When was the last time you saw a gay man running to catch a bus and the driver refusing to stop for him?
Times of Malta reports this morning:
Many migrants are forced to ask Maltese people to hail buses for them or face being left behind by discriminatory drivers, a refugee integration report has found.
The study, conducted in December by refugee agency Aditus,questioned 156 refugees.
Human rights lawyer and Aditus director Neil Falzon said complaints on the public transport system were continuous. Such complaints ranged from drivers refusing to accept migrant passengers, to verbal racism and even assault.
Some migrants said they spent their bus rides having phrases like ‘go home’ being hurled at them from passengers and employees alike.
Unfortunately, Neil Falzon was one of the people celebrating at the forced and stage-managed party on St George’s Square with his husband (I must add that they were probably the only two people who didn’t look ridiculous) when parliament voted on the Civil Unions bill.
This is not a stance of which I approve – celebrating because you’ve got your ‘rights’ when others for whom you are working are so very far down the rights ladder that they can only dream of luxuries like the ‘right’ to marry somebody of the same sex.
The correct stance for all those people to take, if they really believe in rights and not just their own personal concerns, would have been to withhold any form of celebration in protest until black people and African refugees are treated with respect and the government leads by example.
The presence of the American ambassador at that celebration was particularly absurd and inappropriate in that respect. “We are all for inclusiveness,” she said, while celebrating with gay people the introduction of same-sex civil unions in a country where men and women are made to chase after buses that refuse to pick them up because their skin colour and genetic heritage is like hers.
As for Neil Falzon, in his position instead of celebrating on the square I would have given a forceful interview saying ‘I’m glad this law is through at last, but more importantly, we should be considering the rights of black people and African refugees who, unlike gay men, have to put up with the most dreadful discriminatory treatment and hostility at even the most basic and fundamental levels. Until they are equal, I won’t be celebrating.”
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140428/local/migrants-being-forced-to-ask-maltese-to-hail-buses.516750
And I’m sure that as long as she’s satisfied, Gabi Calleja couldn’t care less about migrants and how her benefactor treats them. What a bunch of hypocrites.
Prosit.Prosit u Prosit.
Nothing more to add. I agree completely with you.
NGOs, charity, entitlement mentality…boo hoo hoo.
Charity might save the day, but it solves nothing. Only education, employment creation, justice and fair wealth distribution will eradicate poverty in the world.
Marie Louise Coleiro, Monsignors, NGOs do you get it? Stop making things worse!
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/celebrity/chris-packham-flees-malta-on-back-of-giant-eagle-2014042886040
On a different subject, The Times are today reporting another story of “abuse” and “arrogance” by wardens.
This follows on the one last week relating to an offence connected to using a skip, which it has now turned out, was correctly applied by the warden.
It is the bye-law which appears unreasonable and not the conduct of the warden.
Is someone pulling their strings as they did with Arriva, to raise public sentiment against the wardens? Could this be connected to the proposed reform of the wardens’ system?
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/celebrity/chris-packham-flees-malta-on-back-of-giant-eagle-2014042886040
Chop-logic I’m afraid, there is absolutely nothing wrong in enjoying a moment’s respite to celebrate a newly-gained right which has personal implications.
If Neil had stopped there you you may have had a point. He didn’t and doesn’t. As for Calculator’s comment about Gabi Calleja, seriously? Is that the level of debate we want?
[Daphne – I think you forget you’re talking to a woman born in 1964, Chris, and what’s more, one who married under the legal regime of 1985. Women had far fewer rights under the law in general in Malta and married women had even fewer than non-married women.
So you’re talking to somebody who, for almost a decade until the law was changed in the early 1990s, had more or less the same rights and legal status as her minor children.
But did we married women organise a party and take a convoy to St George’s Square to cut cakes and break open the champagne when parliament voted on the Shab Indaqs Fiz-Zwieg bill? No, we did not. And you know why? Because married women with children tend to have just a tad more perspective than some of the people I saw prancing about there.
And by definition we are forced out of any egocentricity we may have started out with. The thing about that party is that it reinforced the (generally mistaken) message that with gay men, it’s all about them, and that gay men are straight men taken to the extreme of self-centredness because they are, at the end of the day, men but men with no responsibilities beyond themselves.
Quite frankly, I am sick to the gills of hearing gay men bleat and whine about how they are marginalised at law. Marginalised? The law has only ever dealt in gender, not sexuality. For centuries, right up until 20 years ago, we lived in a country where gay men had rights and married women did not.]
Can’t you see how you undermine your own point, Chris?
If a right is newly-gained, then it didn’t exist in the first place. And if the denial of that right was causing distress and suffering, for centuries mind, as it is being claimed, then the normal reaction is sober relief, not kitsch celebration.
As usual, the problem here is the congenital Maltese inability to match form and function.
Regarding my comment about Ms Calleja, I happen to have known her back in the day when she was still doing some soul-searching. She lately wrote on The Times about how she has a well-nurtured sense of justice and differentiating between right and wrong, replying to someone who also knew her then and may or may not have referred to her in his commentary on the gay marriage-adoption nexus.
That’s why it strikes me as hypocritical that someone like her come out and say these things publicly when the only ‘right and wrong’ she sees around her is in relation to one facet of her life, her sexual orientation.
Meawhile, back at the ranch ..
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/28/chris-packham-malta-is-a-bird-hell
Was there some sort of a change of heart?
“We believe that all human rights are universal. We refuse to endorse this Government’s clear preference of some rights over others, of some groups of persons over others, particularly when motives seem to be exclusively based on increasing national political mileage,” Aditus spokesperson said.’
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/28251/ngo-resigns-from-lgbt-council-in-protest-20130710#.U141UlWSyVw
I have a hunch that many Maltese might not really be racist simply on the basis of skin colour. I consider it simplistic to look at Maltese racism against black Africans as a matter of skin colour.
I am of the view that many would not be racist in relation to, say, black Americans.
I think it is rather a matter of the immigrants coming from Africa which for many is an obscure continent associated — rightly or wrongly — with disease, famine, poverty, backwardness and frequent war.
At the basis lies fear of the unknown, of the unfamiliar. Such fear would not apply to black Americans. I wonder whether others share my view.
It is not possible to identify an American by skin colour. Racism is what it says on the tin. It’s about race, not nationality.
Completely agree. I know many black Americans (and black Canadians) who wouldm’t set a foot here.
Well the bus driver wouldn’t know he was gay would he, unless of course he was a gay black then the problem wouldn’t arise.
I was the only person on a packed bus to stand up when a black person was dragged off it. I went to The Times, the police, to the court.
You will remember me writing to you and asking if you could help us search for Agnesz and Polina when they went missing.
[Daphne – Yes, of course I do. I also remember your protest about that incident on the bus.]
I spend my time blogging about Maltese culture, photography, human rights; I do fund raisers, events and exhibitions for various causes. I am alone shouting on various boards and forums to assure people with mental illnesses are not stigmatized. Not enough time in the day to fight all those battles.
I am also a LGBT community member and I was there next to Neil celebrating. Why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t we have the right to do so? We have been combating so many issues and causes for others. It’s only fair. We are good people, capable of love, commitment and raising children. Even those adopted ones.
[Daphne – My answer is simple: you should not have been there because that celebration was not in support of a cause but in support of a person. You may not quite have understood this or seen it, but it was clear. And you should not be part of any manifestation of support for a person who does not really believe in human rights but only in utilitarian strategy to acquire power and keep it. You should not have allowed yourself to be used by somebody who tried to deport African asylum-seekers and was stopped only by an injunction from the European Court of Human Rights. As a Polish citizen, you will have been unaware that most of the people partying on Palace Square were Labour supporters who happened to be gay, and not the other way round. They were there to support Joseph Muscat. My point is this: if you support human rights you do so universally and you don’t allow yourself to be used by power-brokers whose approach to human rights is entirely that which serves them PERSONALLY best: kick African immigrants around because that gets votes; legislate for same-sex civil unions because that gets votes. You have to look at people’s motivation and not just their actions. When the divorce bill passed through parliament, I didn’t go out cheering for Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando. I carried on despising him for his attitude and could see that his motivation was rotten to the core.]
I cannot agree more. I am delivering a standing ovation.
Talking about bus drivers. Why are they still wearing Arriva uniforms?
You’re just being silly here. There is no point in attacking Neil Falzon for celebrating something which was a victory for him as a campaigner and as a human being.
Dr Falzon has been working tirelessly for minority rights in Malta – gay rights and migrant rights in particular – for years. His commitment to the two is beyond question, and when, last July, Joseph Muscat threatened to push back migrants to Libya Aditus resigned from the LGBTI consultative council – a clear sign, if anything, that it was not going to be hegemonised by an institution which breached fundamental rights.
That you choose to demonise this man is pitiful.
[Daphne – Pull out a dictionary and look up ‘demonise’ and ‘attack’. Then sit down and use your mind. I’m assuming even somebody who calls himself Il-Hmar has one. It is precisely because I find Muscat’s behaviour towards African immigrants so very shocking – the case you mention being but one – that I will never, and I mean never, collude in the public myth he is trying to build of himself as somebody liberal or decent. That’s what Neil Falzon did: he colluded in helping to build a positive image for Muscat on the matter of human rights, when the reality is otherwise, as he knows better than most. Also, Falzon strikes me as not at all the sort of person who would consider my words as an ‘attack’ or ‘demonisation’ and who probably also gets the point. Sometimes, when you rush to defend somebody, as you have done, you can go too far and embarrass them instead.]
I think the problem can be narrowed down to a lack of discourse regarding immigration rights among the public and also amongst citizens.
In my experience gay rights have always been easier or more palatable to talk about and discuss than racism. I am glad about the legislation of civil unions, but in the States for example many gay activists often point out how it is white men who are the most popular leaders of the movement and barely leave room for intersectionality.
I agree that hands down in Malta it is the African immigrants who are the most powerless in society, and due to how homogeneous Maltese society is (mostly because of Maltese people refusing to integrate or socialise with black people, rather than the other way around as so many like to claim) most people continue to, willingly or unconsciously, ignore the problem and focus on issues that are more popular at the moment.
We are a self interested society who places priority on those issues that affect us first and foremost and unfortunately that ‘us’ does not include Africans in the minds of most Maltese.
These burr-heads are always complaining.
FGF in reply to your question re drivers still wearing Arriva uniforms, I would say that that is because it was the only time they were decently dressed.
I have witnessed several occasions when a migrant was insulted, ridiculed and even sent out of the bus for a puerile excuse.
Labour MP Joe Sammut wanted African migrants to be excluded from boarding the public transport buses on the Zurrieq route.
Daphne, I know many on the place were Labour supporters and I voiced my concerns about it right after I came back – both on Facebook and Times of Malta’s comments board.
However, many of us were there to celebrate all the same, just for the simple fact that the law will now recognize same-sex unions. What can we do, there was political hijack, all right, but does that mean we have to stay home and sulk instead?
[Daphne – No, it means you should have held your own party elsewhere, at home or in some other public space not associated with parliament and the prime minister, because any sensible person could and should have understood at the outset that the party was obviously going to be a partisan political mes-en-scene. What did you think the stage was for, and who did you think paid for it?]
Would it be justified to celebrate had PN passed the law? We both know they would never do that.
[Daphne – They would in fact have done so, yes, and were preparing to do so. And they would have voted on this law too had it not included the adoption clause. Adoptions are not about the rights of adults but about the rights of children. I have no objection to same-sex civil unions and a great deal of objection to adoption by same-sex couples with a birth certificate giving two women or two men as the birth parents. The two issues are entirely separate and because I agree or rather fail to object to the one, it does not follow that I have to support the other.]
Was the law passed only to score political points? Yes. Would PN or PL otherwise give a hoot about us? No.
[Daphne – Count yourself lucky. Married women in Malta had to wait for hundreds of years, until the early 1990s, for the basic rights that single women and all men, whether married or not, gay or not, took for granted as theirs. I’m sorry, but as somebody who was deprived of most of her rights and autonomy on marriage in 1985 I have absolutely no sympathy for the grand dramas and entirely disproportionate fuss made by gay men about their lack of rights, when they had every ruddy right going. Did they take to the streets bleating and screaming in feathers and amusing outfits for the recognition of equal rights for married women? No, they did not. They didn’t give a damn. Who cared? Not they. It was only when we got equal rights in marriage that they began wanting a slice of that. Before, they didn’t, in case one of them was forced into the role of ‘wife’ and made subordinate to the ‘husband’. I’m afraid, Malicia, that you have to come to terms with the fact that in Malta even the gay men are complete chauvinists and patronising towards/dismissive of women.]
As far as I am concerned – politicians here from both parties are the same – only interested in their own egos. But you were very harsh towards Neil and the whole LGBT community as a whole.
[Daphne – Actually, I wasn’t. And if Neil himself doesn’t think I was ‘harsh’, why should you?]
Why everybody else can celebrate what the hell they want, but the LGBT cannot go out and voice their joy?
[Daphne – Because they did it in the wrong place and for the wrong reasons. Do you honestly believe that the small and ramshackle gathering on Palace Square represented the gay people of Malta? It most certainly did not. Aside from the heterosexual Labour supporters bussed in for the night, the gay faces I saw there all belonged to one particular extended social group and type, to say nothing of voting tendencies. When parliament voted on the Equal Rights in Marriage law, which was far more seminal than ‘gay marriage’, we married women and all women just got on with our day, perhaps only pausing to say ‘Oh good’. There was nobody to orchestrate us into a night-time party and we wouldn’t have gone anyway. What we had endured for centuries was a real, actual, abhorrent injustice and prancing around in feathers with sparklers on Palace Square would just have served to belittle it not celebrate its end. Next time celebrate elsewhere and don’t let yourself be used.]
You made it sound like unless all existing injustices in the world are fixed, LGBT community has no right to celebrate their own small victory. This community already fights many a battle on a daily basis. Especially Neil. And many people in the community wonder what did they do do deserve such bashing. Can’t we have a breather?
[Daphne – Don’t test my patience, Malicia. Most straight people already think of gay people as being so far up their own backsides that they can’t see daylight. There is no need to give them more ammunition. Gay people do not have any battles to fight on a daily basis. They have all the rights at law that straight people do. Until the early 1990s, gay men (whether married or unmarried) and single women (whether gay or straight) had more rights than I did as a married woman. Gay men are not even stigmatised in Malta – they are literally all over the place on every media channel, the new icons and role models for working-class Malta, trailing hordes of housewife admirers. They have, in fact, taken over from priests in that regard – as ‘safe’ men for married women to become infatuated with.]