In their shoes

We frequently think that we are immune to some of the worst social ills that beset the rest of the world, though the web has thankfully saved us from this restricted mentality of an isolated minnow nation.

The on-going success in the innovation sector, the pioneering role in the fields of blockchain and cryptocurrency are proof of this globalised new vision of Malta, so I see no harm in treating topics and realities that some may think do not really concern us. For they actually do.

Being small, we probably did not have any Maltese passportholders going over to Syria and other parts of the Middle East to fight with the self-declared Islamic State. But while there may have been some “Maltese” element among the so-called “foreign fighters” without it being announced officially or actually knowing about it, we cannot pretend it could not have happened. Hence my interest in the ongoing story all over Europe concerning those jihadist foreign fighters with British, French, Italian etc. passports trying to get back to their “homeland” after the IS debacle. Yes, places from where we have had representatives of the European Parliament telling us what to do with our top-rated citizenship investment programme!

What would one do if we were in the UK’s shoes, for example, with regard to the inevitably sensationalised appeal by 19-yearold Shamima Begum to be allowed back into Britain on the basis of her having been “just a housewife” to a Dutch fighter during her four years with IS? Begum, who has just given birth to a baby boy in a Syrian refugee camp, certainly did not help her case when she told TV and newspaper interviewers she was aware of the beheadings and executions being carried out by the extremists, adding she was “okay with it” on the assumption that “Islamically, that is allowed.” She went even as far as justifying the 2017 terror attack at the Manchester Arena which left 23 people dead and many others injured.

Who would want to have her back, except her family? Media and popular reaction was decidedly against, with UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid understandably saying his government could not ignore the threat of returning jihadists. Three hundred and fifty of them have already returned and a similar number are still believed to be in the Middle East, but the question many are asking is: Can they be denied entry to the State to which they really belong? In Begum’s case, it turned out to be easier to decide because she has dual citizenship, and has since been stripped of her British passport.

Needless to say, there have been thousands of really colourful comments on the Shamima Begum issue. Piers Morgan, former newspaper editor, writer and TV presenter, was quick to tweet a personal message to her: “Sorry? I have zero sympathy for you, possibly even less than that. My sympathy is with the people brutally beheaded/tortured/raped/murdered by your evil ISIS mates, you deluded, dangerous fool.”

A prolific Maltese social media commentator, who shall remain nameless, left a more logical, down-to-earth post: “Making a mistake when you’re 15 is getting caught drinking vodka and having a fag in the park with your pals, not f…… joining ISIS!”

Now US President Donald Trump has complicated the issue by insisting that his European allies take back the hundreds of jihadists caught by US and Kurdish forces in Syria. Quite a serious dilemma for an already terrorised continent.

In the meantime, however, what about Shamima Begum’s baby? Is it fair to let the innocent boy face the horrors of a stateless existence?

Golden curtain

I have a purely layman’s fascination with the matter of a country’s gold reserves and how the international markets deal with them, often in ways that gives the impression of imperialistic methods one would have thought to be long extinct.

For example, Australia is reported by the Bank of England to have had, for decades, 80 tons of Australian gold. However, wonder of wonders, the UK regulator has not allowed Australia to carry out a proper audit of its own bullion holdings. It is your gold, but you cannot check it out. Nearly all that gold is stored in a bailment arrangement, in an allocated gold account, at the BoE vaults in London, with a very small amount stored at the Reserve Bank of Australia in Sydney. As an independent physical audit of all this Aussie gold has never been carried out, there are people asking: how can it be confirmed it still exists in that quantity?

A partial audit of the Aussie gold holdings was reportedly conducted five years ago, but the results were never released and freedom of information requests turned down. This golden curtain of secrecy quite rightly arouses suspicions as to