During the course of any serious police investigation a key question that needs to be established is the motive for the crime concerned. The vast majority of all crimes are carried out for some reason or another. Crimes that are carried out without clear motive on the part of the perpetrators are more likely to involve a degree of insanity than not. Even in the event of a crime where no suspects have been immediately available for questioning, potential suspects may be identified through the establishment of likely potential motives.

Unfortunately it does not immediately appear that the Maltese authorities are seriously investigating the continuous flow of illegal immigrants to Malta and neighbouring landmasses. If the patterns that I perceive in the media’s reporting and lack of reporting are anything to go by then one might be forgiven for pointing out that the lion’s share of analysis ever carried out gravitating around the question of motive has typically centred around the collective motives of the illegal immigrants themselves.

Yes, we know that the vast majority of them have economic motives, in search of greener pastures, that a few are escaping famine and war; and that a few others are possibly escaping the law of their respective countries of origin. This is all well and good but such information is about as useful as health authorities asking restaurant-goers why they choose a particular fast food chain to dine at – it is of limited value in the context of determining the health impact of such a fast food chain.

More relevant questions would be levelled at the traffickers themselves and those who aid them. Why do they do it? Does any question really begin and end with the money that changes hands between trafficker and would-be immigrant? Are there no entities beyond these that bear a potential interest in aiding or perpetrating the inundation of southern members of the European Union with illegal immigrants?

After all, illegal immigrants could potentially be very useful if it were in one’s interests to destabilize the economy of a country or a region. If one were to, say, turn a blind eye to the issue, or even pay a tidy sum to others to turn a blind eye… and if one were to make it such that such illegal immigrants find it very hard to find legitimate work… and if one were to also be of a disposition to offer unofficial employment, especially if one were to have one’s hands in the pockets of key individuals to ensure that such an operation runs smoothly… then mighten one not only be an opportunist but also a criminal involved in high treason?

A fantastic hypothesis worthy of Hollywood perhaps, and perhaps also similarly lacking in concrete backing, but I would say that it is not complete hogwash and find it difficult to believe that the level of incompetence thus far exhibited by the nationalist government has been a complete coincidence, but then again I take many coincidences with a pinch of salt. Perhaps if they were to make a show and actually start up an investigation of any such avenues, then I might be able to swallow that past incompetence has, in fact, just been incompetence. Faced with a choice I would rather deal with honest incompetence than dishonest competence and I am sure that many others feel similarly.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 11:59 pm and is filed under Immigration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.