Detention is not a deterrent

In the second and final part of her contribution, Sharon Spiteri argues that the detention policy, officially touted as a deterrent, is not reaching its intended conclusion

There is another interesting twist to the policy of detention. The government and the opposition are in agreement. This concurrence is dangerous, not least because there is little debate on the matter.

"I have been, myself, a fervent supporter of the Home Affairs Minister's position on illegal immigrants. That will not change. Detention is, albeit odious, the only logical solution to be applied to those immigrants who do not qualify for refugee status under domestic and international law, more so when they cannot be repatriated on account of their reluctance to cooperate with the state," wrote Gavin Gulia, a former Justice Minister and Labour's main spokesman on home affairs. He, too, sounds inappropriately inflexible on the matter and conveniently shifts the blame on asylum seekers by branding them uncooperative.

Apart from the occasional article in the newspapers from charity organisations, most people seem to have bought the argument that detention is necessary. The few who try to make their voice heard are dismissed as misguided liberals, "outed" as people with an agenda, or even described as "self-proclaimed champions of illegal immigration". The unusual level of agreement lends orthodoxy to the policy.

When the Irish-American human rights lobbyist Anna Marie Gallagher followed UN Human Rights Commissioner Alvaro Gil-Robles to Malta and described the detention of asylum seekers as shocking, a letter-writer in The Times dismissed her as a member of the Jesuit Refugee Service coming "from a country laden with resources". He also described asylum seekers as illegal aliens and called them criminals. For the UN, he reserved the moniker "toothless watchdog".

Following the publication of Mr Gil-Robles' report on his visit to Malta in October 2003, the same letter-writer wrote of becoming a second-class citizen in his own country and finding "the possibility that illegal immigrants will be allowed to roam the country at will" perturbing.

Another letter claims "this invasion is resulting in the degeneration of our society", that "the greatest risk factor is the health hazard" and insists that the abolition of the detention of illegal immigrants is clearly against the national interest and will result in a backlash". Abolition is a telling choice of word. I dare say letters against the abolition of slavery sounded just like these.

The tone of the letters is, at best, xenophobic. I say "at best" because the tone also implies that it is the immigrants who should be treated as second-class citizens and not the rightful inhabitants of the island. The championing of asylum seekers' rights is "misplaced charity" and "naïve". That word again.

The agreement between the two main parties is symptomatic of unity in the face of the "Other" and is the closest we come to an expression of our national identity. People pick up on all the problematic assumptions surrounding any discussion of asylum seekers. Ignorance breeds prejudice and prejudice colours our view of asylum seekers and moves them squarely into the position of the "Other".

Prof. Baldacchino acknowledges that nationalism is usually the outcome of a process involving a struggle with an "Other", by which he means the manner in which individuals or groups express their identity by laying down what they are not.

For example, I am not black, therefore I must be white. That is a questionable statement but it is one of the many ways I express my identity. Just think of how we all automatically tick "white" in forms asking us to describe our ethnicity.

Our position on asylum seekers could very well be an expression of a budding national identity. The asylum seeker is the "Other", non-white, non-Catholic, non-European miskin. That makes us white, Catholic and European. That makes us Maltese and not at all imsieken like them. What is extremely perturbing is that politicians have started to propagate this discourse because it suits them, just like the right-winger Norman Lowell has polished an old argument which taps into the little racist in all of us.

There is no getting away from the crux of the matter. And that is that asylum seekers are detained because the idea that they "roam the country at will" is unthinkable. Asylum seekers are lumped together with economic migrants under the well-worn umbrella term "illegal immigrants" and there is an "absence of the will to separate" the two. For example, people from Palestine and Sudan are automatically acknowledged as "genuine" asylum seekers. And, yet, I know a Palestinian man who waited 18 months in detention for a first interview.

This is an outlook the government, if it believes so much in the elusive common good, should be trying to adjust. But, instead, here is our government telling us that if asylum seekers are put in open centres "there is no guarantee that they would leave". So that is what we want them to do: Leave. I wonder that our politicians are not ashamed to say it in public.

In Britain, the mission of the refugee councils (which, incidentally, are funded by a variety of sources including the government, the European Commission, trusts and members) is "helping refugees rebuild their lives". In Malta, it's all about encouraging them to get out by the quickest route. Our politicians have started to sound like the hated human traffickers, lamenting that we do not have land borders because "it is much easier to catch a train and cross to another country than to hire a speedboat illegally".

And then, to compound matters, if they have to stay here, we might have to let them work. "We cannot let them out of the detention centre without allowing them to work. We will not make it too easy for them to work but they will have the right. After all, if we don't they will find a way to work anyway," Dr Borg has said.

This, it pains me to say, is not any government minister. This is the Deputy Prime Minister, a lawyer by profession, who has the gall to say that a "right" can be made difficult. He then goes on to acknowledge that refugees were working illegally and "by allowing them to do so officially there was no great disruption caused in the labour market".

So what is the problem? Is it that we do not want them to work because that would give them a chance at leading a life with some dignity and without fear? Not exactly. Work would give them equal status, stop them being dependent on us and, in turn, stop us from being able to control them. We need to think that we are in control because of our fear that we may be swamped. We are afraid of the numbers and the daily reports of "More illegal immigrants brought in" do not help allay the fear of a "poisoning of culture".

Writing about EU membership in this paper in 2002, Prof. Baldacchino wrote that one of Malta's four fears was the fear of invasion. When I caught up with him and asked him to explain a little further, one of the many insightful things he said was: "There is this notion of Malta being small and therefore fragile, of our culture and language being unique, and that if we were to allow ourselves to be taken over, numerically, by these immigrants then our future is at risk...

"Of course, we keep forgetting all the time that we ourselves are immigrants, we are all descendants of immigrants in Malta but the immigrants have become settlers, the settlers natives and the natives have become rash and egoistic, and perhaps even narcissistic, in relation to second- and third-wave immigrants. This is a problem which recurs in many island states."

I am not about to blame the government for the Maltese mind-set but I do blame politicians for not rising above the baggage we carry as Maltese people and doing something to help eradicate the emerging traits of racial bigotry.

A re-examination of the education system would be a good start. Professors Carmel Borg and Peter Mayo, at the University of Malta, have suggested an anti-racist project in schools which can provide historical accounts and provoke memories of the perpetration of racist attitudes towards Maltese migrants who, together with other Mediterranean people and Asians, were often regarded by the receiving authorities as "undesirable aliens".

The government could also clean up its act and stop detaining people in breach of international human rights law. "In this Hellenic summer it is time to revive the ancient Greek notion of xenia - the offering of hospitality and protection to strangers and an obligation passed down to man by Zeus himself," wrote British Refugee Council chief executive Maeve Sherlock in The Guardian recently. It is a suggestion worth taking into account.

If the racist traits were dormant before, the arrival of asylum seekers coupled with the real fear of invasion has started to awaken them. The signs are there. But I have heard little real alarm just yet. If researchers are feeling the need to address this, why not the government?

Refugees can make a significant economic and cultural contribution to this country. We should be proud that there are people who would ask us for our protection and not so arrogant as to want to turn down anyone's cry for help.

There is little to be lost because the detention policy, officially touted as a deterrent, is obviously not reaching its intended conclusion. This is because asylum seekers do not plan to come to Malta. It is only lately that there have been murmurs that Malta might actually be a target - not by asylum seekers but by human traffickers and this despite our detention policy.

Detention is not a deterrent to asylum seekers, they are escaping a far worse fate. Neither is it a deterrent to the human traffickers. They do not care.

But we should.