We tend to be a chauvinistic nation. Migrants at sea seeking a better life must be treated with the dignity they deserve.
For days, a massive international search and rescue operation took place to locate a missing deep-sea submersible. After the fifth day of intense worldwide media coverage, the Titan was reported to have imploded. All five passengers perished. Many offered their sympathy (rightly so), lauding the adventurous traits of those missing.
A few days earlier, a fishing trawler carrying 750 passengers had sunk off the coast of Greece. Over 700 unnamed people lost their lives. Sadly, there was no international search and rescue operation. The media coverage was tepid. Regrettably, many locals were not even aware it happened, even if this tragedy occurred much closer to home.
The tale of two tragedies. Two tragedies with two different reactions. One of sympathy while the other of indifference?
The five explorers were millionaires fascinated by the Titanic ordeal. The others were poor souls hoping for a brighter future. Both were fully aware of the perils involved. Nevertheless, both wanted to pursue their dreams.
Is this a classic case of two weights and two measures? Are our sympathies conditioned by gender, race, creed, financial status and/or how much media hype there is?
The core question posed is do we truly believe that all lives matter?
Although we tend to believe we are a loving, caring nation and, several times, we truly are, deep down and, maybe, without knowing and/or unable to acknowledge, we tend to be a chauvinistic nation. Our bigotry is based on fear and historical and cultural prejudices. People who have a different skin colour, lifestyle or creed can provoke a sense of insecurity.
I fully acknowledge that problems posed by the movement of people around the globe are complex and there are no clear-cut, easy solutions. What is required is nothing less than an international commitment from all stakeholders.
While due to our size limitations we cannot permanently host all those seeking refuge, neither can we actively refuse humanitarian assistance. Certainly, we should not resort to mass pushbacks as the government was accused of doing recently to 500 people in distress within our SAR zone. Although I requested the government, through a parliamentary question, to explain itself, the government refused to give any credible clarifications.
While I acknowledge and share a number of concerns of those who are preoccupied with the situation, we must bear in mind that solidarity and the well-being of each human being must remain the basis of any discussions or decisions. It is easy for one to condemn these people when one’s stomach is full.
I honestly find the attitude of some people hypocritical. While advocating (and rightly so) the rights of the unborn, they fail to grasp the affront to human dignity in the face of this tragedy. Credibility demands that we remain consistent throughout. Life is valued not only within a woman’s womb but also outside it, even when battling the waves of the Mediterranean.
Moreover, those posturing as defenders of Christendom fail to realise that Christianity’s core values are about love and inclusion. Jesus’s earliest years were spent as a refugee in Egypt to escape Herod’s retribution. St Paul, a refugee himself on our island, asserted that without love we are just a “noisy gong or a clanging cymbal”. So, using the ‘Christianity card’ is blasphemous.
While the Labour government’s policy is to ‘import people’ by the thousands to sustain an economic model based on cheap labour, the same government slyly perpetrates the ‘fear card’ that the island is being taken over. We ought to be more concerned about a number of ‘dirty fat cats’ who are overly enabled by the Labour government and are systematically treating Malta as their property.
We must then part ways with hysterical racist outbursts and prejudices and affirm that the dignity of every man and woman comes from the very essence of being a person, whatever one’s race, creed, sexual orientation, financial and educational backgrounds and abilities.
Yes, all lives matter.
(This article was published on The Sunday Times of Malta – 9 July, 2023)