Editorial

Views exposing racist attitudes, expressed by a candidate in the European Parliament elections, sent shivers down the spine of most people in Malta. Some expressed outright shock and dismay, others argued the man should have been banned from the television screens. But more galling was the fact that the man polled 1,603 first-count votes in the election. Not very many, it may be argued, but does this mean we ought to sweep the whole matter under the carpet as if it does not exist? If we truly believe in our Christian principles, we can not.

For the added, unpalatable truth is that although we generally admit we are not racist, there are certain ingrained sentiments that would seem to tell a different story. Can we absolutely deny, for instance, that there is a degree of intolerance and stereotyping in our attitude towards people coming from North Africa or towards Arabs generally? Utterly disgusting as they undoubtedly were, the shocking views expressed by the EP candidate may well serve to help us reassess our own internal feelings so as to see how genuine our Christian principles have remained intact.

How prepared are we in living in a truly multicultural society? Multiculturalism sounds attractive to most, so long as it excludes from the equation Arab/North African nationalities. Does not this expose a high degree of hypocrisy in Maltese society? If no action is taken to try and check the prejudice shown against Arabs and people from North Africa generally, the problem could very well grow now that we are members of the European Union as some may well be prone to consider the EU as an elite group of countries.

Racism is a criminal offence in Malta. A report by the European Commission on racism and intolerance has found that in Malta's case "certain incidents of discrimination in access to public places such as discotheques and bars, as well as prejudices and stereotypes within society, suggest that further steps have to be taken to combat concrete manifestations of discrimination and to raise awareness and combat prejudices among the general public".

The commission stressed the importance of combating stereotypes and prejudices since "such latent phenomena" may lead to more overt forms of racism and discrimination.

Intolerance and prejudices are seen to have been manifested mostly in the way the island has been treating illegal immigrants, although there is disagreement here over the nature of some of the claims often made by the immigrants themselves. The island's severe limitations in dealing with this problem would need to be kept constantly in mind when analysing the problem.

Even so, the real problem, as many see it, is how to promote greater racial tolerance in a society as close as that in Malta where our religion has been the kingpin of life on the island for so many years. Inter-marriages do not seem to have helped in bringing about greater tolerance, or towards reducing prejudice.

Taking Libyan nationals as an example, they themselves feel their presence in Malta is not generally accepted.

As in so many other matters that call for a change in attitude, the best place where to start is in the school. Greater general awareness of the implications of racial intolerance will also help towards a change in attitudes.