Irregular immigration and Turkey have at least two things in common. First, both subjects seem to appeal rather a lot to Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando.That’s because of the second shared characteristic.

People like Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando insist on seeing tangible flying saucers manned by consistently-green aliens- Mark Anthony Falzon

Both have to do with a notion of Europe generally and the EU specifically as a type of fortress, built to defend its borders and their precious contents against all comers.

The metaphor is not mine: A few months before enlargement in 2004, then-Secretary General of the UN Kofi Annan told listening MEPs that the policy of “fortress Europe” was “dehumanising” migrants and in some cases leading to their deaths.

I don’t really care about Pullicino Orlando’s liberal credentials, or lack of them. But it doesn’t surprise me that the MP, who has in the past talked tough about immigration, should now be manhandling Turks for not being “culturally European”.

The EU is preached on a holy trinity of rights, unity, and inclusiveness. Which, madly enough, seems to be one small step away from its obverse, i.e. the negation of rights, difference, and exclusivity.

Put simply, it appears to be quite easy to think of the EU as some sort of members-only exclusive club. Non-members who try to sneak in can expect to be detained in a big cage for up to 18 months. On a good day they might get away with being called “not culturally European”.

I think there’s a good reason for this tendency to lapse. It’s called ‘nationalism’, on which it’s worth quoting anthropologist Keith Hart at some length: “Nationalism is racism without the pretension to being as systematic or global... National consciousness, built on territorial segmentation and regulation of movement across borders, justifies the unfair treatment of non-citizens and makes people blind to the common interests of humanity.”

I share Hart’s antipathy toward nationalism. Enough reason for me to look for an antidote, of which the EU looks like a prime example. Only most of the time, for Pullicino Orlando as well as very many others, it turns out to be anything but.

I don’t think it’s entirely fair to blame ‘the EU’ for this. In fact I’d say the EU rather tends to avoid borrowing the easy cultural and/or geographical language of nation-states too liberally. One of its enduring slogans of the EU is ‘unity in diversity’, for example. It has also been pointed out, by Marc Abélès (another anthropologist he) among others, that rituals and symbols of identification have tended not to be taken terribly seriously at the top.

On geography and territory, Abélès puts it as follows: “The majority of the member states prefer to keep a margin of indeterminacy. For example, currently they will not admit Turkey as part of Europe, but they are not closing the door.” Incidentally this was written in 2004, when enlargement also meant an island south of Tunis whose people spoke a Semitic-based language.

Fair’s fair. It really wouldn’t do to indulge in a round of aimless bashing and blame all the tacit nationalism on the EU. Although there has been a certain amount of culture-mongering since 2004, the main noises coming from Brussels have been economic and legal-political. Turkey is, after all, in the process of negotiating membership. Which means that to understand Pullicino Orlando-type lapses one must look elsewhere. I would suggest two places for starters. First, it seems to me that the EU is very often locally sold, lived, and resisted in nationalist terms.

Sold: The main argument used by the Nationalist Party and the broader pro-EU camp before the referendum was that membership would make Malta a better place and open doors for the Maltese. The ongoing wisdom is that it has. We are told we have better roads, cleaner air, and more goodies all round, all thanks to Brussels’ benevolence.

Lived: Let’s say that the various Kinnie-and-Twistees ‘Malta days’ are so much harmless fun. That still leaves us gloating over the fact that Maltese is an official EU language, and happy that our MEPs – as they see fit constantly to remind us – lose sleep over how to do their bit for Malta.

Resisted: The ‘partnership’ plan was based on the premise that membership would make Malta a worse place and expose the Maltese to unfair competition. (Remember those dastardly Trojans, the pasticceri siciliani and their cannoli?) What little resistance remains is usually couched in terms of Maltese values and indigenous culture that have gone to the dogs, the ongoing erosion of national sovereignty, and so on.

Second, there seem to be a certain slippage of terms between ‘supra-’ and ‘super-national’. The first is one of the things that the EU likes to call itself. It has a triple attraction. It implies scale, hierarchy (as in ‘something above the nation’), and – perhaps most importantly – transcendence. The last evokes sexy images of globalisation and modernity, of minds freed from the petty intrigues of nations. It also makes the EU project intrinsically futuristic.

Problem is that many seem to mistake it for ‘super-nationalism’. That is to say, they simply take the old nationalist model and – wittingly or not – apply it wholesale to the EU. Thus the fixation with border controls, Christian roots, and such.

Partly the reason for this is the EU’s own reluctance to take up the question of statehood. Jacques Delors was not too far from a blasé raised eyebrow when he said that the EU is “un objet politique non identifié” (an ‘unidentified political object’).

I can actually see where all the foot-stamping about migrants and Turkey is coming from. Delors’s wit is quite wasted onpeople like, for example, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando. They insist instead on seeing tangible flying saucers manned by consistently- green aliens. We can assume these last lot are culturally pure.

mafalzon@hotmail.com