I remember when I was younger, sitting on the bus home from Paceville, somebody spat on my friend for speaking English. When I asked him to apologise to my friend, he kicked me in the face and proceeded to pull chunks of my hair out until his friends pulled him off.

I find it extremely unfortunate that politicians often jump at every excuse to inspire hatred and division, especially against people in my position, so as to score political points.  If I am sick of one thing it is to be demonised for the sin of having been born and raised with English as my first language. Having spent many years in Germany as a child did not help, either, and made it more necessary to focus on one language over the other abroad.

Speaking of ‘elites’, growing up in Germany, where being darker skinned than the average kid, I was frequently mocked for being a foreigner and a Turk by other five-, six- and seven-year-olds and then once even having urine thrown at me and being called a dog. Am I elite? I feel that the Malta Tagħna Ikoll movement was not meant to include people in my position. Malta was for everyone, they said, but it was never for me, according to them. I have had to fight for every inch of ground. And now our roots are being demolished, too, to make way for shiny Americanised flats and skyscrapers.

No thanks. All I ever wanted was the right to live in peace, and I am willing to sweat blood for that peace and feeling of connection. St  Andrew’s farm in Swieqi is today iconic of my struggle – it was the view I was born with, which I enjoyed from our maisonette. It is the most nostalgic place in the world for me. An oasis in a sea of destruction and hatred, hatred I want to end.

It is no use talking about a cosmopolitan Malta when forces on all sides appeal to a sense of isolationism and ‘us against the world’. It is even more foolhardy to do so when not all Maltese or Gozitan citizens fit into the mainstream myth of national identity, especially while passports and citizenship are being sold.

I will continue to protect Malta’s environment, heritage and landscape, while fighting a system of clientelism which excludes everybody who does not obey and fit in.

For that, I am the true patriot, Prime Minister.