Corpses from Sunday’s migrant tragedy were brought to Malta earlier this week. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi

Last week, while many of us were absorbed in contemplating the way Premier Joseph Muscat’s slavish band of spinners were turning what the numbers, and numbers don’t lie, say was quite an interesting downturn in his fortunes, the Mediterranean caught the attention of the world.

And not for a good reason, either.

It’s been happening for a long time but sometimes it takes a tragedy of last week’s proportions to drive home the enormity of what is happening around us. Men, women and children are dying in their hundreds and thousands, fleeing from God knows what into a stark reality that takes their lives.

In the meantime, revolting little thugs like the people who support that Nigel Farage creature, the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, whose only form of independence seems to be independence from any vestige of decency, make snide remarks and wrap themselves even more tightly in the flag. If only for that, but not only for that, I live in hope that come May 7, Farage and his band of weirdos will be consigned to the dustbin of history, even if it means Ed Miliband will get in.

No amount of hand-wringing and candle-holding after the fact is going to change the sad reality that we’re all probably quite racist deep down

We have no shortage of vermin of that type within our shores. We’ve even had one who was convicted of hate crimes and who couldn’t consequently contest elections, although Norman Lowell tried his level best to plead that his Constitutional rights had been trampled upon. Thank heaven for small mercies, he’s not been seen around recently, I know not why.

One other such specimen has let it be known that he won’t be eating lampuki next summer, because he’s worried about the fish being able to transmit Ebola, having eaten from the corpses of what he no doubt sees as disease-ridden sub-humans.

This vile example of man’s abhorrent inhumanity to man sees himself as a saviour of our national purity, and he seeks to collect petitions to promote his racist ideology.

The really sad thing isn’t that this disgusting twerp exists (it would have been nice, incidentally, if the media had told us which confectionery he owns in Valletta, so we could have boycotted it and made sure anyone we knew did the same) because you’re going to find morons if you look hard enough.

The tragedy is that there are quite a few people who support him and his foul beliefs, and see nothing wrong in saying so publicly.

They were even signing his petition, though given that they were supporting this jerk, the extent to which they understood what they were doing, or were even capable of writing, is debatable.

It makes me ashamed, not to be Maltese, because there are racist scum in every country and of every colour, but to be human, that there are members of the same species who are so unutterably evil. And let’s not have any guff about these people having the right to freedom of belief and expression, virtually the only absolute right is the right to life and these scum seek to deny this right to others.

When you come to the table with dirty hands, you’re not allowed, at least in polite society, to eat at it, and thesepeople have filthy hands, to go with their filthy state of mind.

The people who voted “no pushback no vote” are no less disgusting, of course, and it is to be hoped that their inspiration for the use of that hateful verb felt at least a slight twinge of conscience when he was made aware of how his words were being bounced back at him.

The Archbishop was clear: you’re no Christian if your take on Christianity involves setting up festoons and brewing fireworks but not compassion for your fellow man. I’d go further and say that you’re no human being if your mindset is of that type.

Let’s not be naive and self-absorbed about all this, however. Buying a bunch of flowers, especially if not prompted into doing it, is all very well and not a bad gesture in itself.

That said, no amount of hand-wringing and candle-holding after the fact is going to change the sad reality that we’re all probably quite racist deep down; the trick is to make sure it remains deep down.

Be honest: the Paris shooting by those fundamentalist bastards moved you more than the same sort of thing happening in deepest Africa and there’s really only one reason for that.

The victims in Paris were white, like most of you and me, and the ones in Africa were only black. I’m being a little unfair, the thing is more complicated than that, physical proximity and familiarity with the city are also involved, but deep down, under the stone, where none of us want to look, we don’t care as much.

I’m struggling to find something more to say, if I had to be as brutally honest with myself as I expect you to be with yourself. Fine, I can point to my record of standing up to the racists in print,but how many people has that saved from drowning?

The sum total of none at all, I have to say, so I’ll have to console myself with the comforting thought that while others, like Ebola Lampuka Moron, were vomiting racist claptrap and spewing jingoistic slogans, I was at least writing stuff that extends two fingers in their general direction.

Wow, I think I deserve a Ġiehir-Repubblika.

Actually, the people who deserve recognition are the ones who are being stretched and stretched and stretched again, snatching people from the jaws of death. MOAS, the AFM, the Guardia Costiera, the medics and the cops and the volunteers with the Red Cross and St John’s and anyone else who rallies around to do their job, those are the ones who are doing something to be proud of, while we columnists sit comfortably and write brave pieces calling racists scum.

And while the politicians and the parsons and the great and the good Europe and world-wide make stirring speeches and expansive promises, which will be forgotten as soon as the sun rises on some other event that attracts media attention.

Hopefully, this time, something other than hot air will be the result, though that will be of no use to the thousands who have already died.

imbocca@gmail.com

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