The Malta Independent on Sunday
W|tÜç André Schlagowski’s Corona experience
Born in Germany and leading a busy life between London and Malta, company director ANDRÉ SCHLAGOWSKI, set up two public relations agencies for fashion and lifestyle in London and Munich some ten years ago. Here his thoughts on Malta, his business and Covi
“The second wave is what we are all fearing. New infections, another lockdown and more deaths. Unfortunately, I feel like I am in my personal second wave already…
I was born in Germany but moved to the UK over 17 years ago to work in the fashion industry. I married a Maltese man and we now live between London and Malta. The perfect mix of sun, sea and a buzzing city life.
I established Fashion and Lifestyle Public Relations Agencies in London and Munich over 10 years ago and we kept growing and growing. A few years after that I launched a production company to bring international advertising and fashion shoots to Malta to expose Malta’s beauty to the world.
I was happy and had everything I ever wished for. In fact, more than I ever dreamt of.
***
Then Covid 19 hit in March and it hit me, like everyone else, very hard. Not being able to see my parents who still live in Germany was the hardest part in the beginning mixed with the fear of the unknown of what was still to come. At this point I would have never suspected how a virus could mess up our brains; how it can cause arguments and unleash racism/xenophobia, call it what you will, as I had never experienced before.
My personal first wave started with my business being hit. I remember countless nights, waking up in a cold sweat in our flat in London fearing that the business I built so painstakingly, over a decade, would crash and leave me with nothing.
Most of my clients cut their fees in half immediately or decided to stop PR completely.
I battled to keep my clients, my members of staff and my sanity. Nobody wanted to spend money on fashion items anymore. Why would they? People were made redundant or put on furlough, left, right and centre. Why would anybody buy an expensive watch or a designer jumper during a worldwide pandemic?
I was and still consider myself lucky. We managed to keep all our staff and even won new clients since March. Every day is a struggle and the way we worked changed dramatically
like it did for everyone else. The home office became the norm and we all adapted to new technologies etc.
Then came my personal second wave…
My husband and I managed to get away from London and head to Malta. We have a beautiful house in the three cities and set up our base overlooking the Grand Harbour. Life seemed to slowly return back to normal. Back then, Malta had the lowest number of cases in Europe unlike the UK… When the cases skyrocketed in Malta and the new restrictions came into force we were of course scared but happy that the Maltese seem to observe the rules more than people in the UK.
After living away from my home country for almost two decades I experienced racism/xenophobia, for the very first time, at my local supermarket in Fgura. I thought about it long and hard if I should mention the place where it happened, but shaken as I still am, I decided not to.
Me and my parents went grocery shopping there, sticking to the rules, wearing a mask and keeping our distance from others. That was going smoothly until one of the employees brushed past me and my father pushing us aside. My father looked at the member of staff in shock and I pointed out to him that he should please keep his distance only to be shouted at. “F… off, this is Malta and I can do what I want, it’s my country. Go back to your country!”
There it was. The sentence that so many foreigners fear but experience in your beautiful country and the sentence I never thought I’d hear. I live in Malta, I am married to a Maltese and I love my Maltese family-in-law more than anything. Not that this makes me a better foreigner, far from it but for some reason I never expected to hear those sad and dreaded words.
** *
After the initial shock I walked upstairs to speak to the manager who asked if he could call the member of staff into the meeting to confront him. I thought I was understood and that we could clear this horrible situation. But no…
The employee arrived and started speaking to the manager in Maltese. I asked both to kindly speak English as otherwise I wouldn’t understand. And there it was again.
“I speak the language I want as this is Malta. It’s my country and I do what I like.”
I was shaken, speechless and felt terribly helpless. The conversation between them continued in Maltese with me just standing there. We looked at the CCTV footage and
the evidence was there. The manager said to me in English that this shouldn’t have happened but still no apology, nothing. I stood there and waited for some sort of reaction, some sort of apology but nothing. Both just looked at me with the employee even smiling almost insolently, because he knew I was helpless in this situation.
I had no other option but to leave the office. Outside my parents were waiting for me, an elderly couple from a small village in Germanywho had never been exposed to racism/xenophobia in their entire life. Yet it happened here in my local supermarket in Malta while buying our groceries for the family dinner.
I chose not to give my parents any details about what had happened in the manager’s office as I felt too embarrassed and upset and I didn’t want this episode to influence negatively, the way they look at Malta. The way I look at it: a beautiful country with amazing people.
COVID 19 has changed our world and its people and while racism/xenophobia will always exist, even without a pandemic, I feel Corona fuelled them even more as tensions are high. This unpleasant episode occurred over a month ago, but I keep on thinking about it every day. My skin is white, I was born in Germany and I married a Maltese man. It makes me sad to think what experiences other foreigners and immigrants who are not as fortunate as me, experience.
I always felt for them but now I feel for them even more.
Let’s hope that Corona stays what it is: a horrible virus that we WILL combat and defeat in the near future. But we need to do it together. All of us. Black skin, white skin, gay, straight, Maltese and foreigner.
Let’s fight Covid 19 together. Let’s be kind to one other.”