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In recent months I have been appalled at the frequency with which I have felt obliged to defend the most basic tenets of our democracy. As recently as 2002 at one of the MEUSAC stakeholder meetings I crossed swords with the representative of one of the social partners who expressed the common wisdom of the time that the Maltese are not racist. Since then panic about the presence of a handnful of boat people has caused droves of people to jettison all their beliefs about human rights and to express unequivocally racist opinions.
For all I know he has become more vociferous and more strident in his claims since. It all falls in the category of statements that start with the premise: “I am not a racist but... ” We do not think of ourselves as racists. We are so completely uneducated in the matter that we are not aware of the offensive nature of some opinions we hold. We have imbibed the myth about our own homogeneity regardless of all the evidence of the wealth of diversity we possess and hold weird opinions which we believe to be universal and fully justifiable.
Our small size conspires against us. It has made all minorites miniscule, insignificant through a process of integration and rigidly enforced conformity. The right to be different is not calmly accepted by those who assume that they are in a vast majority. At most the “foreign” body is encapsulated and insulated, dealt with as a passing presence.
The fact that all our neighbours are all vastly superior in numbers does not help at all. Somewhere at the back of our minds is the thought that we are constantly at risk, a subliminal fear compounded by the cultural consolation of the Knights’ victory in the Great Seige. Our seige mentality is reflected in political discourse, each party claiming purity and exclusivity for nationalism and religious sentiment. We have a Catholic more than a Catholic mentality, a chosen people attitude in direct contradiction to our misgivings about our national identity. The shakier we are about who we are, the more rigidly exclusive we become.
Everything was primed for exploitation by opportunist racists and xenophobes. While other nations went through the guilt of submission to and cooperation with Nazism and Fascism, we gloried in our successful resistance to the physical assault. We survived (survival being our perennial virtue) reliving the seige process without being challenged on pre-WW II ideas about race and social exclusion. We were left ripe for the picking.
A handful of lunatics whose political arguments make them candidates for asylum in mental institutions, have exploited a political hiatus, what should have been a time of greater peace and dialogue, to light the tinder dry political field. The spectacle of xenophobia and racist fear displayed in our newspapers in the past several months was nothing short of shocking. The hesitation of our political class, the knee jerk towards compromise by the authorities gave new vigour to the morons.
A visit to the websites of the irresponsible few exposed surfers to inexplicable hatred and contempt for irregular migrants who became the stepping stone for the verbally violent. Time and again I was deliberately misquoted and misinterpreted while other political figures dithered and compromised in the face of what they saw as a widespread alarm. When challenged they dithered further claiming to act within the law and constitutional obligations even as they exposed their wards to inhuman and degrading treatment.
They did absolutely nothing to counter the barefaced propaganda. Dr Tonio Borg bravely insisted that he would resist all attempts from all international organisations to allow detainees access to the media. The unique occurrence of a petition by over a 100 Maltese journalists was imperturbably ignored. Brilliant. The lunatics won again.
Many times I have been invited to relinquish my stance in favour of humane treatment of irregular immigrants. I cannot. I will not. Another winter has gone by with people housed in tents just down the road from my house. Unlike my readership and my audience, I have met these people, I have witnessed the conditions in which my country keeps them in my name. No amount of forfeited support will tempt me to waiver.
No act of homegrown terrorism will either. The imbeciles are violent and cowardly. It was to be expected. They were always uncivilised by any yardstick. With the recent arson exploits their support faces a dilemma. How many of us are willing to condone, justify and excuse the cowardly acts?
The understandable fear of a tiny nation facing a mass migration now faces the cost of political violence with even greater dread. One was a tissue of myths and distorted figures, the other, the burning cars, was real and the memories of our recent history of political violence was rekindled. It is a place we do not want to revisit. Hopefully the handful of pathological racists will be seen for what they are and rejected.
Whatever happens, the need for education and information on the issue remains. We need to know the facts, all of them and as they happen. We need to know the facts in order to leave no space for the speculators in panic and we need to acclimatise to the fact that the future holds more immigration and not less. We must be able to cope with it much better than we have done so far. We also need to realise that the solutions for the impossible challenge we face lie outside Malta and no amount of political lunacy will address the root causes of migration. In bringing pressure to bear on European and international bodies capable of addressing these intercontinental issues we should be united, cogent and effective. Burning cars is not a solution. It is an act of terrorism and should be dealt with accordinly.
Dr Vassallo is Chairperson of Alternattiva Demokratka – The Green Party
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