I dare use the title to this piece for one reason alone and it is certainly not out of any disrespect to people who have every right to hold different views on the issue of the immigration crisis in Europe.

The more one reads of the terror that has hit Europe and its major cities during the past few months, the more outraged he or she becomes. More so when it is revealed that the perpetrators are often young men, and some women, who were either accepted into the Continent as economic immigrants and refugees or were rescued from the raging seas by Europeans who ended up as the victims of this sad, horrible story.

The immediate reaction is to shout "enough" and join the anti-immigration bandwagon in defence of our freedom, our culture and our lifestyle. I will not hesitate to admit that I have, in recent days, been inclined to feel the same sentiments of anger and angst. Me going right-wing? Becoming a patriotic twat myself? Therefore, the reason for using the unsavoury title is, I hope, justified.

I have since brushed off all those lurking doubts, of course. Because when we talk about immigration we are actually talking about people's lives, desperate people in search of better futures for themselves and their families, as has been amply shown with the establishment of huge immigrant communities all over Europe, very much in the same way that the immigrant communities in places like Australia, Canada and the United States developed over the decades at a time when Europeans, like today's Africans, were fleeing from war, death, dictatorship, hunger and unemployment.

Yes, there will always be the riff-raff among them. The Mafia in the US gave the Italian community there quite a bad name and the stigma persists in the corridors of Hollywood creativity. Even the London Maltese, most of them hard-working men and women who integrated brilliantly with the English way of life, had for a long time been under a shadow, particularly when a sanctimonious Margaret Thatcher started her metaphorical demolition of Soho which is today a no less seedy Chinatown. Much earlier than that, the most feared "strange man" up north in Newcastle during WWII was a Maltese, the local pimp. The moral of the story: there will always be bad apples.

Perhaps it is here that most of Europe has got it wrong. Half measures only lead to security concerns, as events of the past 10 years have shown with immigrant criminals and terrorists having been identified, only to be then let free to roam the city streets, spreading their hatred and causing so much pain. The dragnet was left with far too many holes and too easy to penetrate, with the ensuing human tragedies that we have had to sadly assist to in places like Barcelona, London, Paris and Brussels.

However, you are not a patriot simply by demanding that bona fide immigrants and refugees are not rescued and taken safely to port. You are not a patriot if you think that your country, your culture and your lifestyle cannot withstand the influx of thousands of much-needed human resources for jobs most Europeans have lost the appetite for, in the fields, in the factories and on the roads. Pretty much the same way the Maltese in Australia initially moulded a future on the sugarcane plantations, only for their children and grandchildren to integrate and become respected doctors, lawyers, politicians and so on.

The Maltese government's decision, happily with the support (and some hiccups) of the Nationalist Opposition, to refuse permission to "C-Star", the ship of hate, to enter our harbours was not only wise, but also absolutely imperative. Italy, Greece, Tunisia and other European ports had done the same earlier. That it was done out of conviction, as the Prime Minister later explained, makes it all the more commendable.

It was rich that a band of self-anointed Maltese patriots, known as "Moviment Patrijotti Maltin", try turning the "C-Star" episode into some sort of "cruel" act on the part of the Maltese authorities.

Didn't your heart bleed when you read how our local patriots had to sail 15 miles out of Malta to supply that ship's crew with water, bread, sugar, onions, potatoes, oil, eggs and, wait for it, cigarettes? That's much more than the solitary bottle of water emaciated immigrants get when being rescued. We were also dramatically informed that the European crusaders had only half a day's supply of water left on board. It brought tears to my eyes. Couldn't they have just sailed back to where they started from, the European port that had, after all, allowed them to go on their voyage of hate?

I may be considered a lesser patriot after this, but am much more at peace with myself.

***

A more pragmatic world?

Are new and often audacious human pursuits turning the world into a more pragmatic world? Reactions to everyday "crises" in the lives of people everywhere seem to confirm that it certainly is. Some of us can live with that, some others simply find it hard to even fathom.

For example, one of the largest State hospitals in Sweden recently decided to cancel its appointments for patients suffering from the consequences of botched plastic surgery interventions. The decision quickly triggered a nationwide debate in which legal experts have been insisting there is no lawful basis to deny treatment.

The patients, in a country that many people think actually has no "ugly" citizens, had booked their hospital visits because of complications that followed poorly-executed cosmetic surgery on their noses at private clinics. They then went to a State hospital for repairs! I really do not know where I stand on this, but the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare was quick to point out that hospitals cannot refuse patients on the basis of "how" their injuries were sustained.

It all reminded me of another recent case in the US where people were asking whether someone who has chosen not to be an organ donor is entitled to receive an organ transplant should he or she need it. Hugely debatable.

On a lighter note, but still decidedly pragmatic, is the story of the frustrated businessman in the Russian city of Kirov who paid his 46,700-rouble debt to the bank in the smallest of Russian coins (kopeks) - 4,670,000 of them. He carried them in seven heavy bank sacks and a chocolate carton box.

Needless to say, several employees had to count the coins... but the debtor was, forced, quite rightly too, to remain in the office until they had finished counting the coins.