The Maltese did not protest against British rule – they were protesting against the rising cost of bread. Re the shooting: the deaths were accidental as the dead men were passersby. The stupid English major who gave the order for the troops to open fire ended up disgraced. Our history books dramatized somehow the event of 7 June.

Come on, give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he’s turned St James Clinic in Tripoli over to the shot and wounded, and is tending them free of charge.

Kienx imur fuq in-Noneta maghhom u ma Mintoff u Karmenu Vella ukoll? Kien ikun fihom priza u ghaxqa kieku – really unattractive Maltese men bis-Speedos.

Josie Muscat with all his lucrative business in health services in Libya would should himself in the foot if he said anything against Gaddafi

Why do we have to go back to this sophistry every time we mention Europe and the Arab world? Yes, human life is worth more in Europe than it is in the Arab or Muslim world, or in Africa. But that is not an argument for or against Gaddafi or the insurgents.

Gaddafi is cruel despot who hates Europe. He hates you, and he wants your hi-fi, your car, your social security and your head on a stick. Therefore, we should hate him back and do everything possible to remove him from power.

Simple, clean, religion-free logic.

P.S. Daphne, the Europe we live in today is the result of the belief among the great thinkers of the Enlightenment that yes, European civilisation is far superior to any other. If we’d left Europe in the hands of Graffitti at other upholders of moral equivalence, we’d all be wearing dreadlocks, we’d have a battle of the bands instead of democratic elections, and all literature barring Crime and Punishment (paperback only) would be banned.

And yet, the massacres I have mentioned took place in the post- Enlightenment era.

Fascism, Nazism, Falangism, Communism all took place after the Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment in itself – whether the Scottish, French, Italian variety – was a product of Christianity. Its roots are in Christian philosophy, since the Christianity is the medieval link between the Helleno-Roman-Judaic world of antiquity and Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment Europe.

In fact, I did not refer to Christianity as a religion, but Christianity as a culture, that is why I made a distinction between Christianity and Christendom.

The Arabs still refer to Europeans as “Faranji” – Franks… just to show how stuck they are in the past, in a worldview centred on Christendom vs Islam.

[Daphne – You are the one who brought religion into the argument, not me. My point was that religion was NOT responsible for the fact that Europe is light years ahead of the Arab world, but rather the opposite. If Europe had not gone through the period of the Enlightenment, Christian (more so Catholic) Europe would be in the exact same rut. It was the rise of a particular form of Islam which halted development in the Arab world, which was famously well ahead of European Christian civilisation for centuries. But that is irrelevant. You seem to think that the Arab world must go through the same period of slow evolution that Europe did, before arriving at the point where Europe is now. That is impossible and ridiculous. The current riots and discontent are happening because people living in North Africa and the Middle East can see the difference and want it now. Europe developed in a ‘vacuum’ without any goal or anything to emulate. Also, when the atrocities you mention occurred, there was no Universal Declaration of Human Rights, no International Court to deal with crimes against humanity and no mass media to help the rest of the world find out. Gaddafi shooting on his own people is not the same as the British shooting on a mass demo in India (you forgot about that) or any of the other cases you mentioned. It is not the same because the context is different.]