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18 maltatoday EXECUTIVE EDITOR Matthew Vella MANAGING EDITOR Saviour Balzan Letters to the Editor, MaltaToday, Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 E-mail: dailynews@mediatoday.com.mt Letters must be concise, no pen names accepted, include full name and address maltatoday | SUNDAY • 22 JULY 2018 20 July 2008 Mob outside minister's home The president of the Federation of Public Transport Associations, Victor Spiteri, was lead- ing the mob of around 60 drivers who gathered outside Transport Minister Austin Gatt's house on the first night of the strike last week, MaltaTo- day can reveal. In a sequence of video stills published exclu- sively today by this newspaper, the man who ordered the four-day transport strike paralysing the islands is seen walking towards the minister's house at the height of the conflict in what is a clear attempt of intimidation. Taken from a bank's CCTV opposite Gatt's house on the night between last Monday and Tuesday, the video shows Spiteri ahead of a mob of drivers looking at the minister's door in Republic Street, Valletta. Ironically, the incident prompted the minister to send a letter of protest to none other than Spiteri himself on Tuesday morning, unaware of the latter's presence. Gatt only got to see the CCTV footage on Thursday – the day he reached an agreement with Spiteri. "I was asleep and remained asleep as I have met this kind of people many a time in politics," Gatt wrote to Spiteri. "But my family is something else, so I am requesting you to tell all the Federation officials that I am holding them personally re- sponsible for the behaviour of their members." Although the demonstrators stopped short of stirring trouble in front of the minister's house, Spiteri's surprise appearance sheds serious doubt around his condemnation of the violence that ensued last week in the streets. "I strongly condemn any acts of violence," he reiterated in an interview with MaltaToday, held on Thursday, the last day of the strike. "I am not violent… I regret that there are members who are violent. I wish that things improve." Calls made on Spiteri's phone yesterday proved futile. Scenes of smashed windscreens, harassed coach drivers and terrorised foreign students made headlines last week, as the country grap- pled with blockaded main roads and hot-headed protestors. Gatt expressed his surprise upon learning Spiteri was leading the mob. "I absolutely had no idea (that Spiteri was leading them) when I sent the letter (to Spiteri)," the minister told MaltaTo- day when interviewed Friday. "I saw the footage for the first time yesterday (Thursday). It was a great surprise to see Victor there. He was the last person I was expecting to be there." In the footage, Spiteri is seen at 2:27am followed by men walking opposite Gatt's private residence, staring defiantly at the minister's door until he gets out of the frame. He is seemingly unaware that he is being filmed on his own side of the street by the Lombard Bank CCTV, as at one point he covers his face when he notices another security camera opposite the road operated by HSBC. MaltaToday 10 years ago Quote of the Week Scapegoating of Africans must stop THIS week's incident involving a far-right Lega mayor of a small provincial Tuscan town came to illustrate the inevitable limits of the far- right's populist and anti-immigrant policy. Cascina mayor, Susanna Ceccardi, prompted outrage with a video she filmed outside Castille place last Thursday: "Walking around this is- land's streets, you won't see one migrant," she claims. "I've been here one day now and people here tell me you won't see any migrants, simply because Europe has emptied the barrel of mi- gration onto Italy..." It is ironic that, while online Maltese com- ment-boards are often replete with xenophobic commentary on migrants, the ignorance of the Lega mayor infuriated the usual commentators, who were eager to remind Ceccardi that Malta has assumed its responsibility for migrants and asylum seekers. Ultimately, they are right to point out the flaw in Ceccardi's reasoning. One day spent walking around Valletta will surely not illus- trate the extent to which Malta's demographics have changed over the last decade. The mayor's claims that 'there are no migrants in Malta' is in itself an absurdity, easily dispelled by any seri- ous study into Malta's current population. The irony, however, is that Ceccardi and Malta's anti-immigration lobby both share the same perception of migration in general: both are motivated by the same impulse... which can simply be described as wanting to contain im- migration from Africa to within Africa itself. What the Cascini mayor's statement (and lo- cal reactions to it) made apparent is that the far right is not willing to show solidarity even among its own adherents. Shaping the dis- course on both fronts is a desire to scapegoat others: having already scapegoated migrants through terms such as 'clandestini' – in both Italian and Maltese – the two countries are now in the process of blaming each other: either for not taking in migrants, or for trying to push the flow of migration in each other's direction. In this respect, Ceccardi was not speaking in a vacuum. All the pronouncements from the Italian government to date are premised by an unwillingness to show solidarity amongst EU member states, an attitude that endangers the European consensus and undermines any will- ingness to forge ahead with a common asylum policy. Another irony is that, while Italy locks horns with Malta over the fate of migrants rescued at sea, other European countries are similarly closing their own borders, leaving the frontier states to cope with the issue alone. In all such countries, the right's answer to immigration forces a downward push against border nations like Italy and Malta: the ascendance of the AfD in Germany, Sebastain Kurtz in Austria, and the Lega in Italy, seem only interested in pushing migrants out to the Mediterranean – a short- sighted policy that only punishes frontier mem- ber states. From this perspective it could be argued that the problems we associate with migra- tion are just as much the product of a political climate that is hostile towards migration, as the logistical challenges involved. Malta's ex- perience with migration has not been without its benefits: a 2016 study by the Central Bank revealed that the proportion of foreign work- ers in the labour force had risen from 1.3% in 2000 to 10.1% in 2014... and has increased exponentially ever since. Entire sectors of the economy now depend to a degree on imported labour – construction, tourism and hospitality, infrastructure, agriculture, etc. – and the Malta Developers' Association recently argued that Malta will need more migration, not less, in the years to come. What is strange is how, even at a time of eco- nomic prosperity, the xenophobic right remains on the warpath. Even the two main political parties are unable to clearly enunciate a coher- ent defence of asylum and migration: Opposi- tion leader Adrian Delia's pronouncements suggest he is in favour of unspecified limits and that he backs the forcible docking of rescue NGOs; Joseph Muscat recently told unions that 'an influx of foreign workers is not only inevi- table but necessary for Malta to maintain cur- rent economic growth levels'; and that 'foreign workers were indispensable for [national] pro- jects'. Yet it is Muscat's own government that has stopped NGOs from rescuing lives at sea. Nor has either party taken a clear stand against the unbridled xenophobia that has gripped national (and international) discourse on immigration. A recent Patrijotti Maltin upload claimed that 'the wind of change' is in their favour, as 'both political parties now agree with their position'. It would be interest- ing to hear what the Nationalist and Labour Parties have to say, about being ideologically equated with an extreme rightwing political grouping. Ultimately, however, what is most intolerable is the scapegoating of migrants and Africans. In a country that is overcoming economic and infrastructural challenges, fighting poverty and improving social solidarity, welcoming mi- grants should be the enduring example of Mal- tese exceptionalism – it should be an extension of the strong social bonds that make up Maltese society. This country cannot keep treating foreign labour as simply a source of cheap labour or rental income, without expecting that our 'guest-workers' can become active citizens in the oft-touted cosmopolitan Malta. Without humanitarianism, Labour's 'cosmopolitan' is- land will, in the end, turn into an empty shell with a thin veneer of prosperity, but nothing more. Editorial "In our country nobody ever takes any form of political responsibility. The government justifies everything…" Opposition leader Adrian Delia