Palumbo exposes our true grit

The Palumbo grit blasting issue that raised its ugly head to usher in the new year brings up, once again, two aspects of the xenophobic attitude that sprouts from the inferiority complex that we, as a nation, have not yet managed to shrug off almost 50 years after independence.

The first aspect is the idea that there are two sets of rules: one for us Maltese and one for foreigners. Grit blasting operations have been going on for decades at the shipyards but no one ever said anything when the industry was owned and run by a Maltese state enterprise.

As soon as ‘the foreigner’ took over, the Labour-led Cottonera local councils complained about its negative effects to their localities, and the Malta Environment and Planning Authority issued an enforcement order.

I am not saying that grit-blasting should not be subjected to environmental standards and parameters or that Palumbo should not take the appropriate measures to ensure the cleanliness of their operation and avoid the problems faced by those hit adversely by their industrial activities. Indeed, in their defence, Palumbo insisted that they have “already done more than the ex-Malta Shipyards had done in previous years when it comes to environmental precautions” – whatever that means.

Obviously Palumbo are unaware of the Maltese quaint ‘two rules’ doctrine: locals who impoverish the country through their industrial activities do not need to observe the rules that actually exist only to be observed by foreigners who invest in enterprises in Malta to – dare I say it – make a profit.

The other aspect is that we are consistently afraid that foreigners keep looking down at us just in the stereotyped colonialist way. The reference to “European or American multinationals which wreak havoc in African countries” made by the Alternattiva Demokratika (AD) secretary general Ralph Cassar in a contribution published in The Times last Tuesday says it all.

Most of us live with this paranoid suspicion that all foreigners are out to get us. To me, what is surprising is not that this silly suspicion exists, but that a young AD official also follows this line of thought to explain Palumbo’s stand on the issue.

This budding politician allowed his patriotic zeal to overwhelm him to the extent that he spuriously accused the government of giving Palumbo “carte-blanche to do whatever they want in this country”, after having “donated” them the shipyard “at a huge discount”!

He even concluded that our democracy hinges on whether our government has the determination to “stand its ground and tell Palumbo where to get off”. I must confess I have never come across a weirder interpretation of what democracy implies.

A simpler, and perhaps more honest, explanation of Palumbo’s stand is that it is not doing anything worse that what the Maltese themselves had been doing for so many years. But that would put the typical Maltese mindset in a quandary. On the other hand, accusing Palumbo of acting like someone that wants to make a profit by exploiting us, sounds more patriotic. More pathetic, I would say!

We groaned when Malta Drydocks used to survive off subsidies paid for by taxes from our ‘honestly’ earned income, and we breathed a sigh of relief when the drydocks were privatised. But then… after stopping and thinking hard, we realised there is a dirty secret lurking behind the move: the foreigner who took over must be doing this to earn money.

What? Making money from an enterprise from which the Maltese state could only lose millions shows there is something wrong. The foreigner must have been given the whole valuable enterprise for a song. Shame! Where is our Maltese pride?

I don’t think this is what happened – even though I understand Palumbo has neatly exchanged all the scrap metal left behind by the previous operator into a handsome sum of euros.

Not scooping that source of cash – however limited – before the Drydocks was handed over was a silly mistake. But that hardly veers away from the fact that the value of the Drydocks was more in the real estate while the value of the equipment and goodwill was practically zilch.

Grit-blasting can pose several threats to the environment as well as serious aggravation to neighbours, more so when this is carried out in the vicinity of residential areas and a tourism-oriented yacht marina.

It is a shame that no one did anything about it when this industrial process was carried out by the Drydocks in the past. It was – and still is – incumbent on the state to ensure that its negative effects are severely limited, if not completely eliminated. But to see a link between this issue and the fact that the dockyard has been privatised and transferred to a foreign owner is ridiculous.

The false pride resulting in the xenophobic attitude towards foreigners adopted by many Maltese – which is also evident in the negative way many look at immigrants – is perhaps the longest lasting effect of Dom Mintoff’s short-sighted macho politics.

When will we get rid of this legacy?

micfal@maltanet.net