Malta's soul risks floundering in the Med

This has been a very bad week for Malta. Not primarily due to the negative press we had in various parts of the European Union. Mostly because of what the mirror on the wall suggests to us as a nation when we look into it. Our reflection, once so fair though perhaps not the fairest of them all, has taken on a disturbing coarseness that is welling up from a soul that seems to be in danger of distancing itself from basic human values.

One cannot envy those among our authorities who are charged with deliberating and deciding on how we handle the surging situation of fleeing boat people who end up within or near our Mediterranean search and rescue responsibilities. There is no single, neat, seamless solution. We are a small country. Tiny. Every addition to the pool of those who sought to escape from their homeland at our south to seek freedom, justice, better opportunities, some opportunity at all in the promised land of southern Europe and beyond, compounds strain on our capabilities and resources.

With the best intention in the word, whether it arises from basic humanness or Christian ethics, or both, the steady flow of boat people who end up in Malta is problematic. The problem does not go away or diminish because one stresses it has become too big for us to handle. In the general discussion that has been going on for several years, those of us to whom humaneness comes first put up a blunt question: can one draw a limit to common decency and tackle the problem by ignoring those who are thrown our way by the rough seas?

Though there were extremists who did not mind yelling Yes, Yes, Yes! in reply, in the main the decency basic to our people prevailed over growing feelings of disquiet at the increasing size of the problem. There are those who come up with a logic that refused to query itself.

They suggest that some boat people deliberately head for Malta. When an American spokesperson announced that the US would take up to 200 such uninvited immigrants, readers urged me to point out, in all seriousness, that publicising the American undertaking would make more boat people head to Malta as a stepping stone to that country.

More to the point, was a growing whisper that the residual boat people who stayed in Malta for months on end were gradually changing the face of the local scene. The drift, of course, if not racist in intent, referred to colour. The sprinkling of coloured people is become more and more evident. This past week has brought along reports of stronger feelings, even of naked colour prejudice. They related to a few bus drivers said to turn away coloured passengers.

A specific case reported by The Times brought about a specific denial. That was followed up with further reports. A letter to the newspaper on Thursday was particularly disturbing. A gentleman from Mosta recounted an incident that took place on a bus he had a boarded. A coloured person tried to get on, asking if the bus would go to Marsa. The driver said it would not - though the bus was in fact scheduled to pass through that town. The letter-writer asked the bus driver why he had turned away the man. The reply was: "He will take the No. 13 - the bus of the coloured immigrants."

The reported incident paints incip-ient segregation in unmistakable colours. That is very disturbing. To top it all, the letter-writer from Mosta said that he had immediately got off the bus and reported the incident to the nearest ADT office. He was listened to sympathetically, assured that the incident would be investigated, and asked whether he would appear as a witness before a tribunal. The gentleman said he would certainly appear. Two months on, he has heard nothing more from the ADT.

No doubt, the ADT will give its view. The response will not dilute the fact, after all, that there are people who do not turn a blind eye to blatant discrimination, who do stand up to be counted. Their sense of decency and - one has to add - courage, does not elicit rapid response beyond an easy one in the media.

Gradually, more incidents will come to light. One related to me occurred in a seaside town. A handful of locals rounded on a coloured man, took hold of him and flung him into the sea. The man got out of the water and went up to his persecutors to ask why they had done that. They took hold of him once again and threw him into the sea a second time.

These are isolated incidents. Our society should not be tarred by their brush. As a society we are in the main trying to cope with the disproportionate numbers of boat people who are in Malta. We support the government, and recognise that the Opposition too is doing its bit, in the strong stand within the EU for a common approach to the problem of hundreds, thousands of people fleeing from African countries, for one reason or another, to seek a new beginning in Europe.

We are disturbed by the growing presence of uninvited immigrants, but not angry at them. We are angry that the EU is not doing enough.

And the flow of seekers continues from Africa. The sea grunts its harsh solution and swallows up some of them, generally leaving no one to mourn them. The sea heaves and tosses the pitiful boats that try to traverse it and, on occasion, toys with them. It does not gobble up the boat people, but leaves them for days clinging to tuna cages among fish farms, miles and miles away from land, or on top of their capsized boats, or in its waters.

And that is where, sadly, diplomacy, politics and humaneness overlap, mix up and affect our soul, and the image reflected in the mirror we look into. The details of what actually happened on the fish farm were not necessarily as put out by the British and other European media. Nor, in regard to boat people picked up by a Spanish vessel, as projected by the Spanish government and its media.

Our government, from its unenviable position in the eye of the storm, had its own version to give. The imperilled boat people were within Libya's search and rescue area. Ask the Libyan authorities about what went on or did not take place. We have our patch to defend, our stand to make. Malta is tiny. We give much more than we can or should relative to our weight.

And so on. In strict diplomatic and political terms, the government is or may be right. In humane terms, not even the bare facts of demarcation, of effort, of shouldered heavy burdens can make right any hesitation and delay to rush to help, any withholding of succour that could have been attempted.

To say that is not to ignore that Maltese personnel risk their safety, their lives even, in the ongoing attempt to deal with the situation which evolves daily and nightly in our area of the Mediterranean at this time of year. They do their job, according to and even beyond the call of duty. Nor does one say any of this to condemn the Maltese authorities.

They find themselves in a Catch 22 situation. The logic underpinning reactions to the American promise to take up to 200 refugees from Malta may be ignored. But the government does have Malta's interests to safeguard. It has its stand to make, in regard to the EU, in regard to Libya and other southern Mediterranean countries.

Condemn not, and do not join in the Euro-media outcry that has so damaged Malta this past week. Nevertheless there can never be the least hint of a doubt that there may be circumstances where the attempt to safeguard Malta's interests overrides the commitment we must all show and have to go to the aid of those who are under threat in our sector of the sea, or nearby.

If, for one moment, that commitment is placed in doubt, it would mean that the small minority of extremists in our midst have managed to influence the majority beyond the wildest dreams and our worst nightmares.

The situation is clearly problematic and delicate. The government has to intensify its stand relative to any country that does not see to its responsibilities, however good and important the bilateral relations might be. It has to make it clear to the rest of the EU that we expect them to share our burden in proper proportion.

When it is the case that Malta should give refugee status to uninvited arrivals, the refugees should be housed in proportion by the EU as a whole, and not by Malta alone. As a separate consideration, Malta needs far more financial assistance than we are getting to provide facilities to boat people who end up in Malta.

There is so much to press for and to continue to do that through a pro-active consensus within our political class. Do all that, but do it on the basis that Malta and her people, concerned though they might be over heavy burdens that thrown their way, are first and foremost a caring people.

Writing of the political class and the need and efficacy of consensus in certain areas, The Times carried an excellent report (May 31) of one of the best speeches about foreign policy made in the House of Representative for some years. Dr George Vella, the Opposition spokesman on European Affairs, called for more regular debate in the House on foreign affairs, since two sittings a year were not enough.

The situation in the Mediterranean is ample proof, if any proof were needed. Dr Vella's speech covered more than that. He made a necessary political point: he acknowledged that it was a good thing that the foreign minister had mentioned that there was consensus on foreign policy. But, the Labour spokesman pointed out, the mileage being sought by the PN was not in keeping with the minister's speeches.

He backed that observation by referring to Malta's membership of the EU. The MLP had been against it, but respected the will of the people once the 2003 election decided the issue. The PN makes a regular feast of that, which does not show there is real beef in the consensus.

Beyond the politics of the affair, George Vella ranged over the whole spectrum of Malta's role in the EU, focusing on the theme 'What about the relevance of EU membership to Malta?' He said that, aside from the constant references to EU funds, there was a great lack of popular education on the EU. The speaker demonstrated that such lack did not apply to him.

The vista he outlined was vast and deep. Were such a speech to come from the Opposition leader too, it would do the MLP a world of good.