The Peace Laboratory in Ħal Far has marked 50 years since the assassination of Martin Luther King with a call for integration and social justice.

Peace Laboratory director Fr Dionysius Mintoff said that while Dr King’s name was associated with the civil rights struggle in America, his goals resonated with the challenges faced by Europe today.

“More than the issues relating to skin colour, King was also in favour of social justice where the common good was shared. He knew that you cannot have integration without real social justice. In fact, the day he was assassinated, he had been participating in an initiative with striking road workers,” Fr Mintoff said.

We are witnessing the rise of the extreme right throughout Europe

“Unfortunately, there are people in Malta and in Europe who think they can have integration without social justice. Work to promote one sector without the other will result in a total failure of either goal. We are witnessing the rise of the extreme right throughout Europe because of this failure,” he remarked.

Fr Mintoff said Dr King had also recognised there could be no integration or social justice without peace,

He noted Malta’s constitutional commitment to “actively seeking peace, security and social progress among nations” as a neutral country and called for Malta to continue to support and augment this “noble ideology”.