Immigration dangers

By George! I.M. Beck (October 17) is back again trying unsuccessfully to find chinks in my armour.

I agree with him that one should not pick scraps with people who have miles of newsprint and gallons of ink at their disposal (his words).

I believe that he has forgotten that over 18 years I have written 648,000 words in my monthly article "A Greener Shade of Green" as well as rivers of ink in 53 years of business life. Furthermore, I have around 20 years experience of very active life more than he has.

How right he was. He should never have started a war of words with me.

The writer does not like the illegal immigration to be described as a problem. How would he describe it? It was like drawing teeth but finally we have his answer. He is voting for the Status Quo and therefore deserves my present of a prayer rug.

While I.M. Beck was asserting that in the UK it is not becoming difficult to promote Christmas as a Christian holiday, he ignored the fact that in this newspaper there was a write-up under the heading Somali Islamists Whip Women For Wearing Bras. In this article it was reported that in Shabaab women were publicly whipped by masked Somali Muslims for wearing bras, while men received the same dose of punishment for shaving their beards. Now I know why I.M. Beck is growing a beard.

He then refers to a conversation I had with a politician who asked me what I would do if there were reports of a boatload of immigrants sinking in our waters.

I told him that I would have done what I, as Consul General of Iceland, had told my Ambassador to tell the captain of the Icelandic boat the Ekberg to do, i.e. to rescue them. I was not asked by this Maltese politician what I would do after saving their lives.

To that question I would have repeated the answer which I have been mentioning in all my letters to The Times. Ideally our EU partners should take these immigrants. Unfortunately they are adverse to burden sharing. Therefore, these people should be sent back to their country or to Libya. Yes, it would mean breaking some rules, annoying some EU countries and perhaps some non- European ones as well. However, this move, if nothing else, might make the EU realise our plight.

Personally, I am worried over two other situations; the fact that immigrant women are arriving in Malta in a pregnant state. Is there more than meets the eye to this? The second worrying aspect is the lack of people writing about these immigrants. Am I the only Maltese who is seeing the danger?

This situation is reminiscent of H.G. Wells' novel The Time Machine where the future people (the ELOI) are childlike, passive and have lost the intelligence and character of Man in his prime.

As that great Mafia fighter Giovanni Falcone wrote, "Chi tace e piega la testa muore ogni volta che lo fa" (He who is silent and bows his head dies each time he does so).

I must stress, as always, that while these immigrants are in our islands they should be treated with all respect and kindness.

Finally, I would like to assure my legal friend that I was not joking when I called him an eminent lawyer. He is a leading lawyer in his field, and I have a great respect for his legal ability.

I have enjoyed locking horns with my friend and at the same time pointing out the danger of these immigrants in our islands, but I will now let him have the honour and the advantage of doing the winding up.