No wonder Labour was elected with a landslide
Some of the people organising the donations to the Hal Far camp, and who are now rightfully objecting to the fact that they will no longer be allowed to go there and give what they have collected, are saying:
Don’t politicise this and don’t involve politics.
Why, because politics bite? This is all about politics, and the sooner these hopelessly uninformed but very well-meaning women understand that, the better. Nothing to do with immigration happens in a political vacuum, anywhere in the world.
What do these well-meaning women actually think politics are about? Don’t they realise it is precisely politics that shape situations like this, and that the decision to stop donations to immigrants at Hal Far is POLITICAL?
In their minds, they must equate ‘politics’ with ‘political parties’ – sort of football teams, where you either support the one or the other. Do they not realise that policy is politics, and that politics are about policy?
The decision to no longer allow donations is a policy decision. Hence, it is political. THEIR decision to donate goods to the immigrants, to set about collecting them and going to all that trouble, taking an interest, is also political, though they fail to understand it as such.
They will no doubt have encountered people who refuse to give them money or goods for immigrants. I know that I certainly did when doing a fair bit of collecting of that purpose a few years ago. What do they think that refusal is, if not a political statement? What those who refuse are saying by their refusal is that they object to the presence of immigrants and will do nothing to help them. That’s political.
And when you help immigrants, that’s a statement about where you stand, too. Animal rights campaigning, environmental objectives, setting up women’s shelters, helping immigrants – these are all political, not just charitable, acts. Political does not necessarily mean party-political.
The guards at the camps, the attendants at the shelters, do not have autonomy to take their own decisions. They don’t give orders. They receive them from above. They do not run the camps. They are employed to run the camps. Somebody else tells them what to do. Those people are politicians.
When we journalists were prevented from entering the detention centres, it wasn’t the guards who refused to allow us in who had taken the decision. That decision was political. It was a policy decision and it was taken by politicians.
No journalist was silly enough to think or say that it was the guards who had decided to keep us out, and that we should not politicise the issue by bringing politicians into it. Politicise the issue is precisely what we did, and the cabinet ministers responsible were the ones we challenged, because as journalists who are a little better informed than kindly donors collecting goods in their spare time, we know how the system works.
The naivete about how things work and about the issues surrounding immigration is just astounding. Immigration is the hottest political topic right now, for two reasons: 1. the prime minister needs a diversion from the Dalli scandal swirling about him, and 2. the pope is in Lampedusa, reminding us of what our priorities must be.
Anything that happens around immigrants is political, and that definitely includes helping them. Whether those who help like it or not, they are making a political statement as well as a humane one. That statement is: “These are people. Whatever you say about them, we will treat them like people.”
And if you are physically prevented from donating where previously you were not, know this: that’s a political decision, and if you had enough sense, you would know what is going on in the news right now and frame it in precisely that context.
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Agree 100%
I once emailed round an appeal for donations, which I’d received from someone who regularly funnelled material assistance to people living in horrendous conditions.
One of the replies I received from a friend said, simply, “I don’t want to give anything to slimy niggers.”
Racism is political too. So’s the effect of weakening it by helping immigrants and showing they’re human.
So very true. Most people don’t know what politics actually mean. I too was guilty of such ignorance (maybe not as much as the above, but still), at least until my education led me to my exposure to political theory and philosophy.
Is that why Norman Lowell is still free to make hate speeches? Is it because he’s talking politics and the well-meaning don’t want to get involved?
That is precisely what happened in Germany in the 1930s. By the time people started to wake up, it was too late.
We all worry when we are affected directly , by then it is too late to put the clock back . Nearly all of our home grown bigots do not realise that their cousin racists up north hate us southerners as much as all their other pet hates .
What do these well-meaning women actually think politics are about?
Answer: Utility bills.
Very well said Daphne. Precisely so … the immigration problem is a political problem altogether and the ‘hatred’ comments are given in public even by our own politicians are making matters worse.
I thought that this was obvious, but alas – in Malta, the obvious needs to be spelt out, it seems.
http://app.timesofmalta.com/#front/477174
What a blatant liar:
“Policemen who served as cooks and waiters at a recent banquet for delegates of the European Broadcasting Union all had a food handling licence, Home Affairs Minister Emanuel Mallia told Charlo’ Bonnici (PN) in reply to a parliamentary question this evening.
Mr Bonnici asked for a list of the policemen who performed such duties, but the minister said such a list could not be provided because of data protection reasons.”
The law on food handlers is clear. Not only are they to be certified as such, but they are also to carry a name tag. Besides this, Police Officers have to identify themselves all the time. There is no data protection issue there, and there cannot be one here.
This identification tag is not a requirement of HACCP but of the Catering Establishment Regulations. But all this aside, the Parliamentary Question has now raised the question to one of public interest and there is no private interest to protect when the legislature is trying to scrutinise the acts of the Executive. This is just an excuse to stonewall the opposition and to unconvincingly sanction that which was, apart from shameful,disgusting, despicable and reproachful behaviour, an abuse of power.
Do not phone the Police GHQ for a catering quote because they have been overwhelmed with requests .
And now we’re having a press conference about the Whistleblower Act… The Trumpets of Jericho are blowing for Dalli and the PM doesn’t bat an eyelid, so do we expect that this law is anything but a boring summer diversion?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYVrGQcLvYE
The track starts a bit slow but picks up nicely at 2:20… Enjoy
Of course “Don’t politicise this and don’t involve politics.” Issa hemm il-Labour! Before if the sun was off centre it was PN’s fault, non-stop political whining comments, quite offensive and vey boring to anyone who happened to have her comments show up on their wall.
Ah, but now it’s ok, bedcause she informed the ministry and Manny will soon solve her problem so she can then return to Hal Far working hard to make the lives of those in the detention centre better. Anzi then we say thank you to PL for being so understanding and revoking their original order so that we can say how nice they are.
Can the people who switched to Labour ” because they are the liberal ones” please say something. Anything.
They’re too busy eating humble pie … or too stupid to notice their mistake.
Humble pie? Are you kidding me? That would imply that they genuinely are liberals and have realized they have made a mistake.
These people are not liberals. They share the same rotten ideology of Mintoff and his Labour brigade.
They never were and never will be liberal. This is exactly what they wanted, Muscat in power and the PN in opposition, because thinking that would be a bad idea was narrow-minded (like they know what that word means) because of all the fantastic things their Mintoffjani parents told them about the PL’s dream for Malta, which is completely unattainable and undemocratic.
In other words, they knew something like this would happen, but didn’t want to hear.
That’s why they all jumped to Muscat’s defence when last year he hinted at a push-back policy, then backtracked and pretended to be hurt by such an allegation.
http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/39522639.jpg
Incidentally, a new comment has been posted on that Facebook group’s wall.
Apparently, the women in question contacted the Ministry. They got back to her saying that they will look into it first thing tomorrow.
Is it just me, or does that sound more like a “Damn we need time to see if people forget about it and come up with a lie”.
I say this because I would have thought that the first thing they would have said was “We don’t know why this happened. We certainly didn’t issue that order”.
Remember that the Commissioner of Police had offered catering service for the Girgenti dinner and Manuel Mallia did know anything about the arrangements until the very last minute. There is always a way out.
No. It isn’t just you. You forget that we’re talking about an old fart who doesn’t quite understand the world he’s living in.
I agree with you, Edward. They are buying time, and I wouldn’t be surprised that if it weren’t for this http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2013/07/sorry-my-dears-but-the-minister-for-the-far-right-says-that-youre-not-allowed-to-give-things-to-black-children-in-camps/ the person concerned wouldn’t even have been contacted yet.
No this is going to be another testing of the waters. They backtrack if the opposition is too great and then say that they listen to the people so are better than the PN. And the stupid Maltese believe. They don’t stop to think, hold on, should the government have issued this policy in the first place.
Give me a liberal and I will a bigotted idiot. And trust me, I know what I am talking about. Unfortunately I know too many of them. And they’re all originally from the ninth and tenth district.
I will give you a bigotted idiot.
Prophecy fulfilled, sort of:
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-07-09/news/back-to-normal-at-hal-far-detention-centre-2025881600/
“This is not a policy of the ministry and the person concerned was told to revert back the decision as soon as the ministry was informed with the situation. The person excused herself. The volunteers were given reassurances by the ministry”.
Everyone remembers the token black face on stage when Labour held their last mass meeting in Floriana. It was meant to make us believe how liberal and progressive Labour had become.
As for politicising the situation: every interaction between two individuals or groups is a political one partcularly when there is an imbalance of power between them.
Probably most of them are switchers.
Hon. Mallia’s actions are definitely backfiring, with a only a few futile attempts from blind followers trying to excuse his actions on the timesofmalta.com comments board:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130708/local/-They-say-time-heals-pain-of-bereavement-but-it-doesn-t-.477056