Malta’s shoreline was facing two sets of visitors on opposite sides over the Easter weekend. On the landside, families gathered on beaches to enjoy the holiday weather and escape life under the Covid-19 restrictions. On the waterside, families were huddled together on boats to seek a second chance and escape life under the misery of conflict.
Although not inherently linked, the two situations are quickly morphing into a single entanglement that threatens to drag the country into a mighty mess. With the coronavirus emergency in the background, migrant crossings have suddenly become a hundred times more delicate to manage.
The issues involved are complex and tricky, and decisions by authorities, whichever way they go, carry huge implications. The government insists that Malta does not have the resources to cope with rescue operations while it grapples with a flourishing outbreak. National priorities aside, authorities are also watching the wider regional picture carefully especially following Italy’s initiative to block its ports.
Decision-makers will find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place as they withstand the heat of a significant number of civil organisations calling for the immediate rescue of stranded migrants while doing their best not to signal a free-for-all to ruthless traffickers operating in the Mediterranean.
And if the situation was not already difficult enough, authorities now have to contend with a new stream of xenophobic and outright racist rhetoric, too.
The coronavirus has made one thing absolutely clear: that the threats of nature do not discriminate between ethnicities or languages or ranks. We must not allow the serious problems pressing on two fronts to degenerate into a righteous scuffle over diverging notions of identity and personhood.
The disease poses an enormous threat to our short and long-term wellbeing, but that does not mean that we are justified in turning our backs on people in distress. The parents, daughters and sons aboard those very boats fled circumstances so desperate that they were ready to put their lives at the mercy of the waves. By now, they will have concluded that it is easier to navigate the open sea than a closed heart.
We have often said that the coronavirus crisis is bringing out the best in us – our solidarity, our compassion, our humanity.
The fate of the persons pleading for our help will determine whether we will have spoken too soon.
Jesmond Saliba
