First, flights were cancelled. Soon after, like dominoes, pillars of our life shut down. Jobs were lost and with an increasingly dreary, uncertain future, demotivation reigns king.

The country came to a standstill and it wasn’t because it rained a little. In this context, students must also endure finals, adding to our mountain of stress.

Yet it’s students who at the moment are outside Parliament come rain or shine. Because in another reality, miles out at sea, there are hundreds of people in limbo in search of a life free of perpetual violence. Students are finally standing up for what we should have learnt after decades of abuses, that human rights are worth more than the paper they are written on.

Standing up for the rights of the vulnerable, irrespective of their nationality, is not treason.

Patriotism is the invisible glue that binds populations together, yet we should strive for responsible patrimony instead. Mintoff’s rallying cry still echoes today: Malta l-ewwel u qabel kollox. Should this principle be our sole guiding light? Malta should be saving lives, not sacrificing them, irrespective of their visa status or mode of arrival.

Keeping them on the Captain Morgan cruise boats, which are unfit for purpose, confers painful irony about the company’s slogan: “Unbeatable in value for money, security, safety and big fun”.

Imagine Malta welcoming St Paul, our patron saint, in the same way – saved from the wreck to be incarcerated without charge for weeks on ‘a fun tourist boat’.

For centuries, being at the centre of the Mediterranean brought heaps of responsibility along with it. Our ancestors healed the sick, because protecting the vulnerable is a duty of our Catholic faith, not to mention human rights and national laws. Being a refugee should never be considered a death sentence.

We are personally responsible for creating a better society than the one we grew up in- Kyra Fenech

We need a shift in the paradigm, to reaffirm our patrimony as the ‘Nurse of the Mediterranean’, not degenerate chauvinism. Let’s remember our nurses, currently quarantined away from their loved ones, risking their lives for others. We can cheer them on and call them heroes, but we’d do well to learn from their example.

Borders are there to protect people, not to keep out those longing for safety.

Jesus Christ was born a refugee; the Holy Family had been rejected from every inn. Throughout the New Testament, He presents Himself as the outsider and stranger seeking to be welcomed.

Today, the Catholic Church protects migrants, driven out of their home countries by force and fear. They welcome the stranger who knocks at their door begging for help. Yet being deprived of a safe haven has been happening for as long as we can remember.

In Catholic Malta, the parable of the Good Samaritan is taught widely, with the golden maxim, “love your neighbour as thyself”. It is as ironic as Captain Morgan’s slogan if we’re going to call ourselves Catholic when we aren’t ready to treat asylum seekers as human beings.

Currently, Malta is avoiding becoming the innkeeper, or the Good Samaritan, despite flaunting our Catholic heritage. Malta does not want to pay for the migrants and is refusing to let them enter the ports until they can be relocated among other member states of the European Union. These people are crammed on a handful of cruise boats out at sea and kept in merciless conditions. Malta has many immigrants entering the country and an agreement needs to be made with the EU to discuss further relocation.

That does not justify blackmailing the EU with other people’s lives.

Rescues are not only a legal obligation but also a fundamental principle of humanity. The Maltese patrol boats are engaged in refoulement, forcing those who seek help back to the dangerous conditions they fled from. Using coronavirus as an excuse, Malta tried to return the migrants to Libya’s arbitrary detention, being a slight upgrade from hell. Refusing to help those at sea was a serious breach of international human rights and maritime law.

The point is that those asylum seekers should be on dry, safe land – their sole deserving characteristic being that they are human.

We live in a country where alleged racist murderers are out on bail but peace seekers are packed into prisons for the crime of fleeing death in our seas.

It’s shocking to realise the striking truth behind Will Smith’s words: “Racism is not getting worse; it is getting filmed”, whether it was Lassana Cisse being murdered by those meant to protect us, asylum seekers treated as cattle, or in Minneapolis, being crushed to death by law enforcement.

We can rightly express our rage at the cases that make the cut but we mustn’t forget the ones that happen off camera – out of sight, out at sea.

Since Napoleon abolished slavery, Malta has ostensibly found a way to create a class of person with sub-human status. We are personally responsible for creating a better society than the one we grew up in.

Acting now, especially in a time when we have every excuse to remain silent, is a deciding moment for Malta’s future: by protesting, students today are presenting their vision for a fairer Malta.