Seeing the way things seem to be developing, I suggest the creation of a joint committee in Parliament to discuss migration.
I very much doubt this will happen, for a variety of reasons, but seriously the migration problem is growing day by day and it is ridiculous for any single party to think the problem can be managed, let alone managed by just one party.
The problem is now affecting Malta in a way it did not affect it in past years. The number of asylum seekers crossing the Mediterranean in dangerously small boats is now smaller but the numbers of them pushed to Malta’s shores is getting dangerously high.
For this, we must thank Italian minister Salvini whose intransigence has now closed Italy’s ports to migrants and who is now pushing boatload after boatload of migrants to Maltese shores even when there is absolutely no reason to do so.
It is true that in most cases of the boats that come here, an agreement would have been reached with other EU member states to take some of them. But it is a laborious process and there has been at least one case when Italy offered to take in some only for this agreement to be torn up by Salvini himself.
Meanwhile, the migrants in one of these ships came from countries in the throes of poverty but none came from countries at war, or where there is persecution.
And that is only one aspect of the problem – that relating to incoming migrants or refugees. The 120 migrants found in abysmal conditions in a disused pig farm in Qormi did not come here from Libya in the small boats but had come from Italy on the catamaran. And after the PA officials shut down the farm after kicking the migrants out, nobody, the PA itself nor anybody else provided them with alternative accommodation so that some of these migrants ended up sleeping rough, in the open. And while the PA considered the disused pig farm as being unsuitable for accommodation (and did not provide any alternative), the migrants themselves wanted to go back or find an equivalent site.
That is why a parliamentary committee is needed so that problems such as these can be discussed and maybe a solution found. I have long been arguing in my articles here that we must stop burying our heads in the sand and come to terms with reality.
We are constantly being warned against the danger of succumbing to racism but this silence, this refusal to discuss the impact of migration on our society, this refusal to see entire villages and towns having their composition drastically changed is bringing about a profound sea change in the Maltese people’s mentality that has now become radically racist. That is why more, not less, airing of the problem must be brought out in the open.
Believing that the problem will go away by maintaining silence is blinkered thinking. We must also discuss what kind of life all the others are experiencing who may not be boat people or migrants but who are still living precariously and forced to live in undignified circumstances – maybe sharing crowded accommodation so as to share the rent, work at rates no Maltese would touch, or accepting to work in dangerous situations, and so on.
More than being invaded by people from Sub-Sahara countries, Malta has also been invaded by many people from other EU countries. But these have protection. The Africans do not. What is lacking in the case of the Africans is that same solidarity which exists among European peoples.
Regardless of what Salvini says, we cannot stop them coming. Nor does he seem able to do what he has said many times – send them back. It is true however, that order must be brought to bear in this regard where today lawlessness reigns. As it is, our country risks being split further, which is the over-riding reason why the parties in Parliament must come together to stop the rot.
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