It has been a very long time since most countries repealed laws and abolished practices that allowed or institutionalised racism, making it punishable by law. Yet, it is all too clear that in many of these countries there is to this day a strong residue of racism that lingers deep in the hearts and minds of many women and men.
Even though very few of these people come out as racists, going to great lengths and pains to deny that they are so, they speak, and sometimes act, like racists. Though virtually dead as a political creed, racism is unfortunately very much alive as an emotion.
Before this year, strong net migration to Malta had seen the number of foreign children here doubling over the previous five scholastic years, constituting about 10 per cent of the school age population. Since Malta, like all the countries that signed and ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, is duty-bound to provide services and protect foreign children as its own, the Office of the Commissioner for Children became aware of the importance of looking into the impact of the children’s presence on the local institutions and services primarily accessed by children.
In 2019, the Office published ‘Passage to Malta’, a study it had commissioned from the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health at the University of Malta to shed light on how foreign children residing in Malta are faring in terms of their health and well-being, and on the attitudes of Maltese children towards them.
While the study showed that most foreign children were coping well with the challenges that resettlement in a foreign country inevitably poses, it also revealed that a sizeable minority of Maltese children expressed a certain ill-feeling towards children of African or Middle Eastern origin while feeling much more at ease with foreign Western Caucasian children in their midst. The study also lays bare the reality of bullying, including racial bullying, suffered by foreign children living and attending school in Malta.
These findings are a wake-up call for us to realise just how deep-rooted and precocious the racist sentiment is in our society. In response to the findings, the authors of the study, Cefai et al., make several recommendations, including a more even distribution of foreign children in schools across Malta; a sharper focus on the value and benefits of interculturalism in school curricula; and the creation of shared communal spaces to bring different children together.
In short, the study clearly points to the need for schools and communities in Malta to be transformed from places where racism is allowed to take root and fester, to places where Maltese and foreign children and families, including those with different racial characteristics, mingle and enrich one another socially and culturally in the process. (The full text of the study can be downloaded from the Office’s website www.tfal.org.mt.)
Days before the study was launched, Malta was shaken to its core by news of the racial killing of Lassana Cisse, a Somali immigrant in Malta, by two members of the country’s Armed Forces. A year on from this senseless and despicable act, another episode of racial violence in the tragic killing in the US of the Afro-American man George Floyd again brought to light another yet more disturbing aspect of racism in the 21st century.
In fomenting racial hatred we would be doing a great disservice to our nation and to the values of human dignity and equality which it embodies- Pauline Miceli
Racism is not confined to the hearts and minds of women and men, occasionally and more or less harmfully manifesting in their speech and actions. It can trickle up to the highest echelons of power, causing people in positions of authority to foment racism by practising it or by ignoring it or underestimating its influence.
Despite having a history of racist deeds, the police officer Derek Chauvin was able to rise the ranks and to manhandle Floyd to death. One can say as much about the racist tendencies of the two young Maltese men accused of murdering Cisse, which tendencies should not have gone unnoticed or dismissed by those who raised them to the rank of soldier.
We can draw an important lesson from these sad events to the way we are managing irregular migration in Malta. While it is true that the phenomenon is straining our country’s resources and that help from our international partners is lacking, our leaders need to be wary of how their decisions on the fate of black irregular immigrants are interpreted by the local population, including our children.
Certain policies adopted in the national interest but which may compromise the well-being of immigrants can convey the wrong message and instigate hate speech and racial antagonism.
The message being shouted out by protesters in the US and elsewhere, namely that black lives matter as much and not less than others, resonates well with our local scenario.
In fomenting racial hatred, even if unintentionally, we would be doing a great disservice to our nation and to the values of human dignity and equality which it embodies. As adults in positions of authority, we owe it to children, who look up to us as models to be followed, and who are especially receptive to the messages overtly and covertly conveyed by our actions and words, to make sure this does not happen.
Pauline Miceli is Commissioner for Children.