PN MP takes down post blaming brutal beating of Somali on ‘rapid mixing of cultures’

Nationalist MP Kevin Cutajar was forced to take down a Facebook post which seemed to justify a brutal alleged attack on a Somali man in Gozo by blaming it on a “rapid mixing of cultures” which Gozo is seemingly not ready for.

Cutajar was commenting on an incident this past weekend in which a group of men allegedly assaulted a Somali national and threw him into the sea. Reports indicated that the person allegedly responsible for the assault will be charged by police in connection with the incident.

On Facebook, Cutajar – while first saying that he does not agree with such scenes – said that “however, the rapid mixing of cultures which has happened over the past years shows how much Gozo is not prepared for this multiculturalism, and how the hurried mixing of cultures doesn’t help.”

His words prompted significant backlash, including from the Dean of the Faculty for Social Wellbeing Andrew Azzopardi, who lambasted Cutajar for his choice of words and said that he is practically blaming the victim with his argument with ‘almost racist tonalities and innuendos.’

The backlash prompted Cutajar to remove the post, before he then uploaded another post where he said that he had been “misinterpreted.”

“What I tried to say and which was unfortunately misinterpreted, is that what happened yesterday shows us the ugly reality of lack of social inclusion,” Cutajar said as he tried to explain his earlier remarks.

He said that while he thinks that inclusion should have been done better and with a better plan, it doesn’t mean that the battle in its favour is lost: it just means that we need to keep working so that it can be won.