There is a law against the promotion of racism. I think there should also be one against the promotion of mass hysteria. It’s a pity that genetics and human rights provisions make it inadvisable to have a law against crass stupidity. It would make life here so much more pleasant. A man from Swieqi has written to The Times to express his fear that the rioting by illegal immigrants – presumably he means the ones in the detention camps, and not those working on building sites and in laundry rooms throughout Malta – presages some kind of coup d’état in which a group called “the illegal immigrants” will take over from that other group called “the Maltese”.

“We have more than 2,000 illegal immigrants roaming our streets night and day while our generous Refugee Commission is dishing out refugee and humanitarian status to a great number,” this fool wrote. “God forbid that arms are illegally imported in Malta and hidden in places that somehow be made known to the illegal immigrants. To avoid such tragedy from happening” – don’t blame me for the atrocious grammar; I’m just quoting verbatim – “the authorities must impose a curfew for all illegal immigrants and those having a refugee or humanitarian status between 9pm and 7am and the compounds holding the illegal immigrants should be truly reinforced and secured during these times. All illegal immigrants should be photographed and finger printed as soon as they are handed to the authorities and provided with some sort of identity card by the immigration police and if the ID is not presented when asked by law enforcement agents the illegal immigrant infringing this rule should be arrested.”

I have a much simpler solution. The authorities can simply oblige them to wear yellow stars on their chests at all times, and make it against the law for them to ride bicycles. If they refuse to comply, the authorities can build even bigger compounds and lock them in. Because it’s such a damned waste to have all those people sitting around doing nothing, we can farm them out as slave labour. If keeping them locked up becomes too expensive and inconvenient, we can build gas chambers and ovens and get rid of them. Why not? It’s been done before.

I suppose the significance of what he said is lost on the man from Swieqi, but then it would be. After all, he can’t even punctuate a simple sentence, or write one for that matter. If I had his address, I would send him a copy of Lynne Truss’s excellent and funny book on grammar, Eats Shoots and Leaves. Then perhaps he would learn the difference between having refugee status and “having a refugee status between 9pm and 7am”, which indicates that between 7am and 9pm they don’t have it.

Let’s not quibble about poor grammar, though. It’s the unbelievable ignorance that really gets to me, and the fact that such a piece of stupidity is considered worth publishing as a valid comment or argument. The correspondence and opinion columns in the newspapers have become a free-for-all. You do not need to be able to write or to reason to be published, whether you are paid for your work or not. It’s shocking, because what we are talking about here is national newspapers, and not the parish newsletter. If these ignorant and incoherent people want to express themselves, they should buy a couple of paint spray-cans and find a nice wall.

This man from Swieqi seems to be labouring under the impression that those who are in Malta without the necessary papers form a distinct and homogenous group called “illegal immigrants”, and that it is “them” against “us”, the legal people. He doesn’t seem to realise that the immigrants come from many different countries, speak various languages, and do not all share the same religion, or skin colour. The several groups have nothing in common with each other except for the fact that they landed here by mistake and are desperate to get away. The man from Swieqi believes that they are communicating with each other and plotting our overthrow. They might even be negotiating with their kind in Africa to have arms smuggled into Malta and hidden in readiness for the Great Escape through the chicken wire.

Given that he knows they are trapped behind that chicken wire, it strikes me as rather odd that he describes them as “more than 2000 illegal immigrants roaming our streets night and day.” Perhaps he’s thinking of the Filipina maids and the Bulgarian construction workers – but to be quite frank, I can’t see any kind of mass uprising by Maria from Manila armed with a machete, though it might be the kind of thing that happens in Swieqi.

When I read and hear such pitiable stuff, I can’t help wishing that we could somehow find a way of locking up the tiny-brained Maltese people behind that chicken wire instead, and letting out the intelligent immigrants who might make some useful contribution to society.

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Another man, this time from Birkirkara, wrote to the same newspaper with his own particular brand of wisdom: that the immigrants who make the dangerous sea crossing with their young children should be criminally prosecuted for child abuse. Who are these people with tangled reasoning, and how come I never meet them while out shopping? Perhaps it’s because they don’t wear yellow stars, which is a pity. I think they should be finger-printed and registered, and possibly also locked up between 9pm and 7am, because they are a danger to society with their skewed thinking. What a surprise to find, so late in life, that it really is possible to think with your bottom.

It doesn’t occur to this man from Birkirkara that mothers don’t put their children in grave danger unless it is to avoid even greater, and certain, danger. Maybe he thinks that African mothers don’t have the same feelings for their children that Maltese mothers do. Maybe he thinks that they are little better than dogs. Well, he wouldn’t be the first person to reason like this. I suppose he thinks that “Africa” – a single space in the minds of many Maltese – is packed tight with mothers who let their husbands shag the imported five-year-old twins from Romania, and who then accuse them in court of making a pass at their man, or who leave their daughters locked up with 30 cats and no food. Oh sorry, those were Maltese mothers, weren’t they?

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The members of the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association should take their cue from their counterparts in Kashmir, hundreds of whom took to the streets in protest, shouting “Tourists are our guests. Don’t kill them.” They were agitating against the local terrorists who had killed at least a dozen tourists, with grenades. Thousands of holidaymakers fled because of this.

Our hotel and restaurant people might usefully march down Valletta’s Republic Street – if everyone else and his stick does it, why not them? – carrying placards and yelling: “Tourists are our guests. Don’t insult them, cheat them, rip them off, feed them bad food, snub them when they want service, and tell them to go back where they came from if they don’t like it.” It would make more waves than that infantile “Vote George, get Lorry” placard, which gave us yet another opportunity to engage in the kind of pointless nit-picking debate which serves no purpose at all, and which we love because it helps us to avoid the serious stuff.

The main reason that tourists don’t come here is because – let’s be honest now – we can’t stand their guts and they can tell. We just want their money. Well, it doesn’t work like that. Sometimes – only sometimes, mind – we have to be nice to people. I have a suggestion for those who want to have money thrown in their direction without making an effort to earn it. They should stand in the middle of a public square with a large bowl, and a system rigged up that makes water gush out of their mouth. Then they can pretend to be the Fontana di Trevi. You never know. It might work.