Do people actually understand just how shocking this is?

A group of Muslim men gather to pray in a public square, but then a larger group of Maltese people, carrying flags and handing out pork sandwiches, gathers to object.

The basis of their objection is that people of another faith are now allowed to manifest that faith in public. Has European history of the 1930s and 1940s passed Maltese people by completely? What are they taught in schools, exactly? Their ignorance is complete.

Alex Pisani, the leader of these self-professed “Maltese Patriots”, runs a grocer’s shop in Valletta. He told journalists: “Roman Catholicism is the religion of Malta, so other religions should not be allowed to hold public demonstrations. The Muslims can pray in the grounds of the (Corradino) mosque. There is more than enough space there. Now they even want more mosques. We can’t have that. The Maltese race will be destroyed if Muslim women continue breeding at such a fast rate. Look at the Muslim women in the street. Many of them have around five children. We have one religion in Malta, which is Roman Catholicism, and we don’t want Muslims praying in public.”

Then he quoted the Labour Party slogan from the Mintoffian era: “Malta l-ewwel u qabel kollox.”