The real migration threat is our reaction to it
The real threat from irregular migration is not the people who are seeking asylum, but those raging racists among us, who by all rights should be thrown into an asylum.
After Italy understandably decided to stop being the central Mediterranean’s policeman, the real threat to the nation is not the actual number of human beings who may or may not arrive uninvited upon our shores but, rather, the country’s reaction to those human beings.
We in Malta have been blissfully untouched by the migratory phenomenon for years on end, but one does not need the memory of an elephant to recall the rampant hatred in those days before Italy picked up virtually all of Malta’s search and rescue obligation slack.
It sadly appears that racism did not simply go away along with the number of migrants making their way to Malta over recent years, it has just been lying latent and festering under the skin of so many people.
The last couple of weeks have seen Malta once again thrust into the spotlight of Europe’s migratory crisis, a crisis of its own making and of the making of Europe’s leaders, who are afraid to do the right thing for fear of voter backlash. Perhaps it is only until the humanitarians among us speak out loudly and clearly that politicians will fear
Editor’s pick
their voter backlash.
Racism, it seems – from that sorry sight of a mother egging her child on into a racist rant recorded by a journalist atop the Senglea bastions as a shipload of migrants was brought into port, to the horrid outbursts outside court yesterday morning and to the talk in bars and on buses – is still very much alive and kicking in Malta. There was a time when migrant boats would turn up on our shores on a daily basis and when Malta’s far-right parties that protested so loudly about the country accommodating these asylum seekers, as though the country even had a choice in the matter considering its international obligations.
But after years of reprieve from this situation, all it takes is a couple ships of migrants and so many otherwise perfectly rational people lose their minds and begin speaking of invasions and whatnot.
That so many in this country, after one such incident, react in such a way shows that their moral compass has truly gone haywire and if they were to turn to the Church, they would be able to correct that compass with the Bishops’ statements on the issue. Christianity, however, appears to be something of a pick-and-choose issue for many people.
That discrimination is alive and well in Malta is a fact, and any argument to the contrary would be simply delusional. Of course, just about every society in the world holds its own inherent discriminations but the fact that it exists elsewhere is absolutely no reason for us to turn a blind eye to the rearing of its ugly head in Malta.
Over recent years, acts of racism – verbal or otherwise – became more subtle in nature. That the majority of such incidents, both violent and non-violent, go unreported is fact, as it is a fact that the victims of such discrimination do not file reports for fear of repercussions, or because they simply feel the authorities would be reluctant to act.
But when migrant arrivals start again, as they have, it becomes less subtle and the true colours begin to show.
We on the whole as a nation are better than that and these bad apples spewing their rot must not be given any quarter. We deserve better as a nation. Racial hatred, which is only bound to grow in tandem with irregular migrant arrivals, needs to be cracked down on. The police have new and improved laws on their side to do so, and they can nip this in the bud before matters degenerate and spiral out of control as they have in the past.