Prime Minister Joseph Muscat yesterday announced that border control will remain in place after the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, with the Schengen rules suspended for the time being.

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil was quick to hit back and said that the government ought to have a very good reason for doing so, and that the government was simply curtailing people’s rights.

It seems that the Opposition might be a little out of touch here. Both Dr Muscat and Dr Busuttil said that people are worried about the increased terror threat around Europe at present, but both also said that we should be cautious and vigilant, but not paranoid.

Well. But people are worried. Polls have shown it, pub talk reveals it, even the grocery stores in our far flung villages are filled with talk of people who are actually frightened.

It is becoming abundantly clear that the Daesh modus operandi is to infiltrate small cells into Europe with a combination of combatants from the Middle East, radicalised young Europeans who have travelled to the region, as well as home grown recruits in the very heart of our Continent.

They want to attack our way of life, make us afraid, divide us and cause us to suspect our neighbours and every Muslim person that we meet. They will go for soft targets. Paris was a horrible taste of the style of attacks they envisage for us.

And so, the question turns to Schengen. Over the past few days, six people have been stopped at Italian passport control while they were attempting to travel to Malta with fake paperwork. The government said that there were no terror suspicions. But can we ever be sure? Turning back to the conversations that are doing the rounds, there are a good deal of people who are indeed calling for border controls to be extended, at least for now. This holds true especially due to the fact that the local authorities are trying to break up the racket of fake paperwork which seems to be originating in Malta.

But at the same time, while we tighten our borders on the surface, the government really needs to get to the bottom of what is going on with our visa and residency permit schemes. Dr Busutill quantified it well in his speech yesterday. So far this year, there have been some 14,000 visas and residency permits issued in Malta, 7,000 of them alone to Algerian citizens who take off for Europe hours after they get here. In the last decade, less asylum seekers arrived on boats.

We cannot profess to enforce our borders, but at the same time allow any Tom, Dick or Harry into the country an approved Visa.

We must not live in our protective bubble any more. This is Malta and Malta is connected to Europe and Africa. The fact of the matter is that there are some very unsavoury characters roaming around Europe intent on committing atrocities and that we cannot afford to brush it off.

Perhaps the best lesson that Malta can learn from all of this is not to ghettoise immigrants. Inequality and shunning them away breeds contempt, rage and disenfranchisement. Paris has already found that out to its cost on more than one occasion. To continue with the Schengen suspension or not? Politically, it is a big decision. But sometimes Joe Public’s instinct is the sharpest. Perhaps it is better to play this cautiously and to review decisions day by day.