Is this the social culture we want to protect from Africans?
While hordes of Maltese are flooding EU Commissioner Malmstrom’s official Facebook page with insults and protests about the greatness of our history and culture and touristic spectacles, they remain unaware that the internet is not a little Maltese bubble.
Here’s just one example: a video uploaded by a Spanish tourist of a brawl in Paceville last summer. Oh, and in case there’s anybody out there who bought the ridiculous myth that Strait Street was in any way glamorous or romantic, this is EXACTLY what it was like, but with fights involving broken bottles and knives, and a whole lot of dirt. The women looked and behaved no different either.
This video has had 11,000+ views so far and is hardly a great advertisement for Malta, especially if you’re a parent wondering whether to send your children there to learn English.
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Most Africans can teach us a lesson or two.
They could certainly teach us appreciation of life, being grateful of what you own, and respect towards one another.
@Natalie and Canon,
That is why African nations are such a good model to follow, a shining example of peaceful co existence, mutual respect and life appreciation…….not! If it was as you describe it they would not be escaping from it now would they!
I see nothing exceptional in this video. Such brawls happen in English city nightlife every Saturday when three quarters of the people in the street are drunk after 10pm. I experienced this in Newcastle. Even the train station is full of drunks.
Nevertheless, that is why I keep away from Paceville.
Yep, that is any British city or town on a Friday/Saturday night – minus the police as they are nowhere to be seen.
I got a rear view of a sizable bum, a mini-skirt and koxxox. Is that an indication that a magisterial on-the-spot inquiry was being conducted?
Naughty.
http://youtu.be/6vcWY-Cjys4
Amd what about this one…a friend of the minister perhaps
If it were not so tragic, I would laugh. As a Maltese working in a foreign land, I hope to God that none of my colleagues will stumble on this.
Well done, for all those blabbers whose fingers act quicker than their brains, assuming they have one, and who thought that writing those intelligent remarks on Commissioner Malmström´s page would not have any dire consequences.
At best, people are laughing at us and these are people to whom Malta is not normally on their daily radar.
At worst, our tourism will start suffering, since no one likes to spend their holiday money in a country where public officials are insulted with lewd remarks and where people of a different colour are viewed with such disdain.
I shudder when ‘proposals’ for Valletta are mentioned.
The fact they’ll concentrate everything, with its speculative consequences is a terrible risk.
Just let it evolve, Let people come up with their own ideas, their product, from their tiny ‘bottega’.
And get those ruddy cars off Merchants Street.
So far I have only been treated with the utmost respect by East African immigrants in Malta. I cannot say the same for the many Maltese who still need to learn basic manners and a modicum of respect.
Come on – most other police forces would have beaten him to a pulp if he merely squeaked.
[Daphne – They would have done if he were black.]
Today the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of St. Edith Stein, a German Jew who converted to the Catholic faith and was killed by the Nazis in Auschwitz in in 1942. This is what she wrote to Pope Pius XI in 1933:
“ As a child of the Jewish people who, by the grace of God, for the past eleven years has also been a child of the Catholic Church, I dare to speak to the Father of Christianity about that which oppresses millions of Germans. For weeks we have seen deeds perpetrated in Germany which mock any sense of justice and humanity, not to mention love of neighbor. For years the leaders of National Socialism have been preaching hatred of the Jews…But the responsibility must fall, after all, on those who brought them to this point and it also falls on those who keep silent in the face of such happenings.
Everything that happened and continues to happen on a daily basis originates with a government that calls itself ‘Christian.’ For weeks not only Jews but also thousands of faithful Catholics in Germany, and, I believe, all over the world, have been waiting and hoping for the Church of Christ to raise its voice to put a stop to this abuse of Christ’s name”. —Edith Stein, Letter to Pope Pius XI
Stein’s letter received no answer, and it is not known for sure whether Pius XI ever even read it. However, in 1937, Pope Pius XI issued an encyclical written in German, Mit brennender Sorge (With Burning Anxiety), in which he criticized Nazism, listed breaches of the Concordat signed between Germany and the Church in 1933, and condemned antisemitism.
[Daphne – I wouldn’t get all enthusiastic about the role of the Catholic Church and the Pope in saving Jews from murder in the Second World War, Joe. But let’s not get sidetracked here.]
Hate to continue sidetracking, but there is evidence that the role of the Catholic Church and the Pope in WWII is indeed under-appreciated, mostly because 1) quite a lot happened behind the scenes and 2) few appreciate that the Pope had his hands tied with the danger he was probably in:
http://archive.catholicherald.co.uk/article/17th-april-1964/1/new-evidence-in-favour-of-pope-pius
http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/documents-reveal-pius-xii-saved-11-000-roman-jews?utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zenit%2Fenglish+%28ZENIT+English%29&utm_medium=feed&utm_source=feedburner
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/08/the-real-pius-xii
Quite a lot here: http://popepiusxiiandthejews.blogspot.com/
Seems British Foreign Office just released documents linking Pacelli’s consent to a plot to assassinate Hitler as early as 1939.
Codenamed the black orchestra, black being the habit worn by priests involved with catholic generals. Led by Canaris, admiral and close friend of the pope when he was still apostolic nunzio in Munich.
http://archiviostorico.corriere.it/1999/marzo/25/ATTENTATO_HITLER_VOLUTO_PIO_XII_co_0_9903252237.shtml
True Daphne. And it will not save the immigrants in Malta either. But it doesn’t mean that the Church should not speak out against the racism that a great part of its congregation is harbouring, even if it means that fewer people attend the services.
It should speak out about the hypocrisy of those who love hearing the parable of the Good Samaritan but who then applaud the push-back policy and would rather stand on a bus than sit next to a black person.
Even if it holds no power over anyone any more, it should not make itself even more irrelevant than it already is by ignoring such a situation, especially after the Pontiff himself brought the issue to the fore. I liked the way Fr. Rene Camilleri tackled the point in ‘Iswed fuq l-Abjad’ (skip to 50:30 unless you want to watch Manwel Micallef): https://www.facebook.com/iswedfuqlabjad?hc_location=timeline
The timing of the Good Samaritan reading this year and the Pontiff’s actions (as broght up by Ms Caruana Galizia herself) couldn’t have been better.
And, at least, the homily I heard that Sunday was quite good too. The priest, in his sometimes gruff but straight-to-the-point way, said that he didn’t want to go into the politics of the push-back situation, but also that the well-timed meesage of the reading could not have been clearer.
Re Strait Street romance – it’s a way of marketing the street, and the slew of new bars and restaurants in that area. Syphilis and unwanted pregnancies aren’t quite so glamorous as jazz-playing sailors and sultry Maltese hostesses.
[Daphne – Damn right. The real Gut was a cess-pit of child abuse, rape, brawls, violence against women, theft, and murder, to say nothing of the nits, fleas, ordure in buckets and rampant hideousness and deprivation.]
I used to work on Palace Square in late Sixties/early Seventies and had office windows overlooking Strait Street.
Sometimes fights broke out in the afternoon and we had a ringside view from the back windows.
The US or Brit shore patrols used to wade in from the start flailing nightsticks, with Malta’s finest standing on the corner waiting for the mayhem to die down before intervening.
I can’t stand the fairy tales about how romantic the Gut (or Manwel Dimech, Sette Giugno riots) was when in realty it was as you so very well described it.
Looks like we are in for a Soviet-style rewriting of history complete with air-brushing Trotsky out of the picture.
[Daphne – I’m from a Valletta family, Lestrade. There is no way I can have any illusions about Strait Street. I don’t remember it in the 1960s, but I certainly remember it in the 1970s.]
When Kitten says he wants so to breathe life back into Strait Street, does he mean all this?
Because I’m confused.
Greetings from Majestic V18.
I wouldn’t get all enthusiastic about the role of the Catholic Church and the Pope in saving Jews from murder in the Second World War, said the historian who read Hitler’s Pope and evaluated it objectively.
[Daphne – Oh, I never read Hitler’s Pope, Reuben. And I have no intention of getting into a debate about this or any other subject with a Catholic apologist (or anyone else, as this is not the subject of the thread). I do not argue with those of religious conviction. It’s pointless and in any case, I have no strong feelings about religion either way. Whether somebody wants to be a Catholic or not is no skin off my nose. I will no more argue with a Catholic than I will with a Muslim or a Buddhist. I respect other people’s religious beliefs and I expect the same respect for my lack of them.]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg7jCg2xZzc
Pushback all immigrants…save our culture.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhaxEdzropo