I start thinking about the next article a day or two after the latest one has been published. This time I was thinking of going with ‘The Good, the Bad and the COVID2’.
At one point I was even considering ‘2Good, 2Bad and 1COVID’, as in we are winning this challenge but there is still much to do, etc, etc.
But then I had to agree with my long-suffering bedroom mirror that there was no way people could mistake me for Vin Diesel. The volume of flesh is there, mind you. It’s just distributed differently.
In the meantime the drama of four dinghies in the seas off Malta was unfolding. The umpteenth such drama really, and like many I expected that the gristly brinksmanship tango between the intransigence of the authorities and the outrage of civil society would shamble to some kind of resolution. I thought that this would be one of the ‘bad’ items in the article.
But then the situation started to get darker, and there was no space left for humour. The ports, we were told, were closed, so no one could go in or out. But surely that could not exclude humanitarian rescue? After all, did not Prime Minister Robert Abela personally intervene (‘personally intervene’? I really don’t like the salvatur overtones of that) to allow the disembarkation of two Maltese from a cruise ship, subject to a strict quarantine regime?
Did Abela intervene simply because they were Maltese? Let’s take a hypothetical scenario of an airplane in which the crew realise that some passengers are developing COVID-19 symptoms.
None of the passengers are Maltese. Suddenly the plane develops engine trouble – there is no time to fly to the nearest airport in Sicily. Are we saying that government would refuse to give the pilot permission for an emergency landing and let it crash into the sea, because the airport is closed?
Of course, no-one is saying that these passengers would be allowed to roam free. Strict quarantine measures would need to be taken, which might mean that these passengers would have to live in spartan conditions for a while. But that would be a small price to ensure their eventual well-being and our duty of care as a sovereign state.
And yet the government was not for turning. Prof. Charmaine Gauci was asked several times whether she agreed with the decision to block the entry of these asylum seekers. She was uncharacteristically evasive. This probably, hopefully, says less about her own personal position than about the enormous pressure she must be under to reconcile the circle of her Hippocratic oath with the square of government fiat (the Superintendent is in charge, my foot).
It was embarrassing to see Evarist Bartolo, whose personal beliefs are certainly not racist or nativist, squirming in this way
Then came the anti-NGO barrage from government ministers and their apparatchiks and trolls. Foreign Minister Evarist Bartolo first said that the NGO ship that was out saving migrants was in league with people-traffickers. But during Saviour Balzan’s show he ‘clarified’ that he had not meant that they were actually in agreement with the Libyan militia gangs. This just after stating that the migrants were not leaving Libyan shores due to the NGO ships after all, but due to the evolving instability of these gangs and their income needs.
It was embarrassing to see Bartolo, whose personal beliefs are certainly not racist or nativist, squirming in this way. He was echoed by ministers Owen Bonnici and Michael Falzon. FSWS CEO Alfred Grixti went one better. You see, Labour stalwarts say it like it is. Sink the damn ships, and to hell with ’em. Grixti now has the doubtful honour of being the first leader in the social work field to be publicly chastised and condemned by his own board and by the sector’s professional association.
And yet, in all this posturing, not one government or party stalwart deigned to mention the increasingly desperate condition of those in the four boats at sea. I could not believe that these souls would be left to die of thirst. That a mother pleading at least for the safety of her child, would be ignored. At least in Joseph Muscat’s time, such boats were afforded a basic minimum of care.
NGOs, medical practitioners, psychologists, academics, the Church and others raised their voices. Young activist Xandru Cassar tried to shame Abela into taking some action with a two-day sit-in in front of Castille. But he too was ignored, told some easy lie and patted on the back, as the migrants were dying.
Abela could take comfort in the knowledge that so many others approved of his looking away, a few days after Good Friday. After all, this is a democracy.
This despicable situation is compounded by the allegations that AFM personnel sabotaged one of the boats to impede its passage to Malta. If this is true, it confirms that Abela’s government may have the ambition to restore Malta’s tarnished reputation in the financial sector, but with respect to human rights it has gone right back to the push-back of 2013.
Shame on you, all of you. And by your actions, you have besmirched me and my family. Malta has let desperate migrants die of thirst and drown, because it chose to use COVID-19 to mask its prejudice.
That denudes us of our statehood, and reduces us to a frightened rabble.