Helena Dalli’s son describes roundabout as “Il-Madonna tas-suwed”

There’s a roundabout in Marsa, close to the refugees open centre, which is marked by a statue of the Madonna. That roundabout is where people who live in the open centre gather in the hope of being picked up for casual labour.

In subliterate language, it came to known as ir-rawdabawt tas-suwed or tal-Madonna tas-suwed.

Suwed does not mean ‘blacks’ but ‘niggers’, and the word was historically interchangeable with ‘slave’.

The expression ‘mela jien iswed?’, used by people who are bypassed when things or benefits are handed out in the home or family group, is not a reference to skin colour. It translates as ‘Am I the (household) slave, then?’ The word iswed was used even for slaves who were not from sub-Saharan Africa, and who looked exactly like their masters and mistresses.

The distinction is in whether the words iswed and suwed are used as adjectives or nouns. As adjectives, they mean ‘a black person’ or ‘blacks’, but as nouns, they mean the pejorative ‘nigger’ or ‘niggers’. Nigger is simply a corruption of the equally unacceptable ‘negro’, which is the Latin for black.

All this is leading up to the rather surprising fact I discovered this evening that the Civil Liberties Minister – she who apologised to Daboma Jack on behalf of the nation – has a son who blithely refers to il-Madonna tas-suwed.

Her civil liberties credentials are really skin deep if she failed on that score at home.

But really, it just shows how widespread the mentality is in Malta. Even people who should know much better are totally oblivious to their choice of language, attitude and the way they carelessly objectify others.