In the 2004 satirical movie, A day without a Mexican is the day when, due to the sudden disappearance of all the Latinos, the American economy grinds to a halt. This scenario was actualised in the massive one-day protests in Los Angeles in 2006. However odious comparisons may be, a transposition of this imaginary scenario in Malta can prove to be a good reflective exercise.
On waking up in the morning, the Maltese find out that all the immigrants have left the island. What a sigh of relief. Our dream of nostalgia, with a vision of a single-cultured Maltese society based on secure citizenship has at last become a reality.
In spite of the persistent waves of secularism washing over our shores and seriously challenging the predominant Catholic faith, the deep-rooted Catholic or traditional values with their accompanying norms have once more become dominant in the mainstream culture. They are now no longer threatened with being contaminated by an influx of a diverse and maybe alien culture.
Malta, with its vibrant, resilient economy and a common second language that
can be used interchangeably at the place of work, adds its allure to foreigners
As the Maltese go on in their daily life, dropping their children at school, reporting to work to make money, going to a prayer group or to a session in the gym in the evening, watching a cable-TV reality show or a soap opera late at night, this new deep level of joy and relief radiates on their faces.
Suddenly, however, they realise that the garbage bags are still lying in the street. The adverse effects on the economy caused by this sudden disappearance of a reserve army of labour become apparent. Indeed most of the work on construction sites has either slowed down or has been brought to a complete standstill.
There are no waiters at the restaurant to serve us, and some of the hard-pressed, two-income families are finding it difficult to cope with the demands of domestic work now that the Filipinos have disappeared with the rest of the immigrants.
In the meantime, the Malta Football Association has issued a notice that all the football fixtures have been postponed indefinitely, because it has been informed by all the Premier League clubs that they could not field a team of 11 fit professional players.
As the negative impact of this changing scenario starts sinking in, the initial sense of triumph and relief starts to give way to a new mindset.
In this new perspective, the immigrants plying on our shores rather than being perceived as threats to our way of living might after all be seen as benevolent economic complements to our thriving economy.
As the cracks in our life become wide open due to this sudden and wholesome departure of immigrants, a different view about the aggregate effects of immigration emerges. We start to view the immigration question in structural, economic terms rather than the cultural ones reflected in political debates and discussions on identity.
Once the new rationality becomes part of the psyche of Maltese society, the imaginary scenario comes to end, with the Maltese politicians preaching to the converted the positive elements of the diversity of cultures and of a labour market operating according to the dictates of multiculturism and the high mobility of labour in this globalised economy.
Looking beyond our shores, we are confronted with a number of European states that have become part of the changing structure of the labour market and its rescaling at a wider global level. In spite of the efforts made to control and limit the number of immigrants on the European mainland, the economies of most of the European states have come to look more like the US in their structure of the labour market.
We need neither Trump nor Farage to tell us this.
Malta, with its vibrant and resilient economy and a common second language that can be used interchangeably at the place of work, adds its allure to foreigners in search of a job on the continent of Europe.
Saviour Rizzo is a former director of the Centre for Labour Studies, University of Malta.