Monday’s Black Lives Matter demonstration in Valletta was a “turning point” and a “fantastic sign of progress” as young people turned up in their hundreds to join a fresh and global cry for racial equality.

“We are ready for change,” said activist Yana Mintoff from the NGO Alliance for Justice, Equality and Peace.

“We have lived with African people here in Malta for over 20 years and now we know how much they contribute.

“We are seeing people, especially young people, stand up against narrow-minded people and the macho mentality and say: we are all people. This is a fantastic sign of progress.”

Yana Mintoff: ‘We are ready for change’.

Maria Pisani, from human rights NGO Integra Foundation, agreed.

“Having been involved in so many similar events over the past couple of decades, it was  clear to me that Monday was a turning point. The young people present turned up in their hundreds, they represent a strong and growing voice, their perspectives grounded in the present, and in the future,” she said.

We’re seeing people stand up against narrow-minded people and the macho mentality- Yana Mintoff

Pisani said their voices represent the values and strongly-held beliefs of contemporary youth living within a particular local context, but very much linked to the global perspective.

“They clearly articulate their visions for the future, they are non-partisan, they are politicised and mobilised,” added Pisani, who is also a lecturer at the University of Malta’s Department of Youth and Community Studies.

On Monday, some 300 people joined a demonstration in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, which started in the US following the police killing of unarmed black man George Floyd.

His death sparked peaceful demonstrations around the world. In Valletta on Monday, dozens voiced support for racial equality and called for justice for Lassana Cisse, a black man who was killed in 2019 in what police say was a racially-motivated murder. 

Another, smaller group of self-styled ‘patriots’ held a counter protest in the same spot in Valletta, calling out anti-migrant chants, including “this is my country not yours”.

Commenting about this, Pisani said: “Monday wasn’t about the ‘patriots’. They exercised their right to disagree, but were very much in the minority.

“I believe they express a very insular perspective that has less and less relevance within the local and global realities that we live in today. The sit-in was very, very much about the Black Lives Matter in Malta movement, part of a global movement that, in Malta, has very much been led by young people of diverse backgrounds, Maltese and migrants, coming together to take a strong position.”