the past 18 years, I can assure you they are not the nicest persons to deal with.
@Daphne,
Thank God you weren’t stuck on a plane with Spanish students!!! they’re even worse :)
@ I.M. Dingli
I do not know Alex and I am afraid that I do not understand your comment. I do realise that EFL students are a problem for the Sliema residents, I used to work in Sliema and it is quite a hassle. Nonetheless, I never got on a bus in Sliema where those using the service were all of the same nationality and male, except for me and the driver.
@ Daphne
This is not an issue of panicking this is an issue of what should and should not be. I am sorry for your teenage years but it does not mean that because you had to live with it others have to as well. The incident mentioned did happen to a younger woman who came crying on my shoulder cause she was followed home more than once. Unfortunately I did not convince her to go to the police, who happen to be very close to the bus terminus in Birzebbuga. This is not an issue of race or skin colour, this is an issue of feeling safe when getting a bus or walking the street. This is not an issue of race as you have been putting it down to but an issue of taking the necessary action to handle a new situation. Refugees should be helped but harassers be they Maltese or not should be taken care of, and the necessary action should be taken to avoid such situations.
[Daphne – You don’t have to be sorry for my teenage years. That’s not the point. The point is that you are afraid when you get on a bus full of men who come from a different country. Why? What do you do when you go abroad? Avoid buses? Avoid men? It’s not because they come from a different country. It’s because they’re all men. Any woman going into a confined space without another woman in sight is going to feel uncomfortable. So does any man going into a room full of women without another man in sight. For example, I dislike going into village bars where the clientele is made up solely of men, because they all stop and stare: oh my god, a woman has just walked in. And I dislike going to conferences where there are 150 men – Maltese – and one or two women. I just deal with it, that’s all. There is an age-old way to deal with an unwanted pass: a good slap. If you don’t like that kind of drama, just wear a wedding ring and point to it. It works like magic, making you a deeply unattractive prospect within seconds.]
@Daphne – “We don’t say coloured any more. We say black. Maltese people are coloured, incidentally – even though some are clearly white. It’s on the same principle as Mariah Carey calling herself black when I see blacker people in the supermarket queue, speaking Maltese”. My point was that exactly!!! We cannot compare or discriminate between tones of skin…The immigrants are not the problem, who is leading them to the European shores are!!! I think all of us agree on one fact that this is an organised criminal enterprise (or several)
@ Corinne Vella
I do not have a problem with skin colour. I know Maltese who are darker than some of the irregular immigrants. But I think it is easier for me, or for any Maltese for that matter to handle someone with whom you at least communicate the same language and who has been brought up, more or less within the same social context, than not.
[Daphne – But Daisy, what you’re talking about here is leaving the village and joining the world. What on earth would you do if you lived in a city?]
One more thing! there was a previous message regarding the “blacks” stealing our jobs blah blah blah…what about all those Maltese who work without declaring a dime and “we” who declare every single penny end up paying taxes to support them. They are the first people who start crying “wolf, wolf” We must help these people so that they can stand up on their two feet and earn a living and not keeping them locking up!!
@Daphne
I would give up on the weddding ring theory if I were you it does not always work. I am married and do wear a wedding ring.
I agree regarding the slap, it owrks most of the time, but I would think twice about it if I had the feeling that they would gang up on me.
[Daphne – Why on earth would they gang up on you? The only case of gang rape we have had recently was by five men in Gozo on a 15-year-old girl. Would you be just as frightened if they were Maltese? I would be more frightened if I were you.]
It is admirable of Dr.Busuttil to write such a politically correct analysis of the immigration situation from Brussels!
The figure of 15,000 landings happened this year in Lampedusa:this is not a problem:the italians just transfer the immigrants to Italy and keep a few number in Lampedusa!We cannot do that!What if next summer we get 15,000 ourselves, what do we do? The emigrants commission which non-profit church organisation has been helping the immigrants for many years,now is alarmed;the MLP(who brought over students from Zimbabwe to study in Malta in the seventies if I remember correctly) is alarmed because it is their maltese supporters who will suffer first especially now that the recession is upon us;the Government is alarmed because it has been doing its best to get burden sharing from the european union!Even the Imam is worried that the large influx of immigrants is making life difficult for them!
What we should do?Refuse to let the immigrants in as Australia did a couple of years ago and now they do not have a problem!If the european union objects we say how about some non-volontary burden sharing first!
@ I.M.Dingli:
“I have one question though, why is there no mention of how the traffickers should be tackled whenever the matter of illegal immigration is discussed both at National and International events?”.
Good question. The problem is that we are dealing with highly organised crime here. Although if I recall correctly, we did catch a Maltese person involved in human-trafficking once.
[Daphne – What I find amusing is the assumption that the traffickers are ‘they’ – Libyan, or sub-Saharan African. If recent Maltese history is anything to go by, they’re more likely to be Us. The Maltese made a big name for themselves in white slavery and human trafficking in the past, and there’s no reason to believe that this business isn’t also being run by Maltese. Quite frankly, I can’t see your average amoral Maltese seeing other people make a quick black market buck out of this one without getting in on the act.]
@Daisy try and catch a bus in Russia, they are more frequent but definately more overcrowded, most people smell like goats and others just cough away their way home!!! Buses are a cheap means of transportation…You Have to live with that if you need to use a bus.
@ Daisy:
“Nonetheless, I never got on a bus in Sliema where those using the service were all of the same nationality and male, except for me and the driver”.
I suppose they should all disembark then, just because you’re boarding the bus.
“Four Maltese individuals are currently in prison in Italy: two were accused and found guilty of drug trafficking and were both sentenced to prison in 2003, and the other two were imprisoned on the basis of human trafficking and sentenced in 2004 and 2005 respectively”.
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/2007/07/15/n10.html
[Daphne – There you go. All these Maltese criminals, fouling up the Italian system. I bet there aren’t as many Italians in prison in Malta, and there are so many more of them than there are of us. Makes you proud. Wherever there are drugs or white slaves, there’s a Maltese lurking in the background.]
In all these problems may I ask all blog contributors to thank the Malta Memorial District Nursing Association Nurses and midwives who visit the detention and open centres to give their services in difficult conditions. The Nurses find great difficulty when the illegal immigrants are transferred to open centres and after the first visit do not bother to give a forwarding address – they disappear. As Chairman of the MMDNA Board of Management I would like to hear a word of praise for our Nurses when Illegal Immigrants are mentioned – they are great – and do not look at colour.
[Daphne – I agree. It’s a shame more media coverage isn’t given to their work. All we hear about is how hard the soldiers work.]
Defintely a great article – we need to see more people writing this sort of works.
I work with a guy who lives in B’Bugia and complains daily about the things Daisy said (mainly the bus) so I am even more convinced that she is complained simply because they are africans not because they are all men.
Buy a car and stop taking the bus!
Hey people , don’t want to be the Knight in shining armour here, but let up on Daisy will you. The way you’re going about it seems as if your condoning harassment. I think anybody would be flustered if they were groped and followed home (by both black or white men, ok.)
And Daphne…. your argument comparing dealing with being in a conference center with 150 men and being sexually harassed is ridiculous and stupid. You almost seem to be brushing off getting raped.
[Daphne – Excuse me? Who mentioned rape? Daisy thinks that getting on a bus full of African men makes her feel scared. I’m pointing out that what she actually feels is threatened. And that this feeling of being threatened – or exposed, put it that way – is present even in a conference centre where you are the only woman among 150 men. Or the only man among 150 women. Daisy is misinterpreting her feelings of dread. She would have exactly the same feelings if the bus were full of Maltese men. I get the same feeling even walking past the Naxxar bars to get into the butcher’s. An all-male environment is always going to feel hostile to a lone woman, whether those men are from Somalia or Finland. When it comes to suggestive remarks and behaviour, Maltese men are the worst. But you wouldn’t know that, not having been at the receiving end. The wankers at Ghajn Tuffieha were all, without exception, Maltese. So were the wankers at Exiles beach, and the wankers along the Sliema promenade at night, and I lost count of the number of times I was followed home, accosted, or generally pestered when I lived there. Sliema exerted a strong gravitational pull on perverts and sexually desperate men from all over Malta – and believe me, in repressed and repressive Malta there were a lot of them – because it was widely rumoured that there were ‘loose’ women there, including – whisper the word – naughty women from the north, wearing G-strings and no top. I saw my first adult penis at the shockingly tender age of nine – a Maltese man at the very public Ferro Bay in Sliema decided to pull it out of his shorts and give his pubic hair a good going over with a comb. I’d like to know what kind of home environment he came from. I saw this because the poor woman for whose benefit he was performing walked over to my father, drew his attention to what was going on and asked him to please tell the man to go away. I can still remember this surreal civilised exchange in an extremely uncivilised situation: my father walking over to him and asking him with a straight face to please put it away, and the other man putting away his comb and returning the offending member to his pants, then looking at his watch and leaving.]
” – a Maltese man at the very public Ferro Bay in Sliema decided to pull it out of his shorts and give his pubic hair a good going over with a comb. I’d like to know what kind of home environment he came from. I saw this because the poor woman for whose benefit he was performing walked over to my father, drew his attention to what was going on and asked him to please tell the man to go away.”
Lol! Illallu hammut bid dahk. He should have given it a blow dry.
[Daphne – I can assure you that it wasn’t in the least bit funny. And he might very well have given it a blow-dry because what particularly impressed me, and in those days I hadn’t a clue what pubic hair is still less what it looks like, was that it was perfectly, perfectly straight. Straight hair was very rare in Malta in those pre-blow-dry days.]
Emanuel’s reference to Australia’s policy toward asylum seekers as a possible solution for Malta is misleading.
Australia has now abandoned its so-called “Pacific Solution” through which asylum seekers were prevented from landing on Australian shores and instead sent to various Pacific island-states. The current Australian government has also stopped automatically jailing all asylum seekers in favor of what it calls a more humane treatment.
In any case, for political as well as humanitarian reasons it is highly unlikely that Malta would be able to sustain, let alone implement, such a policy. The Australian government was in effect paying cash-strapped Pacific island-nations such as Nauru to accept and hold (read imprison) asylum seekers trying to get into Australia. Can anyone in their right mind envisage such a possibility for Malta?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7229764.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7530156.stm
Daphne, you’re being pedantic. What is the difference between being scared and being threatened? Should we just discount her fears? Despite the gales of political correctness on this blog, maybe we can compare Somali culture and Finnish.
Do you really actually believe that Finnish men have the same cultural viewpoint towards women as Somalis? DON’T accuse me of racism, I am just comparing cultures. Are all cultures all equally “good”? DO you really actually believe that a tribal culture practicing Female Genital mutilation, having Child brides and Honour killings is as enlightened as Western European culture? Isn’t their a huge culture shock when a somali man goes from seeing fully veiled women to seeing a Western dressed women.
To discount this culture shock, thinking that all cultures can be one happy family together is just plain stupid.
To make the case for Somali culture by the way, they actually believe that Western society and Culture is way too liberal, that there culture is under attack from “Westoxification”. ( I didn’t invent that word, by the way,google it).
[Daphne – The difference between between scared and feeling threatened (not being threatened, which is different) is best explained by the example I gave you: if I am the only woman in a conference room with 150 men all in their grey suits, I feel vaguely threatened. This is an irrational instinct, the result of being ‘on my own’ with no other women present. A man in a room with 150 women – not Pamela Andersons – will feel exactly the same. It’s a primeval feeling. I do not feel scared because that requires a process of thought arriving at the conclusion that I am in danger. But obviously, I am not in danger, and so I don’t feel scared. As I explained, whether the men are Finnish or Somali or Maltese makes no difference, because this reaction is beyond thought. I can’t think of many women who’d feel relaxed in the company of a couple of European rugby teams with no other women present, for example, because it is self-evidently an atmosphere hostile to women. Shock of seeing half-dressed women? Men are men, wherever they’re from: the novelty of small clothes wears off pretty fast.]
Daph why didn’t you take those Maltese who sexually harrased you to court? I think having Maltese men stalking you and pestering you is very serious.
[Daphne – Because everywhere a girl went in those backward 1970s/1980s days, she expected to be followed, pestered and grabbed. It was normal. I can’t even envisage a scenario in which a man is following you at night and you turn round and say: I’ll get my lawyers onto you. No, what you did was pop into the nearest doorway and pretend to ring the bell because that was your destination. If he still hung around, then you’d really ring the bell and explain the situation to the person who answered the door.]
Whichever the case Daphne, the traffickers have to be dealt with too, be it Maltese, Libyans or Sub-Saharans.
Do I sense some discrimination towards the Maltese as opposed to the Libyans within your comment!! :)
[Daphne – No. I just find it odd that everyone assumes that this is a racket run by Libyans and not a racket run by Maltese.]
Daisy, what I meant is that if you want sympathy, you addressed the wrong blog.
As I said before, I do understand your concern but as you can see not many others follow my same line of thought. It could be because you tried to explain things emotionally. No hard feelings.
@ Darren
Thanks. At least someone is understanding the whole point and seeing past skin colour.
@ Daphne
Dread is what I feel when I hear a woman almost accepting the fact that she will be groped and that is that. Threatened is what I feel when I get in a busload of men, some if not most of whom are drunk. This happened to me while I was on a work trip in a European City. Nobody talked to or touched me still I was glad when I got off the bus and reached my hotel.
But if a loved one is made to feel unsafe even in her own home, because she is being followed then I feel frustrated and it does not really make a difference if the person causing this frustration is black, white, pink, yellow or rainbow coloured.
I am all out for helping refugees but please note that not all black people are irregular immigrants and not all irregular immigrants are refugees. And here I rest my case.
[Daphne – If a loved one is unsafe in her own home, report the family member to the police. Oh, I see, you mean ‘home’ as in Malta. Well, Malta isn’t your home; it’s your country. The two are different. You can stop other people living in your home. You can’t stop other people living in your country. If you don’t want Maltese women to be followed and pestered in their own country, then you’d best start by expelling all men, not just the Africans – you know, just in case. You never know what might get into them. Honestly, I can’t believe such childishness. If you want to spend the rest of your life never being scared, threatened or facing problems, you’re going to have a hard time of it. Now you can’t even travel to European cities, in case there are drunks on the tube. you’re right: it’s not racism, but a kind of generalised xenophobia coupled with the belief that all men are potential rapists.]
Daisy: I don’t see how you can seriously claim to share “a social context” with someone whose behaviour is antisocial. Stalkers are creepy whatever their nationality but more so when they share yours, which is possibly what you mean when you talk about a shared culture or social context. Try asking someone who was stalked for years, as a few people I know have been.
[Daphne – Girls who grew up in villages must have had a very sheltered life, I’m beginning to think. I mentioned the wankers and those who pestered and followed, but I forgot to mention the stalkers, so thanks. I was stalked for years by telephone and letter, and I can tell these sheltered girls, there are some twisted sickos out there, and they’re Maltese. There are some very ugly cases I could mention, but won’t, because they concern other people. All I know is that when I spoke to the police about the latest stalker, they mentioned what a problem it is to a lot of women. I don’t think men fare well in a sexually repressed culture, somehow. It f***s them up. Women seem to fare better.]
Emanuel Muscat:
Simon Busuttil’s opinion piece is factual, not politically correct.
The Emigrants’ Commission is alarmed because it got its figures wrong.
The MLP is alarmed because that is its stock-in-trade when in opposition.
The government is alarmed and the Imam is worried because there has been no concerted effort to stem the tide of xenophobia based on inaccurate information, enabling the proliferation of foolish uninformed comments like yours that unfortunately are counted within the sum of public opinion.
Australia reversed its “no entry” policy so if it has no problem today it is because immigrants are arriving and not because they are prevented from entering the country.
@Daphne: “Maltese people are coloured incidentally”. Who says that Maltese people are “coloured”? – you make a categorical sweeping statement here. I am one of your admirers when you stand up for civil rights but I often find myself perturbed by your inability to divorce yourself from slavish adherence to American (WASP) or British paradigms. Some idiot in some country might call me coloured but that’s because he thinks that the white race consists only of Anglo-Saxons, Germans and Scandinavians with the rest of Europeans (Portuguese, Spaniards, Hungarians, Italians, Rumanians, Greeks) being coloured. I have met people from many nations and none have called me coloured. I would appreciate being shown any scientific classification of humans into white and coloured and defining these terms. I am afraid these totally prejudiced terms were invented at some point by semi-illiterate policemen to describe persons on the “wanted” list in some countries and have no place in Europe. As far as I know, humans are broadly categorized into African, Caucasian, Greater Asian, Amerindian and Australoid. White or coloured is a prejudiced pseudo-classification invented by racists from some northern countries who think only of themselves as white whatever white may mean. I would suggest this classification be not used here.
If you or others feel the need to comment on what’s going on with illegal immigration, go ahead as is your inalienable right but I would appreciate it if you do not describe me as coloured. I am a Maltese and a European and so were my ancestors, judging by what I was able to find out. Whether for some “white” half-wit from some country I am coloured does not bother me in the least and I would think more highly of you (even if it matters little to you) if you accept the fact that there are other ways of thinking besides these cliches of white and coloured.
In my rare contributions to this blog, I try not to be offensive and I would prefer to be classified as Caucasian rather than coloured which is a derogatory term. Comments such as yours may serve to foment more racist resentment.
As regards the immigration phenomenon which is possibly the most serious problem we are faced with in this country (the most serious because nobody seems to have a solution), I do not think that any decent Maltese would wish any treatment to these immigrants which is other than humane. But it would be insensitive to ignore the fears of the population at this spectacular rise in numbers combined with the apparent helplessness of the authorities (because they rightly respect international law) to stem the tide. If the Maltese are uncomfortable with these people, they have a right to express their concerns and they have every right to express the wish that ways be found to stop this immigration and to repatriate these people. This is the only country we have, built by our forbears with their toil, sweat and tears and people have the right to feel concerned. That such large numbers of immigrants will give rise to social changes is inevitable and if Maltese do not want these changes, then they have every right to feel this way because this is their country. The population of these islands has been homogeneous for centuries and it is now experiencing an unprecedented cultural shock. It is unrealistic to expect people to look dispassionately at this serious matter affecting present and future generations. Everybody is aware of the situation in countries where different cultures, religions and ethnic origins have given rise to social strife and this is what many Maltese fear. They should not be ridiculed for their concerns and the solution to allay fears is not to say “you too are coloured so what’s the big deal?” This is not the most ineffective and insensitive way of trying to deal with the situation.
[Daphne – Who says that Maltese people are coloured? The immigration policies of the early to mid-20th century in those countries to which the Maltese sought to emigrate. You might not think you’re coloured, but I see no difference between a lot of the people I see around me and the kind that even you would classify as ‘coloured’. I classify no one as coloured, because the word is out of date. Nowadays, there are more specific classifications. I gather you’re offended at being thought coloured because you think it’s pejorative. Now what would we call that? Inverted racism?]
Stanley J A Clews: I agree but maybe it would be best to write to the MMDNA directly. I couldn’t find their email address online. Would you post their email address here? I’m sure Daphne wouldn’t mind.
[Daphne – Yes, please do.]
A storm in a tea cup. Why try to oppose the force of nature ? When in two years’ time our unemployment rate will be aproaching the 25% mark no one would dream of seeking asylum here. The current “problem” will solve itself on its own . This is history repeating itself. How many thousands of “illegal” immigrants were landing on our shores in the 1970’s ? Hundreds if not thousands of Maltese were going in the opposite direction to try and eke out a living in Libya. What is all this fuss about ? We are in a boom (or at the tail end of one) now and so we attract so called asylum seekers. As we approach bust the tide will turn. All the indications are that this will be sooner rather than later. Let nature take its course.
[Daphne – They’re not coming here. They’re ending up here.]
Daphne – “I mentioned the wankers and those who pestered and followed, but I forgot to mention the stalkers” … and what about the old men who simply sit there with it dangling out?
I remember a funny incident where two female relatives were sitting down on a bench in the curved area of the front near Ferro Bay. An oldish man sat on the bench opposite them, with his thingy hanging out. They couldn’t decide whether he was senile or simply a pervert. It turned out that he was the latter.
They will not “end up ” here for much longer. Soon they will start flatly refusing to end up here. They will kick up such a fuss that the AFM will have to let go of them . Judging by the public transport strike debacle, this will not require much effort on the job seekers’ part. We might have to ask Benedict for a contingent of Swiss Guards for reinforcement !
Kenneth Cassar: The case you recall might have been the one involving a Maltese man, a speedboat and two people who paid a substantial sum to be ferried to Italy. The boat’s engine stalled and all three aboard grew steadily desperate until a passing fisherman didn’t bother stopping and two miles later felt a twinge of conscience and turned back. When he reached the boat he was shocked to find a Maltese person aboard, which made him see the whole situation – and by this, I don’t mean just the one boat – in a different light.
Or you might be thinking of one of the several cases involving white slavery – the one concerning the warden in Gozo and a sports club in Gharghur, for instance.
Or the one where a woman was traded among three people (including a woman) who were all Maltese and in their twenties.
Or the case of a woman who became so desperate at having to service men for a pittance only to have her earnings confiscated that she escaped as soon as she could and went to the police even though she knew she risked deportation.
Or the case involving the corpse of a recently strangled woman which was pulled out of the sea.
Here’s the curiosity factor: these cases also involve racketeering and illegal immigration, but the “send them back brigade” fall silent around girls who are white and good looking. They’re also silent about the girls’ victimhood, even though the way they’re treated is “a threat to our religion”, “our tradition of hospitality” and our “identity”, for which read “a belief in oneself as a higher form of life”.
[Daphne – It’s a curious facet of the socio-pathology of Maltese Catholicism that you can ill-treat anyone who is not a Maltese Catholic and it doesn’t count. Hence all those good Maltese boys racketeering and running prostitution rings in London, treating British girls like rubbish, marrying them and then divorcing them because they’re not Catholic and it doesn’t count, treating other people like animals, living a life of crime and debauchery, and then coming back home, marrying, having children and going to mass on Sundays, while expressing shock that anyone might ‘insult’ the Crucifix. So don’t be surprised if a Russian girl’s murdered body is pulled out of the sea and nobody blinks even though lots of people suspect that a Maltese family man might have killed her after she got difficult about their ‘affair’. And I haven’t forgotten the case of the other Russian woman thrown out of a St George’s Park balcony when – as the forensic pathologist testified – she was still alive because she bled when she hit the ground. And the man who threw her out of that window was never tried, even though he attempted to escape from Malta with a false passport and was caught. And even though he is a known cocaine dealer, and has been bad news for the last 30 years at least.]
It’s still normal to be grabbed and have yucky men make yucky comments as you walk past. I usually turn towards them and shout “YAQQ” in their face because I can’t stand it! Many of them are Maltese but to be fair (or unfair) there are also many Africans who do it.
It’s refreshing to read this article, good to know that some people are capable of critical thinking.
More money was spent by the NP to tell us how amazing Mater Dei is then to educate people about this issue, all we got was the usual Benetton poster telling us that we should just all get along. There has been no mention about how many are working here, how they can help our economy and help drive it forward. The social aspect of immigration is being totally overlooked, pensions etc etc.
I really can’t see how anyone can blame this on locals who might not have been exposed to Africans before. I mean, just sticking most of these Africans in Birzebbuga is just plain stupid. A lack of planning and common sense. There are thousands of empty apartments and houses all over the country. Our infrastructure is a mess, the streets are still so dirty and with money coming in from the EU till 2013, one might have thought that some sort of surge (McCain loves a bit of that)would have made sense.
I hope that nobody thinks that I am suggesting that Africans should all be doing basic work,they should be given the chance to do whatever they are qualified in, and helped with training to improve. Both leaders have been disappointing, one has called the situation as alarming, and the other said that we are facing an invasion. I really don’t think that stomping on Daisies is going to improve things, one should turn his/her guns on people who should know better. The real scandel here is the tent city in Birzebbuga not the poor sods who think that Big Ben is a shop in Birkirkara. My family pay for the education of four East Africans here in Malta, courses and rental,about 400 euros a month each.My uncle used to help hundreds of East Africans with the same amount of money but we are really concerned about the lack of action taken here.
@ Daisy:
You wrote: “Thanks. At least someone is understanding the whole point and seeing past skin colour”.
Earlier, you said:
“I suggest that you do try to take the 5.30pm or 6pm bus to Birzebbuga and see what it is like”.
To which I replied:
“What is it like?”
You failed to give an answer to my simple question. Could it be that it is you who can’t see past skin colour?
@ Corinne Vella:
“The case you recall might have been the one involving a Maltese man, a speedboat and two people who paid a substantial sum to be ferried to Italy”.
Yes. The amazing thing is that the same Maltese man had been previously convicted in Italy for the same crime. He served his time, came back to Malta, and got on with his “business”. I guess he has the OJ Simpson syndrome.
@ Stanley Cassar Darrien:
What you wrote does make sense, especially the “segregation” bit. Dumping immigrants in Marsa will not work. What we need is more effort in the direction of integration. Some work is already being done, but clearly it is not enough.
Regarding “stomping on Daisies”, I can only speak for myself. It is not my intention to “stomp” anyone – although some people not familiar with online debates might perceive my posts to be so. My intention (in my posts) is to lead others to slowly see the absurdity of their claims (when the claims are absurd), to show the prejudice underlying the fears (when this is so), and to try to persuade.
Of course, I’m not saying I’ll succeed, but I certainly won’t if I don’t try.
i think Joseph Muscat did a lot of harm about this issue. After summer, it seems that no one was talking anymore about africans. Maybe he wanted some media coverage or a bit bored and said that we have a national crisis. Half the population (which follow ONE news), beleived him, and it started all again.
The maltese are the abusers, since they pay the Africans almost nothng for the hard work they do.
@Daisy: be afraid of maltese. They are the ones who can get away with murder (since they can find someone to protect them).
@ Daphne “We don’t say coloured any more. We say black. Maltese people are coloured..”
Black people are no longer referred to as ‘coloured’ because everybody is coloured: some are coloured black, others white, others yellow etc. etc. ‘Coloured’ was used as an euphemism for black, but it doesn’t make sense as it it shouldn’t be an offence to describe someone as black; the same goes for white, yellow, pink or whatever skin colour one may have.
What do you mean by a sexually repressed culture?
[Daphne – Do I really have to explain? Generations of children either were not taught anything about sex at all, or had it implied that it was somehow bad/nasty/a necessary evil for the procreation of children and only permissible between a man and a woman married to each other. ‘Bad thoughts’ had to be confessed or repressed lest they dispatch you to hell, boys were repeatedly told about the evils of masturbation which would either send them blind, erode their brain, drive them mad or bring in the devil, girls were objects of evil temptation – Eves one and all – bad girls gave out and good girls didn’t. Homosexuality was straight from Satan….need I go on? Those who pontificate about marriage like to think that the chief cause of marital breakdown is financial pressure, but from all the personal experiences I have heard about, it’s more likely to be problems related to sex or sexual identity. Many Maltese men operate until the Madonna/whore complex which is why they can only have sex when it’s ‘naughty’. Others – men and women – only realised they were homosexual afters years of dysfunctional relationships because they imagined that a lack of desire for the opposite sex was somehow good and normal, and not the sign of something else. It’s really all quite sad.]
@ Tony Borg:
Exactly…that is what Daphne meant. Ironically, if there is anyone who is NOT coloured, he/she must be black (in art classes we learn that black is the absence of colour) ;)
It was you who said the Maltese are coloured in your reply to cjbuttigieg – you may go back and see. Yes, precisely, it was the “white” racist immigration policies in Australia by self-styled whites (British descendants) who classified the Maltese as coloured. The British Empire practised racist policies on its subject peoples and this included Malta. The British never considered the Maltese as equals, at least during colonial times. This is the reason why I am so surprised that some find it difficult to disassociate themselves from this classification of “coloured” just because it is British. I have found myself, on occasion, in the midst of people from all the nations of Europe and I did not feel or look different from them – there are indigenous people of whiter or darker skins in almost all European countries. So are all the nations of Europe coloured except those of northern Europe? The world is bigger than Britain and with your widespread reading and knowledge and superior IQ you should be able to appreciate that easily. Britain, ironically and much to the dismay of surviving imperialists who may still consider India the finest jewel in the Crown, is now one of the most “coloured” nations in Europe. I am not a racist (though we must, ideally, first define the term) — indeed, I hold that there is one human genus divided into races with insignificant genetic differences between them. But neither do I want to have my country over-run by the kind of people that are now reluctantly accomodated among us. I do not believe in their integration in our society. This is not only about genes but about culture, ways of life and national identity. Is it possible that some cannot imagine the repercussions of what’s going on now on future generations? What do we have to gain from this? Why should it be imposed upon us to welcome people we do not want? Aren’t we masters in our own house? This calamity has been foisted upon us and we have found no solution so far. We cannot solve it militarily (by force) as international law forbids it and our sense of ethics finds it repulsive; we cannot even solve it financially (with money) as we have solved the problem of water scarcity by throwing money at it; we cannot solve it politically because we have found very little sympathy from our EU and other partners both to the north and to the south. The Government has done and is still doing what it can within the bounds of the possible and the permissible. The people look to the State, as is their right, when national disasters occur but in this case the State has its hands tied and the people detect the impotence of the State — this frightens them because what protection does a citizen have when the state appears powerless? The State is not to blame – it is hostage to international law. Perhaps it is time to reflect whether the “one-size fits all” concept of certain international law norms should be revised.
@ freethinker:
“But neither do I want to have my country over-run by the kind of people that are now reluctantly accomodated among us”.
Over-run? Are refugees voting now? Are they legislating? And what do you mean exactly when you say “reluctantly accomodated”?
“I do not believe in their integration in our society”.
Why not?
“This is not only about genes but about culture, ways of life and national identity”.
Integration means that there would be little if any conflict of culture, way of life and identity. It’s the opposite of segregation. Successful integration would mean that culture, way of life and national identity would not be an issue. All that would remain would be the possibility of different religions (I am a Maltese atheist – do you have a problem with that?), and skin colour.
“Is it possible that some cannot imagine the repercussions of what’s going on now on future generations?”
What repercussions? When making strong assertions, please back them with facts.
“What do we have to gain from this?”
Its not always about gain. Sometimes its about decency, kindness and doing the right thing. Trust an atheist to teach you this!
“Why should it be imposed upon us to welcome people we do not want?”
For the simple reason that if hypothetically the majority of Maltese people would wish to expel you, you would think it unjust and would wish that their will would not be put into practice.
“Aren’t we masters in our own house?”
Yes, except that Malta is not your house.
@ freethinker:
And by the way, for your own good, try not to use the “I am not a racist” phrase. It usually sets alarm bells going.
Hey Kenneth,
I understand that your intentions are noble.
I feel that a lot of this behaviour(racism) stems from a lack of confidence, inferiority complex and a confused view of what it means to be Maltese in 2008.
We can’t even manage a national day, I went to the last Independence day celebrations this year,French friend of mine wanted to see the local celebrations. Took the time to listen to Tonio Borg, oh my Gods…..
Maltese are very defensive, we all know what happens when some English tourist writes some sort of letter about animal rights or our dirty streets.
I feel anger at that bar owner who does not serve Africans (there are a lot of bars and clubs who don’t btw), but the really scary thing is that those Africans can’t do anything about it.
[Daphne – Tonio Borg? He has more in common with Josie Muscat.]
I have been following this column with interest, but I regret to state that I find most of the comments naive.
No one is mentioning the impact that illegal immigration is and will be having on our society in the very near future.
Most of the comments are concerned about the well-being of the illegal immigrant but no one mentions the well-being of the citizens of these islands.
I have a suspicion that a plot is in place to turn Malta into an African colony!
Quo Vadis Malta?
[Daphne – When the Maltese emigrated to the UK, was that a plot to turn the UK into a colony of Maltese pimps? Just asking.]
../..
@Kenneth Cassar:
You do not need the vote to overrun a country. If they do not have the vote now, they would have to be enfrenchised in future. Time will tell, should the situation remain as at present. Do you know how many of these people will be on our land before the phenomenon stops, if it ever will? By the way, the verb “to run” (govern) and “overrun” are not lexically connected, as you seem to think.
No, I do not believe integration is possible – it has not happened in any European country and we shall not be the exception.
The repercussions are obvious and visible in any European country which has big numbers: try France, the UK and Italy. There is none more blind than he who will not see. In which country, except Utopia, is race, culture, religion and way of life not an issue? Do you watch the news? Integration is and will remain a pipedream and, even if it were possible, personally I do not want it because the solution is to repatriate these people, however difficult it might be. We were doing well enough without them. They may be more useful trying to bring about reform in their countries rather than fleeing from them. Migrating to Europe is the easy way out – they would do better to stay in their countries and work for change.
No, running a country is about gain and gain means bringing about progress and development. Generations of Maltese have squeezed out of the bare rock a reasonably good life (now much improved)by hard work and thrift. These people have nothing to contribute to our economy and society. They are neither needed nor wanted by the great majority. Kindness, charity and humane treatment are sine qua non and it is assumed that they will always be employed but this does not mean hosting foreigners that the absolute majority does not want. Malta belongs to the Maltese and it is the Maltese who should decide what they want and who they need. Do you want to deny the citizens of our country the right to live as they please as long as it is legal? Do you want to impose your views, however virtuous you consider them to be, on the majority? I will spill my blood defending your right to differ but I do not share your views. By the way, most of these people have a culture in which the expression of dissent is not customary. Some of them (East Africans) practice infibulation and are asking for it for their daughters in the hospitals of France – do you want this in Malta? A French doctor had his jaw broken by the husband of a woman because he treated her medically according to his hippocratic oath. Do you want this in Malta? If you want it, you are probably young enough to witness it in your life-time if things do not change for the better.
The majority of the Maltese population cannot decide to expel me – for your information I am a proud Maltese, born and bred in Malta not an illegal immigrant. Your argument is totally devoid of logic on this and you are perilously close to mixing lettuce with gas.
Malta is not my house? You are obviously a little too young to comprehend. I do not reproach you – one day you will grow up. You will have kids and this means an investment in the future beyond your lifetime. You will not want the future to be more dangerous than it should be.
I guess we must define the term “racist” before we indulge in this discussion in detail, mustn’t we? I repeat I am not racist. I just know what’s good for me and for my loved ones.
For now, I’ve said what I had to say, courtesy of this blog which I thank for its hospitality. I shall have nothing else to add for a long while on this topic. I will therefore not reply any further.
@ Kenneth Cassar
If you consider freethinker’s arguments as extreme, I suggest you look at your own since in my view both of you are on the opposite ends of the same spectrum. I do tend to shift a little bit more towards freethinker’s side though.
John Cauchi: you state “I have a suspicion that a plot is in place to turn Malta into an African colony!” Would you care to elaborate as to who or what might be behind this plot and why? With all due respect, many readers of this blog do not suffer fools kindly and are rather fussy when it comes to conspiracy theories.
Daphne I am afraid I don’t agree with you. If we patrol the border and send them back to where they came from they will stop coming to Malta and head elsewhere. Unfortunately, its the only real solution in my opinion.
Stanley Cassar Darian talks alot of sense here.
Another thought – I worked at the Libyan
Embassy in the late sixties. When I joined, King Idris
was on the throne and I left when Gaddafi took over.
Back then we were flooded by Libyan lowlife who came
here for the booze and women. When the coup was
happening, Libya was closed to the world for several
days – no contact whatsoever – so these undesirables were stuck in Malta with no money and invaded the
Embassy, even stealing milk from the fridge.
There were a few well educated Libyans in Malta but
too few to be noticed.
I think that since those days, the dislike
the Maltese had for the visiting Libyans gradually started
to include anybody from a Middle Eastern country.
So when the word Arab is mentioned be he Saudi,
Jordanian or Lebanese, they immediately think of the
Libyan lowlife and the whole of the Arab world is
condemned in one fell swoop. This now seems to have spread to include the whole of the African continent too.
@ freethinker:
1. What do you mean by “overrun a country”?
2. You ask me: Do you know how many of these people will be on our land before the phenomenon stops, if it ever will?”. Well, I don’t, and neither do you. However, this question is irrelevant to the matter of how we treat the ones who are already here.
3. Regarding “to run” and “overrun”, yes, I know the difference. However, we do have our laws and law enforcement officers, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Are you prophesising some sort of revolution?
4. Integration cannot happen wherever it is not tried. Mention one European state where they had a serious integration plan and policy.
5. You ask: “In which country, except Utopia, is race, culture, religion and way of life not an issue?”. Issues, and their gravity, are highly subjective. I will concede that as long as we have freedom of religion and freedom from religion, there will always be minor conflicts. The same applies to culture and ways of life. If you believe any suppressive policy will eradicate that, it is you who are living in an Utopia. Hitler and Stalin tried it, and failed miserably.
6. You write: “Migrating to Europe is the easy way out – they would do better to stay in their countries and work for change”. Your mask is off. Can’t you see that this is clearly racist?
7. You ask: “Do you want to deny the citizens of our country the right to live as they please as long as it is legal?”. My answer is YES, if what they want infringes basic human rights. The Nazis were acting legally when they murdered all those Jews. The majority of Germans supported them (or did not oppose them). Do you believe that the Holocaust was justified because it was legal and majority-backed in Germany?
8. You ask: “Do you want to impose your views, however virtuous you consider them to be, on the majority?” Of course not. You may elect a fascist politician to government if you like. That would surely shut me up.
9. You write: “By the way, most of these people have a culture in which the expression of dissent is not customary”. How do you know? You seem to know a lot about people you don’t really know. I smell prejudice.
10. You ask: “Some of them (East Africans) practice infibulation and are asking for it for their daughters in the hospitals of France – do you want this in Malta?”. I’ll reply with two questions: Do you know any Africans in Malta who want to do this in Malta? And do you know that this would be illegal in Malta? It won’t happen.
11. You tell me: “A French doctor had his jaw broken by the husband of a woman because he treated her medically according to his hippocratic oath. Do you want this in Malta?”. Well, a 60 year old Maltese man repeatedly raped a 9 year old girl. Do you want this to happen in Malta?
12. You write: “The majority of the Maltese population cannot decide to expel me – for your information I am a proud Maltese, born and bred in Malta not an illegal immigrant”. Well, first of all, apparently you failed to note that that was a hypothetical (look it up) question, or alternatively you have conveniently avoided the question. Secondly, what makes you proud of being born and bred in Malta? It’s not as if you had any say in the matter. We don’t choose where we’re born and bred.
13. You write: “Your argument is totally devoid of logic on this and you are perilously close to mixing lettuce with gas”. Funny…I have the same feeling when reading your posts.
14. You write: “Malta is not my house?”. No, Malta is a country, not a house.
15: You write: “You are obviously a little too young to comprehend. I do not reproach you – one day you will grow up”. I’m 38 (not that young). I do not reproach you – I pity you, as I do all xenophobes and racists.
16. You write: “You will have kids and this means an investment in the future beyond your lifetime. You will not want the future to be more dangerous than it should be”. Well, that is one of the reasons why I am writing against racism.
17. You write: “I guess we must define the term “racist” before we indulge in this discussion in detail, mustn’t we? I repeat I am not racist. I just know what’s good for me and for my loved ones”. Yes, what’s good for you and your loved ones, apparently, has to be NOT muslim, NOT black and NOT immigrant. You’ve already clearly shown you are racist by alluding that immigrants from Africa are lazy.
18. You conclude: “I shall have nothing else to add for a long while on this topic. I will therefore not reply any further”. Back to VivaMalta, I suppose.
Joseph Cauchi
“I have a suspicion that a plot is in place to turn Malta into an African colony!”
Let me guess: a conspiracy of Jesuits and Jews? (Old Norm must have a thing against words starting with j)
My advice is to hurry up with the Mars terraforming project (another brilliant idea from old Norm) so that you Europids can have a planet all to yourselves. I bet you’ll soon be turning away spaceships full of little green immigrant men.
@ I.M. Dingli:
Calling someone, or someone’s beliefs, as extreme without specifying which views are extreme and why so, serves no other purpose but to stifle debate.
Which of my ideas or opinions do you find extreme?
freethinker
Your pseudonym is a misnomer. May I suggest you change it to ‘blinkers’?
[Daphne – Freethinker thinks freely about religion but not, it seems, about questions of national identity or the origin of our language, which means that the struggle to be free has pulled him only half away.]
“No, I do not believe integration is possible – it has not happened in any European country and we shall not be the exception.”
This is simply not true. In Sweden there have been huge success stories of proper integration. Obviously there have been a large number of failures as well, resulting in ghetto like areas especially around the larger cities, but that does not negate the tens of thousands of immigrants who today live a prosperous life, being great contributors to society and raising children educated in our schools. Currently the ratio of immigrants exceeds 12% of the population and you would be surprised to notice that the society hasn’t broken down into splinters yet.
I’d be the first to point out flaws that have been made and we have certainly had our share of Joseph Muscat’s, especially in places where they shouldn’t be (like having prominent ultra nationalists heading immigration agencies), but where integration have been made a focus, the success rate have been incredible. One of our biggest problems in the past have been to recognise talent and educated people, especially from the middle east, something which made one of our more prominent immigrant stand up comedians (who sadly passed away far before his time) express that it’s time to get our phycisists and phd’s out of the sausage kiosks.
[Daphne – The Maltese know all about immigrant ghettoes, having formed them in Australia, Canada and the US – but not in Britain, because of the shame linked to being Maltese at the time of the mass exodus in the 1950s and 1960s.]
Much has been written on this blog about houses, countries and buses.
I would like these commentors to ponder some questions:
Imagine one is totally blind from birth;
Would you ask anybody within hearing range to assist you cross the road, board or get of a bus?
Would it matter if your helper is not your same skin colour?
Would it matter if your helper is tall, short, thin or fat?
Would it matter if the bus is full up with black/white/yellow wo/men,?
Would the colour of the skin make any difference?
Would one be certain that the smell is coming from white/black passengers?
Come on board a bus and close your eyes until you arrive at your destination.
Surely one will have more to say about the driver than the passengers.
As for integration;
How much has the white race (sic) gone out of its way to integrate into the cultures of South Africa, Rodesia, Ethiopia etc. when they were under white (sic) control?
Bearing in mind the way many go about local politics, village festa etc., it is better to find a way on how we as a nation integrate within ourselves before finding it difficult to integrate with other cultures.
@ Kenneth Cassar
Oh… was I too harsh in my statement! Whoever is against integration in your opinion is just comparable to the Nazis and Stalin. How’s that for being extremist?
You preach a lot about balance, cordiality, integration, acceptance, human rights etc but you do not show any of that to individuals who do not share your same views or aren’t they humans. You want backing for this comment… well just have a look at your replies to freethinker (not that I agree with all that he says but neither do I have reactions of your sort).
If someone criticises your input you ‘stifle’ debate by mentioning things like holocaust, Nazis, Jews, Russians and what not (to quote a phrase from your friend’s repertoire) :P
@ I.M Dingli:
You were not harsh in your statement. You were just incorrect.
I never said that whoever is against integration is just comparable to Nazis or Stalin.
What I actually said in reply to “freethinker” was: “If you believe any suppressive policy will eradicate that, it is you who are living in an Utopia. Hitler and Stalin tried it, and failed miserably”.
I was speaking of totalitarianism, and not about any policy in particular. I assume that you oppose totalitarianism.
No, I am not extremist, not if you understand what I am actually saying.
You say that I do not show any of that (tolerance) to individuals who do not share your same views or aren’t they humans”.
There is a difference between attacking the person and attacking what a person says. In a public debate, conflict of ideas is to be expected. I never said freethinker should be expelled, imprisoned or anything of the sort. I only “attacked” his arguments.
If you think this is not so, please show me where (preferably by quoting me).
And finally, once again, I only mentioned Nazis and Stalininst as examples of totalitarianism. But I guess it is misunderstanding and misrepresentation that stifles debate the most.
@ I.M. Dingli:
By the way, even if I did compare freethinker to Stalin and Hitler (which would be silly…they hated each other’s guts), that would not make me an extremist. An extremist is one who has extreme ideas.
If I made the above statement (which I didn’t), I would be silly, not an extremist.
OK, I am a patient person (and I hope Daphne and the moderator are likewise), so I’d rather spend a few extra seconds typing than be misunderstood.
Here’s exactly what I meant in my mention of Stalin and Hitler.
The context was “as long as we have freedom of religion and freedom from religion, there will always be minor conflicts. The same applies to culture and ways of life. If you believe any suppressive policy will eradicate that, it is you who are living in an Utopia. Hitler and Stalin tried it, and failed miserably”.
So the point was the eradication of different cultures, religions or ways of life.
Perhaps Lenin/Stalin would be better examples than Hitler, since in the case of Hitler, it was the war that toppled him, and so we cannot know whether he would have succeeded.
In the case of Lenin/Stalin, its a different matter. They both tried to violently eradicate cultures, religion and political ideas which went against their Utopia. The way they did it was by killing anyone they perceived as a threat (which included other communists they felt they could not trust). However, history shows us that no matter how hard they tried, they did not eradicate neither religion, nor other cultures, nor other political ideas.
Since I am an addict of non-fiction, I would suggest Robert O. Paxton’s “The anatomy of Fascism” and Robert Service’s “Comrades – Communism: A world history”.
[Daphne – The moderator has long since departed for foreign climes. I have to do the moderating now, and there’s an immoderate amount of it.]
@ Kenneth Cassar
In your replies to freethinker (I will follow the equivalent point form you used to avoid a lot of copy and paste functions): –
2. ‘However, this question is irrelevant to the matter of how we treat the ones who are already here’….. Kenneth, a lot of persons (me included) are mostly concerned of the ones still to come and not quite about the ones which are already here.
3. Run or overrun… this is a good one, do you normally prevent problems or you wait for them to happen and than you act accordingly, you know, the typical Maltese attitude ‘mbaghad naraw!’ Yes sure, today they have no voting rights and no this and that…. But their future generations will.
4. You expect Malta to be that place from what you preach.
6. I can’t really understand why you say that the comment in question is racist. Maybe the wording was put a bit abruptly? I would suggest that these persons gather up and try to solve the problem within their respective countries. It is not that they lack the numbers or the resources so why not do that. I would also expect Europe and the US etc to help too rather than waste time in Afghanistan and Iraq.
7. Oh this is perfect…. You mentioned the Nazis in relation to the Jews, what about the Jews in relation to the Palestinians? The Jews always make us see things through their eyes but what about the counterpart?
8. If you are the same Kenneth Cassar of ‘Animal Rights Malta’ ooohhhh you really have a cheek!
11. Both cases are bad but still not comparable
13. 10 points for that one :D
14. I guess Malta is our home though and I would like it to be as it was up till a few years back prior to this exodus.
15. When you refer to the arguments of an opposing party as being xenophobic and racist, don’t you think that you are sound the alarm bells on the opposite side?
16. Kenneth, you cannot put racism and concern on the same plane.
17. I agree with you on this one.
For your peace of mind, I do not agree with totalitarianism.
@ Daphne: “Freethinker thinks freely about religion but not, it seems, about questions of national identity or the origin of our language, which means that the struggle to be free has pulled him only half away.]”
As I promised, I shall not comment anymore on illegal immigration as I have written all I wanted to say, thanks to your interesting blog. But this comment by Daphne does leave me somewhat baffled. If I ever commented on national identity or the Maltese language, it would have been something as follows:
National identity: we are a European People with European traditions and a European way of life. Of course, “European” is used in a broad sense here for Europeanness is a mosaic of different mores, ways of thought, cultures and so on – Finnish culture may differ from the Greek and from the Moldovan and from the Montenegrin and from the Ukrainian but, at the basis of all these, there is a distinctive common denominator which makes them European and not African or Asian. This is where our modern cultural identity has its roots. National identity has little to do with genes and much to do with culture. Genetically, however, we are closest to Southern Italians because of our history, religion and ethnic admixture. This does not mean that other countries which are not European do not have European influence which can be quite strong but, when you visit them or, even more, when you live in them, you know you are not in Europe – and not just geographically but also culturally. In Malta, you feel you are in Europe. Some say we are a crossroads of cultures without explaining what justifies this description. I do not share this view and I yet have to hear those who harbour this contention demonstrate in which aspects of our life and culture we are Arab, north African or whatever. Language does not necessarily reflect culture and being geographically at the centre of the Mediterranean does not, in my opinion, make us part of both worlds, Europe and North Africa. Read my lips: I have a great admiration for Arab culture and have studied Islamic history and culture but I do not feel immersed in it and no Maltese does, as far as I can tell. Here, of course, we are straying off-topic because illegal immigrants do not come from Arab countries but from sub-saharan Africa but I was drawn down this path because of the reference to language (which does not necessarily have anything to do with culture and genes).
Of course, as an assiduous reader of history, I am perfectly aware that we were very much part of Islamic culture when this was at its golden age in mathematics, philosophy, astronomy, medicine, technology, agriculture etc. So was Sicily and so was Spain. As you know, the Andalus was a beacon of culture and learning when the rest of Europe was living in the dark ages — but does this make modern Spain any less European? Spain’s Islamic past may definitely colour its modern culture and identity but it makes it no less European. Yes, our identity is European with all the baggage of influences that European culture carries — inluence from Persia, from Mesopotamia, from Egypt, from Islam and from other cultures including, of course, the Jewish which lies at the foundations of Christianity.
As to the Maltese language (here I am even more flabbergasted because I’ve written about this on this blog), it is basically Maghrebin Arabic and superstructurally Romance with some influence from English in its more recent development. Our language is a perfect relection of our history.
But what does the origin of our language have to do with illegal immigration? Is one implying that because of the Arabic roots of Maltese we should open the doors to illegal immigration? I just cannot understand. Whatever the genetic roots of the Maltese population may be (and they are, according to the most recent studies by the UoM on the Y-chromosome, closest to Sicily and Calabria with all the ethnic mingling that took place there in the last 20 centuries) my arguments on illegal immigration remain unaffected (they are based on humane treatment and repatriation not racism). We are today Maltese and European in culture and we are neither sub-saharan African nor Arab. I have every respect for the cultures of these Peoples but our cultural identity is European.
Nevertheless, I thank Daphne and all the posters who took the trouble to comment about what I wrote, whether they share my views or not.
@ I.M. Dingli:
I too shall follow the “point form” for brevity’s sake.
2. I know that most people are concerned about the immigrants yet to come. But any solution to the problem must be both just and humane to be acceptable to me. Unfortunately many Maltese people are only concerned about stopping any further immigration by whatever means, even if this means letting people die. This is what worries me.
3. The only way to prevent rebellion and a clash of cultures is to work towards the integration of immigrants into the Maltese way of life. Some work is being done in this regard, although admittedly not enough. Segregation, on the otherhand, is a sure way to inflate cultural differences and create an aura of mistrust.
4. Yes. I believe that the comparatively smaller size of Malta would make this project more workable, not less.
6. What was racist was that he/she implied that all the immigrants who come to Malta emigrate because they do not want to work – i.e. all African immigrants are lazy. I think that if you see the lines of immigrants waiting for work in Marsa, you’d know that this is not the case. His comment was loaded with racist prejudice. Regarding solving their problems in their countries, this is not possible. In some cases they lack the resources. In other cases, they would face execution, sometimes by means of the same weapons Europeans and Americans sell to their dictatorial regimes. As for Europe and the US helping them instead of “wasting time” in Afghanistan and Iraq, I would agree with you. But perhaps, they have no oil to exploit.
7. The Jews in relation to the Palestinians? Yes, I agree with you on that. My point was that not all that is legal is moral. The situation in Palestine also proves my point. Thanks for pointing it out.
8. Yes, I am the same person. I do not want to impose my views on anyone. I only want to persuade. If you know an example where I have imposed my views on anyone, kindly quote me and let me know. There is a difference between wanting something to be so, and imposing it by force.
11. Yes, they are not comparable. The rape by the Maltese 60 year old is actually worse, if you have followed the case.
15. I am extremely careful if and when I use the terms xenophobe and racist. Most Maltese people are neither. They are just concerned citizens who are misled by people who have a xenophobic and racist agenda.
16. Of course I can put racism and concern “on the same plane”. My point was that I believe that racism is one of the dangers facing Malta. This is why, when told “You will not want the future to be more dangerous than it should be”, I said that this is why I am campaigning against racism. One of my concerns is racism, so of course I can put them “in the same plane”.
17. I am glad you agree with me on this one. So I guess you have misunderstood point 6.
Regarding being totalitarian, I’m glad you are not. Most totalitarians are not interested in debate, so I would be surprised if you were one.