Posts Tagged “malta”

As the boats continue to land upon our shores and the tally of individuals illegally entering the country surpasses a thousand-strong, eyes are increasingly cast towards the Nationalist government for some kind of a solution.

On the part of the Maltese authorities we have seen an incredible degree of reticent passivity in terms of the measures that they put into motion in the past half-decade. Even Nautilus has been admitted to ‘not be a solution’ for the Maltese situation. Not only have we seen immigrants’ boats brought to our shores from dozens-to-hundreds of miles away, and immigrants themselves detained for lengthy periods of time, but we have also heard much talk of integrating such immigrants into Maltese society.

As such I feel that it is important to point out the differences that there exist between a legal immigrant and an illegal immigrant, especially as it appears that some do not seem to be sufficiently aware that any appreciable difference exists.

The first difference to make note of, and probably the most crucial, is that it is reasonably possible to regulate and to demographically plan for a sustainable society where legal immigration is concerned while it is not possible to do likewise where illegal immigration is concerned. This may initially seem unimportant but if one were to consider the economic sphere of any given economy is only able to provide a specific standard of living for a specific number of individuals then it stands to reason that any increase or decrease in population will inversely effect the overall average standard of living. Any significant unplanned influx of a net-benefactor population would consequently also vie for the resources of the present economic sphere and therefore result in significant detraction to the existing population in terms of their standard of living. So important is this first difference that all others fall to the levels of trivia.

While there is no hard rule to suggest that an illegal immigrant necessarily fits within the category of net-benefactor, there is no denying that the pool of illegal immigrants within the Maltese Islands do, siphoning tens-to-hundreds of thousands of Euros towards their upkeep. The reverse is more or less true of legal immigrants. True, a legal immigrant could end up on welfare, just as any local individual could, but this is about as significant an exception as a net-contributory illegal immigrant is within their respective contexts.

While it would be politically correct to state that there is no racial connection between legal immigration and illegal immigration, the reality of the situation demands otherwise. African blacks and African Arabs almost exclusively makes up boat immigration while Asians and Eastern-Europeans make up the bulk of individuals who arrive on a valid temporary visa and allow it to expire, remaining here and hence becoming illegal immigrants of a sort about which too little information exists to be certain of. Beyond the racial realities lie geopolitical realities, where disparities within the reality of the grand scheme of things lead to mass illegal migratory trends. One of the factors that cannot be too lightly stated is the fact that freedom of movement is not uniform from around the Mediterranean basin. It is also clear that even if legal avenues were easily accessible from the southern rim, it is highly unlikely that Malta would have approved even 5% of those who arrived via illegal means.

Does this make all the talk of legality and illegality null and void? I would think not. If anything it further highlights that there is a need for inadequacies in present policies to be recognized and for alterations to be made in the name of improving our survival chances through adaptation to our circumstances.

A spokesperson for the EU border security agency Frontex has stated that Nautilus is not the solution to Malta’s illegal immigration. The general feeling gotten is that it is Libya that is to blame for the failure of Frontex to solve the problem. This spokesperson then went on to compare Nautilus with the sister project Hera in the vicinity of the Canary Islands and how relative success was achieved there thanks in no small part to the cooperative efforts of Senegal and Mauritania.

This may indeed be the case and Libya may very well not be cooperating with Nautilus but there is a fundamental question that nobody in Europe seems to be asking. Why should Libya bear the weight in responsibility for the mass illegal migration from an entire continent? Is this truly a productive or constructive attitude towards solving the problem or is it merely provoking the very same stonewalling that Libya is accused of?

Libya is every bit as much of a victim in this matter as Malta is and likewise has every bit as much of an interest in solving the problem of illegal immigration from their own perspective. Libya unofficially has some control over the flow of illegal migrants from its shores; it is almost unfathomable to imagine it being any other way considering the highly engineered flow of immigrant, waxing and waning to conveniently cater for political events.

However how different is this strategy from the concept of “burden sharing” brought up in the run-up to the previous election? It may sound good on paper and I am pretty sure that Josie Muscat had done his homework on the matter (which compares favourably to the Nationalist’s non-plan of action in both its previous term and its current term in government) but I feel that there remain a number of logical flaws, some of which are pungently, if effectively, highlighted through comparison to Libya’s own brand of “burden sharing”.

Returning to Libya as a topic, let us attempt to identify its relationship to the issue at hand, illegal immigration, and classify it accordingly. Firstly Libya is not a source country but a country of transit, just as some people claim that Malta is. Secondly Libya is criticized for its treatment of African immigrants within its borders – it is not a picture of harmony. Therefore to attempt to ‘solve’ illegal immigration from a purely pan-European perspective would be an exercise in futility as too many essential pieces of the puzzle are disregarded.

We will get absolutely nowhere if we continue regarding our closest southern neighbour with this degree of suspicion and disregard to their own interests. Once we successfully adjust our egotistically-geared nationalistic perspectives to more communitarian-geared nationalistic perspectives, where benefit within a neighbouring nation is deemed a positive not only to that nation but to one’s own nation, especially if prominent in its adjacency, then I feel that we would have taken a second crucial step to solving the illegal immigration issue.

Well it is painfully clear who took the last election with a little help of media deceit (withholding information and offering an incomplete picture is a form of deceit), propaganda and the legal texts crafted and amended by… ‘drum rolls’ those who took the last election. What was the previous year a restrained flow has now amplified and, with the Summer being such a favourable time of year for travel, the Maltese Islands are seeing dozens to one or two hundreds of illegal immigrants on a daily basis.

It looks like we may very well be setting a record in illegal immigrants received this year. Perhaps we should apply to Guinness for the dubious honour of ‘record illegal immigrants retained per capita in the World’ and also for the equally dubious honour of ‘record amount in welfare paid to the upkeep of illegal immigrants per capita’. Indeed together anything is possible when it comes to scraping the bottom of the barrel in ludicrousity. Do we truly plan on waiting for another five years to demand our votes back?

It is also very annoying that certain quarters are keen to play the mythologically sharpened ‘race card’ against practically any and all who would find this situation completely unacceptable. Perhaps this is why so few remain who dare to express their thoughts and concerns on the matter. Vilification within what has been emerging as a bureaucratic police state (a state where the police and mechanics of law are deemed required to retain absolute control over the populace) could have had something to do with that. After all this country has the dubious honour of sentencing a person to two years imprisonment suspended for four years, plus a significant fine, for expressing his thoughts and concerns and anger on the situation (oh yes and for “insulting ‘His Excellency the President of Malta’”).

Well illegal immigration is a major problem in Malta. I would say that it trumps and dwarfs the utilities surcharge & the rise in fuel prices combined (not to mention others) as it is ongoing, escalating and exacerbating. Furthermore the mushrooming population of illegal immigrants represent similarly mushrooming costs and the money has to come from somewhere.

But before any talk of solutions can begin, the issue has to be recognized to be the problem that it is. As Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi relatively recently and indirectly sputtered out, and as Norman Lowell had incessantly claimed before himself and Josie Muscat and practically all other individuals calling themselves politicians (including myself) the problem of illegal immigration could be likened to an ‘invasion’. So let us start to perceive it as the national crisis that it is!

This is the third segment in a three-part series recalling different facets of the Bulgarian crisis back in 2007. Focus shall finally placed upon evaluating Malta’s role, supposed and actual, in this crisis as well as the reflections that should be made following the conclusion of this saga.

Throughout the Bulgarian saga the diplomatic machinery of the Maltese Islands remained idle. Hardly any prominence was given to this heated controversy which had been unfolding mere hundreds of kilometres south of our shores. This while six persons, five of them citizens of the European Union, were struggled over through all legal and diplomatic channels in order to spare them a fate of death by firing squad within the North African nation of Libya. Very little pressure, if any at all, came from the Maltese Islands and this, in the opinion of myself, would have been a tarnishing stain upon our name had the crisis not been resolved and the lives of the medics been lost.

There are undoubtedly a number of arguments that support Malta’s actions, or lack thereof, throughout the crisis. One could say that it was not the responsibility of the Maltese to enter into diplomatic haggling over individuals who were not Maltese citizens. After all, we are to be loyal to our own. One could also say that Malta was in no position to throw its weight around on the issue, placed hundreds of kilometres north of Libya’s shores and exposed as a military target. After all, it is unwise to talk the talk if one is unable to walk the walk, to bastardize some contemporary pop culture.

However Malta’s non-action has thrown it in a negative light very unfitting of its rich past. Ever since Malta’s entry into the European Union in 2003 it officially became the closest EU member nation (Lampedusa is a colony) to Libya’s shores. While the ‘not our problem’ mentality may have been passable prior to 2003 it no longer remained the case following entry. Upon entry the Maltese Islands became a crucial strategic position for asserting pressure during the crisis and yet the Maltese authorities failed to do so with little more than the odd cursory minimalistic comment passed within parliament on the matter, weakly whispering a hope for a positive resolution. And this remained true even when the last in the legal appeals were exhausted.

Strangely it had to be non-government sources to recognize and act upon their ethical and circumstantial responsibility in the crisis, such as Moviment Graffiti earlier on and individuals supposedly from the opposite end of the political spectrum at the 11th hour.

A more legitimate concern was that of repercussions upon the Maltese for speaking up during the crisis – but such would have been a very unflattering reason for the Islands to remain silent. Indeed one might suggest that non-action was an act both in disowning the efforts of our forefathers in their efforts to uphold their virtues in the face of hostilities as well as denying our grandchildren something to feel proud of within this age where pride is spoken of in the past tense.

A final possibility is that the Maltese authorities secretly believed that the medics were guilty and that they deserved the death penalty. The absolute truth of the machinery at play may never be confirmed with full clarity but in the meantime the Maltese effected by this third instalment can take heart in the fact that no blood was spilled to their inaction. It is my hope that we as a nation will know better in future and not be afraid to actively offer our voice to such dilemmas that may yet unfold.