The lamp beside the golden door*

Being shocked is not one of the emotions that I am frequently seized by. So when it happens, it is fairly unforgettable.

Some time ago I was listening to a radio programme about irregular immigration to Malta. A woman phoned in and agitatedly said: “Don’t you know that they are coming to Malta to convert us to Islam.”

The presenter tried to calm her down and her agitation gave way to hysteria. Finally, he managed to get a word in and pointed out that a number of these immigrants are Christians, but it was to no avail. In the caller’s vision of things the dehydrated men, the pregnant women and the hungry children are the valiant front line of a great Muslim onslaught on Europe. We may have won the Great Siege and saved Europe in the sixteenth century but now we are rapidly on the way to losing our religion. And that viewpoint is worrying.

What worries me more is that some hold the belief that the Muslims have concocted a plan to convert Europe to Islam and that Malta is part of that plan. This ridiculous idea holds currency with a number of members of the Charismatic movement who spread it around with ‘Christian’ generosity. Incredible but true.

Every boat that lands irregular immigrants in Malta – and they are nowtoo frequent for comfort – generates, gives birth to and spreads fear. Those who do not fear the loss of their religion, fear their daughters’ loss of virtue, their jobs, known or unknown diseases or their neighbourhood’s identity. Fear is the name of the game. Fear spreads like wildfire and tends to beget more and more unpleasant emotions and perhaps, unwarranted actions.

In this, it seems, we are not alone.

What do Europe and Iraq have in common?

Europe and Iraq were ranked among the 10 "worst places for refugees" in the 2008 World Refugee Survey for policies such as "warehousing" refugees for decades or for forcing them back to dangerous situations in their homelands (vide www.refugees.org/survey ). “Warehousing” is another term for “detention”. The other members of the top ten are Bangladesh, China, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Sudan, Russia and Thailand.

The survey prepared by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants was released on June the 19^th during press conferences in Washington and in twenty other cities around the world the same day. It singled out Europe for policies that "make it as difficult as possible to enter" that continent's territory.

Countries on the periphery of Europe had the harshest policies, it said, and some forcibly return asylum seekers to dangerous conditions.

There are more than 14 million refugees and asylum seekers worldwide.

Lavinia Limon, president of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, was quoted by CNS as saying that an estimated 8.5 million refugees are "warehoused" or being restricted for five years or more in camps or other segregated housing with limited rights and restricted access to education and jobs.

Malta has been frequently criticised for the handling of irregular immigrants but this time we were not mentioned.

Living with refugees

Right after the first Gulf War tens of thousands of Iraqis, mainly Catholics, fleed their homeland. Several hundreds came to Malta. I myself met a radio transmitter engineer whom I had employed at RTK.

It was illegal but I did it in full conscience. Man’s law not to employ without a work permit is intended to protect workers from exploitation. As such, it is consistent with God’s law to help others. By giving a decent wage and conditions to Jusouf I felt that I had respected the spirit of both.

Jusouf and I became friends and in 1996 two of his wife’s siblings managed to come to Malta where they lived-with me-for a few months. Now they are settled in Canada.

Why am I sharing this story? In the first paragraphs of this blog I referred to fear. This self defence mechanism thrives upon what we do not know.

I believe that the barriers created by fear may start to fall if more and more occasions are created during which Maltese people meet and familiarise themselves with these irregular immigrants. I don’t want to sound simplistic.

I know that this is not the solution to the problem. If there is one I am sure that it will turn out to be much more complex. I am not taking a holistic approach either, nor a structural one. I am just making a proposal that will possibly help us understand these people more , their problems, hopes, anxieties and joys. I am proposing something that can help us come to terms with the fragility of their condition, as well as ours…….

Whenever we cut others out and seek refuge within ourselves it is we who become the refugees, fugitives from our own humanity.

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* Vide “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, a poem inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty. The stanza reads: "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she with silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"