Several micro-steps have been sketched out so far. As of henceforth I shall make the assumption that those mentioned thus-far will have been heeded so as to pave the way for future micro-steps. I shall ignore the fact that the reality is such that little if any of the thoughts encapsulated within them have been heeded and as I delve into the realm of fiction I can only hope that the powers that be have the interests of the Islands at heart as they plod on into the territories of the grey marshes. Yes, sadly the following is not reflective of the reality.

The government has finally grown aware of the impending and dark future that unabated mass immigration is set to plunge the Maltese Islands into. They have finally recalled their oaths taken as well as where their responsibilities primarily lie – the people whose grudged trust and vote they gained through brook and through crook. The government has finally declared illegal immigration to be a major crisis facing the Islands and pledge to actually treat the issue as such in future.

It is fast and yet belatedly realized that it would not only be practically impossible for the Islands to attempt to resolve the issue alone but it is also realized that any such solitary attempt would most likely be seen in a very negative light in the eyes of international observers looking in from their perch far away. Thus diplomats become busy at work both North and South, West and East of the Islands, steadily and tirelessly bringing about conditions more favourable to any continuation onto the next stage.

Our MEPs actively work to place pressure upon the European Parliament so as to treat the issue as not only one for what some members may perceive as ‘periphery buffer states’, but to treat it as an issue for Europe as a whole. Further dignitaries head to Spain, Italy and Greece and a further delegation heads to Libya to initiate precursory discourse while the other dignitaries liaise to determine a common front and goal in more intensive talks with Morocco, Libya and Egypt respectively.

In their evaluation of the history of mass migration worldwide the partners conclude that, unlike that which was true for the past both in the Mediterranean and south of the United States, there can be no two ways of going about matters. In subsequent dealings with their southern counterparts they are cordial and forthright, stating in no uncertain terms that boatloads of illegal immigrants will no longer be accepted by the respective nation states and that any such vessels or individuals shall be turned away at the earliest possible opportunity.

In the ensuing weeks the Maltese Islands and her partners west, north and east experience a number of difficult situations and decisions but remain true to their word. Over a hundred boats carrying migrants are intercepted by patrol boats conducting a 24 hour watch of our respective naval borders. The boats are invariably turned back. Boats with insufficient provisions and fuel are reasonably resupplied for their southward return, Boats unfit to carry the numbers aboard are supplemented by refurbished boats of previous intercepted vehicles stocked on land, including the substitution of such vessels if need be. Dozens of migrants are held temporarily for treatment at sea and even a couple of babies are born in a vessel suitably equipped to enable medical procedures to be carried out at sea. Such cases are kept upon the waves for several weeks before also being sent back. A boat of drowned immigrants takes hold of the headlines worldwide.

These were weeks when pro-immigration and human rights groups took to the streets to air their discontent and disapproval of the major shift in foreign policy. These are the weeks when protests both peaceful and not so peaceful erupt amongst various quarters. The thousands of illegal migrants already within the Maltese Islands also react in a variety of ways, more peaceful but some more violently so. These are the weeks when even the European Union uses words of consternation in spite of the best efforts of our MEPs to maintain calm upon the level of European Parliament.

However after those initial weeks of turbulence something interesting starts to take place. The number of boats intercepted begin to dwindle sharply and a month later days go by without a single boat in sight. Back in North Africa the news travels fast as would-be immigrants return to the shores of their country of departure and air their discontent both with their traffickers as well as with their friends and families, and fewer and fewer individuals are willing to pay good money to a trafficker on a hope that he or she knows is false, seeing everybody else has been turned around, even that one boat that managed to make it to shore.

The carrot is no longer there and so few, if any, hazard the journey. Crossing the Mediterranean is thus made infeasible by the same governments who now proceed to reinforce and expand upon their contacts within the nations of their southern counterparts. After all, this is only the beginning.

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!