More than a century has passed since the beginning of one of the most incredible demographic revolutions in modern history, where over the course of 50 years, climaxing around the time of the Great Depression, some 10 million Americans, ravaged by every Old Testament calamity from apartheid to famine, ventured to the Urban North and Midwest from the scorched Dust Bowl of the Deep South in search of greener pastures, and in doing so transformed the US into the land we all know today.

As we speak, millions of sleepwalking Europeans are being very rudely awoken to the reality that something far more historically significant has been taking place within their own lands. It may be many more generations yet before we realise that in the half century which followed the first Great Migration, the continent formerly known as Europe also changed beyond all recognition.

I shall not pronounce myself as to whether this inevitable fate will have ultimately been for the better or the worse.

The very fact that immigration is an issue at all in this country is itself the best evidence that we Maltese have a lot to be thankful for. After all, the political relevance of immigration is the yardstick of a nation’s prosperity; for what could possibly compel any sane human being to leave behind everything he knows – everything he has ever held dear – if not the hope for a better future in a better place?

From Exodus to the Dirty Thirties, the premise underlying immigration, legal or illegal, has always been the same. Day in and day out, anxious queues of prospective migrants gather at the doors of US consulates across China. You can be sure that nothing quite as dramatic is going on at the Chinese consulates in the US.

There is definitely something to be said about ethnic and cultural diversity as the hallmark of national success, although to what extent it is the cause of that success remains a mystery ceaselessly debated by ardent conservatives and self-styled ‘progressives’.

This makes for an appropriate segue into the crisis which we Maltese have been dealing with for about a decade now, but which apparently only became a global issue in the last couple of months, when it finally reached the doorstep of Continental Europe.

I am not altogether interested in justifying any of the polarised and equally pernicious reactions this event has elicited from all parties concerned. I am far more troubled by the fact that this crisis does not seem to have roused anywhere near as much cognitive dissonance as it should have.

Virtually every single major newspaper has now all but sidelined the true calamity still in progress across the Middle East and North Africa

After years of protracted silence on the exponential influx of asylum seekers across the Southern EU, in recent weeks the Western media suddenly and inexplicably decided to shift its focus to the subject of mass immigration, which it had previously always regarded as secondary to the truly critical global issues, like the Soviet Resurgence in Russia, the prodigality of the Greeks and the brutal, cold-blooded murder of Cecil the Lion.

Of course it comes as no surprise that virtually every single major newspaper and broadcast meted out to the public has now all but sidelined the true calamity still in progress across the Middle East and North Africa, of which the situation now facing Europe was only the most predictable of consequences.

No doubt, they are quite happy to downplay the horrors going on a safe distance from their shores (and a stone’s throw away from ours) since it was they themselves who so relentlessly spurred on public support for two illegal wars and a host of mad interventions during the Arab Spring.

Make no mistake about it: Malta is equally to blame for all of this. The scale of our contribution is irrelevant.

The media is, has been and always will be an institution subsidised by crooked billionaires to endorse power-crazed politicians, and ever since the events of 9/11, it is they who roused the storm which has now returned to haunt their patrons.

We, like everyone else, quite readily bought into the hype, as we so ignorantly continue to do. Now, having fostered the creation of a failed state right on our doorstep, we continue to marvel at how more and more immigrants risk their lives every year to reach our shores!

The chickens have come home to roost, and all this a result of our misguided support of a country 5,000 miles away, with two oceans on either side, and no immediate concern of an aftermath.

Meanwhile, we are witnessing a new unflattering side to the nations which Europhile liberals desperately held up as the beacon of all social, moral and political progress. Waves of anti-immigration protests across Germany and a surge in support for National Front in France are among the highlights of the frenzy which has now consumed the continent.

It appears our northern cousins can no longer ignore the problem which they so magnanimously withstood when it was restricted to the south.

After a decade of neglect supplemented by occasional reproach, I suppose irony is the last silver lining to be found in all this. At the very least we can take pride in the fact that we’ve dealt with this crisis for much longer and with much more decorum than they so far have. All we can do now is accept the consequences of our political alignments.

There is no solution, but there are lessons to be learned. First: war is a dirty business. Be very cynical of any proposal which contravenes our constitutional neutrality.

A bit more cynicism about our second set of leaders in Brussels might not be entirely amiss. And above all: don’t believe the hype.

Jonathan Tonna is a lawyer and writer.

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