A local correspondent who called her piece “Tiny Malta” was finally heard and Foreign Minister Michael Frendo himself wrote “Small Country, Big Problem”.

Malta’s name has been bandied around the world in the past week mostly, one could say, in horror and condemnation at her resistance to allow the group of asylum seekers picked up by a Spanish trawler to land in Malta.

That stubborn resistance, as everyone now knows, lasted for a whole week, at the end of which the asylum seekers were offered alternative accommodation in other countries, though not in Libya, from where they had presumably come.

Something similar happened some months ago in Australia and the issue, on the eve of parliamentary elections, became an important electoral platform for the outgoing government, which was duly returned.

It would have been horrendous had the government adopted this stance for local consumption purposes and used the asylum seekers (and also the Spanish trawler) as pawns in a ghoulish game.

On the other hand, and certainly the government was right, the law is quite specific regarding which asylum seekers must be brought to the nearest land. They have to be in distress. Otherwise, they must be allowed to go to their preferred destination, which in this case does not seem to have been Malta.

This is precisely what other countries, including neighbouring ones, would like to see Malta succumb to: become the safe haven where any boat with asylum seekers plying anywhere from Crete to Tunisia is taken.

With Malta becoming the Mecca for innumerable boat trips from Libya, as was the case of the past days, and with Libya being totally reluctant to take any steps to stem the tide of asylum seekers on its northern shores and to take part in any joint effort to persuade the boatloads to turn back, it is clearly evident Malta cannot take this hugely increasing tide.

As it is, the flood of asylum seekers have created quite a few major problems for Malta, with sections of the population being pushed into racist mode and with anti-immigrant sentiment overflowing even in non-racist hearts. The ever-increasing numbers of asylum seekers, and the constraints these bring about, both on themselves and on the Maltese, must strengthen the government’s hand to stand by international law and nothing else.

At the same time, mercy was called for and, indeed, it was forthcoming. It must not have been easy, both for the asylum seekers and also for the Spanish crewmen, to stay for a whole week in each other’s company in a small boat on the high seas. Perhaps the situation should have been brokered earlier, although one understands that given this was a test case time had to elapse before each side could understand the other.

Even so, we repeat, in Malta’s case, it is the Libyan position on this matter that is of paramount importance and it is in the national interest that all sections of the population come together to insist, in a neighbourly spirit, that since practically all asylum seekers come from Libya, Libya itself is undermining the neighbourly spirit there should be between the two countries and souring the friendliness with which the Maltese regard the Libyans.

There may not be many occasions when this sorry episode can be repeated. Many boatloads of asylum seekers have now got savvy and switch off their engines and claim engine failure, in which case they have to be brought here. And when the calm seas of summer are over, few of the small boats will be able to cross without claiming distress.

This episode has again shown the government and the people of Malta that, in the end, we do not have much support internationally, or in the EU, unless we learn to stand up for ourselves. Standing firm but being as humanitarian as possible, which the government was all through this crisis, and being ready to explain our reasons, is the only way in which we can act.

This standoff will not, of course, stem the tide. Nor will it decrease the number of asylum seekers already present in Malta, but in time, if not already through this incident, Malta’s position will come to be appreciated more. It is easy for other countries and other peoples to pontificate on what should be done or not done: they have the space, they are distant from the scene, and they can say whatever their emotions tell them. Let them put themselves in our shoes, and they will most probably do what the Maltese government did.