Waltzing Matilda and other shenanigans...part 1

With all the opinions and xenophobia coming out of everyone’s mouth, it’s quite obvious that some of us have a problem with anyone who so much as blows their nose in a different way than we do.

Let me take you back in time for a minute - between 1946 and 1996 over 30,000 Maltese left Malta for England, and many many more thousands went to Australia, Canada and the US. I can just imagine Katarin, it-tifla ta’ Censu l-pupletku, getting off the ship onto Elis island, her face discreetly hidden under a scarf, with a rosary bead in one hand and a ‘domna’ hanging from her neck. She’s followed closely by her husband Grezju ta’ Nuna, who is carrying more than his body weight in Hobz Biz-Zejt, and 6.5 noisy children in tow. And now, so many years later and in an ironic turn of events, thousands of immigrants are hitting our shores on a daily basis.

I do not want to go into the merits of how this is straining our already depleted economy, or on how it’s increasing the stress on our military forces and over stretching our health centres. I do not want to get into all this because low and behold there are enough people with enough inane opinions for all of us. The only thing that I would like to point out is that the world is made up of migrants! As far as we know, the human race emerged out of Africa, so theoretically it’s only the Africans who can claim their land by right. And yet, they are the ones who find the strongest opposition to move into other parts of the world because apparently it does not belong to them.

Those who come up with daft suggestions like letting them drown, or sending them back on their waves on their small rickety boats, might be talking out of ignorance, or out of fear of the unknown, but even politicians like Hilary Clinton come up with absurdities sometimes. If it were left up to good ol’ Hilary she’d build a ‘Smart Wall’ at the Mexican border. This would be a 2000 mile virtual wall equipped with infrared cameras, military airplanes and radar scanners that would catch all those trying to sneak into the US.

Like most, she does not care that the American race is made up of migrants and that the Mexicans have been on their continent for hundreds of years before the Anglos. All I can say about Hilary’s ‘Smart Wall’ is that this woman couldn’t even keep track of Bill in the White House let alone half a million migrants who make it through the border every year! But the alternative would be building a real concrete or brick wall, but even she knows that trying to build a 2000 miles long wall without the help of the Mexicans would be a farce!

Not a day goes by that I don’t hear people haranguing about how ‘these boat people will take over’ and how ‘they do not respect our laws and traditions’ and how ‘something needs to be done about them, not excluding letting them drown or sending them back to their countries’. But surprisingly, on the same ‘zuntier’ that I hear these arguments being drummed up, no one seems to be worried about the Russian pole dancers, the catalogue wives or the blonde prostitutes hailing from the North. Likewise, no one is worried about the many Asian restaurateurs who buy out Maltese businesses and only employ people from their country.

Clearly, the formula to become an accepted migrant is simple – less pigment and more cash. When these two elements are in your pocket you need not abide by anyone’s traditions to be accepted. This is the way of the world which is fine by me, but please, save me the bull, and simply admit that our problem with the migrants has nothing to do with anything else but money.

I know it’s hard to come to terms with because our Christian guilt drums up all other types of ‘acceptable’ reasons to resist the influx of immigrants, but it all boils down to cash really. We’re happy living in our villas and small palaces, eating three meals a day and not having to look over our shoulders because our country is at peace. We’re happy knowing that our children are safe at school and that their building is not at risk of being bombed.

We’re happy even though we know that others, who are equally entitled to a decent life, don’t even have a roof over their heads. As I said, this is the way of the world, this is human nature, and though I can’t say that there isn’t anything wrong with it, there’s something tediously worse with not admitting it!