“British Go Home” was the national call ahead of Independence in the 1950s. It was a national feeling of pride to be Maltese, to have one’s own language different from any other on earth, with its own literature and alphabet.
With the changes taking place in India, Algeria and other developing nations across the world, we too in puny Malta felt pulled along in the wave of freedom marking the end of the horrific phenomenon of colonialism.
We became independent 60 years ago. I was 16 on Independence Day in 1964 and am very proud of what our parents and our political leaders of the time achieved.
Economically weak and without any real industry to fall back upon, we had a difficult time ahead in those days. Today, some of the decisions of the late 1960s, the disastrous experiments with communism and non-alignment in the 1970s and the violence of the 1980s damaged our young republic.
The decision in the 1960s to target mass tourism as one of the pillars upon which to build our economy has proved problematic. In the first 35 years until the mid-1990s we were doing well and having a thriving construction industry and a positive job market in catering and hospitality.
But in the new century things got out of hand and different administrations let go of the discipline that British occupation had endowed our parents with. This was replaced by a laissez- faire attitude coupled with corruption, bribery and a weak police force that allowed the wild development of hotels, rental apartments, cruise liner visits and charter tourists of the worst type.
Later, with the Joseph Muscat government of 2013 onwards, all hell broke loose. A prominent journalist was assassinated and Panama accounts as well as Pakistani and Indian crooks with Azerbaijani interests working behind the scenes brought about great wealth for a few but catastrophe for many.
Imported labour from outside the EU broke the labour market and killed trade unionism. Tourist numbers was the only mantra of the ministry for tourism and numbers swelled. Now, instead of a friendly attitude towards foreigners, there is a growing xenophobia on the island as well as a strong current of racism.
We are not alone in the Mediterranean to be suffering from the rise of mass tourism. “Tourist Go Home” graffiti may soon begin to appear and protests like the ones in Mallorca may spontaneously start here too.
Protest movements in Venice, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Greece, Spain and Portugal could spread to us too because the locals are fed up, the jobs in the industry pay low salaries, making a few very rich and all the rest of us unhappy.
‘Tourist Go Home’ graffiti may soon begin to appear- John Vassallo
Our pavements and promenades are full of tables and chairs as are our piazzas and beaches. These offer alcohol and cheap food to noisy tourists disturbing entire neighbourhoods.
Overcrowding did not only happen because of mass tourism – it also came about as a result of Muscat’s silly idea to grow the population to 800,000.
We do not want low-paid working-class foreign nationals crowded into ghettoes in Gżira, St Paul’s Bay or St Julian’s. These large numbers are crowding our schools, which can no longer instruct our children in primary classes in their native language but must turn to pidgin English instead, turning Malta into a melting pot of non-culture.
It is time for industry and the government to find the right balance of foreign workers and tourists that the country needs and can handle. We are not against foreigners or tourists; only against excessive numbers of both.
What was once the land of Dun Frans, Ġużè Aquilina, Dun Karm Psaila, George Zammit and Ġorġ Pisani will soon be a no man’s land which offends the diminishing local population.
Since the locals are the only ones who can vote, it is time to wake up just like in the 1950s and 1960s when we rose up and threw out the British and to pick up the call of Tourists Go Home and Foreigners Go Home.
John Vassallo is a former ambassador to the EU.