There are times when people say different things in or to the media and to each other.
This happened after the violence some soldiers used on the illegal immigrants who were protesting, and then refused to move. There will be no doubt a larger number of letters and articles condemning this, and this is as it should be. However the battering they got has not raised any public sympathy, far from it.
The majority of people have been complaining about their presence among us. Many are saying they agree with the government’s detention policy (and in fact think it’s too soft!) and are totally against open centres. Many people wonder whether it was planned to coincide with the visit of a UN official. Most people have commented how the soldiers are goaded and taunted on a regular basis.
Most people condemn the violence but feel little sympathy for its victims. This is a fact we should air, not hide.
Most people feel sympathy for the soldiers only because they think they have a terrible job to do. Obviously, one cannot condone violence, particularly from those who are supposedly trained to control it, but there is sympathy for all the soldiers who have
to guard these illegal immigrants nevertheless, even if not for the ones who were violent.
You could simply put this down to racism. In fact there appear to be two minority views and one majority view here. One minority not only condemns the violence, but also believes everyone who comes here by boat should be allowed freedom of movement. The other extremist minority wishes only harm to these persons we detain, and I don’t wish to quote their terrible views. They certainly don’t write letters to newspapers, but their numbers have been growing ever since the EU parliamentary elections, which surprised all because quite a few appeared to support the Lowell cause.
Why do we feel less surprised now?
However, the vast majority of us are in the middle on this one. We definitely don’t want the army, or the Police or anyone else for that matter using unnecessary force. It is brutal, and however much this was all planned to maximise the effect, there is just no excuse for it. There are enough of us in Malta who remember being bullied by the police and others when we staged a protest, and we don’t wish this on anyone.
But neither do we want this incident to soften the government’s policy on illegal immigrants. In other words if the army, or some of its members can’t handle this work they must go. It is obvious that they are ill prepared to cope with this very stressful work. The fact they did this where everyone could see them to me either denotes arrogance, or they just snapped.
It is of course terrible to be locked up. But why does it take so long to process these applications? Is it true that a major factor is the migrants themselves not revealing where they came from? Are we just inundated? Do we have the resources to cope? If these numbers double or treble next year, can we deal with it?
I am very disappointed with the EU on this one. I thought the proposal to process these applicants before they set off on their rickety boats was a good one. Thousands of them line the North African coast every spring and summer. Why do we let them get on to these boats and risk their lives rather than not processing their applications over there in North Africa? Europe must take those who are genuinely the victims of torture and those who escaped political genocide (and Malta can have a proportionate share). Europe after all does need a steady influx of migrant workers. But Europe can’t expect little Malta to be all woolly minded and liberal and allow everyone to roam around.
What if 20,000 immigrants arrived? What then? What would Ms Vella, who wrote “Talking Point” in The Times, and others who think everyone should be allowed in and have freedom of movement, access to social security, or work and the like do then? It’s all very nice but can we cope? Can she and the organisation she represents cope?
It’s very very easy to condemn the soldiers and those who do this work. It’s very very easy to say if there was no detention there would be no problems. The reality is far far harder, and nobody on the extreme right (who want them stopped from entering) and from the extreme left (who want them all to be allowed to live as we do) has come up with any sensible solutions
The fact is that before we joined the EU members you couldn’t just turn up in a EU country and say “I want to stay here”. The Maltese know what it means not to be wanted. We emigrated to where we were wanted and indeed needed, and our huge communities in the United States, Australia and Canada bear witness to that.
After all, if we had the mindset of these migrants we would all have trooped off to Italy or England. That’s where most of us feel most comfortable and at home. But we couldn’t, as the illegal migrants can’t do now. Do we think the Italians and the English were racist because we weren’t allowed to work there? No. It was just that time in history
Today we have a huge problem. My sympathy, which goes against the majority view, goes first to those who were beaten up. It must never happen again.
But we have to deal with the cause, not just the symptoms. Europe must practise what it preaches and not leave us carry an unnecessary and unfair share of this burden.
Isn’t it a shame that when that team led by Richard Cachia Caruana worked out so many special conditions for Malta to protect our economy, we couldn’t have worked in some special help on this one, before entering the EU.
It’s an issue that is clouding all others. No wonder Net TV is giving it a lot of prominence. Public sympathy is with the government here. And the government knows it cannot ignore public opinion, unchristian though many are calling it.