So Ġanni Borg was attacked and injured in a shady quarter. Fortunately, a good-hearted van driver rushed him to hospital. The police stopped the van. This was a van not a licensed ambulance, they said, and injured people could be legally transported only in ambulances. Besides, one of its lights was not working.
The police told the driver to stop driving his van. He told the police that the passenger needed urgent medical attention. The police retorted that the law is the law. They ordered the driver to take the wounded person back to the place where he was injured and leave him there.
Not fully happy with their actions the police decided to go the extra mile. It was decreed that unauthorised vans carrying wounded people would not be allowed access to hospitals even though authorities did not have enough ambulances to save people’s lives.
What would happen to Ġanni Borg if the driver complied? Should not lives be saved even if there is no licensed ambulance? Any reasonable person would describe the authorities as heartless and cruel.
Now apply the same reasoning to the decision of the leaders of the European Union – including our government – about migrants.
A group of human persons (I feel I have to remind some people that migrants are human) escaped from Libya where many of them were exploited, beaten, robbed and some raped or sold into slavery. Their boat was sinking. Another boat picked them up. The authorities ordered the captain to take the immigrants back to the Libyan coastguards. They would then take them back to the same hell where they were beaten, robbed, exploited, etc, etc.
And to add insult to injury the captain of the ship is now facing our courts because it is alleged that his ship was licensed as a pleasure boat and not as a salvage ship. To make matters worse and assure that more people drown in the Mediterranean, our government decided to close our harbours to NGO-operated ships.
Grotesque to say the least.
One must acknowledge though that, among this legalised barbarity, Magistrate Joe Mifsud showed wisdom and humanity when he allowed Claus-Peter Reisch, the captain of Lifeline, to go and visit his 92-year-old mother. The Office of the Attorney General petitioned the court to refuse the captain’s request.
The Attorney General’s wholehearted dedication to the respect for laws covering ship licences came only a few hours before the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (the Attorney General is the chair of the governing board) was lambasted by the European Banking Authority for breaching the requirements of a directive on the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing.
One cannot be a Christian and at the same time hate immigrants
If you save lives without a proper licence, the Attorney General will fall on you like a ton of bricks. But he does not show the same expediency if you are Pilatus Bank, a money laundering outlet. Disgusting, isn’t it?
Our bishops have shown strong and courageous leadership throughout. They publicly endorsed NGOs asking the government to change its decision banning NGOs from Malta’s harbours as this decision means more people drowning. Both bishops emphasised that Malta needed help but equally emphasised that this lack of help cannot justify inhumane behaviour.
Bishop Mario Grech did not mince his words. In a homily delivered last Sunday, he described as scandalous and shameful the EU’s attitude which led countries – including Malta – to take action against NGOs working in the sector. He described what is happening as a criminal attitude which he compared to the deportation of Jews under the Nazis. It is difficult to find harsher words to adequately describe what is happening.
Last Tuesday I interviewed Bishop Grech for Newsbook.com.mt. He did not only criticise the authorities and society at large. He also criticised the Catholic community. One cannot be a Christian and at the same time hate immigrants. The Church, through the Emigrants Commission and the Jesuit Refugee Services, is doing a lot. But have parishes and individuals responded adequately, for example, to the appeal of Pope Francis that each parish should adopt a family of migrants?
Archbishop Scicluna tweeted his endorsement of the NGOs’ position while on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Just a day or so after his return he addressed the subject during a homily delivered on the feast of St Bernard, one of Europe’s patron saints. After lauding the Benedictine precept of hospitality, Scicluna said it was both shameful and unchristian to close our shores, airports or airspace to those in need.
Recently, Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas, faced by the negative attitude of the Trump administration to migrants, said: “We can be a nation of laws without being a nation without compassion,” and protested against what he described as the hardening of the American heart.
It is very unfortunate that the same words can also be applied to our government and to our country.
joseph.borg@um.edu.mt