Those who have been following what I write know that for a number of months, if not years, I have been expressing worry about the overall situation of Hamrun, the town where I was born and where I lived for the better part of my life.

Now, the premonitions have turned out to have been not misplaced at all. We have just celebrated the San Gejtanu feast after a lapse of two years due to Covid in the best possible way, and also had a secondary celebration because of football. This is Hamrun, where as recently as 1987 the festa became a battle between the Blues and the Reds.

But then, when you think the danger’s gone, there erupts a group battle between Syrian residents in broad daylight, in the main road and in front of the police station. The hostilities did not last long and were quietened down by a detachment of special police. Two persons needed medical support and it is not known whether there will be any arraignments as a consequence.

Now everybody seems to have found a new right to comment and everybody seems to have been commenting for all they’re worth, prejudices and racism included.

We must first of all listen to the people of Hamrun who have seen their town turned into a suburb of Damascus in just a few years.

And not just Damascus either. Only a few days ago, two elderly persons, a woman and a man, were raped around midnight in the same area as Thursday’s battle.

People, especially the elderly, are in shock and, though they do go out to buy things, they are extremely wary because they do not want to find themselves like that woman in the video, having to risk being run over by the cars going by so as to escape from the fighting.

People have been airing all their prejudices and finding simple solutions. Obviously racist comments came first. Then came partisan comments, as usual.

Those who read what I have been writing know I have been pleading for months and years for better enforcement of the law. Despite all complaints to all authorities, nothing was done. When all shops were closed in the pandemic, certain shops remained open. The police saw but did nothing. When certain shops remained open till nearly midnight, the police saw but did nothing. The police would move on cars double parked if the owner was a Maltese, but turned a blind eye if the car was being driven by a non-Maltese. A culture of impunity was engendered. The police were openly derided.

You speak, as I wrote just a few weeks ago, to the locals from the local council and they tell you they get little or no help from the police who also have duties and rights that should not belong to them. The irony, is that Hamrun was selected for the Community Policing experiment.

And when you report to one of the newly created bodies like LESA, you get pointed to this or that office and know that nothing will be done, and that the person who spoke to you is not going to get out of a probably air-conditioned office and follow up your complaint on, for example, rubbish in black bags brought out on the wrong days.

The local worthies, of both sides, coast by and probably were in Belgrade when this scuffle happened. Then they gave comments to the media and that was that.

We do not know what they were fighting about and maybe never will. For there is no integration between the foreigners and the Maltese. They understand our language but we don’t understand theirs. There is no effort at integration. Certainly the Maltese side, at ground level, has never tried and I am not sure the Third Country Nationals want integration at all.

These are no boat people fleeing wars, though being Syrians they are. Many have been attracted to Malta by jobs in the construction industry that require no skills and who have been encouraged by the policy propounded by the present minister for finance when he was head of JobsPlus, that encouraging such people to come ensured our future pensions. There is no effort to teach such people skills and so they, and other groups like them, remain clustered in tight nationality groups. If they have women among them, they fall in the same rut. If children, especially girls, they tend to get pregnant at an early age and have many children, all on the National Health Service as you can see any time you go to Mater Dei.

They get to live in mostly decrepit houses rented from unscrupulous owners and this again contributes to the slum appearance all around.

Hamrun is not the only town like this. There’s Marsa, there’s so many comparable towns. It’s not just the migrants, not just the people with a dark skin – there is also an ongoing process of uglification, a race to the bottom, where what happened on Thursday can happen again and where the forces of law and order continue to be stymied by lack of funds and lack of initiative.

The warnings have been sounded but it does not seem anybody is hearing them.

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