Change is inevitable

Trying to depict herself as a rational floating voter, Joanne Micallef (Election Dilemma, August 31) manages brilliantly to convince us otherwise.

In her rather simplistic line of reasoning she suggests that none of the three political parties are fit to govern our country. In her unconvincing analysis of why Alternattiva Demokratika (AD) is unfit to be in Parliament she mentions AD's stance on immigration which according to her does not "cherish our traditional culture and our traditional way of life to an adequate extent".

This nostalgic rhetoric is obsolete and total nonsense. If Joanne Micallef wishes for things to stay the same as ever, may I challenge her to mention just one example of any country, region or city in the world, in any historical epoch, that has not experienced social change. Her view of a fairy tale country where everything remains the same does not belong to any rational dogma, and the only advocates of such ideologies are the neo-conservative movements. Social change, according to this dogma, is viewed with suspicion, but in reality social change occurs every day not only on a grand scale but also in our day-to-day life experiences which we may not even be aware of.

Malta has to take a tougher stand with its European counterparts to pressure for resettlement agreements in Europe and co-financing of expenses related to irregular migration, but current irregular immigrants should be integrated in our society. The current system of mandatory detention portrays them as criminals and divides public perception between "us" and "them, and Ms Micallef seems to have fallen victim to this naïve distinction.

Anti-immigration campaigners never come up with decent and concrete proposals, and the only function, or rather dysfunction, is to scare people from those whom we know little of. Fear of what is different, a typical symptom of the neo-conservatives' disease, does not change or help anything. It merely antagonises people who otherwise could live together and learn from each other.