Malta's slave trading past

Louise Vella's letter (June 5) makes some contentious points on illegal immigration. Some are more contentious than others. For example, her point that people "put themselves deliberately in a dangerous situation to force other to come to their rescue" is a fantastic claim; as if people would risk drowning simply to get an easy passage to Malta, maybe by clinging to a tuna net for three days.

The assertion that these people are a "heavy burden" on Malta is let down by a calculation that each person in Malta pays 1c8 per immigrant per year in their upkeep.

The most fantastic suggestion however is that the Maltese "never turned slavery into an industry". This is simply not true. Peter Earle's 1970 Corsairs of Malta and Barbary, published by the United States Naval Institute describes the Maltese slave market as one of the four greatest in the Mediterranean. Malta regularly captured thousands of Turks and North Africans to sell as slaves and the Maltese were willing participants and beneficiaries in the industry. We had a well-established economy built on slavery right until Napoleon dragged us into the modern age in 1798 and it persisted even into the early days of the English era. There were slave dungeons, slave markets and professional slave ransom agents. "Malta like Barbary was a country permeated by slavery... almost all the Maltese are served by slaves" (p 170). Mr Earle describes how "Knights priests and commoners were all present as buyers... such slaves were employed as domestic servants, as clerks and in shops... an active internal market in slaves existed." (p.171) and "the great army of slaves who were busy building Malta's splendid baroque village churches were to be fed by the parishes" (p.175).

If Ms Vella were to look at the definitive history of slavery in Malta by Godfrey Wettinger she would find more information especially on the brutal treatment of slaves and the contempt for people of a different skin colour which persists to this day. Those in Malta who do not have a "guilt complex when dealing with Africans" or see any "moral obligations coming down from history", as Ms Vella calls it, simply do not know their history.

Even if we dismiss our shameful slave trading past as having any bearing on our society today then we still have an obligation to treat these people fairly and because of our common humanity and our obligations under international law. As a country we have relied on mass migration when it suited us, and we have no right to condemn any human being for similarly trying to do his best to better his life when faced with the most desperate of situations .