Indian actors mistaken for illegal immigrants

i guess here is another one of my beloved islanders who is doing the wise monkey signs:-
SEE NOTHING - HEAR NOTHING & say NOTHING! i suggest that people who differ read the Times more often..take to-days news for example 1st.june Indians beaten up in Australia,i reckon some of these bloggers seemed to have a sixth sense - according to skyNews/. racist tendencies too in downunder not exactly heaven or not all honky dory

What has this discussion turned into? Mr Bartolo and Mr Spiteri agree with each other. I agree: no one is being rude, just ignorant, closed minded and simply islanders. Malta is great with its history, literature etc And yes I agree it has a problem with immigration more than anywhere else due to its small size. But the biggest tragedy is the small size of the mentality of its people and their propensity to confuse and mix anything in an argument or discussion and lose sight of any principles. Now that you are members of the EU you've got a problem that the EU should help you with but its about time you also change certain mentalities that you hold so dear despite your profession of being Catholic and all that. Like Mr Bartolo Snr (no less, good to see some UK tendencies in the Maltese!) was trying to say, it's good to not beat around the bush! Unfortunately, like he said, what most are doing is beating themselves behind one!

Verywell said Alex Spiteri, i can agree with you more.. As far i am concered first and foremost the Maltese, as far as the foreigners in our country well as long as they can spend their cash here for our better economy well and good,I don't mean to sound rude or ungratful but failing that get out and stay out who ever they maybe and i mean this in the best possible way. Please do not reply with an obvious feedback that i am being rude to our guests because i'm not, i am just being honest & logical, without beating behind the bush. Viva Malta u l'Maltin. F.Bartolo Snr

@Michelle Dali oh yes its funny alright if you can see the funny side of it, but thats until it concerns you or me or anyone from our country, and i can asure you its not funny anymore. Mr.Muscat said there is no place like home, how very true that is, but unfortunitly because of a small country like ours and the economic problem for young people to be able to use their talent and knowledge especially the Goziitans they have no choice but to seek further afield,but as long as they know what they are in for and be preparede for such insults and at times abuse especially in Australia regarding wages as compared with the Australians themselves. As far as i am concerned i've been there , i done it all, so they can keep Britian or Australia or even Canada and New York whatever. All i can say is Viva Malta** thats why foreigners such as Brits,or even further afield as the US, Oz, choose MALTA as their retirement host country, they're not stupid they know the difference.

@ Justin Borg

So what if there are some semitic Maltese surnames or some Maltese people have a healthy tan? Does that make it alright for Mr Burns to say that we are 'wogs'? To my knowledge the word means 'westernised oriental gentleman'. Are we orientals, now, as well?

As to the origins of the Maltese people, one must remember that the Arabs were in Malta over 1000 years ago for just a couple of hundred years, while the British were in Malta right up to the 1970s! It's a load of rubbish to say that the Maltese are Arabs when it is quite clear that we are Europeans, part and parcel of the European Union.

Even if we weren't Europeans, would that make it alright for people from a different continent to illegally invade our small country en masse? Where is the logic in the argument that just because some Maltese are swarthy we should allow uncontrolled illegal immigration from Africa?

Apart from all this, you have to see the funny side of this article :-)

i agree with alot of the comments below regarding the way foreigners see us in their country. I know from experience that we are at times discriminated against mainly because of our southern medit.complection also the fact that we speak in this case Australia or the UK with a Maltese accent, very often when i used to chat in Maltese to my Maltese neighbours they used to mistaken us for Arabs or even Turkish. The thing is when foreigners are visiting our country they are really nice people and tend to be polite and so forth, but as soon as they return back to their home land they seem to turn and act differently especially in the work place towards us the Maltese and other forigners in their country, especially now in the UK with the up and coming BNP or even the NF(National Front) back in the late 80's. Alot of my fellow countrymen seem to think that when they emmigrate to Australia or Britian thinking its going to be just plain sailing, boy how rong can they be, there is no place like home.,but i guess one has to find out for themselves, i did,.check the comments.

True Trevor > although i was brought up in the UK, speak with a English accent of the region i was brought up in, mixed with the British for 50+ odd years, still am proud to be of Maltese origin, i have never in my life ever thought of myself English. Thankgod we have a great country, a rich country, a safe one now happily retired in Malta. Its true that most europeans see us Maltese as foreigners and yes i was called a wog* a few times in Australia maybe in a sort of friendly way Australian greet the new Australians as we were known then but nevertheless i resented being called as such,it was in 1968 when i emmigrated from the UK(southampton) i paid at the time 10£ and when disembarked in Sydney the first thing the customs do is to take the passport and hold it for a period of 2 years that was then the contract for assited passage, but i hated Australia so much that i ended up by paying the full fare and returned back to the UK, sorry but i do not like Australia & their racist mentality. Fairdinkum or not.... Period.

@ Graham Crocker, I could not give a hoot what the Anglo Saxon, Celtic, & Germanic tribes etc. think of us with their usual narrow definition on who is caucasian. But I draw the line on the wholesale illegal invasion of my tiny homeland by people of any skin colour. Since as a maltese person, I am not wanted in countries settled by the so called real whites or by muslims in the middle east or Africa because of my religion. Therefore it makes me cling to my beloved homeland even more and I do not want to see it overrun by any other nationality, as I got nowhere to go.

@ justin borg: Well said... Also consider the point that many of our surnames are semitic...

OK, Justin. We will give Mr.Burns a break. He's not Maltese and doesn't know any better. It's you I can't understand and refuse to give you a break .

Come on guys.....can't anyone see the funny side of the story....it's hilarious!!! Why do you have to take everything so serious!!!

@ Joss Galea, After disembarking the dinghies, the dancing part would have been a good tip off to the nature of their business.

carmel pule, sorry to burst your bubble. Wop or Wog doesn't mean White Overseas person or gentleman, its a word-play on Guappone and the other is a word play on Enid Blyton's Golliwog, which was about negro-looking black doll.. I think you are wrong and Eygptians are not white, niether are most Maltese. Aussies referred to any Mediterranean (including Greeks, Lebanese,etc) as a Wogs, but there it was a derogatory term for a colored person and like there is violence and hate against blacks in Malta, the same follows for wops in Australia ( I believe somebody got killed a few years ago, just because he was Maltese). Also people have this misconception that colored means black, colored is what most of us are. The history books tell us that the Nazis considered the Italian fascists as lesser people than their English opponents. I wonder how they saw us then. Anyway we should understand why the Aussies called us Wogs, because we are so used to doing the same with blacks and I hope you lot like the taste of your own medicine.

Oh shut up all of you. Most Maltese are dark-skinned and our language is half-semitic so we are easily mistaken for Arabs when we are abroad. Give Mr Burns a break, he's right after all.

@Trevor Lorenzo Mizzi

Have you read or just saw the picture? People who reported saw people disembarking dinghies not people dancing. That's just the picture!
P.S. the Aussies have a nickname for every single race they have living in Australia, not to be happy go lucky, but it's a form of racism in my opinion!

Igalea, I am glad that you did not discriminate re illegal immigrants, you did not single out a particular group such as Africans... "And that includes anyone who has overstayed their visa." Good point which many seem to be overlooking

This shows that the situation is indeed serious though we must keep cool and not lose our heads lest it all gets even worse and spirals out of control...

The claim that Maltese are born and bred Europeans... Well consider that a good number of Maltese surnames are Arab in origin... I do not care to which continent we belong, we are Maltese first and foremost... strictly speaking we are Mediterraneans...

Thank you J Cini. You got it! You didn't expect an Aussie to get it straight away ? I know Aussies - I live with them but I'm Maltese too. To be serious for a moment: both countries have their problems. And varied mixed backgrounds. But then one can't compare one with the other in terms of resolving their issues with immigration, illegal or otherwise.

As far as I know --Wog --was what the coloured locals in Africa (Egypt) and the Aborigines in Australia called the British army officers wherever they were to be found. It stood for " WHITE OVERSEAS GENTLEMEN". It was meant to be a complement to those in army uniforms who treated the employees fair and square and respected them.

Dear Mr. Burns I fully agree with you that racism & xenophobia never works, because it's a very mean characteristic. I'm proud of our Mediterranean looks and I'm also proud of being a very Mediterranean person. What I don't allow is people calling me a Wog because I might return the compliment telling you that you should not bother to come over to Malta to be with the Wogs but you should remain in the BUSH.

For what i can understand from some bloggers, that most who never ventured outside their own door step seem to misunderstood Mr.Burns, what he is trying to say is, i suggest you guys to read his comment again before jumping the guns, he is anti discrimination.I know l lived in Australia since i was 9 years old when my parents emmigrated to this great country in the early 50's and gave me a good life, One has to understand the Australian way of life and they uses such slang words dating back from colonialism, but please don't down grade my beloved country of Malta by useing such rude words and bombard our Australian friend with such words as deck hand (he was infact a high ranking officer in the merchant Navy, so before you guys open your big gob please remember there are some 400,000 Maltese in Australia who also i would imagine use the internet and read such uncalled rudeness from my own people. ie., the case of the natives of Australia, now come on what has this got to do with his honest comments? thats silly from some uneducated individuals. Please accept my apologies Mr.Burns Thanks. Ben.(Queensland)Aus.

Here is a news article designed to made to make real Maltese patriots look silly and xenophobic.

Yes, upon arrival invaders always disembark on window rock to do a Bollywood film dance routine, give me a break !

Referring to the comments made by our Aussie friend further down, this should be the ‘smoking gun’ proof that Multiculturalism does not work.

As happens in all Multicultural experiment countries of long standing, like Australia and Canada, the racism and discrimination not only is not eradicated but becomes more insidious. People of other ethnic backgrounds are still looked down upon and never become fully integrated, becoming instead what is called ‘hyphenated citizens’, that is, Maltese-Canadian, Italian-Australian, etc. even after generations have passed.

Here you have a person of presumably Northern European descent admitting that making ‘racist’ comments about people of Southern European ancestry, is still alive and well in Australia. And these are the descendants of people with a common European heritage still discriminating against other Europeans!

Can you imagine how well other cultures (non-European) are going to fare?

Truly, it is a vindication for those lone voices that have been raising the alarm bells about the cult of Multiculturalism.

@ Warren Burns

No one is running down dark skinned people - you have no idea what you're writing about. Just because you visited Malta a couple of times doesn't make you an expert on the country or the situation we are facing. You should keep your insults to the Maltese nation to yourself.

@ Warren Burns;
Please read the comments of B.Agius again carefully while applying a little ironic cynicism for which you Australians are famous for..you'll find that B.Agius is in fact having a go at the Maltese!
And speaking of irony: before throwing any mud at the Maltese, do tell us about the regular, unprovoked, violent, racial attacks on Indians in Australian cities, or the ignorant, misinformed racial attacks on Sol Trujillo by, amongst others, none other but your Prime Minister!
@Jos van t'hof
How predictable to stick up for your own kind! You clearly also missed Mr Aguis ironic comments. Contrary to the Dutch and Belgians, we Maltese have ALWAYS lived under the threat of invasion and attack..or as second class citizens in our own country..so we have a right to be touchy and sensitive about these matters. After all, we did not invent apartheid.

How Embarrassing !!! Bollywood is making more money then Hollywood and our film industry could do with a bit or a boost. I hope the People involved apologised !!!

I think this is hilarious. I think what Mr Burns was trying to say is Racism doesn't stop at black and white. Although the Aussies use the word wog wrongly. (its meant to be wop for guapponne)

Insomma guys, thats what you get for wearing Tin Foil hats

Why don’t we just dish out EU citizenships to illegals and give them a £1 flight to a European country – one way! Everyone will be happy! Most of them do not want to stay in Malta anyway (and never intended to come here) and we will get our island back. We do not get help from EU in this respect so we should do what is needed to take the matter into our own hands and “pass the problem on”. Once the implications are known then we can maybe finally get some pro active help from the EU.

@Warren Burns (Aussie)

You are no expert on Malta having visited a couple of times as a deckhand. It's obvious you don't understand migration movements in the Mediterranean, nor the rest of Europe or North Africa. Do a little more research before you write.

Australia is a cute little place too having been there a few times, although I find its inhabitants quite parochial and a little too aspirational. Take a look at your own immigration policies in the last 100 years. Keep your "charming" Aussie-isms down-under

Dear John Cauchi,

The fact is that WE Maltese DO NOT WANT to calm down. We just want any illegal immigrant OUT of Malta ASAP be they pink green or any other colour.

@ Warren Burns

Let us not forget that you are aborigines. Using your logic and deep study of history. :)

@Warren Burns.

Talking about the pot calling the kettle black (pardon the pun). You seem to have no problem callling Southern Europeans or Mediterranean and Middle Eastern people 'wogs' down under yet you want to preach to us about racism.

By the way, Maltese are did not originate from North Africa. DNA testing by the National Genographic Project has identified that at leaslt 50% of male lineages in Malta originated from the Phoenicians, a Semitic people and great seafarers and merchants who rules the the Mediterranean for over 1000 years and who gave the world the art of winemaking, the purple dye, our alphabet and who circumnavigated South Africa and traded with ancient Britons, and most probably also settled in America before Columbus.

The Maltese are a mixture of these and other peoples from Europe and even the British Isles and that is why they come in a healthy mixture of skin and eye colours, although most are dark compared to the Northerners since we do enjoy a lot of sunshine all year round.

And speaking of dark skinned people, you do not exactly have anything to be proud of in your treatment of the Aboriginal people of Australia either.

Here we go again our Aussi friend has upset the Maltese who as we know from past blogs the Maltese have a habit of firing back in revenge, i'm called a cheese head, but thats no skin off my nose, that's the difference between us northern europeans we tend to laugh it off but its true what our Ozzi friends is saying the southern europeans tend to re-act too quickly and get a bit hot under the collar, its only a blog for god sake, liven up friends, Coming from Northern europe we too have a long history list, when i was living in Melbourne i remember just for a laugh the aussie used to say to me, why are you here, did you also steal a loaf of bread or a doughnut? but thats the way the Aussies are happy go lucky and one should take them with a pinch of salt, at least now unlike Malta's blond and dark skinned Maltese, they can tell the difference between the Europeans and the Asians as the place is crawling with immigrants from the far eastern countries and started to out number the europeans.,so who's worried - Live & Let live

Warren Burns
We originated from Europe Warren and we can trace our ancestry to hundreds of years if not thousands, something which Aussies cannot do, unless of course you refer to the forced expulsion of convicts from the UK who were sent to Australia.

2warren burns - You are wrong to state that most Maltese were descended from Africa,. It suffice if he were to look at the majority of family names (surnames) and he would find that the most common are European surnames, including Italian, Spanish, French, English, as well as Greek and "Yougoslavs" - now made up of six couintries, who settled in Malta during the last Worlf War. To be fair we do have some Arabic surnames, but a look at the telephone directory will confirm that these are very few.

As regards the news item regarding Indian filmstars in Gozo, this is the result of over politisising the illegal immigrants issue.

One absurd comment states that immigrants will start coming again after sth. June, as if someone sent them a message that they are not welcome during the election campaign.

I pray God that all of us, including myself, whilst addmitting that we have a HUGE & SERIOUS PROBLEM, we should try to be more moderate in our comments, since after all if after June 6 or whenever there will bne an LP government this problem will still remain with us for some more years.

@Mr. Sammut, talk about paranoia?

@ Warren Burns,
A look at a Malta phonebook shows most Maltese have european surnames and european origin.

Fair skinned or swarthy , Caucasian people do not all originate from Ireland, like the ruling majority of established european settlers in Australia, who can trace their ancestry to exiled convicts from the British isles.

Dear Aussie guy, we can look into the historbooks and see what our ancestors were doing but what about you ? What about the natives of Australia? Can you trace your ancestory? From all countries an aussie is speaking about natives, any traditions?
Lets speak about your immigration policies nowadays shall we? Goodnight from EUROPE

Multiculturalism is being shoved down our throats were it makes little sense for a tiny homogeneous nation like Malta.

The boatloads of illegal invaders will resume after the MEP elections on June 6th ;-)

I.Galea**** yes i agree with you completly, anyone or any illegal living who's visa had expired and overstayed his/her welcome should be kicked off these islands and this includes anyone who is not a Maltese citizen- beit British ( ie:-time share louts who tend to roam these islands in their drons or any other foreigner from the eastern bloc who do not have a F.O.M or any work permit. after all this applies to us Maltese in other countries too, so its ot a question of being one sided.

G'day - from down under, i have been to Malta twice in the past during my working days in the merchant navy, i liked the place, small & a cute little island. Someone mentioned below how can one tell the difference between a blond (mind you haif probably dyed blond but underneath when looking at the roots closely appear to be dark)and a dark skin Maltese,or any southerner, either way Maltese, Italians and Greeks are still known here in Aussie by the word Wogs, and to me Wogs is what the the pommies/British army used to call the locals in North Africa,and if i understand the history correctly the majority of the locals in Malta and Sicily originated primerily from N.Africa hence the word wog applies to all such people,but nevetheless still humans same as anyone else, so please before running down dark skinned people take a good look at Malta's history and the surrounding islands you'll be surprised what one can learn from past history of the med. and past invaders. G'day from downunder.

John Cauchi
We do not care what you call it but we, the vast majority of Maltese citizens do NOT want any ILLEGAL immigrants to remain in Malta.
And that includes anyone who has overstayed their visa.

No surprise really, every dark skinned person on the island can tell you that they daily get mistaken for illegal immigrants nowadays. Unfortunately since before the MEP election rush both the Goverment and the opposition steered clear of this issue, the people’s concerns grew accordingly.

John dear do you live in Malta or in some pleasant far away land? Do you really expect Malta to calm down ? Have you ever been to Marsa or Hal far ? Sliema at noon ? I don't know about you but if you would like to live in a country like GreatBritistan I am sure not many Maltese people wouldn't-Blaspheming and swearing ? Is that what we Maltese people just do ? Is all that this country can do -the same words of blonds and swearing-gee I wonder how many pro africans we have, mind you if you can't wait with excitment for a Multicultural Country the European Door is open dear Friends , all europe is buzzing with glee for multiculturisim............and by the way, the story is a good story to make jokes about Maltese people and what is going around

Typical Xenophobia - how typically Maltese. I can just imagine people going "X'gharukaza, jigu hawn u jizfnu wkoll kemm huma arroganti", mistaking a typical Bollywood dance for some arrogant statement...

I'm sure if they were white Slavic girls doing a film, people would have stopped and watched with glee, even if they were illegal immigrants.

Malta, calm down...

How do the blonde Maltese recognize the others with darker skins then? Oh - I know - they hear them blaspheme and swear - they know they're true Maltese! Hilarious if it weren't sad!

I don't blame anyone. Il-kelb il-mismut, kull ilma jahsbu mishun.