There, we used to think the government was omnipotent, could do anything, was responsible for everything. Only, now we are learning that it is impotent. Can’t do anything, except write letters in protest which are never replied to. Shouting in the dark. Making noises just to drum up some courage, not because it is going to do anything. Shouting, because not shouting would be far worse – total impotency.

The asylum seekers’ invasion is the single most dangerous threat to our country that we have had to face for a very long time. Even bigger than the deficit crisis, than the unemployment crisis, than the recurrent political crises.

It is pregnant with potential danger and spin off effects. It cannot be laughed off. It contains the germs of future mischief and trouble.

It is already poisoning minds, bringing out the latent and not so latent racist tendencies within us. Soon, perhaps already, all this will start having even more immediate and devastatingly practical effects. Like unseating governments, providing a hitherto unimaginable outcome to our seemingly rock-solid diarchy, locked into each other for many past generations. Or else leading to violence, real violence.

Replying to this threat with the hallowed words of religion just does not cut any ice any more with our people. True, the Maltese are still a religious people. But they are so, and have always been so, in a very traditional way, not necessarily logically deduced from the actual premises of religion. The basis of Maltese tradition is and has always been radically insular. As religious practice wanes, the tenets of the Bible to open up and be fraternally open to the “stranger in your midst” impress far fewer people than the traditional radical insular battle-cry of “Fuori lo straniero” (Out with the foreigner).

There is then a particular revulsion that many (How many? A few? A lot? The majority?) feel for the do-gooders who throw open religious homes and institutions and turn them into centres for asylum seekers. You have to talk to the people of Marsa, Balzan and Birzebbuga, which have suddenly become refugee centres, to understand the trauma, the

repercussions.

Strange too, how, despite the fact that the Maltese are swamped with a tourist inflow three times bigger than them, not only is there no reaction to tourists but the Maltese unanimously and bipartisanly want more. And more. Even if this influx breaks down the entire infrastructure – electricity, water, property – and requires constant expansion, which has to be paid for by us and perhaps recouped over a period of years.

The situation, as it has been allowed to develop, is that the asylum seekers are detained for a year (except women and children) after which, due to international pressure, they are transferred to open centres and hooked up to the national health service and the social security system, while the children get free schooling.

And, of course, there is the sheer cost to the police and the army who have to guard the detention centres. True, the soldiers and the police would have to be paid anyway, even if the asylum seekers were not here, but guarding the detention centres takes away the badly needed resources that the police and the army require to carry out their principal duties. And eats into their depleted – perhaps too depleted – budgets.

Coupled to this is the creeping sensation that the asylum seekers do not just happen to land here because, like St Paul, they were caught in a storm, but rather because they want to come here, because Malta is European and closer to their Libyan point of origin than Sicily. And also, perhaps, because they are told by asylum seekers already on the island that life is good here. Radio phone-ins repeatedly target the Internet cafes, especially a specific one in Valletta, which are mainly patronised by people of a dark hue assumed to be asylum seekers.

What is the country, the government, going to do about this state of affairs? Most of the ideas that are bandied about are either impractical, or inhuman, or both. Any action has to be based on human rights. The “one-two-three and we shoot”, putting them in barges and sending them on to Italy, or Greece, or back to Libya, or allowing them free access to any European country they want to go to – all these won’t work, won’t do.

But equally, just spouting protests at 360 degrees is distilled impotency. It shows up the ineffectiveness of the government and, on such an important issue, this is a very bad sign. Any analysis of history shows that it is such an impotency that normally breeds a fanatic fascist ideology.

The government is now speaking, tentatively, of unilaterally withdrawing from some of Malta’s international commitments. So far, this is only talk. Will the government actually do it? Will the people notice if it does? What will be the impact on Malta’s name internationally? More importantly, will it reduce the number of asylum seekers here?

There are a number of issues all jumbled up in this problem: incoming asylum seekers, holding them, processing them, repatriating them, allowing them to hook up to the country’s social security and related networks. Yes, there is also racism involved, since most of the asylum seekers are black, but all efforts to reduce the race aspect are having the opposite effect.

There is no one panacea, no solution that eliminates every inconvenience. Probably, what we should be looking for is a whole raft of solutions, each addressing particular aspects of the problem, but all forming part of a cohesive whole which will have the approval of the country and which actually cuts down on the numbers of asylum seekers here. Ideally, the numbers have to be brought down to the manageable number just before the recent surge of boat people.

Secondly, it is time for the government to stop being so politically correct and for once try to be correct politically, just as, on a different level, Tony Blair was forced by the terror attacks to stop being politically correct and start being correct politically. The core of the asylum seekers’ problem in Malta is the link between their presence and their dependence on the social security infrastructure of the country. Put bluntly, they are perceived as scroungers, as uninvited guests who turn up and claim all kinds of social security. And as economic refugees more than real ones. The processing of their refugee applications must be speeded up as must be the speed of repatriation. Those who dispose of their passport overboard so as not to be sent back, must not be allowed access to social security and to open centres until they conclusively prove their identities. Until they do, they must be considered as intent on getting social security protection to which they are not entitled, as intent on committing fraud. The law must be applied and, if need be, made harsher and enforced.

On a related issue, the country must tackle the thorny question of who is to be responsible for them, both in closed and in open centres. The army is totally unsuited to function as guards, the police less so. But even more importantly, there must be one regime, not an army regime at the closed centres and a totally lax one at the open centres. And no, NGOs however well-meaning, should never have been entrusted with the supervision of the open centres, as anybody living around the open centres can tell.

And, considering what Leo Brincat wrote – that the Cyprus government has found that 99 per cent of asylum seekers are not genuine – the law must be changed to ensure that those who lie on their application for refugee status have their application automatically refused and are deemed to have committed a crime for which a jail sentence is applicable.