Of empire and refugees

A main criticism levelled at the views you expressed on ‘Empire and the Bible’ was that, although asked to relate the theme to the Maltese situation, you did not refer to the irregular immigration issue. Did you make amends when you spoke on ‘The Mediterranean: the Sea and Migration’ last Thursday at a conference that was widely covered by the media?

Not really. The meeting was held at the House of Representatives and I was placed in the seat usually occupied so much more beautifully by Helena Dalli. It was set up by the Speaker, Louis Galea, the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean, and the French Ambassador.

Its basic purpose was to give distinguished authors and artists, both local and international, the opportunity to dialogue with parliamentarians and political experts on the identity of the Mediterranean, its heritage and future.

My central topic was the application to the Mediterranean of the proposals for an integrated marine policy by the European Union. I was most concerned to highlight the dangers if the present drift continues towards the partition of the Mediterranean into exclusive economic zones even if called by such other names as environment protection zone or fishing zone.

I reiterated that the only reasonable approach if dire conflicts are to be avoided is the setting up of joint management systems such as those adopted years ago by Germany and the Netherlands in the Eems-Dollard Treaty.

This is one main reason why it is necessary to have some sort of governance system with equal participation by all and only Mediterranean states, European and otherwise.

Such a system was originally implied in Nicolas Sarkozy’s misnamed Union of the Mediterranean, but not in the contorted form of the Union for the Mediterranean which was hatched instead.

There are many subsidiary reasons for this urgent need, such as meeting the impending challenge of climate change with its apocalyptic threats of destroying our tourist economy in the midst of ecological catastrophe. The ­primary requirement of an effective response is, of course, the development of renewable energy especially from marine sources, which again cannot be ­successfully done without well-structured, pan-Mediterranean institutions.

But did you say nothing about the migration issue?

Only in passing since this subject was taken up by the other speaker with whom I shared my slot in the conference.

He was the EU Commissioner responsible for migration, Jacques Barrot, who made an admirably humane speech. It became once again clear that the Commission proposes excellent policies, very equitable in themselves and therefore acceptable to Malta.

The problem lies in getting these well-balanced proposals from the economic and the ethical points of view accepted by the Council made up of the heads of State incapable of adopting policies that are not likely to become popular with voters in the short term.

My own point of view on the subject coincides with that of Michael Dummett in his excellent short book On immigration and Refugees (2002) that is still hardly outdated in respect of principles. Like him, I believe that international law is far too restrictive in the conditions it establishes for qualification as refugees.

“All conditions that deny someone the ability to live where he is in minimal conditions for a decent human life ought to be grounds for claiming refuge elsewhere”. The disdain with which many nowadays speak of “economic migrants” is most often out of place.

Quite generally speaking, they are driven to seek refuge in the developed world out of central Africa, as was rightly suggested by my critical colleagues, because of Empire. For instance, to take one of the less obvious cases, the escapees from Darfur and the warfare being waged there are among the early victims of the drought-inducing climate change that is ultimately in turn the result of the irresponsibly selfish energy expenditure of the powerful-rich minority of humankind that is being labelled collectively Empire.

This is one irrefutable ground for asserting the right formulated by the Catholic philosopher, Sir Michael Dummett, that I have quoted above.

Recognition of this right is one ground why Dummett categorically states that “no state ought to take race, religion or language as essential to its identity”. He adds: “A self-governing nation indeed needs an identity, and this identity will always be in part informed by its history, but it should mainly be grounded in shared ideals, a shared vision of the society it is striving to ­create.”

In other words, identity should be a matter of looking more to the future than to the past.

“The present must be seen as having grown out of the past, but by no means as always having been there in embryo.”

Nevertheless, Dummett recognises that a nation exceptionally has the right to refuse immigrants if there is a real danger of their submerging its identity. But he only thinks that this threat is a real possibility in such cases as when the influx of immigrants is engineered by a colonial power (Empire) as when Britain flooded Fiji with Indians.

When the danger of being swamped does not exist, an influx of immigrants is most likely to have positive effects on a flourishing ­culture.

What then should EU policy be?

There should “be an EU tribunal for deciding to which member state each refugee should be entitled to apply for asylum, which would take into account the factors leading him to favour certain countries over others, as well as the demographic situation in those countries and their ability to provide for new entrants”.

Fr Peter Serracino Inglott was ­talking to Miriam Vincenti.