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In the space of a few days I have been labelled ‘a moron’ and ‘a boring old dinosaur’. The first term of endearment came in one of a number of anonymous e-mails I received from hate-fomenting racists reacting to my article in MaltaToday two weeks ago. The second one came from none other than a columnist in this same newspaper.
This article will be published just ten days short of my sixtieth birthday and having been called all sorts of names during these years to the extent that I have become immune, at least psychologically, from such petty name-calling, I was more than tempted to leave matters as they were without reacting – as I often do when such comments are not based on blatant lies.
On second thoughts, however, I realised that both comments stem from the same human malaise – prejudice. One prejudice stemming from the difference in the colour of one’s skin, and the other stemming from the difference in one’s age.
My article two weeks ago about the fallacy of the alleged threat to our Maltese identity coming from the influx of African boat people elicited a number of e-mails that surpassed, by far, those received in connection with anything that I had written before. Quite a number were sent anonymously by people who were irked with my arguments and felt that they had to resort to name-calling that served to show their hatred of fellow men on racial grounds more than their disagreement with anything I wrote.
According to the e-mail that called me ‘a moron’, since we don't even know who ‘the people’ that are coming to Malta, ‘they could be murderers, rapists, etc.’ Don’t ask me what ‘etc’ means in this case! The e-mail went on to explain that ‘two of the bombers in London’ were from Somalia and Eritrea. ‘Enough nonsense’, the anonymous writer went on to entreat me, leading on to his parting shot: ‘You need to grow up.’ It seems that this anonymous sender of e-mails thinks I am a baby, not a dinosaur!
The number of racists in our midst is astounding. Recently a correspondent who must have been suffering from a bout of misplaced pride, wrote in a local paper to insist that he disagreed with granting Maltese citizenship to foreigners who marry Maltese people on the grounds that Maltese citizenship should be limited to those of ‘Maltese blood’ – whatever that means!
It is only natural that we Maltese are proud of what we are and of what we have achieved in spite of our country’s disadvantages, but it is wrong to use this pride to foment prejudice against Africans in search of a better life who end up in Malta – via a dangerous Mediterranean crossing – with the far-fetched claim they are part of a conspiracy whereby ‘they’ are going ‘to take over’ the country.
The scaremongering that refers to murderers and rapists is typical of all racial prejudice, wherever it is the norm. In our case it sounds as if we do not have Maltese (and Gozitan) murderers and rapists. Racists are adept at using the evil that is in all humanity as if it is dominant in or typical of those belonging to the race that they are prejudiced against. This is, of course, nonsense.
The prejudice against Africans is rife. Why is there no prejudice, for example against illegal workers coming from eastern Europe, when it is obvious that Malta has a substantial population of these people who came into the country through normal channels on a tourist visa that they then abused? Why does nobody says that those belonging to the ethnic groups involved in recent wars in what used to be Yugoslavia could also be ‘murderers and rapists’, given what happened in that area in those turbulent times? The answer must be that the colour of their skin is not black.
It would be folly for all our leading politicians and political parties to ignore the racism that is obviously part of the belief of some of our misguided citizens. The countries where this happened have seen an unprecedented rise in the popularity of extreme right wing political parties who have used the racial card to attract votes that they don’t deserve.
The colour of the skin does not feature in one’s prejudice against dinosaurs for – Jurassic Park notwithstanding – we don’t really know what were the real colours of that long extinct astounding breed of reptiles. One could even make a case by insisting that using the name of those noble creatures to ridicule somebody because of his age is an insult to Mother Nature… but this is probably a boring argument and, anyway, it is not the point.
The point is that being prejudiced against another human being because of the difference in age is a prejudice, just as racism is a prejudice.
The prejudice is more obvious when one makes a reference to this age difference in an argument in which this difference is irrelevant. Some people feel that by making this reference they are somehow strengthening their argument, while in fact they are doing just the opposite. More so as what should have been an attack against an argument ends up being a personal attack against whoever made the argument. This is the sort of practice that bugs me and provokes boring old me to react.
Disagreeing with others is the most normal and natural thing on earth. God forbid, if there weren’t any disagreements between us in our society. What is wrong is disagreeing with others because one is prejudiced against them simply as a result of the colour of their skin or of their age.
From this point of view, there is hardly any difference between Norman Lowell calling African refugees ‘coal’ because of the colour of their skin and someone calling me a ‘dinosaur’ because of my age.
micfal@maltanet.net
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