Last week, a blatant act of racism shocked a number of people on an Arriva bus. A reader called in to tell the story. He was sat waiting for the bus to pull out of the Valletta station, when a young, well-dressed man got onto the vehicle.
The young man was about to sit next to a woman – a British tourist – when she turned round and loudly told him to “go sit at the back”; he was an African. Our irate reader got out of his seat and told the young man to take his own seat. In a fit of embarrassment, the young man told our reader that it was no trouble for him to sit at the back. Again, our reader told the young man to take his seat. As he did, the reader sat next to the British woman and told her that just as the African man was a guest in Malta, so was she, and that she should “shut up and get on with it”.
The woman protested, and told our reader to go and sit at the back, and the bus driver got involved, asking what the commotion was all about. Our reader told the bus driver what had happened, and that the woman had committed a blatant act of racism and thoroughly embarrassed the young man in question.
Our reader told the driver that if he had a problem with the situation, he (the reader) would file a police report against the driver, for abetting the woman’s racist actions.
We take our hat off to this person. The truth is that government and NGOs can spend as much as they like on educational campaigns, billboards and posters, but at the end of the day, it is up to us, the Maltese people, to take a stand against racism.
The actions of this reader are totally commendable and perhaps, such stories do much to allay the fears that we are a racist nation. There is no doubt, there are many who actually hate African immigrants. Their hate is one which can never be changed, no matter how many people drown at sea and no matter how many harrowing stories are heard. They have no empathy, they would rather that people are allowed to drown and die.
But at the same time, there are a lot of people in Malta and Gozo who have changed their mindset in the past decade or so. Many Maltese people are no longer looking at African people as “blacks who are invading our country”. They are looking at them as normal human beings, albeit darker and with a different cultural background.
No one, whether African, Asian, Caucasian or whatever race, should ever be subjected to such humiliating acts. We, as a people, must take a stand and show that we are there to stop such incidents from occurring. It is not about education. It is not about culture. It is about having the courage to stand up and say something. It is the courage to stand up to racism, no matter who is fomenting it.