|
Living in Malta these days is anything but easy and it has nothing to do with the financial and economic problems that never seem to go away. Increasingly I am confronted by a stark reality which up to a few years ago I believed was a latent, non-dangerous, racist attitude displayed by a few individuals with nothing better to do in life.
I feel I am now living in a society that is slowly but surely embracing a racist attitude, one that is complacent to ignorance, half-truths and prejudice.
Illegal immigration has had people talking about financial burdens, security problems, cultural threats, invasions, Aids and prostitution. Most arguments are illogical, blown out of proportion, based on ignorance and fear.
And I strongly suspect that the issue at stake for many of these kind-hearted brethren is not the strain on the country’s resources illegal immigration puts but the pure and simple fact that those involved have black skin.
I have tried to believe that the colour of one’s skin is not the issue at stake. But the harder I try and understand the arguments being made by individuals, whom until recently I have known to be decent and compassionate all their lives including family members and friends, the more I am convinced that colour and race are the foundations that underpin the xenophobic arguments being floated about by a growing number of Maltese citizens of all social strata.
‘They have Aids and should be tested upon arrival’, a fellow journalist who works for a left-leaning newspaper told me the other day. By the same logic, should we test all white-skinned students who come here during the summer months to engage in promiscuous sex with Maltese men and women on the pretext of studying English?
No, we don’t because it would be deemed a violation of a person’s privacy to do so. And yet, here was my friend advocating different parameters for illegal immigrants. Is it because they are black?
The other day a well-meaning man came to the newsroom with his daughter to talk to me about a story. The brief discussion veered towards illegal immigration. ‘They threaten our culture and identity,’ he offered me advice.
Is it possible that we haven’t realised that the biggest ‘threat’ or rather influence to our culture has been our very own sea-faring tradition? Malta has been exposed to foreigners by virtue of its location in the Mediterranean, which makes it an ideal trade transhipment point. The people of Cottonera, Valletta, Floriana, Marsa and all the towns and villages around the port have been in constant contact with foreign sailors for years. And today, with 1.5 million tourists, an influx of foreign TV stations, the internet and 11,000 legally resident foreigners amongst us, is it really possible that our culture is threatened by 3,000 boat people?
I suspect that it is really the colour of their skin that threatens our culture: a culture of bigotry.
Only last week I had an argument with a family member. ‘They are a financial burden, look at our deficit,’ he argued reaching the conclusion that Malta should refuse entry to these boat people.
Are 3,000 immigrants possibly to blame for the financial and economic malaise we’re in or are they comfortable scapegoats for economic gloom? Housing and caring for illegal immigrants does put a financial strain on the country’s coffers. I would be ignorant not to recognise this as a problem. But do we realise that the very same policy so ardently supported by the mainstream political class and championed by those stoking the flames of prejudice and racism, detention, is in itself a costly solution? Why should we keep illegal immigrants locked up for a year or more with all the security arrangements this entails?
I can already hear the counter argument: ‘Do we let them running around, taking our jobs, impregnating our women and imposing their beliefs on us?’
I was flabbergasted when the other day a friend put forward this argument to justify indefinite detention. Whatever happened to human dignity? Does dignity have a different meaning when the individuals concerned happen to be black?
It seems that today, in the psyche of many people in Malta, boat people, illegal immigrants, klandestini, or whatever other name may be chosen to refer to these unfortunate individuals, deserve to be treated differently.
Only two weeks ago on Tuesday I was hearing the late night talk show on Super One Radio co-hosted by Labour MP Joe Brincat and a priest. A number of callers phoned in to talk about illegal immigrants.
The discourse of the callers was peppered with misinformation, prejudice and ignorance of the issues concerned. One elderly lady also complained because these ‘klandestini are given preference at polyclinics.’ She may well be informed that the way people of any race or colour are medically treated at polyclinics and in hospital has nothing to do with a first come first serve basis. It all boils down to the medical emergency at hand.
I felt my stomach turn at what was a veiled suggestion that illegal immigrants should be medically treated after Maltese citizens irrespective of the medical emergency.
And yet this woman’s comment, possibly out of ignorance, were allowed to go on air with little or no effort from the programme hosts to correct her wrong impressions.
The priest even went as far as saying that ‘charity should begin at home’. He sugared that statement by couching it in a plethora of words suggesting compassion.
It is this precise attitude from people who should know better that is allowing racist sentiments to take root. Few political leaders and churchmen have publicly come out to condemn racism, prejudice and the irrational fear that has been allowed to build over the issue of illegal immigration.
The political mainstream can decide to play tough with illegal immigrants to satiate the demands of those who would rather see these black souls dead. But when dealing with extremist demands, getting tough is never enough. They will always demand more. And what will the political mainstream do then?
The solution is enlightened leadership. People who are genuinely concerned about illegal immigration have to have their fears addressed. Arguments need to be put into perspective and exaggerations laughed at. Problems must be clearly spelt out and addressed in a dignified way. It is only through education that those who harbour fear can be convinced that 3,000 boat people do not represent a threat.
The seeds of racial hatred have been sown. They need to be eradicated before they start to grow. Every man and woman who believes in human dignity for all has to speak up against this growing cancer.
“It is still one of the tragedies of human history that the ‘children of darkness’ are frequently more determined and zealous than the ‘children of light’,” Martin Luther King that great champion of human rights and justice once said. The time has come for the ‘children of light’ in Malta to stand up and be counted.
I want my little son to have a future where skin colour is not an issue. I want him to have a future where the words black and white make no sense because people are valued according to their character and their ability.
Amidst the darkness I see at present I still hope for good sense to prevail. Boat people will continue to come here; they will not go away. We have to make the effort to learn how to live side by side. I draw my inspiration from another of Martin Luther King’s messages: “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgement. Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?”
That is the question my son will be asking me when he grows up. And I sincerely hope that I will be able to answer him with a clean conscious that my actions and those of my generation where such that gave dignity back to the destitute, those who left their wretched homeland to seek a better life elsewhere.
ksansone@mediatoday.com.mt
|
