Boat people realities

Whether Or Not the European Union heeds Bob Geldof's addition to the reverberating call to get serious about the phenomenon of the boat people of the Mediterranean, the issue is already very serious for Malta. Recognising it for what it is will not solve or ease the situation. Ignoring the social and economic implications of its realities, or couching them in racist terms, will make handling it more difficult still.

The EU is now paying more attention to waves of people crowding on boats to leave the North African littoral in the hope of reaching and starting a new life in Europe. What has come out of the increased attention is pitifully far from being enough, even for starters. The Union's Border Agency will not ease the situation developing in the few Mediterranean islands where hundreds of boat people are ending up, rather than on the mainland.

Malta is the most affected. It has a tiny, densely populated landmass. The public financial resources are limited. For all that, no one should lose sight of the fact that the first reaction to the inflow of boat people should be one of humane understanding. The boat people are far worse off than the bulk of the rest of us.

The second consideration has to be that boat people do not set off to migrate to Malta. Most of them land here because they are rescued at sea, unlike some of those who began the misadventure along with them. Once that happens, the situation that develops becomes Malta's to handle. No man may be an island in the sense meant by John Donne, and the bell does toll for each one of us. But Malta is an island in every sense. The bell tolls a different message for it, not that of death.

The Maltese Islands are one small region. The country cannot transfer its challenges to some not fully utilised or unutilised large area, even if the resources were made to develop it. Boat people have to be housed and fed. They must also be screened for health reasons. Their individual status has to be assessed.

Boat people in the main flee from dark despair towards the light of hope. Their despair is made up of many factors. They include political suppression and lack of individual liberty. It is becoming apparent that numerous economic refugees are also among those crammed on the boats of despair and hope.

Whatever their reasons for putting to sea might be, Malta has to try to rescue boat people when that becomes necessary, to take them in when unscrupulous ferrymen land them here.

Those who grimly protest that we should not put up with any of all of that, whatever the reason people who end up here set sail on the boats, probably do not work through their own logic.

It leads to the conclusion that our few gunboats and helicopters should patrol the fringe of our territorial waters and blast away at boats trying to enter them or that are thrown in by the some angry sea-god; and also that boats in distress should be left to sink, and those thrown off them to drown.

It is not possible to believe that anyone could be so callous as to consciously intend such conclusions.

Once the boat people are in Malta, given shelter, aid and food, few can seriously argue that they should not be detained to be screened. Or that, having been screened, they should be given temporary documents and permitted to find their way about straightaway.

In the first instance, the temporary immigrants would not have the means to do that, except for the relative few who may have planned their flight and staked themselves for it, rather than having been forced to flee.

Being humane and liberal does not mean that one can fly way from reality. That reality includes the need for the authorities to provide adequate shelter, within the means they can make available and stretch as far as possible to do so. As well as the obligation not to keep the temporary immigrants in detention an hour longer than may be necessary to establish their state of health and their status.

Reality also demands that the media, while ever vigilant to unearth and report the facts, should be watchful not to be in any way used as a means to the end of someone whose objective may not be that the facts should be fully laid out and followed with unflagging zeal.

The political factor in this broad reality should be such that it includes no partisanship whatsoever. There is always need and room for critical exchange of views and proposals, but that should take place towards one common aim: dealing with the situation humanely and as sensibly as can be as regards the temporary immigrants, and to seek ways forward through a united front.

All of that would allow proper perspective, discourage unnecessary heat, and strengthen the resolve of those who are disgusted by the racist statements of an ugly minority in our midst. It would not resolve the situation.

For another brutal fact is that, since would-be immigrants will continue to board boats somewhere in North Africa and set off towards Europe, the reality of more and more boat people to be dealt with in Malta will grow.

It is true enough that social, economic and political change has to take place in the countries which boat people are so desperate or determined to leave to remove their motive for wanting to cross the sea. Until that comes about, if ever, efforts are required to make change happen at this end. Political co-operation is necessary to work towards it.

There has to be change in Malta's stance within the EU. We are represented there by the government of the day. It has to be clear that the government is pushing forward a bipartisan position, which will not alter, certainly not soften, should power change hands in the general election.

This situation is bigger than any party and will outlast the life of this government and probably the next one too. The other EU countries have to be told in the strongest possible terms that in this particular regard we are unequal members. That the EU's Border Agency will not even dent the situation we are trying to grapple with.

We need to provide the boat people who become temporary immigrants in our midst with decent shelter, certainly. The EU needs to complement our efforts with meaningful financial assistance to meet the substantial capital and recurrent outlays that are required. Some EU countries are taking a few score of the boat people housed in Malta. More need to come forward, rather than reiterating the mantra that there have to be collective solutions, as the UK for one tends to do.

Hundreds of temporary immigrants will remain on the island. Subject to health clearance, they cannot be kept cooped up or penned in. They should be given something to do. They must not be exploited, as some are when hired on a daily basis as underground labour. The scheme whereby employers can legally hire from among them has its merits.

It would not be unreasonable to expect the able-bodied among the temporary immigrants to give Malta something back, in return for what they are receiving from the state. Within the public sector, despite endless critical comment that there is overmanning in various areas, there remain a multitude of tasks crying out to be done. Temporary immigrants can be mobilised to help out, for a few hours a day.

It should help their self-respect, too, and need not raise the hackles of the trade unions in any way.

Another form of usefully occupying the time temporary immigrants wait out in Malta would be to offer them some training, with the help of the ETC. That could help them settle better in their final destination.

Among the transiting boat people there could also be individuals who possess professions and skills which could be used to train others among them, and possibly Maltese seekers of training or re-training as well. It would not be unreasonable to expect adequate EU funding in this regard.

The issue of the boat people will not go away. Many are here and more will keep coming. A multi-faceted approach to the issue is called for to try to manage it more effectively.

That is why energy should not applied to futile efforts to find what to disagree about, rather than to identify what can and should be attempted until repatriation or onward transfer becomes possible.