“…so, how come no one is writing opinion pieces about the immigration problem?” an acquaintance asked me recently, drumming her fingertips on the table and looking at me very searchingly.

After pointing out that there has been plenty to write about lately, namely the bus strike and the Simshar tragedy, I had to admit that she was right.

It is the ‘problem’ no one really wants to talk about, and I include myself in this. For, in order to address the issue of the implications of boatloads of illegal immigrants arriving daily this summer, one has to walk the very precarious tightrope between being a hopeless idealist and a realist. Thrown into this mix is the very real possibility of coming across as a racist, which is what happens when people preface their arguments with “I’m not a racist but… all these African immigrants are going to take over and wipe out our culture.”

The idealist in me says that we should help as many boat people as we can, my reasoning being that it is simply a fluke that I was born here and not in, say, Somalia – so it could very well be me on that boat. There but for the grace of God go I…

Then, as each day brings more and more numbers, I start adding them up and wondering where on earth are all these people going to fit? What are their conditions going to be like (certainly not great), and last but not least, how many immigrants can Malta feasibly take before the whole situation explodes?

My feelings are very mixed about the whole thing and I certainly don’t have any answers. One day this week I saw yet another boatload arrive on the news and they all seemed quite healthy, well-dressed and certainly not desperate-looking at all, as you would expect people escaping a calamity to be. They strolled off the boat as casually if they just had landed in Malta as tourists. What’s going on here, I asked myself.

But then the next day, a partially submerged boat arrived, with a pregnant woman dying just as they were rescued. So my feelings swung towards sympathy again and I was back to square one.

Then there is that niggling thought which (come on, let’s be honest) crosses the mind of many of us.

We are afraid. Afraid, because we are not used to seeing whole areas in Malta becoming populated by black people (“it’s like being in the Bronx!”, someone told me once about Marsa, making it clear this was not considered a good thing). Afraid because, for the most part, our Caucasian race might, in 50 years’ time, be so mixed with the African race, that we probably won’t be able to call ourselves “white” any more. This idea truly terrifies many people.

One day I was mulling this over: why does it bother people so much that the Maltese might one day all be black?

After all, this is the future we are talking about – many of us will no longer be around and our descendants will have been born into this kind of “mixed race” Malta in any case, so it won’t seem so startling to them.

And it certainly doesn’t upset us that years of inter-marriage with British /American/ Scandinavian/ German/ East European nationals has produced a crop of tall, slim youngsters who definitely don’t look like your “typical” Maltese. Blonde, blue-eyed and six feet tall, many of them couldn’t be further removed from the Mediterranean archetype (dark, short and stocky) if they tried.

So let’s remove any pretence from all this. The truth is that people find no objections to “mixing” with Europeans or Americans but become incoherent with rage when you suggest that “mixing” with blacks (especially from Africa) is the same exact thing.

Personally, I think the most beautiful people are those born of mixed marriages between blacks and whites – look at Halle Barry and Alisha Keyes, to name just two. But while some might agree with me on this in theory, when the possibility of this gets too close for comfort, then it becomes a no no.

Too many people still look upon black/white relationships as a step down for the whites. Bluntly put, many Maltese consider Africans to be their inferiors. As for Arabs, well, just listen how people’s tones change when they talk about “izzewget wiehed Gharbi” (she married an Arab). It is not actually possible to convey in print just how scathing this sounds.

Having said all this, I also believe that ganging up on people who speak in racist terms is not doing any good at all. It is not going to stop them from being racist, it is not going to shut them up and it is certainly not going to stop them from feeling the way they feel. It will only drive them “underground” so to speak, so that they will be careful to only voice their true beliefs with people who are like-minded. This, in my mind, will only encourage racism to grow rather than be defused.

Just look at the United States. Today, over 40 years after the civil rights movement, there are parts of the country that are still as racist as the days of the Ku Klux Klan and lynch mobs. Sometimes I wonder whether this is because America has become so politically correct that everyone is afraid to speak as they really feel. This is particularly apparent now that for the first time in history a black man (well, technically Barack Obama is half-black) could become President. Everyone seems to be walking on eggshells to make sure nothing that could be remotely described as racist is used to attack him. A whole furore erupted a few months ago when someone described him as being “very articulate”. The African-American community pounced: “what do you mean, are you implying that you are surprised he is articulate because he’s black?!” Whole discussion programmes were spent analysing this one detail.

The local situation, of course, has not reached that stage by a long shot. For the most part, shockingly racist comments are heard quite frequently wherever you go.

“I can’t help it, these African immigrants make my skin crawl,” someone confessed to me recently, fully aware of how this sounded, but unable to contain herself. I’ve heard all sorts of justifications for why people feel this kind of revulsion: they are dirty, they are ugly, they’re criminals and, of course, “they’re not like us”.

In vain do I point out that you can find ugly, dirty and criminal people all over the world, including (possibly) your next-door Maltese neighbour. Some people are determined not to accept the existence of (black) immigrants among us and nothing will make them budge. Similarly, it is useless to bring up the fact that an influx of East Europeans has also infiltrated Malta illegally, but we don’t seem to object to them as vociferously. Obviously, blacks are just more visible whereas whites simply blend in and eventually even adopt a Maltese inflection when they speak English, so it is only when you ask their name do you realise they are not Maltese.

And if we are so worried about African refugees merging with the Maltese race because it will eradicate our culture and religious beliefs, why aren’t we just as worried about East Europeans whose culture and religion (or lack of) pose just as much of a “threat”?

I know that by saying all this it won’t make people accept the reality of black immigrants living among us if they don’t want to. And I really don’t want to sound like I’m holier than thou when it comes to this issue.

As someone asked me recently, “would you go live in Safi if a house came up for sale?”

I couldn’t answer her.

Fear is relative

Let me end this article with a little anecdote from the Voices concerts of 2006. Joining us for one of the songs were four refugees who were chosen to sing with the choir that beautiful song, “He lives in you”. During their initial rehearsals with us we could sense their great unease when standing in front, facing the 200 of us who make up the choir. They could barely sing they were so uncomfortable and we were wondering how on earth they were going to face a 1,500 audience at the Mediterranean Conference Centre. Eventually, someone plucked up courage and asked them what was wrong – were they feeling unwelcome, were they embarrassed, did they have stage fright?

One of them finally admitted: “It’s just when we see all those white people looking at us we feel very afraid.”

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