Tony Blair? More like Jean-Marie Le Pen
Last Thursday, I wrote about Joseph Muscat’s self-described action plan to tackle illegal immigration (Shotgun Diplomacy, www.independent.com.mt; www.daphnecaruanagalizia.com) but ran out of space because there was so much to be said. Here’s the rest of it.
Muscat, like many other personages before him, demonstrated his absolute lack of knowledge of Malta’s true past by saying that “throughout their history, the Maltese have proved their tolerance many times”. I don’t know where to begin with that statement. Malta’s history is marked not by tolerance but by extreme intolerance on all fronts and at all levels of society. This wasn’t unusual. It was the way of the world in general until the post-Enlightenment period, but intolerance in Malta has continued into the present.
Secondly, self-identification as ‘Maltese’, with all that implies, is a fairly recent thing. People who lived here in the past did not think of themselves as ‘Maltese’ in the way we do now. They did not look about them and think: “I’m Maltese and I’m tolerating these slaves.” “I’m Maltese and I’m tolerating these Sicilians.” “I’m Maltese and I’m tolerating those damned knights.” “I’m Maltese and I’m tolerating the British.” People who lived here did whatever it took to survive, and that’s about the sum of it. This included switching from Islam and Judaism to Christianity when it was opportune to do so, and then going on to become more Catholic than the Pope and to protest too much about fighting off the Infidel, who was rather too close to home, looked the same and even spoke the same language.
But enough about that; it’s such a dreadful shame when our leaders keep repeating the myths that were devised in the 19th century because of political expediency, as described by Giovanni Bonello in his recent article, published in The Sunday Times, about Dun Gaetano Mannarino. As he put it, our national identity is based on a series of fables – but unlike Judge Bonello, I think it entirely appropriate, in a perverse way, that our national identity should be a lie from start to finish, one great escape from the truth.
Sale kbir
An illegal immigrant in detention costs Malta €18.29 a day, Muscat told parliament. Baby, I love the 29 cents. Sale, sale, sale! €9.99! If only Jason Micallef had used the same calculating-machine to work out the number of new voters in the last election, or if Charles Mangion and the adviser who is ghosting his newspaper articles – who I imagine is Edward Scicluna – had used it to reckon up the sums on EU funds. The immigration-related duties of the army and the police have cost the Treasury €17.7 million over the last 10 years, Muscat said. I could hear the sharp intake of breath among the trolls, gnomes and elves who infest the internet: so much money that could have been spent on schools, roads and health-care.
Ah, but what they don’t realise is that Muscat is being disingenuous. That money was the pay-roll cost of soldiers and police officers. It would have been spent in any case, immigrants or no immigrants. It just happened that the army, for once, had something to do. A real waste of money, on the other hand, would have been that kind of pay-roll expenditure to keep soldiers hanging about all day, practising for the war that will never come unless we take up Muscat’s suggestion of reneging on our international obligations, or manning road-blocks to pick up the occasional kid with a joint. That the army is working for its keep after so many years of doing nothing but man those road-blocks is a good thing and not a bad one. The only way that Muscat can cut out that €1.77 million-a-year bill is by disbanding the army and making some police officers redundant, and I think we’ll all agree that this is not an option.
Muscat’s whining about the cost is particularly fatuous when you consider that it is a tiny fraction of the crippling financial burden the taxpayer had to carry for so many years: the Malta Drydocks, which guzzled up so many millions that in the end we lost count. Did Muscat or his predecessors ever say anything about this? Did they ever champion The People’s right not to be so burdened, and to have their tax-money spent on things that would benefit them instead? No, they didn’t. Malta Drydocks was Labour’s sacred cow.
And don’t get me started on the cost to this country of Sant’s decision to change the tax system to CET, a decision which Muscat fully supported and endorsed. Malta ground to a halt for the best part of two years, and the cost was huge. That was the last time before now that businesses felt extreme pressure, only that time it was self-inflicted and not imported.
Muscat’s action plan must have been written by the same person who drew up Labour’s electoral manifesto last year. It’s thick with things that have been done already or which are in the pipeline. “Separate the women detainees from the men,” he said. Oh gosh, I wonder why the government never thought of that. Oh look, it’s been happening from day one already. “Children should not be put in detention,” he said. The last time a child was found in detention there was uproar, precisely because the rules dictate that children are not put in detention and questions were raised as to why that child had ended up there.
And this is the best bit: “The migrants have to understand that women have the right to wear what they wish” – except for a nun’s habit, that is, when they’re not a nun. What Muscat doesn’t know, because he’s not a woman, is that on buses, in the streets, in queues and in shops, sub-Saharan African immigrants are exemplary in their polite, civil and respectful behaviour towards women of all ages. We wish Maltese men would follow their example and behave as they do, because we are sick to the eye-teeth of their gruff, rough and rude behaviour, and the way they behave towards women as though we are inferior, fair game or beneath contempt. It is Maltese men, Mr Leader of the Opposition, who believe that girls and women are there to be grabbed at, insulted, commented upon, patronised, talked down to and made unwanted passes at.
Muscat said that immigrants need to be taught “that people queue for what they need, and that they do not relieve themselves in public”. Honestly, what patronising claptrap. So who accounts for that mess on the steps leading down to the ditch below City Gate, and the other mess on the steps leading up to the road above City Gate – Africans? We’ve been pegging our noses to race down to the Yellow Garage for the last three decades or more, holding up our trousers so that the hems aren’t splashed with urine, and carefully avoiding the heavier stuff. Oh no, Maltese men do not relieve themselves in public. They only expose themselves and masturbate when they see a girl in a bikini or a woman walking alone. Muscat missed that one out: migrants have to understand that beaches, country walks and evening promenades are not safe for lone women because Malta is teeming with sexually twisted men who apparently can’t get their thrills any other way.
There’s more, and it’s in the ‘Jews poisoned the wells” vein which Muscat has embraced. “In Birzebbugia, some migrants put stones in the middle of the road and damaged people’s cars,” he told parliament. Oh really? You mean migrants were seen putting stones in the road? Well then, why didn’t the heroic Maltese who saw them doing it remove those stones before ‘people’s cars’ – as opposed to what, cars owned by cattle? – were damaged. If stones were found in the road, then it must be migrants who did it.
More gossip from Muscat: “In Marsa, people saw migrants do their bzonnijiet naturali in the middle of the road.” Picture the scene: Johnny from Somalia gets a sudden urge to go. I know what I’ll do, he says. I’ll wait until there’s no traffic, and then I’ll walk out into the middle of the road, make sure there are lots of people watching who can report to the Labour leader, then pull down my trousers and defecate.” I don’t think so.
The Chief Gossip had more to say: “In Safi and Kirkop, people lock their doors when they hear a helicopter flying low, because it means that migrants have escaped from detention. Some migrants were found on people’s roofs and in their yards.” Muscat is being disingenuous again: doors are always kept locked, whatever the time of day or night and whether a helicopter is flying low or not. The days of the ‘antiporta’ and of doors left on the latch are long gone. And it’s not migrants who people fear, but Maltese junkies desperate for a lap-top to sell for €40.
Done with spreading rumours, the Chief Gossip tried his hand at stirring the pot a little. People are fed up, he said, because migrants skip the queue in hospitals and health centres. That’s why, apparently, they should be made to understand that in civilised Malta, where people don’t relieve themselves or masturbate in public, we wait in queues. The Chief Gossip missed out the bit where the only migrants who skip the queue in hospitals and health centres are in handcuffs and accompanied by police officers, because they have been brought out of detention for the purpose. Perhaps Muscat believes that even more police time should be wasted by sitting around in a health-centre queue?
“I think we have an innovative package, but I don’t think we have a magic wand,” Muscat said. He may not think he has a magic wand, but there are plenty of Maltese men behind bushes who think they do. It’s time we warned the migrants about them, don’t you think? There might be one lurking behind the next bus-stop, even as we speak.
The Home Affairs minister said in parliament that he is “very concerned” at the way Muscat’s party is veering to the right in an attempt at gaining popular support. I don’t know why the Home Affairs minister is surprised. The Labour Party never does anything out of conviction. It morphs opportunistically, the aim being to get into government, and not to get into government to implement a set of policies. The party is not concerned with attaining power so as to achieve an objective, but with attaining power for its own sake. It’s what happens when people have been deprived of something for so long. They start to behave like crazed dogs, chasing after every bone that’s thrown their way. Right now, it’s Africans, who need to be taught that the Maltese don’t pee in public, always queue, and never harass women, though they sometimes play with their magic wand behind a bush.
This article is published in The Malta Independent on Sunday today.
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Here’s a sign hanging in the entrance to the Lija FC kazin:
We knew he was a political opportunist of the first order. Now we also know that he is not afraid to flirt with racism and xenophobia.
‘The end is justified by any means’ was always the credo of the MLP, as was playing on the popolin‘s ignorance, bigotry and irrationalit. This is nothing new for Muscat’s party. Names are easily changed, but the old warts are still there.
Instead of leading, it is obvious that Muscat is being led by comments on the internet.
The reference to a Sunday Times article by Giovanni Bonello about Dun Gaetano Mannarino intrigued me. But I could not locate it in the Times archives. Is there a link to it which I could use to access it?
[Daphne – It was a two-part article which I read in the actual newspaper. It doesn’t appear to be on line. I’ll see whether I can obtain a Word document and then I’ll email it to you directly.]
I read Giovanni Bonello’s researched story about Dun Gaetano, but I wasn’t convinced that he was a turncoat, (that he was a bit a la` Fr Mark maybe). One has to keep in mind that it was the knights who documented the interrogations. If there was somebody like Superintendent Anglu Farrugia conducting the interrogations the documents would be considered to be just a piece of paper. They tried to poison him, confiscated all his property and sent him to jail for life. Come to think of it, this story reminds me a lot of life in Malta in the 1980s.
Maybe he was not a hero but his accomplices were.They were fighting the corrupt Order of St John. Dun Mikiel Xerri was another hero, and Manuel Dimech also. [Daphne – Manwel Dimech was a convicted murderer.] The Maltese who were interned in Uganda without a fair trial were heroes – one of them was Giovanni Bonello’s father.
Of course, there were people who switched sides to survive. That happens everywhere. But there were genuine people who wanted to be free from foreign rule. When the Maltese revolted against Don Gonsalvo Monroy it was because they didn’t want foreign rule over Malta. They paid with their gold so that the king of Spain would not put them under another feudal lord. They paid with 30,000 gold pieces for their freedom. This is no fairytale. Sweeping statements are dangerous. [Daphne – You are using the mindset of the present to interpret the motivations of those who lived centuries ago.]
The man with “hindsight” did not have the foresight and may have bitten off more than he can chew with the possibility of incurring a million euros in legal fees for the Labour Party’s VAT stunt on vehicle registration. The problem facing Labour’s legal team is of elephantine proportions. We should take courage, though. Muscat says: “L-Oppozizzjoni Laburista mhix kelb tal-but imma kelb ta’ l-ghassa favur id-drittijiet tal-bniedem.”
Let’s say that Manuel Dimech was a rehabilitated criminal – even though there are doubts about his part in the Portes des Bombes murder.
[Daphne – Are there doubts?]
Except they weren’t Maltese, John. Not until 1900 or thereabouts.
@Daphne
“Oh no, Maltese men do not relieve themselves in public. They only expose themselves and masturbate when they see a girl in a bikini or a woman walking alone.”
Well I can’t say it’s not true, but I’ve never seen anyone do such things in public. [Daphne – That’s because they’re not interested in men, John.] But yes, there are a lot of “sick” people in this country, especially of the older generations. Red-light districts serve as a safety valve and diversion for such people. But of course, in Malta, it would be scandalous to have such places. We still have that “more-Catholic-than-the-pope” attitude. Even in Catholic Spain there are such places. [Daphne – There are in Malta, too, but they don’t serve the purposes of men whose particular thrill is exposing themselves or surprising/bothering women on the beach.]
@John Schembri
“But there were genuine people who wanted to be free from foreign rule. When the Maltese revolted against Don Gonsalvo Monroy it was because they didn’t want foreign rule over Malta. They paid with their gold so that the king of Spain would not put them under another feudal lord. They paid with 30,000 gold pieces for their freedom.”
We were always under foreign domination and we are still under discreet foreign control. The EU is now pulling our strings, placing that carrot called “EU funding” so that the donkey goes where the EU wants it to go. We have never been “free”. [Daphne – Who are ‘we’?]
For the last time ever: WE WERE NOT ‘ALWAYS’ UNDER FOREIGN DOMINATION.
John Meilak
“The EU is now pulling our strings, placing that carrot called “EU funding” so that the donkey goes where the EU wants it to go. We have never been “free”.”
You are free not to eat their carrot. Grow your own and gain freedom.
The saddest thing about the PL being so pathetic is that the PN gets elected by default and can do things like this:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090323/local/company-warns-it-may-sue-over-packaging-waste-eco-refunds
Chew an’ Lie – Why are you surprised at the Labour Party’s latest gaffe when they don’t seem to know the difference between dog shit and horse dung? ( http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20081006/local/charged-over-horse-dung )
@Daphne. To an extent payroll cost of the army would still be incurred without the illegal immigration problem. But do you believe there is no overtime cost in manning the open centres 24/7 [Daphne – Did we have an army that clocked off at 5pm before 2002?], fuel and maintenance cost with additional sea patrols, health care, replacing damaged fixtures, etc whenever they decide to burn the place? What about social benefits they receive? [Daphne – Who, the army or the detainees? The detainees receive no social benefits.] It may not be much but what have they contributed? [Daphne – The Maltese recipients of social security cheques are mainly people who have contributed zilch. Whether you have contributed in terms of taxes or social security payments is not a deciding factor in whether you receive benefits or not.] When in the 1980s after finishing school I faced the prospect of unemployment, I was told I’d get no benefits as I would not have made any contributions yet. [Daphne – You should have become a single mother.] You make it sound as if we should be grateful illegal immigrants are arriving by the boatload. [Daphne – No, I am being practical. Nothing can stop them coming. And when they arrive, they have to be put through the system, such as it is.] The solutions may not be easy to find, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a problem. [Daphne – Life involves dealing with problems. If you can find a problem-free way of life or a problem-free country, tell me about it. To expect to have no problems is infantile. Better illegal immigrants than massive unemployment and widespread homelessness as people default on their loans. There are some countries, like Britain, which have all three.] Meanwhile, I don’t believe that the crass behaviour of some, or a lot, of Maltese people can be brought into the picture as an excuse to justify illegal immigrants’ behaviour. [Daphne – Nobody’s doing that.]
Chew an’Lie: “The problem facing Labour’s legal team is of elephantine proportions. ”
No problem there. Labour has just the man for the job. Should be right up Anglu Farrugia’s street. AF has shown himself capable of actually climbing on the back of such things – remember the photos taken on his visit to India, on his website?
@Daphne, Just because the army didn’t clock off at 5.00pm doesn’t mean that there isn’t MORE overtime being spent now. As far as I know, they do receive a monthly check from the government. Their expectations are getting higher. Only yesterday we read the story of two Somali women. “When contacted, experts in the field explained that those freed from detention were generally given pocket-money and shelter for about a year at the open-centres. But they were then expected to find a job and a place to live.”
[Daphne – The report clearly says ‘pocket money’ and not social benefits, and you shouldn’t assume that the state is paying it.]
– When in some 25 year’s time I’ll receive my pension I would as sure as hell have contibuted for it. [Daphne – Yes, but if you suddenly become an 18-year-old girl who has a baby, you will have contributed nothing to the cheques you receive from the state.]
– Dealing with problems doesn’t mean simply accepting them, doing nothing and taking a fatalistic attitude. Recognising a problem, as in any other sphere of life, is the first stage in solving it. Brushing it under the carpet wouldn’t make it go away. [Daphne – I would imagine that the reason there are detention centres and the army on duty is because the problem is recognised and not swept under the carpet. What people like you want the government to say is that there is a crisis when there isn’t one, because a mere problem is not enough drama for you.]
– Maybe nothing can stop them coming but if we were to take heed of NGO proposals and reduce detention periods we would be making Malta as a destination more attractive and vice versa. [Daphne – And your point is? I’m having trouble following your train of thought.] Let’s start providing social housing as well now! Guess we should then fully subsidise the water and electricity bill because the 32-year-old Somali would still be uttering the only English words she could utter (and I’m quoting from yesterday’s times report) “no cheque, no money”. What would we think of any Maltese 32-year-old in the same situation? [Daphne – That she deserves help and sympathy, like that 29-year-old bum who’s playing up to the newspapers because she wants the right to stay on in a house that isn’t hers, while moaning that her widow’s cheque isn’t enough to live on. She’s 29, she has no children, she has a whole life ahead of her – why doesn’t she get off her butt, go out and work, and pay rent for a place of her own? Instead, she fully expects to spend the next 60 years living off a widow’s pension while living in a house that isn’t hers and for which she doesn’t pay rent.]
Apologies for not being clear with my train of thought. My point is that policies can be used to make Malta a less attractive option for immigrants. [Daphne – How can it be made any less attractive than it is already? When they land, they’re locked up for 18 months, then either forcibly repatriated or given papers which allow them to live and work only in Malta – from a small prison to a larger one – with no prospects.] With most arrivals looking more like they’ve been launched from a vessel, rather than spending days at sea, I find it hard to believe that those arriving here do so accidentally. [Daphne – Most arrivals? Hardly. Where did you get that?] Priding ourselves in being the country which grants the highest percentage of refugee status does not help. [Daphne – We don’t. Where did you get that?] We’re probably doing so in the hope that they’ll be free to move elsewhere. [Daphne – No, because with refugee status they have to stay here.] Meanwhile making ourselves lucrative as a target destination. [Daphne – I don’t understand that. What do you mean?]
Hopefully, the parents of the 18-year old single mother would have contributed to the Maltese coffers. [Daphne – Unlikely, given that these problems are perpetuated from one generation to the next.] At the same time, you are probably right and social benefits may be promoting this type of lifestyle for some. Yet the solution is not to splash out further on illegal immigrants, but to review the single mother benefits.
Re recipients of social security cheques being mainly Maltese people who have contributed zilch is an exaggerated argument [Daphne – That’s not what I said.] NSO Jan – SEP 08 figures show that ” Contributory Benefits” amounted to EUR352m out of EUR472m in Total Social Security Spending. The difference included amongst others children’s allowance (again I would think that most of their parents pay some form of taxes), and disability pensions which I’m sure no one is arguing against.
Have you read the article by David Grillo in FM magazine? It’s pretty good.
[Daphne – Here’s the link: http://www.fmlifestyle.com/index.php?id=330&searched=David+Grillo&highlight=ajaxSearch_highlight+ajaxSearch_highlight1+ajaxSearch_highlight2
@ Maryanne
Thank you for pointing out David Grillo’s article. I’d have liked it to be printed in The Times. Then maybe some of the racists, who are always so ready to write a venomous comment, would have seen some sense.
Kieli – I take it that this is what you are referring to:
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2008/03/21/friday-21-march-1130hrs/
@Daphne. With refugee status they don’t have to stay here. At least that’s what I can conclude from press reports such as this: “But magistrate Joseph Apap Bologna reminded Dr Porsella Flores that his client had come to Malta from Italy, enjoyed refugee status and through the Schengen agreement could travel all over Europe. Times 21March “Human Trafficker was here ‘on Holiday’.”
[Daphne – They can travel abroad, but must live and work in Malta, or wherever they were given refugee status.]
@DCG: ‘They can travel abroad, but must live and work in Malta, or wherever they were given refugee status.’
I am not that familiar with EU border regulations but wouldn’t that particular regulation be redundant now Malta’s a Schengen country?
[Daphne – Border regulations have nothing to do with it. With or without border controls, you need permission to live and work in the EU if you are not an EU citizen. The fact that you have refugee status in Malta does not mean you have a Maltese passport.]
Muscat said that immigrants need to be taught “that people queue for what they need, and that they do not relieve themselves in public”
Does Muscat ever queue for anything? I was on holiday in Malta last December. Two of my children went over to a candy floss stand. They stood there for ten minutes at the top of the queue, ignored and trampled on because they were speaking English and didn’t know the rules of the Maltese jungle. At the end of it I had to go over myself and give the seller a piece of my mind in Maltese. They were served after that.
Priding ourselves in being the country which grants the highest percentage of refugee status does not help. [Daphne – We don’t. Where did you get that?]
If memory serves me well from a press report quoting Tonio Borg a few years back. Also from other press reports such as this extract “Dr Falzon said at least 60 per cent of asylum seekers who landed in Malta were granted some form of protection status. “This figure proves that the majority of those who arrive cannot be sent back without having their application processed,” he explained.
[Daphne – Oh, very well researched and argued: a vaguely remembered press report of something that Tonio Borg may or may not have said a few years ago. And an article in which Dr Falzon rightly claims that 60 per cent of asylum seekers are granted ‘some form of protection status’. How does that make Malta “the country which grants the highest percentage of refugee status”? Our schools have failed….]
Time for an update of fact from The Times of 09MAY09.
“In 2008, Malta accepted 52.5 per cent of the asylum claims made, almost twice as many as the EU average which stood at 26.8 per cent. In fact, last year, Malta processed a total of 2,685 claims and accepted 1,410 applications.
The Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici had recently spoken about this, saying the EU were afraid of sharing the burden because they thought Malta had a liberal system which awarded protection with ease. Instead, he argued, the high figures stemmed from the fact that many of Malta’s migrants were people who deserve protection.”
Seems like I was not hallucinating after all.
@Daphne. I’m not claiming I’m an expert on the situation. Like most others I get my information from press reports. This extract indicates that the pocket-money to those who don’t enjoy refugee status is Eur 130 per month. “Benefiting from temporary protection for the last three weeks, which is valid until 24 February 2010, the young man spends his days in a makeshift camp erected opposite his former prison with, in his pocket, the €130 of aid given to him each month by the Maltese authorities.”
From this extract then it appears that those with refugee status are entitled for social benefits, and that they now expect more including social housing: “As things stand, unless the migrants are given refugee status, they cannot apply for social assistance in the same way Maltese people can. Katrine Camilleri, a human-rights lawyer, said even those with subsidiary protection should be entitled to core social welfare benefits – but Malta did not yet have such a mechanism in place. “Malta does not yet have a system for migrants to obtain financial assistance once they have left the centres,” she said.”
Daphne: I’m sure you’ll agree that authorities aren’t exactly forthcoming with information. Even authorities are vague in their estimates of the number of illegal immigrants remaining in Malta. When Dr Henry Frendo/Mgr Victor Grech provided some information they was accused of creating hysteria. Meanwhile, feel free to deride anyone you don’t agree with on the subject.
[Daphne – Actually, I was about to raise the issue of why Henry Frendo is allowed to sit on the Refugee Appeals Board when his contributions to the media on the subject of immigration display simmering xenophobic tendencies, suspicion of The Other, and shall I suggest…just the merest hint of racism?]
Daphne – You think I’m inventing what Tonio Borg has been saying I can google and find you a couple of quotes like this: “In this context, apart from the marked improvements in the legal rights of refugees and asylum seekers, one must also mention that the figures show that the approval rate of applications hovers in the region of 50%, by far one of the most positive approval rates in Europe.” Don’t you feel the sense of pride in the statement ‘by far one of the most positive rates in Europe”? [Daphne – No. Why would I? I don’t feel that involved. In fact, I can’t understand why immigration has become an obsession for some people. There are more urgent concerns, despite what the Foreign Minister says.]
My original point was that in this manner we are making the island a lucrative destination of choice. [Daphne – You’re joking, right? The most lucrative destination of choice is the United Kingdom, where they are all heading, but it’s a little bit difficult to get there by sea from Libya.] I don’t believe that most illegal immigrants end up here by chance. [Daphne – You’re not a sailor, then.]
http://www.tonioborg.com/docs/news/asylumseekersconference.pdf
I’m sure I’ve heard Tonio Borg repeat this statement a number of times over the years, but I thought this was a discussion blog, not a thesis.
[Daphne – It’s a blog owned and operated by somebody for whom words have a precise meaning, and who has no patience for people who think like they’re suffering from a bad case of the mental runs.]