@ 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.

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.

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.

Hemm wisq turisti. I agree.

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 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.
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“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?”

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.

Lorry, the PN are making the mistake that they are not out there getting their message heard. With continuous presence, things may change.

Muscat, like Hitler, appeals to instinctive fears and negative emotions rather than rational thinking. That the “masses are asses” doesn’t help much.