Beyond our little world of festi and scandals, the tectonic plates are moving and we are caught in the middle.
We are being squeezed by two movements, both deriving from poverty and we, despite ourselves, are in the middle, exposed to these two huge currents.
Many times we have focused on the asylum tidal wave from the South, to which I will return shortly. Today, however, I intend to focus first on what is happening in nearby Italy.
On Friday, Eurostat, which confirmed Malta as having the third lowest unemployment figure in the EU in June, also revealed that unemployment in the EU in general has remained stable when compared to May and decreased from a year ago.
But while unemployment decreased in 21 states, it remained stable in two and increased in five.
One of the countries where unemployment has risen is Italy where it rose from 12.4 per cent to 12.7 per cent. Worse, youth unemployment shot up to 44.2 per cent in Q2. A graph I have taken the liberty of including on this page shows the sheer increase from 2007 till today. In short, half of Italy’s youth are out of a job.
In a hard-hitting open letter to Prime Minister Renzi yesterday, author Roberto Saviano said the South of Italy is dying and even the Mafias are running away – to the north, outside Italy, etc.
This is something we should ponder on, considering the recent arrests of Italians in Malta who were in the online gaming industry here. It is not as if young unemployed Italians come here to serve just as waiters: there is a more sinister wave within this wave.
While Malta can in a way restrict the arrival of asylum seekers or boat people from the South, the rules of the EU prohibit any action to limit the influx of unemployed Italians coming here, as can be seen by the huge increase in Italian number plates on our roads.
At the same time, Malta is right in the middle of a huge influx of poverty-stricken people from the worst parts of Africa who make huge sacrifices, undertake dangerous sea crossings and are terrorized by bandits in Libya, fleeced by unscrupulous traffickers who organise the crossings and the frequent tragedies at sea.
And yet they keep coming, for the war-torn countries they come from make any inhuman alternative in Europe more than welcome.
After landing in Italy, maybe saved from the sea, they make their way to the North, slip over to France and concentrate near the British Channel where no less than 20,000 are now massed in ramshackle camps from where they besiege the trucks and lorries about to enter the Channel tunnel, try to board the trains entering the tunnel, and, in some cases, attempt to walk the whole way to enter Britain, the land of opportunity.
The British and the French police do their best to contain the flood and if possible stem the flow, but they still keep coming.
The British, egged on by the Eurosceptics among them, blame Europe – which just does not make sense because if Britain were out of the EU, the only change will be that of no French collaboration.
It is true the British have a generous social assistance net, but what these intrepid asylum seekers seem to want is not a generous dole but rather an opportunity to work (and Britain with a lax regulatory approach to job registration and the like, is highly attractive and finds in this the source of its economic growth which outperforms the rest of over-regulated EU).
In my opinion, the EU has not fully comprehended what is going on. It is true that part of this migrant flow is due to wars, such as that in Syria but in the Balkans, for instance, when the situation eased in the 1990s, many people returned home (not all), there seems little chance of the displaced Syrians going back home.
And then there is the huge flow of migrants from other war zones and from states that have disintegrated. After enduring so much hardship, even if they end up at the very bottom of the social heap in some place in Europe, a sub-proletariat, so to speak, they will hardly be inclined to go back.
All that the EU seems able to do is to bicker and argue who is to take how much from 30,000 boat people, which in reality is a minute part of the asylum flow.
Malta, I said at the beginning, is at the centre of this pincer movement of poverty flowing from the South and the North.
We would be seriously deluding ourselves if we think we can remain in our cocoon, untouched by such huge, massive, tectonic shifts. Or can we seriously consider raising the bastions around our country to stop it from being invaded by these currents. Those who succumb to populistic acclaim and propose such measures are doing a disservice to the country and its future.
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