Last week, the think tank Żminijietna-Voice of the Left tore into the “populist rhetoric” of “certain Maltese politicians”. As reported, Żminijietna said that it was wrong to blame foreign workers for Malta’s troubles; rather, the emphasis ought to be on protecting these workers from exploitation by rogue employers.

I strongly agree that foreigners should not collectively be blamed for Malta’s troubles, whatever those troubles might be. Nor is there any question that the exploitation of any kind of workers is morally wrong. It’s on the populism bit that I think Żminijietna are misguided and off course.

It’s obvious who the people at the think tank had in mind. The names of the “certain Maltese politicians” are Adrian and Delia. Delia has established himself as a vociferous critic of government’s pro-migrant-worker policy. His main argument is that economic growth is being achieved through demographic buccaneering, and that the social and cultural consequences will be unnice.

I suppose Delia is casting about for some sort of vertebrate and sustained cause that will lend the Nationalist Party lift. He will have noticed that anti-migrant rhetoric has of late paid dividends in a number of political contexts. If talk of migrants from ‘shithole countries’ could earn support for a serial-groping buffoon in one of the world’s biggest democracies, there’s no reason why milder language won’t do the same to a respectable and fairly likeable guy in one of the world’s smallest. 

The scale of Delia’s task means that he is routinely prone to over-egging things. Two weeks ago he warned us that we could be looking at a catastrophic situation in which Maltese schoolchildren would be taught by Bangladeshi teachers.

I’m guessing that Delia’s erudition doesn’t extend to the Bangladeshi diaspora, and Bengali culture more broadly. Two of my closest friends at University were Bangladeshis. One was a string theorist and the other a development scientist, and each had legions of cousins who worked at some of the world’s most prestigious institutions. I should consider myself lucky if my son were taught by one of them.

My main point, however, is elsewhere. It’s interesting that Adrian Delia has become synonymous with populism, and the Prime Minister with its opposite. As recently as 2013, Żminijietna were dissing one Joseph Muscat for his populist rhetoric and policies on migration. One has to wonder what in Damascus is going on.

Delia has established himself as a vociferous critic of government’s pro-migrant-worker policy

The clue is in the word itself. This column is no place for an extended discussion of what populism means. Let’s just say that, at least as used in the case at hand, it means someone who panders to people’s baser instincts for political advantage. Xenophobia is supposedly one of those instincts, which makes politicians who tap into anti-migrant feeling populist.

The rubbish about Bangladeshi teachers aside, what’s happening here is not that simple or straightforward. First, it is not necessarily people’s baser instincts that make them resist the influx of foreigners (or any people for that matter, but domestic migration is largely inconsequential in Malta).

Take St Paul’s Bay. Statistics published last week show that it is now the town with the highest population in the country. Between 2015 and 2018, the population grew by almost 7,000. That’s 26 per cent, in three years.

I’m not suggesting that that’s necessarily a bad thing, or that we should spend our spare time throwing stones at Bangladeshis. In fact, my impression is that the town is managing rather well as far as relations between people are concerned. But it’s not necessarily a base instinct to complain about the constant queues at the bank, the impossibility of getting on a bus, and so on.

Rather, it’s simply a case of resources stretched to the limit. When Delia says that migration should be better managed, and when he doesn’t take that to mean that there are too many dark faces around, he’s right. The same has been said of tourist numbers by Tony Zahra of the MHRA, and that doesn’t make him a populist.

Still, it would be wrong to completely exonerate Delia. I suggest we classify him as an episodic populist who speaks good demographic sense some of the time and pure xenophobia on occasion. The question is where that leaves the other guy.

There’s a word which seems to be an antonym of populism, and which the Prime Minister loves to bandy about. Cosmopolitanism sounds fantastic, especially if you happen to be addressing a business breakfast, blockchain power lunch, or suchlike. Political scientists associate it with Immanuel Kant, except in this case I’d use a ‘C’ instead of a ‘K’.

The Prime Minister’s argument is that many more migrant workers are needed to keep up the pace of economic growth. He seems to regard migrants as so much growth fodder. Never mind the environmental pressures and rent profiteering, or that there are holes in Marsa that used to be stables but are now bursting with migrants desperate for a place where to sleep. As long as the numbers fuel growth, they’re welcome.

Hardly surprising, because his government’s main (some would say only) saving grace is that it lets people ‘idawru lira’ (‘make a buck’) by means fair or foul. Muscat needs migrants, and plenty of them, because they sustain his politics. He also knows that people are less likely to worry about private jets, or Konrad Mizzi’s €92 in Panama, if they can rent out a room to a Polish plumber for €350 a month.

Muscat, then, is running a State-sponsored migration industry that helps keep the many happy enough, the few very happy indeed, and all mouths shut. He says that makes him a consummate cosmopolite, but it seems to me he’s just another kind of populist.

mafalzon@hotmail.com

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece