A sense of perspective
Published:
October 7, 2013 at 6:58pm
“I found myself for more than an hour among these corpses. It was difficult to look straight at their faces, to see their wounds, see their tormented expressions, their outstretched arms. It was extremely difficult. But this is our job.”
– Riccardo Nobile, one of the divers engaged in bringing up an estimated 350 dead bodies from in and around the vessel which sank off Lampedusa.
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This is Humanism, something sorely lacking in too many Maltese ‘citizens’.
Humanism is something entirely different, but that too is thin on the ground in Catholic Malta.
I’m sure that we are all very sad with what happened to those unfortunate Africans, but we must not allow emotions to make us forget, the real problem.
It is important that while we mourn the dead we must keep on working to tackle the problem which is leading to all this misery.
Europe and especially Malta should make it their mission to inform and make it clear to all those who are thinking of crossing over,illegally, of what really awaits them. We must make it clear to them that they are not welcome, and they should not expect any red carpet welcome when they arrive here.
The message should be.
“Keep Away, You Are Not Welcome.
This has nothing to do with ‘Welcome’.
These people are not ‘your usual visitor’. These are people who out out sheer and total desperation take the crazy plunge of getting into a highly overcrowded and highly unsafe boat, long past its use-by date, to throw themselves at our rescue.
They expect no red-carpet welcome, but simply hope for human dignity, nothing else.
For those who claim that they are taking our jobs, nothing could be further from the truth. If anything they add to our economic output, our GDP, our economy.
The clash of civilisations which is menacingly upon us i.e., Islam vs Christianity, East vs West, Civilisation vs Traditionalism is essentially the clash of tolerance vs intolerance.
It is an interesting but disturbing paradox that Malta which is described as staunchly Catholic exhibits such forms of intolerance towards others who solicit our support, our consideration and our concern.
Lampedusa which is smaller than Gozo and which is the first port of call for thousands of displaced persons has bravely and honorably developed an altogether different approach, behaviour and attitude to Malta, as can be seen by the testimonial above.
Charity does begin at home, and if we can’t be charitable on our home turf, we better come to terms with who we really are as a people and stop labelling ourselves as Catholic, and even less, pontificate to those who don’t share our views.
Silvio. Speak for yourself.
Of course I’m speaking for myself,
Why should I care a nickle about the sorts of yourself.
Idiot. Go and hide somewhere, Loporto. I’d take one of “those Africans” over someone of your sort, any day.
Good to hear that there are persons like you who are ready to take one of “those Africans””
You are welcome to go over to Hal Far and have your pick.
The thing is, dear Loporto, that whether you like it or not, African refugees are here to stay. You have no say in the matter.
“We must make it clear to them that they are not welcome, and they should not expect any red carpet welcome when they arrive here”.
Speak for yourself, you bloody racist.
I note that you are in the habit of calling others names.
This has to do with one’s upbringing, and you meet it frequently with those brought up in slums and gutters.
Mr. Loporto, try to follow this logical reasoning:
Ignorance breeds fear, fear breeds hate and hate breeds violence.
You, Mr. Loporto, are somewhere in the middle of that process.
I’m afraid ,you miss one,
Brave men act, when faced with a problem
Cowards bring up all sorts of excuses.not to.
The best way of defense is to attack.i.
Mr. Loporto, you prove my point so perfectly.
You talk about defence because you are overcome by fear.
And you talk about attack because you harbour hate.
And now we start to see a streak of violence emerge with your last comment talking about attack.
Mr. Loporto, have some self-respect and at least be honest with yourself.
When faced with what they perceive as a problem, immoral men act with no concerns other than their own.
Insecure men with a low self-esteem see threats even when none exist.
The undeserving perceive the deserving as enemies.
The best way to attack a racist is not by censoring him, but by encouraging him to expose his callousness through his worthless and futile rants.
Little Joey doesn^t do perspective.
As an Italian gentleman (sorry didn’t get his name) said today on the news, these people are not even to be considered as illegal immigrants, as they are not crossing over to Europe to find a better job and upgrade their standard of living, they are risking their life in order to try and save that same life.
I think we seem to forget that most of these unfortunate persons are manipulated by criminals. There is a network that does not care a hoot about them.
As long as they get their 5,000 Euro, they just do not care.
This unfortunate and very tragic event should be an eye opener to the EC.
Pushbacks and forced repatriation is the ONLY way to put a stop to the greedy criminal human traffickers.
Things being as they are immigrants will keep on queuing up to pay these criminals and take the risk of crossing the sea to Europe.
Pushbacks mean more death by drowning. Malta is an island in the 21st century, not a landlocked medieval state.