Muscat must turn away from the right on migration

There have always been clear signs that Joseph Muscat understood he could not take Labour into power with the inherited thinking of Sant and Mintoff. Quick to comprehend that the state could not offer all the answers, Muscat overcame his elders' dogmas and talked about building a "new middle class", while convincing unions that raising the minimum wage was no solution to a working class hard done by energy inflation.

His tokens to progressive politics, as he fashioned his initial bid for Labour leader in 2008, were to support the divorce referendum, pledge civil unions for gays and introduce protection for whistleblowers. It was easy to colour in the Nationalists' white spaces and put his fingers in the gaping wounds that bad governance was opening.

But Muscat's new Labour was an electoral machine whose extremely clinical approach to democracy meant there was no demographic that Labour could not fit into its taghna lkoll standard: pre-electoral agreements with hunters and beachhouse squatters added up the mathematical power base he needed to win.

So how was the MEP-turned-leader of a reinvented social-democratic party to take on the emotive and electorally risky issues of migration and asylum?

Unsurprisingly, he refused to allow himself to be cornered into ideological debates. The snapshot of Maltese society that was at best "uncomfortable" with irregular migration, meant that Labour could turn right on asylum policy: flexing its muscles on the EU's approach to its southern border, applauding the Italian right-wing government's blockades and now stamping on his feet with pushbacks.

But at a time when even an internal Nationalist Party commission suggested that the lack of a hard-line stance on immigration cost it votes at the polls, the idea that the electorate's discomfort with immigration should now be placated by punishing asylum seekers shows how out of touch Labour has always been on the subject.

A sharp turn right

Muscat has always been aware that many Labour voters, especially those in the south, are uncomfortable with the conspicuousness of sub-Saharan migrants in their towns. Historically, these working-class areas hosted major industrial sites but also undesirable infrastructural plants, such as quarries, the Delimara power station and the waste-recycling plant to name a few. When you add the dimension of an impoverished class of people competing for jobs and welfare, you get the picture of why the south instantly recoils at the image of asylum seekers being brought on shore.

But the numbers do not add up.

The national census puts the population of sub-Saharan Africans at less than 2,500, while other government figures confirm that of some 18,000 asylum seekers who arrived in Malta over the past decade, just over 5,000 are believed to be living here.

Little is said of the fact that Malta hosts over 20,000 foreigners from both the EU and elsewhere, and that the government actively promotes tax rebates and retirement schemes to attract rich foreigners and tax exiles to our shores to invest in property.

So even when liberal newspapers such as MaltaToday get accused of ignoring the apparent "discomfort" with migration, there is no argument about the deep-seated racism that destitute Africans elicits among the Maltese.

Muscat feels that he is voicing the legitimate concerns of the swath of voters who, during elections, punish the elitist tendency among liberals to ignore immigration worries. The risk for social-democratic parties is that migration is left to the right wing to monopolise.

But does that mean that Muscat should also turn to the right to keep his populist fortunes going strong?

A healthy debate is important

Make no mistake, the debate on immigration is important. We must give answers to both conservative 'nativists' - people who feel there are limits to migration - and also listen to the connoisseurs of diversity - people like members of the legal profession and the civil service, NGOs, journalists, media owners, broadcasters and actors and artists, academics and educators - who feel that the Maltese state should not be so blithe about human rights.

What is wrong is that the debate is poisoned by careless talk of a "national crisis" when the numbers show there is none. Actions like Muscat's attempted pushback do not make the immigration debate any easier. Without Muscat even pressing the button, the pushback raised expectations with racist voters, it damaged his progressive credentials, it created an impression that human rights are not held as dear by this government, it was probably the cause of at least one racist assault, and it punished asylum seekers by portraying them as outsiders who had to be repelled.

But from where does this national discomfort with migration stem? Here are the origins:

1. The way we view ourselves as islanders

As islanders in a densely populated, very small tract of Mediterranean rock, the Maltese view themselves historically as victims of geopolitical circumstance and justified exploiters of opportunity. We seldom consider how lucky our forefathers were to partake of migration schemes to Australia and Canada, because we prefer to view that as the result of the British colonial diminution after WWII. We feel entitled to search for better salaries inside the European Union, but we don't take kindly to those EU nationals who take up low-salaried jobs here. And although bred of mixed Arab-Sicilian-Italian-Spanish-French-and-whatnot blood over so many centuries, we do not understand the richness that migration has contributed to such metropolises as London, Paris or Berlin.

2. Identity and the welfare state

The Maltese state and its citizenry enjoy a close bond, where small size permits voters to be close to legislators and ministers. As taxpayers and citizens, our claims on the state and the welfare it doles out feel like our birthright. So, a nativist would believe, Why should Malta accept the moral claims of an African outsider who comes to the island out of extremity?

There is a good deal of misplaced national pride that reinforces this sentiment. Mintoff's 'Malta first and foremost' had relevance in the Cold War as a maxim for anti-colonialism. Now that we are EU members, we use it as a supremacist call against asylum seekers from the developing world.

Additionally, there is also ignorance about what we spend: our major welfare cost is pensioners, and every year the National Audit Office's calculation of unpaid taxes, court fines and other levies grows more and more over the €1 billion mark. So who is draining the welfare state?

3. The way we view other foreigners

Despite our ethnic homogeneity, the Maltese have never protested about Filipino caregivers, Chinese mail-order brides, Romanian strippers, Russian émigrés and tax exiles, Swedish customer-care officers and Turkish restaurateurs. When it comes to migration, the bête noire happens to be of African provenance.

And it's not a question of legality or illegality of entry. Many legal migrants overstay their visas and go on to marry Maltese nationals and bring up a family here. Many 'legal' tourists every year are charged in Maltese courts over antisocial behaviour. Many foreigners, rich and poor, have escaped legal procedures abroad to come to Malta and fight extradition procedures.

4. Africans are not part of our regional concerns (we think)

Simple: there are good refugees and bad refugees. If a refugee is fleeing a European war perpetrated by someone who is not supported by the Maltese government - for example, a refugee from the former Yugoslavia - this person is welcomed. If the refugee is Iraqi or Syrian, he is welcomed because he has the backing of the international community. But the Sudanese government's persecution of Darfuris, or Somali and Eritrean Pentecostals evading conscription, or Egyptian atheists, are all of less concern to the Maltese.

5. The way we view Europe and the EU

The Maltese are big supporters of the rights afforded to them by the EU, as repeated Eurobarometer surveys show. We love the right to travel freely around the EU, and we celebrate the millions in structural and cohesion funds we receive (the origins of which are the VAT and import duties that other member states pay).

But when it comes to migration, the demands are always the same: more funds and more military assets, but not the rights - rights enshrined in EU law - for outsiders. But we can't have it both ways.

It's not about money

Having followed this debate for the past 10 years, I understand the limits of integration for both natives and outsiders in Malta. A part of the Maltese community is unwilling to host foreigners unaccustomed to their way of life, especially those brought here by extremity.

In turn, this island can be a limiting and mediocre space even for our own youth, let alone sub-Saharans who feel unwanted or who can only thrive in urban metropolises enriched by migration.

Our political challenge today is establishing the limits for refugee integration without compromising our credentials as a liberal democracy which subscribes to a set of fundamental human rights.

Our first concern is that we have a duty to asylum seekers. We should be proud that our armed forces save peoples' lives at sea. That is what the AFM is there for, and this expense is also partly financed by millions in EU funds. If we are not ready to undertake this logistical effort, then we should not cling to our vast search-and-rescue area (the SAR region is a mirror of the overhead Flight Information Region, which airliners have to pay to pass through to use airspace).

It is true that rising numbers clearly have limits, but Muscat should expand the boundaries of moral concern for people who risk their lives to escape persecution. Does he want to be the PM who chose to violate fundamental human rights by pushing back asylum seekers, or does he want to guide the Maltese people to a better understanding of this political and human reality?

Secondly, Malta has already received well over €100 million in migration-related funds from the first EU budget, which have served as a great financial cushion for this island to respect our human rights obligations. In 2009, with 2,385 new asylum claims and a backlog from the record year that was 2008 (2,605 claims), Malta granted subsidiary and temporary protection to 2,089 migrants and 39 refugees. In that same period, the government spent €17.9 million on housing asylum seekers and processing applications; according to the National Audit Office, it cost €22.98 a day for each asylum seeker kept in detention. If the government wants to shave costs, it should reduce the mandatory 12-month detention period and beef up the asylum determination process.

The crisis is in our government's mind

Yes, I do suspect that Muscat's self-styled progressivism has stopped at migration. But this 'Blue Labour' mindset should not prevent him from opening his voters' imagination to the richness of migration and enhancing the morality of saving peoples' lives and giving them protection.

The worst Muscat can do is pick apart the entire package of fundamental human rights that guarantee us freedom of expression and the right to life, to placate voters who 'don't like' African asylum seekers. The majority of this country and the much-respected tourism industry dislike hunting, but Muscat is not going to ban a sport whose practitioners control thousands of votes. Why should he be any different when it comes to human lives?

I do suspect that our prime minister thinks that he can placate electoral concern on migration by getting the EU to 'militarise' the Mediterranean and getting Libya to stop sub-Saharan Africans from either entering or exiting the country. But delegating our obligations to a country that does not respect human rights (let alone has the ability to command its own destabilised country) is hardly a solution.

Muscat must plot a new route: he should enhance the Maltese people's understanding of humanitarianism while diplomatically seeking EU resettlement solutions. But not by closing our doors to asylum seekers. If the Maltese are to accept their country's role in saving lives, they should also accept the possibility of welcoming those lives to our community. It would be disastrous to turn the tide back on our integration efforts now.