Fil-festa ta' San Pawl: an update on Maltese hospitality
Somebody sent me an email that’s been doing the rounds. It’s packed full of incitement to anger and aggression against Them – black people and Arabs. There are photographs for added interest – you know the sort, riots at the detention camps, women wearing shawls (for all the world as though Maltese women didn’t wrap themselves up in exactly the same way until World War II), and all the tedious rest of it. The incitement is built up to reach a crescendo: “in he past we fought them”, an exclamation illustrated with a picture of the Great Siege of 1565. I found this particularly hilarious, given that the battle was between the Order of St John and the Ottoman Empire, and not between the Maltese and the Turks. Even more hilariously, many of those emailing this piece of rubbish are more likely to be descended from manumitted Torok, Arab and Misilmin than they are from any ‘Maltese’ who happened to be living on the island in 1565. And then we come to the grand finale.
Malta open your eyes!!! No compasion. The black man and the arab are our enemies. Their only wish is to murder us. Wake up Maltese!
Trying is out of the question! We must keep them out. Our protest must be heard loud and all-out!!!
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Exactly! I fully concur, Daphne.
“Purcinelli nisa mgezwrin gol kutri…qedin sew!” – Directly quoted. So, I ask myself, were Maltese women to be called “purcinelli” when they used to wear the ghonnella? Apparently certain people still can’t, in 2009, accept diversity.
“Malta: Blacks and arabs revolt…… Intolerable!!!!” – Quoted. What I find to be truly intolerable is the attitude of many Maltese. They revolt, of course; but for good reasons. Maltese people, on other hand, ‘revolt’ because they are asked to pay for what they actually consume. I cannot fathom such miserable reasoning and hdura, especially since many Maltese too, in the past, fled the country as soon as they had the opportunity.
Maltese people tend to revolt when asked to cough up the lolly to make up for someone else’s lack of accountability and unwise stewardship.
[Daphne – Hospitality is never free, Sybil, is it? What you mean is that the Maltese always want something in return for their hospitality, hence the emphasis on St Paul having rid our serpents of venom. Iddubbajna xi haga ghal dak l-ikel kollu li kiel….]
“I found this particularly hilarious, given that the battle was between the Order of St John and the Ottoman Empire, and not between the Maltese and the Turks.”
Hang on hang on, the war was between the Order and the Ottomans agreed but many Maltese took part in the fighting, often outshining the knights in valour!
Having said that I fully agree with your article of course!