Like many small countries, Malta has always suffered from xenophobia: an intense fear or even dislike of foreign people. This can, perhaps, be excused – though never condoned – by our history of centuries of occupation by a succession of foreign powers.
Xenophobia is prevalent today. But racism in Malta is a fairly recent phenomenon, which is in the ascendant.
Racism is a deep-seated prejudice or animosity against people who belong to other races. It is the belief that people of different race and colour have different qualities and abilities and that some races are inherently superior or inferior.
Science has proved, however, that racism has no intellectual substance. And history has shown (Nazism in Germany and Apartheid in South Africa) that it should have no place in civilised society. Yet racism’s biological unreality has not prevented it from having a thriving political life in Malta today. Evidence mounts that racism in Malta is a growing problem and is rife across all spectrums of society. One example is the significant increase in the number of votes for the risible but racist and anti-semitic Norman Lowell of Imperium Europa in the European elections three months ago. Another is the equally laughable but now notorious case of the priest, Fr David Muscat, who has spoken approvingly of the seed planted by Imperium Europa.
The alleged racist killing in a cowardly drive-by shooting incident of an Ivorian man, Lassana Cisse, and the attack of two other migrants in May by two soldiers are symptomatic of the previously unheard of racist depths to which some elements in Malta are prepared to sink. The unacceptable racist comments on social media – or even the day-to-day conversation among individuals, including supposedly educated middle class people – are indicative of the concern that racism is becoming a shameless mainstream feature of Maltese life.
It is about time that politicians, the Church, our schools and educators, the media and all people of goodwill called it out for what it is – an unwelcome and thoroughly discredited, socially unacceptable concept and mode of behaviour.
Both latent and explicit racism in our treatment of mainly sub-Saharan Africans or North Africans who have been given asylum or protected status in Malta must be stamped out. Malta’s discourse, whether consciously or unconsciously, is leading to an inexcusable form of racial apartheid.
The government – supported from the pulpit by the Church – and the media and leading employer groups and institutions must instigate a publicity campaign to drive home the message that modern Malta will not tolerate any forms of racism. Hate speech on social media should be crushed. Prosecutions of individuals posting blatantly racist comments on social media or twitter should be instituted. It is not enough to turn a blind eye to racist discourse. It’s about time people speak up.
The government’s efforts at integration must be redoubled. The increasing presence of black people and people of different backgrounds in our society is now a fact of life.
If the government, all political parties, the Church and opinion-formers fail to take steps to clamp down on racism, we shall simply be storing up problems for society in the years ahead.
As much as some of us fail to see the writing on the wall ‒ racism is veering out of control and must be expunged by all the means available to a democracy.