The letters page is an important part of a newspaper, and its contents are not just a reflection of the newspaper’s readership, but also of the outlook and disposition of the newspaper itself. In large operations with the proper kind of staffing – which means, not in Malta – the job of selecting for publication letters written by readers is performed by a letters editor. He or she does nothing all day but read the letters to the editor, choosing those suitable for publication, and then editing them so that they are but a few lines long, and the point made by the letter-writer is brought forth succinctly. Selection for publication is based on how well-written the letter is, how sharply or wittily a point is made, the relevance of the subject matter, and whether it is an apt response to something that has just been published, or which has just happened. In Malta, selection for publication appears to be made on two criteria only, and both are negative, rather than the positive criteria of wit, succinctness, or interest: whether or not the letter is libellous, and whether or not it has been written by a ranting madwoman or madman. Those letters are binned. All others are processed for publication.

The situation is now so bad, what with everyone wanting to sound off about something when most are unable to make a coherent point in two or three simple, well-constructed sentences, that some newspapers are regularly running three or more pages of letters from readers, in a single issue. This would be a disproportionate number even if they were all witty and well written. It is verging on tragic that, amid the miasma of chest-beating, racism, holier-than-thou preaching, heavy irony, third-form sarcasm, insularity, xenophobia, and petty complaints about litter (which should be directed to a local council rather than to a newspaper), a good letter to the editor is hard to find.

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Reading the letters pages in our newspapers, I get the feeling that it is a giant free-for-all, like those tomato fights they have in Spain, where they hurl tomatoes at each other and roll around in tomato pulp. And like the thought of being involved in a tomatina, reading the letters pages frequently brings on a bout of nausea. This was particularly the case a few days ago, when the correspondence pages of one newspaper were replete with badly written letters that betrayed a disturbing mindset: hatred and fear of one’s fellowman, which is mired in the Old Testament rather than in Christianity. Should these letters have been published? I have my reservations – not just because of their racist overtones full of hate, suspicion and prejudice, but because they fall squarely into the category of nonsensical, illogical and savage rants. As pieces of writing, they have no value whatsoever. As arguments, they are wholly invalid and strung full of holes. They are embarrassing. If their authors wish to embarrass themselves and their country, they should be given no help and encouragement in doing so. Serious and credible newspapers have better things to do with their correspondence pages. As for me, I take careful note of the names of those who think like this, and who proudly display their warped thinking in letters to newspapers, so as to be sure not to allow my daughter, should I ever have one, not to go out with them, given that they are from a different culture, and clearly espouse a religion that is entirely unlike Christianity.

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One letter actually quoted the notorious – notorious, take note, not famous – “rivers of blood” speech made by the Welsh politician Enoch Powell. Mr Powell (he was actually a retired brigadier) made that speech in 1968, as a very senior politician with Edward Heath’s Conservative Party, then in opposition. Mr Heath immediately sacked Mr Powell from his shadow cabinet, because he deemed the speech to be “racialist” and shocking. Mr Powell never held a senior political position again, though he continued to be returned to parliament until a few years before his death in 1998. Yes, he had popular support, but so did Adolf Hitler. That is why it is so important, in a democracy, to have powers that check excesses, even the excesses of the people.

The “rivers of blood” speech was delivered at a time when Britain was booming. It was the Sixties, and things were swinging. The world was changing. There were freedom riots in Paris and more in Prague. Jimi Hendrix and The Rolling Stones were the new gods. There was a definite and irrevocable split between the old way of life and the new. In Britain, the birth rate was falling rapidly because of the Pill and easier access to abortion, and labour was in very short supply because young people were studying longer and had higher expectations, if they were not simply turning on, tuning in and dropping out, or vanishing into a commune. Something had to be done, and the British government decided to open the country’s borders to tens of thousands of immigrants from the Commonwealth. It was precisely to these that Enoch Powell objected and fought against so strongly, purely on the basis that they were “coloured”, and not because they were unskilled or uncultured, uneducated or ill-mannered. He did not want them because, he said, he did not want the “black man” to be holding the whip over the “white man” in Britain within a generation or two. He did not want Britain over-run by coloured people. He did not want the coloured people to take over. He did not want the coloured people, full stop. The Maltese were among the coloured people that Enoch Powell did not want, so why do Maltese people admire him?

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The tragedy of Maltese people who write in to the newspapers to quote Enoch Powell with awe is this. They think of themselves as being among Enoch Powell’s “white people”, like Celts, Scandinavians or Danes. With no proper sense of self or of how they are perceived, they do not realise that the Maltese, along with all other peoples of the southern Mediterranean, come firmly within the British general classification of “coloured”, and always have done. This is correct, as there is virtually no skin colour distinction between the average Maltese, North African, Spaniard, Indian or Pakistani. Enoch Powell was wrong, and his acolytes are still wrong today, not because they point out – correctly – that we are dark people, but because they think dark people are inferior to the descendants of the barbarian hordes that rampaged through Europe in the Dark Ages.

I cannot even begin to comprehend why a Maltese person – even if he or she is one of the very rare few who look like a Celt or a Saxon – would side with the unlamented Enoch Powell on this one. I cannot, for the life of me, see the logic in somebody as dark as Norman Lowell, who by British definition is coloured (plenty of coloured people have British surnames when they’re mixed race) supporting racists who are against all dark-skinned people, wherever they come from, even if they come from Malta. I had a nasty encounter with a racist in Bonn some years ago, and it was in December, when I was nowhere as dark as I am in August. He threw me out of his shop, shouting abusively, and a passer-by stopped to explain and translate: “He doesn’t like coloured people. We rarely see coloured people here. He thinks you are a gypsy. But you are probably Lebanese?”

My former babysitter, who is also Maltese, has lived in a small English village for the last five years. Despite being young, pretty and gregarious, she has made no friends at all. She is isolated, with her babies, her husband frequently away at work. “They don’t want to know me,” she said. “They’re very polite but they won’t let me in, because they think of me as a coloured person.” Now she has decamped to Malta, and is refusing to go back because of this.

A couple of years ago, a story caught my eye in one of the London newspapers. A child had been brutally attacked after his family had been bullied and ostracised by their neighbours, in Essex, for years. The reason for the bullying was given as the fact that the wife and mother was coloured. She was Maltese. An affluent acquaintance, who happens to be blue-eyed and fair by Maltese standards, told me the other day how uncomfortable she is in the smart London block of flats where she lives. All the other residents are English and, she said, “they are cold and sniffy with me, because they’ve dismissed me as ‘foreign’.” And then there’s the anecdote told by the son of a former prominent Maltese politician, who tried to rent a flat in a Swiss city and was told by one landlady: “Sorry, but I prefer not to have coloured people.”

And what about that Brazilian, shot by police on the London Underground because he was coloured and aroused suspicion? He could easily have been a Maltese student.

I could go on to list more personal testimonies from Maltese people who have suffered racism because of their skin colour and nationality, but I won’t do that now. These people are of all ages and from all kinds of socio-economic background, and the circumstances in which they have been taunted, bullied or discriminated against because they are dark are diverse.

In Malta, they make the mistake of thinking of themselves as white, and then they leave the islands and find out that they are coloured. Fortunately, I have never made that mistake. I flaunt my darkness. I cannot understand all these Maltese women who wear pale make-up, streak their hair blond (with olive skin!) and torture their lovely curly hair into limp, lifeless straight hanks. Almost every Maltese woman has naturally curly hair, but looking around you’d never know it.

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The coloured Maltese supporters of Enoch Powell, who admire his “rivers of blood” speech so avidly, are not particularly intelligent. It’s either this, or they haven’t actually read the speech. In it, he objected in racist tones to all the immigrants coming from the Commonwealth. About this, he was unequivocal. He did not say: “I don’t want any Indians or black people from the Caribbean, but the Maltese are all right.” The Maltese were right in there, with Mr Powell’s unacceptable blacks and coloured people who, as he foresaw it, were going to take over the country. Enoch Powell did not want Maltese people to emigrate to Britain, because we are dark-skinned, and as he saw it, inferior. Yet despite Enoch Powell, because Enoch Powell was ignored, thousands of Maltese emigrated to Britain under the scheme to which he objected so harshly, and after that. We shouldn’t be heaping praise on the discredited Mr Powell; we should be thanking those who condemned him for his racist comments against the Maltese, and who ignored his demands that no Maltese should be allowed to emigrate to Britain because of their coloured skin.

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The Maltese have more reason than most to object to racism in all its forms, and not to take care not to condone it, or to feel prejudice towards others because they are dark-skinned. As far back as memory serves, we have ourselves been subjected to discrimination, prejudice and racism on the basis of our skin colour and our curly dark hair. We don’t experience this in our own country, a little bubble that shelters us from evil, which is why so many foolish Maltese continue to believe that they are classified as white, and continue to misguidedly classify themselves as such. Perhaps they should try to live in a small town in Germany, or a little English village.

They couldn’t have a chat with the neighbours about the coloured people next door, then, because they themselves would be the coloured people.