In the last session of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, held in late January, there was a motion piloted by the Danish delegation to dissociate ourselves from the recent ruling barring crucifixes in schools, as given by the Italian courts.
The Maltese delegation, including the undersigned, penned in their signatures without any qualms. I did spend quite a few minutes in Parliament speaking on this theme too, last December. However, this point was not picked up by any media. My refusal to accept such a ruling is paramount.
An Italian yet unknown commune did legislate, in a by-law, against the underlying theme of people going against real society integration. After all these people came to Europe freely, they were not asked to come. We welcomed them, sheltered them and gave them work, the least that one expects is that there is a full integration with society. We leave them free to have any religion they wish to follow, but we have that right too.
It’s unbelievable that a crucifix has to be removed from classrooms or wherever just because a foreign person, who certainly has less roots in that country, complains that it is bothering him. Where is the freedom and liberty that these foreign persons seek in our Europe?
While in France, I had the opportunity to listen to President Sarkozy, in a light surrounding, conversing with 10 French nationals of different background. Talking, taking in questions and answering. He hit me, again, when he said that illegal immigrants should be turned back, and returned home. By illegal immigrants I understand persons coming from our south, and our east, with no race or colour prejudice.
This is also a reflection on our employment situation at the moment. I am being requested regularly for jobs. The creation of jobs of a certain level, that are probably victims of the manufacturing industry or other similar jobs, is quite extensive and I do fear an escalation of this. Again, during a Parliament speech on the last day of the budget debate, I did mention this problem, suggesting some solutions, systems and monitoring of a situation that has gone out of hand. As a government committed to job security and creation, this issue forms part of the larger jigsaw puzzle.
The suggestion is to copy the Italian system, whereby if accepted as a worker here, then the tax and NI contributions must be paid, and a locality register kept at every local council wherein each locality knows how many foreigners are staying in it, where they are, what they do, and how much is their contribution.
These points will only help and create jobs for the Maltese who, today, have great competition on the rates and conditions being quoted.
Sarkozy was quite strong on the burqa clothing. I see the wearing of this burqa as alien to our European environment and, as things stand today, a real threat, as even cctv cameras cannot identify anybody underneath such clothes.
Surely when we leave our country, we would respect the traditions of our host country.
The same week saw the anniversary of the Auschwitz concentration camp liberation. I did see a whole evening of live transmission on TV, and the event rightly mentioned that what happened there will never happen again.
When one race goes against another then things tend to escalate, as seen even not so many years ago, and not far from us. I do sincerely hope that the immigration situation will not escalate but, unfortunately, little incidents such as that concerning the crucifix might lay a foundation stone for these fears. God forbid. We all have to do our little bit to live peacefully together, and our short lives lived in the best of climates.
Robert Arrigo is a Nationalist MP