Foreign interference

I am a Maltese national but have lived in the UK for the past 30 years. My wife and I regularly return to Malta and keep up-to-date with Maltese news and current affairs. I was somewhat nervous about holidaying in Malta this year because I was visiting with my daughter and her boyfriend. My daughter's boyfriend is of Ugandan descent and racism seems to be a big issue in Malta at the moment. I was worried that he wouldn't be made to feel welcome by the Maltese people in the same way other tourists are welcomed.

However, we were pleasantly surprised by how kind and accommodating the Maltese people were to him. He was treated with the same respect as any other guest to Malta, and we were all relieved that my daughter's boyfriend was enjoying his holiday and didn't endured any unpleasantness.

Unfortunately, this was spoilt by our last evening on the island. We were enjoying a drink outside a pizzeria bar on the Valletta Waterfront. While accompanying my daughter's boyfriend into the establishment to buy a second round of drinks and waiting to be served at the bar, we were aggressively addressed by a man wearing a chef uniform who kept asking in Italian what is it we wanted. I initially ignored this man but because he kept asking I eventually answered by telling him which drinks I wanted to order. He told the bar tender to serve us in a few minutes.

My daughter's boyfriend said he felt intimidated and I agreed that this man was hostile. Overhearing what we had said he came over and started asking what our problem was. I asked him to speak English or Maltese so that we could understand but he insisted he could only speak Italian (which is strange because he obviously understood what we had said). The man continued to shout at us.

I am not a fluent Italian speaker but I could clearly make out some derogatory swear words and racist language. We were both upset and angry by this man's attitude and an argument ensued where this man challenged me to fight, tried to evict us from the premises and, when we left, he gestured and spat at us.

We reported his behaviour to the Maltese police who investigated and discovered that this man was the owner of the bar. Unfortunately, the police could not prosecute because the only witnesses were his members of staff who (no doubt wanting to protect their jobs) denied that he had used any racist language. We could have taken this matter to court but decided against it because we were all supposed to be on vacation relaxing and there were no independent witnesses.

It is a real shame that racism does seem to be an issue in Malta.

However, our experience showed that it was not the Maltese people who were at fault but a foreigner who should know better. It is a shame that Malta's reputation and perhaps the tourist industry could suffer because of incidents like these, and I hope that attitudes change so that all tourists, regardless of their colour, are made to feel welcome by everybody on the island.