It’s been a surreal Christmas full of unease, shrouded in thinly veiled fear, wrapped in a big, red bow. If you reach out, you can just about touch the edges of dread with your fingertips. It’s like a child just being told that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. It’s the cold, hard realisation that this season of artificial snow and glitter doesn’t make everything better, even when you need it to.

These past few days have seen hundreds of families having to spend the supposedly most wonderful time of the year apart and while, so far, mine has been mostly lucky, I can’t help but feel for the dozens of people I know who are separated from their parents, children and significant others. As days have passed and the numbers have gotten grimmer, uncertainty over our futures has become once again palpable.

You really start to understand why people would still go out dancing in the middle of an air raid during the war. Sometimes, the thirst for normalcy becomes just too great. The only thing we can do to help our individual causes is get vaccinated and boosted so that when we do inevitably contract this nightmare virus, the symptoms will not steamroll over us and our loved ones and send us to hospital or an early grave.

I know that many would beg to differ but, at least at this point, we have a vaccine. There was something else darkening the air though this Christmas, something that we sadly can’t vaccinate against: rampant racism.

Sadly we can’t vaccinate against rampant racism- Anna Marie Galea

Just a few days ago, Ahmed Diriye had an accident at the place he was working at and was taken to hospital where his identity was not disclosed for reasons still unknown. Not knowing what had befallen him, he was reported missing first by his brother-in-law and then by his flatmates and friends.

In the meantime, the police issued a missing person’s notice only to find out that Ahmed had succumbed to his injuries and died. It would be a harrowing enough tale if it ended there but, instead, scores of people felt that it was prudent to showcase their disgusting views on other human beings in full view of everyone else on social media.

Instead of directing their disgust towards an industry that thrives off the backs of the unseen like in some postmodern remake of The Ten Commandments, these people decided that what really mattered was this man’s colour. The jokes (and I use this word as loosely as possible) at his expense were horrific.

A man you don’t know has tragically died and, instead of questioning the circumstances of his untimely demise or perhaps collecting money for him to have a decent burial, you use derogatory phrases about colour and you shamelessly state that, according to you, “all black people look the same”.

The ignorance is astounding, the nonchalance with which comments were delivered an insult to our supposedly fair and just society. I would say that I was shocked but all I feel is anger and great displeasure at having to share the internet and a passport with such cruel people.

Two years after this pandemic has ravaged our societies and our economies, it would have been nice to see that, in the absence of everything else, we have at least used this opportunity to develop our empathy but it seems like this too is not to be.

Here’s to a better year than the one we have had – we truly need it.