Up for discussion: the most interesting comment that came in today
Sent in by Lorry:
I totally agree with you that voting for a party means that you are endorsing the policies and ideology.
But unfortunately only the minority of the population knows this or thinks that way. They don’t make the connection between their vote and an electoral mandate.
Although somewhat hidden, the Maltese population is facing a huge dilemma. Most, and I say most of the people from all walks of life, cannot tolerate African immigrants on our shores anymore.
They are ashamed to admit it, but it is the truth.
So, although the majority agrees that the current administration is making havoc of our country they still believe that Muscat and/or Lowell can do something to stop Africans coming to Malta.
I heard it from others who vote PN and who admitted to me that when Joseph Muscat tried to adopt the push-back policy, they were super-delighted only to be let down by their own party when it criticized him for trying to do that.
Unfortunately it is a very weird reality.
These people are willing to ditch their moral values and vote for the persons who share their “concerns”.
Yes, they agree that the LNG tanker should not be berthed in Marsaxlokk bay, but they still hope that Muscat can stop immigration.
Yes, they agree that the government appointments are atrocious, but they still hope that Muscat can stop immigration.
Yes, they agree that the sale of citizenship is wrong-headed, but they still hope that Muscat can stop immigration.
Yes, they agree that gays should not adopt but again they still hope that Muscat can stop immigration.
Now that Muscat seems to have failed in stopping the Africans from coming to our shores, their last option seems to be Norman Lowell.
Sure, they are totally against abortion or the persecution of disabled people, but still Lowell might be able to stop immigration.
Sure, they are absolutely against most of his ideology but they are willing to buy a farm in order to get their fillet.
As you can see, the Nationalist Party is nowhere to be seen in this reality because they always took a humanitarian stand-point, a truly liberal and progressive one.
The true test of how liberal and progressive a political party and its supporters are is their attitude towards asylum seekers. Human rights are indivisible. You can’t champion gays while calling for a purge of Africans. But the vast majority of electors don’t understand this.
The PN never adopted extreme measures and that is the majority, with its extremist views on immigration, prefers not to vote for it.
This is the gruesome reality down here in the streets. It stinks but it’s there.
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The problem is that Joseph Muscat is interpreting the MEP elections results as a mandate to store the LNG tanker in Marsaxlokk, and that he was right with the sale of the Maltese citizenship. No one is going to stop him with the project and the Marsaxlokk residents are on their own.
Spot on! That’s precisely the reality in my neck of the woods as well. I have often tried to hold discussions with people I thought I knew well – people who also profess to being good, upstanding Catholic citizens – and yes, Muscat is their champion because they think he’s got what it takes to get ‘rid’ of the black immigrants.
Once again, I can understand how the Nazis got away with what they did. They had the tacit consent of the majority of the population.
Muscat, like Hitler, appeals to instinctive fears and negative emotions rather than rational thinking. That the “masses are asses” doesn’t help much.
Well, I disagree with Lorry on most of his points. The PN is to blame for the current situation.
It was a PN government which instituted an extremely harsh detention policy and therefore labelled migrants as unwanted criminals.
What we see now is the consequence of that decision. The PN tried to patch up over the years, but the damage has long been done and it will take generations to sort out the ramifications.
I would say the Nationalist government’s fault was that of following every other government in the world and believing you can have policies to deal with illegal immigration.
You cannot. Because the only policy which would stop illegal immigration is too terrible to contemplate.
Detention was meant to be a combination of deterrent and administrative filter. Clearly, the migrants have shown that eighteen months’ detention is a small price to pay, and that they can easily get through any administrative filter.
Joseph Muscat has piled lie upon lie. He would have us believe that a solution can be found, that illegal immigration can be stopped, without resorting to murder.
All lies.
So we can set aside that issue as the one that distinguishes the political parties. They have the same policy on illegal immigration. That is to say they build policies on the same delusion. Once we have that clarity of thought, we can begin to look for the real differences.
I disagree. Mention the word African and the Maltese take a step back as though a mere mention is enough to contaminate and associate.
This was the reaction with Libyans beforehand and in general we have the same affliction that effects the job markets in Dubai and India. The degree of whiteness is very important.
Too dark and well, unless there’s a wad of money to back the person, the person is likely to be shunned. That’s exactly how shallow Malta has always been.
The NP has nothing whatsoever to do with this ingrained sentiment.
What people should do is have a look at the millions who are displaced globally at any one time. It is enough to state that IDPs reached 28 million in 2012. We are so very limited in perspective.
The Egyptians have an expression for something done uselessly: “Yiddan fi Malta” (مالطا في يدّن) “Talking to a brick wall” or “Sounding the Muslim call to prayer in Malta”. In the Arab retention, the Catholic faith here so strong that sounding such a call to prayer would be useless. Not these days though.
Catholic Malta, if you look at the history, must have been so busy petitioning the one Grandmaster after another for recognition and granting of titles of nobility (how petty in Malta).
All this laghqizmu is just part of the same scale. And over the many centuries it hasn’t changed. On the furthest end are the historical “Nigret” and Marsa lots and the immigrants and on the other…Maltese “Nobility” vying for preference with foreign, with this hierarchy having to be established for purposes of recognition.
Very petty reasoning.
We’re all human beings, who like a free economy in modern times will find a natural place if allowed that space.
What makes one person better than another?
Blame fear, in a society that still clings and yearns for protection and demands recognition rather than work for it, Not the Nationalists.
This fear has been around for centuries and has never left.
The evidence is before us for both ends of the scale.
——————
“Hemm wisq barranin Malta” is the latest pre-MEP election soundbite dropped by PL in Gozo.
It has in the main replaced the pre-March 2013 election soundbite: “100 milljuni qalu li gabu u lili ma missni xejn minnhom?”
Hemm wisq turisti. I agree.
I will just comment on the first part of your post.
I don’t think you are correct. What would have been the first thing that came to your mind if I mentioned black African in 2000 before the boat people started landing in Malta?
Most people would have mentioned the words poor, missionaries, need help, maybe AIDS etc. Very few would have instinctively mentioned racist or xenophobic thoughts.
So I disagree that there was an ingrained xenophobic streak. The experience of the last decade or so has helped build up this xenophobic streak and both political parties did very little to move the discussion in a more humane direction. I think Gonzi at one point tried to change the common discourse but it was too little, too late.
And now we have Syrians coming over – definitely not black Africans, but the same sentiment still holds.
@ Gakku
It is a far older problem than that, and I underlined as ingrained as Malta’s position in the Mediterranean.
I was looking for a cartoon of Nalizperla’s published in February 2003 – just before the EU referendum – that illustrates this point perfectly. I haven’t found that yet but I did come across this, by pure chance:
“Shut up Luns! Who the hell do you think you are? Are you God? I am not going to be treated like some Indonesian nigger”
– Mintoff Shouting at Nato secretary general Joseph Luns during negotiations in Rome, December 1971.
It is an ingrained problem, centuries old.
It effects our own self-confidence and the way we deal with others.
The context would be as you state in Sweden, I agree, where arrivals would have been more recent, and the difficult moment peaked after the Yugoslav situation came apart.
But if PN has to accept this gruesome reality and pander to it, I say it must not, even if it means staying in Opposition.
Absolutely
Andrew,
Absolutely!
But I’d like to see my party’s position in this whole scenario.
“Irridu nisimghu aktar lin-nies”
“Irridu mmorru ahna gewwa d-djar tan-nies”
“Ahna smajna l-messagg tal-poplu”
Well… What does this really mean?
It looks like the PN’s values are only cherished by the minority. And it’s getting worse by the day.
Lorry, the PN are making the mistake that they are not out there getting their message heard. With continuous presence, things may change.
“even if it means staying in Opposition.”
I wonder how would that be possible
Unrelated, but it seems that both Kurt Sansone (Times of Malta) and Miriam Dalli (Malta Today) did not bother to INFORM (excuse the caps) their readers that there was the vote-counting for the hamlets this morning.
I told you so.
The NP (negro problem) occupies the mind of the majority of Maltese people, and for good reason.
How idiotic. So there’s no Libyan problem, or Syrian problem, or Chinese problem?
What a tosser.
Don’t shoot the messenger.
It is the NP(negro problem) that will destroy and bankrupt Malta, as they have a very good track record to doing just that in every neighbourhood and city and nation they infest.
In the USA people of all races and nationalities pay good large sums of money on a yearly basis just to be able to NOT live near them, as it can be detrimental to their safety and health.
I am not politically correct, I call them as I see them.
Or Phillipino problem, or Eastern European problem?
I am shooting the message here. Because you claim it is not a problem if the illegal immigrants are not black.
I am also politically incorrect. You talk genetics when you should be talking civilisation.
I am not so sure with regards to, the PN credentials when it comes to the fair treatment of asylum seekers. Then justice minister Tonio Borg, did send back over 200 Eritrean citizens back to Eritrea and it was a known fact that most would end up in jail, tortured and murdered.
[Daphne – Things have moved on a little since then, Ben.]
I was just pointing out Lorry’s suggestion that the PN always took a humanitarian approach. Which by the way is why I think the previous administration is to partly blame for the increased xenophobia here in Malta.
Two main issues which I would like to address: the use (or misuse) of EU funds to tackle migration. One asks how spending millions buying army equipment, was of any benefit to helping in addressing issues like lack of proper housing for the migrants.
The other issue is the reluctance to integrate these migrants, and the lengthy detention time. How is it humane, keeping a young men in his twenties locked for 18 months. When he could be working, or gaining vital skills which would eventually help him integrate in Malta or abroad.
To be fair to the PN, actually, at that time I read that those 200 Eritreans did not qualify for asylum and at that time whoever did not qualify used to be sent back without considering other relevant issues.
I disagree. I don’t believe that blacks are at the forefront of most people’s minds or that this influenced the votes of a substantial part of the electorate though undoubtedly we are a racist society.
If the government has the power and privilege to dish out favours it also has the ability to piss people off which the Opposition doesn’t really. The Nationalist government pissed off a lot of people and this Labour government will undoubtedly also get to that point. The question is when.
So far the Opposition hasn’t exactly been inspiring. After a big stink over the passport sale, the European Commission went and burst their bubble to say nothing of the fact that a number of eminent Nationalists are doing nicely with the scheme.
The gay adoption issue was another shambles in which Muscat outmaneuvered them completely. On spring hunting, another weak position.
Before trying to resolve the situation with smart marketing, there first has to be something to sell. Of course one could always sell smoke, for a while at least.
Joseph Muscat is so not racist that some of his best friends are Chinese.
Muscat is now courting the racist vote which migrated even further right than he is. He’s said that people who vote for Lowell are not necessarily racist. He’s hoping they’ll latch onto him again, after he let them down by making a show of not being anti-immigrant.
Yes, Larry has hit the nail on the head. Immigration is certainly the main issue but maybe not the only one.
The larger picture, of which immigration is a big chunk, is that the PN not only has not yet discovered what the electorate wants but, when it discovers, it will not be able to deliver, if it is to remain the principled party we believe in.
A whole nation has been hypnotised by Muscat, and I still cannot fathom how, but then the bandwagon effect has set in as a result of the defeat by 36,000 votes, and now everyone is saying that the PN should become a different party, that it is not giving the electorate what it wants.
But to see how absurd this is, let us apply it to Alternattiva Demokratika. They have, over the years, proposed measures which have eventually become part of mainstream politics. Yet, while the PN is wondering whether they will ever be in parliament in ten or fifteen years’ time, AD must be wondering whether they will ever get a single seat in any parliament even after hell freezes over.
So, let’s give AD the same advice: understand what the people want if you want to get elected. Abandon your fight against spring hunting, in favour of human rights, against development in ODZs, in favour of decriminalisation of soft drugs for personal use. Team up with developers, and take a stand in favour of pushbacks of Africans. With your negative attitude, Cassola, Lowell will get a seat in parliament before you do.
Anyone will see through the absurdity of this argument. AD themselves will, quite rightly, be the first to say that they’d rather lose votes than lose their principles.
The PN should do the same. They should spend the summer months re-hammering out their “Basic Principles”. It should not be a difficult task since Simon Busuttil drafted most of it in the first place. Then they should declare that this will be the yardstick by which they will judge and be judged. Oppose anything which goes against those principles, and negativity be damned. Declare that these principles will not be sold for votes.
And, as a first tactic, maybe oppose spring hunting in the coming referendum. Muscat has already taken a stand in favour. Yes, unfortunately for bird lovers, this will probably mean that they will lose the referendum. But maybe that is the shock we all need in order to burst that bubble of Joseph Muscat as a liberal politician, the most European of them all.
He must be made to be seen for what he really is: a snake-oil merchant who panders to segments of society which will get him votes, be they LBGT, hunters or lovers of push-backs. There is no liberalism or progressive element in him. Just plain opportunism.
Reminds me of a quotation from Milan Kundera which roughly says that if humans could kill remotely without getting caught, most of the human race would be wiped out in a couple of minutes…