Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1544913
MARIO De Marco showed all and sundry what good poli- tics is about when he denounced hate and racism directed towards Labour candidate Omar Rababah. "What is wrong should be called wrong, always," he told Nationalist supporters in his swan song that brought down the curtain on his parliamentary career. It was one of those rare moments when a politician's words were devoid of rhetoric, cut across the spectrum and actually meant something. It was a gesture of sol- idarity and also a moment of reckoning for those who opted for silence because Rababah is an opponent or be- cause they feared similar backlash. De Marco's words may appear obvious but in a high- ly-charged political environment it is very easy to get carried away by the baying crowd. De Marco showed us that there is a different path—one where if something is wrong it remains wrong whoever is doing it. This is the courage we would like politicians to display across the political divide. The flak Rababah received was not about his ideas, his policies or personal beliefs. The flak he received was from people who were blinded by the fact that he is Mus- lim. And the opprobrium directed towards Rababah was racist because it sought to stop him from even contest- ing the general election despite having all the necessary credentials to do so; it sought to disenfranchise Muslims from actively participating in the workings of Malta's democracy. This is what was racist about the backlash Rababah received. Had he been advocating for the introduction of sha- ria law or the imposition of strict Muslim dress codes for women or for the disenfranchisement of the LGB- TIQ community, we would understand the backlash; we would have been strongly critical ourselves. But the objection was largely based on the belief that it is unacceptable to have a Muslim member of parliament. Apart from being anti-constitutional it is utter hogwash and fundamentally racist. This leader welcomes the fact that Rababah found the courage to submit his nomination for the coming elec- tion with the Labour Party. We hope that he finds the necessary support from fellow politicians, even those who do not agree with his choice of political party. And this leads us to the other pearl of wisdom shared by De Marco during Monday's speech in Valletta. He stressed the importance of respect among politicians. "If we do not respect each other, how can we respect peo- ple?" he said, adding that politicians should "attack the argument and not the person." Politics is an arena where ideas are debated, sometimes calmly, many a times harshly. It is an arena where peo- ple are expected to clash over different values, different points of view, different proposals. But doing so respect- fully should be key. Unfortunately, this is increasingly not the case. And if it is not politicians who descend into vitriolic exchanges, it is their supporters, who feel em- powered to do so because the party they support is either absent or is giving them mixed messages. One such instance is how the political parties view foreign workers. On the one hand, foreign workers are deemed essential to the economy, especially certain sec- tors where their absence would literally jam the system. But on the flip side, foreign workers are spoken about as if they are second class citizens. It was ironic for the PL to make hay about its super bonus proposal by emphasising the fact that the five- year residency clause will exclude some 100,000 foreign workers from the workings. If foreign workers are here legally, paying national in- surance and taxes, they should benefit from work-relat- ed incentives like any other workers. Why treat them like second-class workers? Worse still, why emphasise the exclusion above all else? The answers are simple. Being tough with foreigners and denying them their rights goes down well among many people, even though the super bonus exclusion is being put forward by the same party that opened the floodgates for foreign workers with little or no controls. But equally abhorrent is the manner by which Nation- alist MEP Peter Agius tried to posit foreigners as the problem for Malta's ills. He suggested that because they pay national insurance, foreign workers are entitled to free hospital care, leaving Maltese nationals "who have been paying for 20 years or more" to wait in the queue. What does he expect; foreigners should not be treat- ed in hospital if they are sick because it is the exclusive domain of Maltese nationals? If anything, it is not the foreigners who are to blame for the queues but the lack of forward thinking by the government to plan for a big- ger hospital. Unfortunately, Agius's arguments are not debating the additional pressure caused by population growth and the lax controls that characterised the first decade of a Labour government. No, Agius's arguments are purely xenophobic. They are arguments that pit foreign work- ers against their Maltese counterparts in a dangerous narrative of "us versus them". And all for the sake of scoring cheap political points. Mario, Omar and the foreigner rhetoric maltatoday MaltaToday, MediaToday Co. Ltd, Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 MANAGING EDITOR: SAVIOUR BALZAN EXECUTIVE EDITOR: KURT SANSONE DEPUTY PRINT EDITOR: LAURA CALLEJA Tel: (356) 21 382741-3, 21 382745-6 Website: www.maltatoday.com.mt E-mail: dailynews@mediatoday.com.mt 11 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 13 MAY 2026 EDITORIAL