There is no inborn characteristic that makes a group of people “genetically” racist. Rather it is certain official discourse that “invites” and “permits” racism, according to anthropologist David Zammit.
Zammit was commenting on the rise in racism over the last couple of weeks, particularly against asylum seekers arriving by sea and those being held at the Ħal Far open centre.
In using the COVID-19 pandemic as a justification for not observing international obligations, such as rescuing people in Malta’s search and rescue zone, Zammit said the authorities “were practically inviting people to spring to its defence.”
On Saturday, Alfred Grixti, the CEO of the Foundation for Social Welfare, called for NGO rescue boats to be impounded and sunk, prompting a number of racist comments on his post, and sparking calls for his resignation.
Xarabank host Peppi Azzopardi’s offer to open his house to stranded migrants also fuelled a barrage of racism with people accusing him of being unpatriotic, emasculated and crazy to take “those from Ħal Far”.
However, the tendency to blame this outpour on the ‘racist Maltese’ takes responsibility away from the state, Zammit explained.
“Once you conjure up this ‘racist population’ which is liable to react in an extreme manner, you’re also letting government off the hook,” he said.
“What we have learnt from anthropology is that one shouldn’t talk about racism as if it were a cultural or genetic characteristic of a particular people but it needs to be situated in relation to other discourses which are more apparently neutral and not racist but which nevertheless leave many gaps. These gaps are then filled by extreme racist commentary.”
One of the ways in which this whole issue of racism needs to be tackled, he continued, is addressing the way the government legitimises its own actions.
Zammit also said that the people at Ħal Far were being treated much more as if they are the source of the epidemic even though they were victims themselves.
Searching for a scapegoat in order to symbolically clean the community and unite it in fighting off the threat is a recurrent pattern during pandemics of this kind, he explained.