No, this has absolutely nothing to do with the Labour prima-donnas, past and present, who want to tell us what we’re all missing and what we should all be doing since their coming out, willingly or not, of the political limelight. That will wait for its rainy day.
People who regularly go for walks on the seafront, particularly in summer, in places like Sliema, St Julian’s, Marsascala, Birzebbuga and Bugibba, will tell you it has become pretty common to hear Russian and other Slav languages being spoken by passers-by. The Russians are no longer coming, they have certainly come, and with them – one hopefully assumes – investment in the island’s economy. It is a phenomenon that has taken most of Europe by storm since the demise of Soviet communism.
But what would the Barbie look-alikes, on their high, silver stilettos and with their pink mobiles, be doing on the seafront so early in the morning or late in the evening? While most of us power walk past in our sweat-soaked tops and battered sports shoes, they often seem more interested in talking huskily to the shorter guy usually escorting them. If they are not whispering to him in either English or Russian, they are chattering away on their mobile, probably to their Babushka mums somewhere in the motherland. Loosely translated, the gist of the conversation would probably be: Hi mama, I am OK, making a lot of money and still being a very good girl.
When I remarked casually about them, I was brusquely told “as if you mind them”, which is true, I don’t. I bravely insist I try to look away, but my wife doesn’t buy it. However, she is safe in the knowledge of (1) my age, and (2) my means. In any case, she knows I already have to wade my way daily through tightly packed groups of German, Scandinavian, Italian and Spanish students and still somehow manage to retain a stable level of blood pressure.
Joking apart, though, there does not seem to be any undue concern over the many Eastern European Barbies that crop up on the seafront, inside restaurants, discos and gentlemen’s clubs. Why should there be? But try to assimilate that with the obvious repulsion on the part of a sadly growing number of Church-going Maltese with regard to the influx of so many boatloads of irregular immigrants from across the water in North Africa. You see, they all happen to be black. For a nation that had been at the forefront of the massive wave of European migration to Australia, Canada, Britain and the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, and with various earlier settlements in Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria, we should hardly be expected to act racist, but we do. The funny thing is that we still take exception to anyone calling us “wogs”, certainly not a term of endearment the Brits used in the past in relation to our Mediterranean skin colour. We also have linguistic racism, which seemingly and ironically, motivates some not-so-fair-skinned Maltese to speak a bizarre kind of English lest they are taken for Arabs or semi-Arabs!
While the beautiful Barbies parade themselves all over the island, much to the obvious pleasure of the Maltese male population, there is an element of fear and foreboding when it comes to irregular immigrants. I have personally had usually sober-minded, very respectful and family-loving friends say to me, in very plain language, that they object to the sheltering of these poor souls coming all the way from deepest, poorest Africa.
Their reasoning even takes a frightening twist. These blacks will overwhelm us, take over the island, turn us all into Muslim mullahs and our children will have no future. That is the extent of the panic felt by many Maltese. Granted, there are elements within the community of irregular immigrants who, by their actions, help neither themselves nor the cause of their companions in distress. But the majority are people like us who are genuinely interested in building a better future for themselves and their families. Exactly the same thing that once inspired the thousands upon thousands of Maltese and Gozitans who in the not so distant past migrated to those far-flung places that would have them.
It is true also that while the Barbies and their sugar daddies may generate economic activity and keep masculine pulses going, the black irregular immigrants strain the very fabric of our minuscule economy. Promises of European Union support have resulted in half-hearted projects and insulting levels of financial aid. As the real gateway to continental Europe, Malta so far has had to almost go it alone in taking on the responsibility for these irregular immigrants who want nothing more than work and the income from basic work that no longer interests the average European, such as grape-picking for the wine industry, cleaning and hospitality services and other menial jobs inside factories, agricultural estates and on construction sites. So the next time you walk past an Eastern European Barbie with her pink mobile, or who happens to serve you your favourite meal at your favourite eating place, spare a thought for those desperate black men and women inside the detention centres doing nothing, waiting for their chance to make a decent living, however remote, and for their opportunity in life.
The gates of opportunity swing on four hinges: initiative, insight, industry and integrity. Those who wait for opportunities to turn up usually find themselves turned down. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them. Our guests have done their part by spending the little they saved and risking their lives and those of their loved ones. To feel threatened by such men and women is tantamount to agreeing with Hitler’s view of the Jews in Germany and elsewhere before and during the Second World War. A Malta that is said to have warmly welcomed St Paul and his Roman captors after being shipwrecked here cannot, so many centuries later, be part of a hate campaign against people who arrive, from afar, on our shores like weak and desolate pieces of drift wood.