Damien Irele makes several patronising comments about the Maltese in recent comments published by Times of Malta.

He treats the people’s perception of immigrants as some sort of ‘adolescent phase’ our country is going through and claims that “no one suggested protesting against illegal migration until the ‘obvious’ arrival of black migrants”. The fact that almost 1,000 of them landed on our shores in a month seems to have escaped his notice.

He is also misinformed in blaming the poor quality of life in Africa as the same tired reason for Africans’ exodus into Europe.

“When your house is on fire do you stay in it? You run out. Don’t crucify black migrants. If your life was good back home, why would you run away from it?” This is why, he adds, “we should petition the EU and ask for help”.

Little does he know that it is the UN’s and the EU’s devastating urge to ‘do good’ that is the principal reason for Africa’s dilapidation. African economics expert James Shiktawi, in an interview in Der Spiegel (August 2005), argues that Western development policies in Africa are teaching Africans to be beggars, weakening local markets by dumping donated goods and food which push local merchants out of business, and dampening the spirit of entrepreneurship that Africans so desperately need.

AIDS epidemics are blown out of proportion and more help sought serves only to line the pockets of Africa’s corrupt politicians, who would be the only ones to be hard hit should this aid be finally stopped.

Africa is by no means poor in natural resources.

Even Charles Darwin writes that: “Since the dawn of history, the Negro has owned the continent of Africa – rich beyond the dream of poet’s fancy, crunching acres of diamonds beneath his bare black feet...”

Perhaps it is time for Africans to properly utilise their resources and stop being supplicants in countries already ravaged by recession and unemployment.