For or against immigrants

I.M. Beck, who still refuses to meet me after my several attempts, does not mind meeting me sort of virtually in this paper or sending a shy sweet smile from a distance to my hello when I see him. Again, I invite I.M. Beck to meet me - even on Malta's foreshore where St Paul landed - and discuss whatever he likes.

On September 1, I.M. Beck quotes me as having written in my letter to the editor of August 29 that we Maltese "'don't want to become a minority in their own country' - whatever that means".

I.M. Beck is right to say "whatever that means" - after misquoting me. Indeed, I read again my own letter of August 29 and nowhere did I find the quotation I.M. Beck attributes to me. He must have quoted from some other letter (not mine) or he must have pasted together two quotes from two different letters.

The main point of my letter - which got I.M. Beck all worked up - was that I disagreed with Claudio Baglioni for suggesting that we Maltese should become a minority in our own country. Does I.M. Beck agree with this opinion? Personally, I find Mr Baglioni's baloney quite unacceptable.

I must say that I look forward to meeting I.M. Beck for a Christmas drink at our (and their?) journalistic HQ - and this he seems not to be against. We still have to convince our host board of directors at The Times, however. I hope that this board - and The Times editor - will not be illegal immigrants by then.

I believe that there should also be more discussion between the vast anti-illegal immigration majority in Malta (see, for example, "illegal immigration emerged as the greatest concern for voters" - Maltapolls quoted in the I-Tech supplement of The Times) and the tiny confraternity of lovers of immigration - whose reasons I do not understand, yet.

A right-of-centre cartoonist in The Times took stock of the situation and drew boatfuls of immigrants arriving and boatfuls of Maltese leaving. The Maltese left has been insisting on the protection of our national interest. Indeed, the minuscule pro-immigration lobby in Malta belongs nowhere in the Maltese political spectrum. It does not seem that its reasons are moral either, as no moral grounds justify the pulling of land from under one's children's feet and offering it to strangers. It is, of course, easy to be generous with common property but pro-immigration individuals should put their personal property, not the common patrimony, where their mouth is. There is no doubt that the insignificant pro-immigration group in Malta belongs to a strange reinvented limbo.

I have no intention of lingering on the silly argument of St Paul being an illegal immigrant and that I would have stood on our shores to try and stop him. This parody has been used a thousand times in this paper and has become a tad boring. Thus, considering the fact that there is a lot of controversy regarding his attempt to make I.M. Beck and I Christians, I prefer to quote our own Tonio Borg, Minister of Justice and Home Affairs: "Everyone expects Malta to become the dumping ground now of immigrants saved outside its own zone," (European Voice, June 7).

I guess that this opinion, in spite of the fact that it is the opinion of almost every Maltese, will make a few quixotic, hysterical writers furious. It seems to me that Dr Borg too was here expressing himself against foreign interference - which is a patriotic attitude. This doesn't necessarily make Dr Borg or anyone else a Dom Mintoff admirer. Maybe Dr Borg will also be told to stand on St Paul's foreshore with me?

It seems as if only a handful of immigration approvers are right in this country! All the others are dangerous Maltese racists who want to remain a majority in Malta.

Finally, I hope that I.M. Beck will quote and unquote me correctly even after the few drinks we shall have on our own or on their own or whatever. Let me attempt to quote him correctly myself: "We have a problem with immigration... a country of a few hundred thousand, with limited space... I have no real idea where the solutions lie..." (I.M. Beck, December 31, 2005). I have said nothing different!

Will you condemn me for my style?