You are guests in this country. The court is being faced with too many instances of this kind. If you want to fight (among) yourselves, then go somewhere else.”

This was no gem from that purveyor of xenophobic silliness that is vivamalta.com, but a ‘warning to migrants’ issued by Magistrate Antonio Micallef Trigona during proceedings over fights that allegedly involved Somalians (as reported in The Times, October 7).

If the long list of comments posted online below the article is to be given any attention, the learned magistrate is Malta’s latest hero. “Feeling the pulse of the majority of Maltese”, “carried out his duty magisterially” (geddit? – wit courtesy of ‘Dr Mark A. Sammut’), “God bless you Hon. (sic) Trigona”, “let us give him gih (sic) ir-repubblika”, “Trigona for President”, they swooned, stopping just short of canonisation.

I trust online comments are not really ‘the people’s voice’, but rather the rants of a particular and uncommon personality type. Most people I know (and I live in no rarefied circles) would never dream of spending their evenings screaming misspelled invective at people who walk daily from Marsa to heaven knows where in search of an underpaid day’s work.

I’m one of many who were shocked at Micallef Trigona’s comments, for at least four reasons. First, such sweeping statements (‘warning to migrants’, as reported) are just that, and willy nilly end up tarring immigrants, or at least Somalians, with the same brush. Most Somalian immigrants I’ve come across have no time for fights and trouble, and are much more interested in saving enough money to build some sort of decent future for themselves and their families back home.

Second, the comments jar with the ideal of justice blindfolded. I’m not sure it’s right to think of people in the dock as Somalians, or immigrants – just as it would be wrong to think of them as Catholics, Nationalists, Cottonera people, or such. It would probably be fairer to consider them as individuals who are accused of breaking the law. Group identities and their imagined implications are completely out of place in court.

Since I don’t wish to find myself standing before one of his colleagues, I must emphasise I am not saying or implying that Micallef Trigona’s work is discriminative. I’m absolutely positive he draws a clear distinction between his sentencing and his colourful epilogues. To ignoramuses like myself reading the papers, however, the two appear hard to separate – and that’s a confusion we can scarcely afford if we are to retain our belief in an impartial justice.

Third, a magistrate may hold high office that deserves our respect, but they are in no position to issue ‘warnings to migrants’. As far as I know, a magistrate’s brief does not extend to immigration policy. They have a right to tell people ‘behave or else’, but that ‘or else’ does not include being asked to leave the country. As far as a magistrate is concerned, Somalians live in Malta because they have a right to do so.

Fourth, I find it worrying that Micallef Trigona should describe Somalian immigrants as ‘guests’. The word implies two things: First, temporariness, as in a visit or an event. Second, leisure – a guest is usually someone you invite, who could stay at home watching telly, but who chooses instead to spend a leisurely evening at your place.

It’s absolutely fine to call, say, tourists, ‘guests’. In the circumstances, however, the word is both a banalisation of the dynamics of Somalian immigration to Malta, and downright cruel and insensitive. It’s not as if Somalians could choose to pop down the Mogadishu riviera but opt instead for a weekend break in Malta. Migration, as the learned magistrate must know, is serious business that involves people taking risks in search of long-term life projects.

If anything, Somalians are probably the last people on earth one could shrug off as ‘guests’. Their country happens to be probably the most dangerous place in the world, and there’s little leisure in leaving it. Nor is there much pleasure in the trip north.

With respect to temporariness, I wish I could say how accurate an attribution it is. We don’t really know how long immigrants intend to stay here (or there ... or there). The Somalians I’ve spoken to all said they would go back if their country became a ‘normal’ place. We know that’s not going to happen any time soon and, until it happens, we must find ways of living together.

So, given the long-term nature of the process, it’s most insensitive to condemn immigrants to being ‘guests’ for the rest of their lives here, or elsewhere.

It’s also counter-productive. By definition guests are not at home (we usually tell them to ‘feel at home’, precisely because they aren’t). The good guest will not march into the kitchen and help himself to what’s in the fridge. On the contrary, he will act in a way that shows he knows his place.

With real guests, this is as it should be. With immigrants, however, it will lead to further marginalisation and alienation from society at large. And, as any half-decent criminologist will tell you, the end result will be more and more knife fights. In other words, if the learned magistrate persists in calling Somalians ‘guests’, and treating them as such, he can expect a bigger workload.

On their part, the online-comment ‘posters’ can expect bagfuls of fun at their jumbled keyboards. With our courts providing such cheap kicks, who needs a life?

mafalzon@hotmail.com