YOURS IS A DISGRACE

Just for the sake of explaining the title, “Yours is no Disgrace” is on the “Yes Album” issued in 1971 by, un-astoundingly, Yes. It is a title that has been shamelessly exploited by people like me, not so long ago (Nov. 19 last year) when I stood up a touch for Minister Mifsud Bonnici when he was dumped on by the motley crew of racists that infest this country for daring to suggest that racism and xenophobia should be legislated against.

This time I substitute “no” by “a”, rendering the title diametrically opposite in meaning.

It is not, however, Minister Mifsud Bonnici or the Maltese Government that has acted disgracefully on the matter of immigration. I am not being naive: there is much to criticise in the way the authorities handle illegal immigrants and many have been the critics, not least of whom Medecins sans Frontieres, who have made it clear that this is the case. We can do more and we should do more, but what we do is not deserving of the sanctimonious claptrap that is poured out by the various institutions that sit to our North, smug and comfy in the knowledge that the Southern Rim of Europe is going to have to handle the problem.

To be sure, Spain and Italy have their problems, as does, one imagines Greece (but hers are of a different hue) but there are some slight differences between Spain, Italy and Malta. That statement should be given a prize for the Most Massive Statement of the Bleedin’ Obvious of the decade.

So Italy’s refusal to give safe haven to the hundred and fifty or so illegals currently some fifty miles off its coast, on the pretext that Malta, about 110 miles away, is obliged to take them in is despicable in its inhumanity. This is a country that prides itself on being a cradle of civilisation, the source of so much that is good and noble in learning and the arts, refusing, because of its interpretation of the letter of the law, to take in human beings who are, not to put too fine a point on it, dying on the high seas.

Yes, fine, the ship is in Malta’s SAR, but there is a higher law than that which defines regions and technical obligations. It is the law of common humanity, complemented by the law of common sense: these people are way closer to Italy than they are to Malta and they need help. The law of common humanity dictates, whatever Berlusconi and his acolytes might say in their fervour to pander to the xenophobes and racists in their own midst, that they should be given this help, immediately.

Italy, complementing the above, is – just to put it mildly – larger and has more resources than Malta. In fact, Italy has so many resources that Berlusconi said “thanks, but no thanks, we don’t need your help” when it comes to taking care of the people hit by the earthquake.

As an aside, this might have sounded churlish (had it been said by the totalitarian regimes that usually make this sort of crack, it would have been churlish) were it not for the rider added by the Great Diplomat in the sense that the offered resources would be better employed elsewhere and not wasted in Italy, which has sufficient.

Being larger and better resourced than Malta, Italy is therefore by the law of common sense obliged to give the illegals the help they need. We have taken in our share and more – and will continue to take in more than our share, however much the racists and xenophobes bleat “Malta Full Up” like arrogant bus-conductors of old – but when it is someone else’s duty to take in their share, there’s no reason for us to act like Europe’s refugee camp.

This incident, to put it bluntly, characterises the European attitude to the problem, and to Malta’s role in it, perfectly.

“Malta is at the front line and it is a civilised country that will do what is expected of it, so hey, let’s let them worry about it and we can stroll off to have a crepe au chocolat and talk about the problem some more” you can imagine, without stretching your imagination too much, a Brussels mandarin remarking to another of that elegant genus on the Grand’Place, as they wend their way towards the lower end of the square.

And the other mandarin would be able, one can surmise, to riposte “Splendid notion, mon frère, I know that back in <<INSERT NORTHERN EUROPEAN CAPITAL>> they would rather like to keep those scruffy racists quiet for a bit, so we’ll let those poor buggers down South handle it. I’ll have a brune, though, it’s after lunch.”

And in the meantime, people die. I do hope Europe is proud of itself: the Lega Nord and the BNP in particular.