A passage to Europe

Flying over Malta last week after a very pleasant weekend in Tuscany was a revelation. Never have I seen our archipelago look so verdant. Not only Malta and Gozo but, from the air, St Paul's Island and Cominotto were carpeted in a rich green. The rain has been more than abundant this year.

As I write the wind is susurrating menacingly outside my balcony and rainclouds are scudding across the sky despite the sun's valiant attempts to foil them. Despite the rain, Malta is nonetheless a very pleasant place to be in the dire months of January and February when practically everywhere else in Europe is in gloomy and bleak midwinter. We are indeed lucky to live in this place that some call the umbilical cord of the world for reasons I have not quite fathomed.

Despite this, there were times in the not-too-distant past, when the Maltese emigrated in droves to the larger British colonies because times were so hard here, and there were not enough jobs to go round. Emigration is as old as man himself. For millennia, the human race has moved from place to place in search of pastures new; man has invaded and infiltrated, annexed and colonised, subjected and brutalised, milked and desolated so many countries since the dawn of history that the saga of the world is full of nothing else.

The Jews displaced the Philistines in the Exodus and occupied the Promised Land causing problems, the consequences of which we still face today. The Romans displaced the Etruscans and proceeded to create an empire that is still the blueprint for all others. Rome was, in turn, invaded by the barbarians from the north and so on and so forth till the 19th century. The so called Scramble for Africa when the European powers carved up the African continent between themselves in swathes and straight lines that still delineate African states today. This is one of the chief causes of the civil and tribal unrest that undermines any hope of immediate peace and stability in Africa, which is what fuels the lemming-like immigration to us in Europe.

As many predicted, myself among them, ignoring the issue and hoping it will go away was foolish. Being xenophobic and panicky about it did not help matters while being indifferent did still less. This immigration phenomenon is the most difficult problem we have faced as a nation since World War II.

Many politicians, thinkers, political analysts and sociologists have attempted to solve the unsolvable. Yes, we all know the true reason: the political unrest and economic shambles in Africa is the real reason for it and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about that, is there? Nothing Silvio Berlusconi can do apart from trying to placate the newly-proclaimed King of Africa with headless and limbless Venuses. Nicolas Sarkozy can try to establish nuclear power plants in the most oil rich county of North Africa but nothing, absolutely nothing, will dissuade the colonel from going his own sweet way and allowing boat after boat packed with mixed bags from all over Africa, north, middle and south, let alone Pakistanis and Turkestanis, and smatterings of men, women and children form counties as remote as Kazakhstan, sail our way.

Everybody has tried to placate the colonel. Despite the reverberations from Lockerbie, Tony Blair was photographed, looking like a nervous Cheshire cat, shaking the colonel's hand and even the US have orchestrated overtures to win him over. Still, the boats leave his shores with sickening frequency without any regard to human life, let alone safety.

God alone knows how many people, expendable pawns in a cold-blooded power-game, lie at the bottom of the Mediterranean.

It looks as if the entire Third World is waiting in Tripoli for a passage to Europe. Has the colonel encouraged any of this? Some say he hasn't and some say he has. He may or may not be making a mint out of it and, yet, so could many Maltese, Greeks and Sicilians too, transmogrifying the issue into a historical "Question" that will, like the Irish and the Schleswig-Holstein ones, baffle future historians forever more.

Where does that leave us? Apart from being a stepping stone, we have not much to worry about compared to countries like France, Spain and Italy. However, that is only speaking comparatively. Despite the fact that many of the immigrants are either repatriated or sent to other countries in Europe and even to the US, still, many, far too many, will remain here and become integrated with us just as in the past our colonisers integrated with us and created that unique hybrid nation we recognise as Maltese. We do not have much choice in the matter. We can merely grin and bear it.

kzt@onvol.net