“Push-backs are not in the national interest”
You really MUST read Ranier Fsadni’s excellent piece in the Times of Malta today. All those who agree with the government’s outrageous stance should read it for the sake of their own education, so as to cease coming across as really, truly, unsophisticated and dangerously ignorant.
Those who are tired of being besieged by arguments from the push-back crowd, and who are discouraged in their ability to argue back with reason, will find it extremely helpful.
Thank you, Ranier.
…human beings were being used as pawns in a game of brinkmanship, one that potentially deadly for whoever is selected. It violates the very rights at the core of our society.
[…]
The reason why push-backs have been declared to violate human rights (and not just refugee law) has to do with this point: Each person has a right to have his/her case considered individually. It violates human rights to be targeted simply because of one’s membership of a group.
In this particular case, since the immigrants are Somali nationals, the likelihood was that they have a good case for humanitarian protection. Selecting them for return was effectively to select them for a game of Russian roulette.
Some of the online comments supporting the Government’s stance have depicted the respect of human rights as somehow making us EU lackeys. In fact, we have embraced EU values ourselves, by ourselves.
But, in any case, they are our Constitutional values embraced long before EU membership.
Suspending them goes against the national interest in several ways. First, it undermines any claim that we are suspending our obligations to defend our way of life because, in suspending such obligations, we are suspending what we stand for.
Second, promoting illegal actions makes nonsense of any claim to promote legality and public order.
Third, it undercuts any educational programme in our schools to inculcate civic values and rights and respect for diversity because it is saying that individual rights can be suspended by government fiat.
Fourth, there are the economic and other sanctions – not least legal financial penalties imposed by the European Court of Human Rights if migrants successfully sue us – that Malta might suffer from as a result of acting like a pariah State.
[…]
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130711/opinion/The-real-national-interest.477473
This makes interesting reading, too:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130711/local/-Saddened-MP-to-propose-immigration-committee.477448
If she is so damn sad, why the hAck is she proposing the motion? We have really been lumbered with a load of wimps.
It seems so was Carmelo Abela.
Malta was disgusting yesterday. Becera, ignorante e cafona.
Also well written
http://carolinemuscat.com/2013/07/dear-prime-minister-how-do-you-sleep-at-night/
Finally, someone who can see the big picture and the long-term when it comes to ‘national interest’.
On Al Jazeera Joseph was emphatic on how he’s committed to our ‘international obligations’.
The journalist couldn’t get him to define in practice what it meant, whether it was all a bluff or what happens when these people keep coming.
The collective frenzy yesterday resulted from these contradictions and non sequitors in his little brain.
He couldn’t even get himself to issue a statement condemning the wave of racist sentiment, not that he could, his actions were those of a white supremacist who’ll go home for supper in his Ford Bronco.
Leaving us to pick the pieces. I must say, Saviour’s headlines were the most scathing. Good.
Treating a group as a subject is the tipping point where democracy’s overthrown. Do we remember that, so does Saviour.
I’m really curious to know what Martin Schultz, European Socialist, Muscat’s mentor and main sponsor, thinks.
The fact he also ordered the police to violate the rights of these people in Floriana, behind closed doors, should set another long forgotten alarm. No wonder the force has been turned upside down and the depot concentrated with Malta taghna lkoll.
If he did it, he’ll do it again to us. If need be and keeping all options open, after repeated appeals, of course. A last resort.
Racist sentiment is mainly fear of being different, including from one’s own group.
On the other hand, I am appalled at today’s l-Orizzont editorial. Resorting to the Courts (being on the correct side of the law) is shameful, according to this rag of a newspaper.
Marlene Farrugia speaks out in a moderate, conciliatory way, shows she has morals, a conscience and a heart, and Labourites such as Privitera, the truly nasty, offensive “m borg (slm)” et al, eagerly jump to silence her, or encourage her to give up her seat in parliament.
Min mhux maghna, kontra taghna
One blatantly obvious decision had to be taken and Joseph Muscat couldn’t even get that right.
Thank God he didn’t have Libya on his hands like Lawrence Gonzi did. Approximately 4 years 7 months left of these stupid, ignorant and socially/morally inept people.
Hope I’ll still be proud to be Maltese by the time they’ve finished with Malta.
Under the Marlene Farrugia story. Mr. Mizzi certainly got one thing right.
“john mizzi
Today, 11:15
push back, those who oppose are not true maltese .we are the most dense country in europe .our prime minister cares about malta and knows the problems we have.”
I found this rather interesting as well:
http://markanthonysammut.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-letter-to-my-country-loving-friends.html
I don’t have time to read more than the part you highlighted at the moment but I would go on:
Fifth, self interest. The suspension of human rights will not necessarily be limited to migrants and, in the near future, it might be our rights which are violated with impunity. A gradual erosion of something often goes unnoticed until it is too late to find a remedy.
Whilst this sentiment i shared by many unfortunately we are in the minority. The majority of the population is racist and have little or no compassion at all for these people.
I would not be so defeatist. Remember that as the saying goes,” emplty vessels make most sound”.
Had our Joseph sent the immigrants back to Libya, and the Libyan government refused the disembarkation, what would have been our prime minister’s next option.