IS IMMIGRATION CRUNCH TIME FAST APPROACHING – more importantly, do we stand united?
New Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Italian Internal Affairs, Matteo Salvini, has fired the first salvoes in what is likely to be a long and bitter war of actions and words on the Immigration Front.
This new Italian coalition was put together after a long internal struggle to form an Italian Government of sorts and one of the common fronts between the Lega-Cinque Stella alliance was a highly-populist platform that something must be done about the Immigration problem and the Peninsula’s invasion of refugees, escapees, etc.
In this matter, yes, there is an affinity between Italy and Malta that the limits have been exceeded and that “enough is enough” because the EU has done absolutely nothing to stem the flow except to pussy-foot about and make noises about the need for more investment in Africa to try and create employment and social welfare – factors which have been lacking in many African countries for virtually a century and which, if anything, deteriorated even further after their independence from their colonial yoke.
The EU’s “burden-sharing” edict has been a failure.
One has to have a good understanding of politics and politicians to understand and appreciate their problems. What does one do in a tricky and sticky situation?
The first step is to create distraction and of course, blame somebody else and thus ease some of the heat.
As expected, Salvini turned on Malta because he alleged “Malta is not playing its part and is not taking responsibility”. Naturally, the first step of any bully is to turn on the smallest in the bunch and take the stuffing out of them.
More significantly, and this has to be taken deeply, he said he does not intend to spend his summer worrying about “immigration problems”.
Our Government retaliated by stating none of this is true because Malta has always honoured its obligations under international conventions and has never abandoned immigration boats when they were in peril.
Right – so the first shots have been fired. What happens next?
Without doubt, Salvini and the current coalition (although coalitions in Italy usually have a very short life) will continue piling the pressure on Malta, a pressure that had already been suggested by Silvio Berlusconi at a time when he should have been in prison for Italian tax evasion but was spared because of age and directed to carry out “community work” instead.
As far as we are concerned, how is our country going to react to the pressure undoubtedly forthcoming? Will we present a united front or will there be factions who sense opportunity in making political gain regardless of whether this will harm the country and its people or not?
When some years back Prime Minister Joseph Muscat gave indications that if we are going to continue to be swamped with immigrant boats he will consider “push backs”.
Rather than supporting his stand, the PN Opposition went into saintly mode and expressed “shock and concern” and Muscat was vilified fir “showing his true colours”, for “being inhumane and cruel” and all sorts of other saintly pronouncements.
We were regaled with saintly sermons on morality about our “duty” to fellow humans to show “compassion and understanding” and a lot of other empty blah, blah.
However, Opposition Leader Dr Adrian Delia recently went into frantic mode about an “invasion of foreigners in Malta and Gozo” and how “enough is enough” and we don’t “want any more foreigners” – naturally all populist sentiments.
What will the PN position be now? Will there be a retrenchment to “humane and humanitarian moral obligations” – or will the “no more foreigners” entrenchment policy continue to be exercised?
Without doubt, interesting weeks lie ahead ...
ALBERT JEROME FENECH
