Once more the pages of The Times have been tainted by a foreigner who, whether in good faith or otherwise, throws mud onto our proud nation and its citizens. These foreigners cannot quite grasp the concept of being a citizen of this country, or any other country for that matter, as these modern relics of the colonial period are still referred to as "subjects" of another person rather than as citizens of a state.

I for one am absolutely convinced that these foreigners suffer from an acute form of schizoid megalomania and have a fetish for seeing their name displayed in the printed media. Since the papers in the lands where they reside as subjects have better things to do than print their silly ranting, these individuals seek the papers of other countries to satisfy their fetishes.

One of these individuals (I shall not use his name for this would only satisfy his megalomania) wrote that the Maltese only care "about what Malta as a country can bleed from the European Union" and uses an online poll by The Times as a reference. First of all, Malta has nearly 400,000 citizens and the poll could not have had more than a few hundred respondents so the correspondent should beware of making sweeping statements.

Interestingly this comes from someone whose government only accepted to join the EU provided they were given a multi-billion rebate! Their Prime Minister is being put through an inferno for having put this rebate up for discussion. So much for European solidarity!

Yes, we are very interested in receiving aid from our partners in the EU so that these funds can assist us in achieving a higher standard of living. We have contributed a lot to Europe, especially to the said correspondent's country! For half a millennium we have given up hundreds of lives and endured famines and untold hardships to protect Europe from its enemies. In return we were treated as a colony and unceremoniously left to fend for ourselves when our island was no longer viewed as being strategically important.

The correspondent in question concluded by calling us "beggars" and is barefaced enough to admonish us by telling us "shame on you"! I wonder who should be ashamed: An island nation whose people were subjected to serve a foreign and alien nation for nearly two centuries or the ones who were benefiting from the resources of other peoples and were bold enough to look down on them?

I suggest these foreigners start showing more respect towards Malta and the Maltese or, at least, they should just not bother us with their offensive, unsolicited and unwarranted remarks.

I take this opportunity to wish a Happy New Year to my fellow citizens of Malta.