Face to face with discrimination

When Suleiman committed suicide in the dormitory he shared with other migrants at the Marsa Open Centre, it was a wake-up call to those who witnessed it. Now, two young men dare to hope in a life that has no meaning.

Alidu Osman and Abshir Abdala are among the exiles of the modern age. They live between a lost past and a changing present. In their journey between different worlds, they are at home in none.

Their greatest fear is despair; the same kind of despair that consumed Suleiman. Coming from entirely different backgrounds in completely diverse social contexts, they have nothing in common except one goal – a future.

Their predicament is difficult to understand. It is almost impossible to imagine a life where the only certain thing is the here and now. In such a life, hope and ambition are futile. Relationships are a luxury. Even self-respect is difficult to preserve.

“I do not know who I am,” says 22-year-old Alidu, looking down towards the floor. He left Ghana five years ago, too young to know what the journey held in store for him. Instead of escaping to a future, he is now stuck in a present that never ends.

His friend Abshir even regrets leaving war-torn Somalia: “I jumped from the frying pan into the fire. I have no future here”.

“The discrimination around me makes me a prisoner of myself. I have built my own boundaries to avoid embarrassment,” says the 31-year old husband and father of two children he has not seen in over a year.

In Malta, the two men have become friends. Together they now form part of a movement for change. They have hope in the Migrants’ Network for Equality they launched earlier this month with the support of 12 local Non-Governmental Organisations and 26 University academics.

They want to be an active part of Maltese society, contributing positively to the debate on migration. Their first action was to write a letter to Justice Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici. It was signed by representatives of communities in Malta coming from Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan, Ghana, Niger, Mali, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Gambia and Sierra Leone.

In their letter, the message is simple: “While we are fully aware that life for us can never be easy, as most of us left our families and belongings back home and are now in the difficult process of starting a new life in a foreign country, we are conscious of the fact that certain factors related to policy are making our life harder and resulting in much suffering among many of us”.

They ask Dr Mifsud Bonnici to review policies on documentation, movement within the European Union, asylum procedures, discrimination, accommodation and employment.
“Maybe the Justice Minister doesn’t know the real conditions we live in. If they are brought to his attention, he can do something about it,” says Alidu, betraying an innocence even injustice could not dent.

The letter was sent almost three weeks ago. “We have not received a reply yet. Perhaps they are busy,” he adds. They have not even received an acknowledgment.

In the meantime, their message extends beyond the silent walls of the Justice Ministry. Their concerns reflect a wider problem related to rising xenophobia and racism in this place that is lovingly, or not so lovingly, referred to as ‘The Rock’.

A lesson in humanity

The experiences Alidu recounts are not new. Sitting at the home he shares with a friend in Birzebbuga, he describes the insults, the accusations and the exploitation he has faced in Malta.

Such revelations are uncomfortable. Yet, racism is evident wherever you choose to see it, from the insulting messages targeting ‘blacks’ painted on public walls to the hysterical comments of ‘send them back’ that follow online news stories on irregular immigration.

Discrimination can be witnessed in retail outlets, on buses, at entertainment venues and work places. It is seen and heard. It is an attitude that would never be tolerated if it were directed at a relative or friend. Yet, when it involves a migrant, many turn a blind eye.

The experience is painful. “To feel that some people are treating you negatively on the basis of the colour of your skin is extremely sad and humiliating,” Alidu admits.

“I have to accept it. It’s the way it is,” he adds, moving on to describe an experience that has been heard countless times.

Following his release from the detention centre, he joined the ranks of migrants hanging out at the roundabout in Marsa hoping someone will stop and pick them up for a day’s work. Migrants are a benefit to employers not only because they take on the dirty and difficult jobs other Maltese workers will not do, but also because they are forced to accept pay below the minimum wage.

Alidu is no exception. He took on a construction job, for which he was initially paid regularly. Suddenly the payments stopped, but Alidu was in no position to leave. His employer assured him that once the client paid for the work, Alidu’s wages would follow. Four months down the line, Alidu was owed LM 300 (€700).

He needed medication he could not afford. Yet, his employer refused to pay him. When Alidu insisted on getting paid, all he got were threats from his employer, who said he would report Alidu for working without a permit. Alidu walked away empty handed; he was not the first and he will not be the last.

In spite of this experience, Alidu hangs on to the positive memories. “In the time we spent here, we did meet people who were kind to us and treated us as equals,” he says, as his big brown eyes light up and he tells how “an old lady” helped him get on a bus on his way home from work.

He was two cents short of the required fare, and the driver denied him the ride even when several other customers had left more than enough change to cover the ticket cost. The woman who came to his aid handed over five Euros to the driver, and a piece of her mind. The driver had no choice.

For Alidu, she justifies his hope that things can change.

The politics of perception

The majority of the Maltese public acknowledges that racism has reared its ugly head among a society reputed for its hospitality. A Eurobarometer survey on discrimination last year revealed that 77 per cent of respondents perceive discrimination based on ethnic origin to be widespread in Malta.

The hostility to the plight of immigrants regularly expressed in the media by members of the public reflects a poor knowledge of facts, causes and consequences.

Behind the emotional headlines and the dramatic images of people on the move, there are personal stories of courage and tragedy. Rather than face the facts about the true nature of the migrants’ predicament, the majority of Maltese seem to prefer to live inside a bubble of overheated opinion.

“I never met racism until I left my country. There we do not differentiate, until we step into white land,” Alidu says.

“If you visit Ghana, do not be surprised if someone calls you ‘Father’. Priests were the first white people to come and we respected them. Even after colonialism, that feeling did not change,” he explains.

While people regularly use the word ‘invasion’ to describe the flows of irregular immigrants, figures issued by the Refugee Commission last March show there are only 4,304 irregular immigrants living in Malta – just over one per cent of the total population.

Even though more than 13,000 African immigrants arrived by boat throughout the last decade, more than half have been sent back to their home c
ountries, resettled elsewhere in the EU or the US, or made their own way to other countries illegally.

Last year alone, 261 immigrants who had filed an asylum application in Malta were found staying illegally in other EU member states. Yet, the hostile voices remain dominant, and politicians have been accused of bowing to populism while only making a half-hearted attempt at the challenge of improving education and awareness. Legislation against racism and discrimination has improved, but its implementation remains weak.

The National Commission for the Promotion of Equality (NCPE) admits the enforcement of the illegality of racism has to be a relentless and comprehensive commitment by all stakeholders that have a role in combating racial discrimination. This needs to be accompanied by education and sensitisation of the public and key stakeholders the NCPE says is needed.

In spite of the degrading treatment he receives, Alidu says he is not angry because has no choice but to accept it. He insists it is also up to him to help change the local mentality.

“I don’t blame the Maltese people. I blame the government of my country. It could not protect its people. I was forced to leave, but I could only do so illegally. It was not my choice, but this is my situation now.”

All he has is nostalgia for a past, fixed time, when his identity was rooted in a community. It is a past to which he can never return. Both his parents are dead, and Alidu says he is wanted.

He describes how he witnessed a political murder of someone very close to him. He told investigators all he knew. When no protection was afforded to the witnesses, and some of them started disappearing, he says he had to go. He cut across different countries until he ended up in Libya.

“If I got onto the boat during the day, I would never have made the crossing. We got on to the boat in the dark, and when the sun rose I realised the risk,” he says, adding that Malta was not his planned destination.

“We were lost. On the way, we met a fisherman who could not speak English or French and he started pointing in a direction and we heard ‘Malta’. Then someone else in the boat put his head in his hands and said ‘we’re in trouble’,” he adds.

The news of Malta’s detention centres has spread.

A convenient truth

Alidu’s friend, Abshir, describes the detention centres as a “modern Guantanamo Bay”. The analogy with the detainment facility of the United States located in Cuba and renowned for the use of torture may seem harsh. What he is referring to is the imprisonment of the innocent without trial.

The conditions at Safi and Lyster barracks were described as “appalling” by the UN Working Group on Arbitary Detention that visited the detention facilities last year. Malta’s detention policy raised concerns about the immigrants’ detention in an irregular situation, adding that it was not in line with international human rights law.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) also warned that detention processes are contributing to the “criminalisation of the migrant”. The policies of the Maltese authorities were also of concern to the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), which linked detention procedures with the rise of racism and intolerance in the country.

In its report last year, ECRI confirmed that “people under humanitarian protection and refugees faced racial discrimination in accessing various services and exploitation in the labour market”. The Commission also noted that the detention policies put in place by the authorities to respond to the challenges of irregular immigration were “seriously reinforcing perceptions of immigrants as criminals and increasing the levels of racism and xenophobia among the general population.”

Abshir’s situation is one example. In Somalia, he was a full time biology teacher. He lived his life setting a good example to his students. When he was forced to leave, he sent his wife and children to Kenya for safety, while he attempted to use his skills and education in Europe so his family could at some point gain freedom.

When he arrived in Malta, he was confined to the detention centre where he became ill and had to be taken to hospital. He was handcuffed for the journey and constantly accompanied by an officer.

“When they put the handcuffs on me, I was shocked. Handcuffs are put on criminals. Suddenly, I am the one wearing them. When we entered the hospital waiting room and I saw everyone looking at me, I understood what they were seeing. I turned to my officer and told him to take me away. I could not bear it,” he says.

Abshir has difficulty reconciling his identity with that image that now lives in his memory: “I am still furious when I think about it”.

In spite of criticism, the government continues to defend the necessity of detention. If the statements from Malta’s representatives before the European Court of Human Rights are some measure of government attitude, migrants will continue to face a different form of justice than the ‘Maltese’.

The Chairman of the Immigration Appeals Board defended Malta’s detention policy as ‘reasonable’ before the court during the case of Tafarra Besabe Berhe v. Commissioner of Police. During the hearing of May 24, 2007, his testimony reads:

“We take all circumstances into account but obviously you have to consider the situation from a management point of view as well, and you have to consider as well that releasing somebody from detention is not just a matter concerning the applicant himself, because once he is released and he goes into society, if he is of bad character, you have to check his physical and medical condition and that is why we impose certain conditions because otherwise you would be, sort of doing, a good thing in favour of the applicant and not such a good thing vis a vis society at large.”

If the problems related to such double standards escape the attention of those same authorities entrusted with handling migrants’ concerns, how is it possible to expect a society that is free from prejudice?

It is an infectious attitude that culminates in the often-repeated phrase targeting migrants, ‘If you don’t like it, go back to your country’.

Moving on

Abshir is grateful that his time in detention was a relatively short one. Due to his particularly vulnerable situation, he was let out after four months. Those who arrived with him on the same boat, in February of last year, are still there.

“The detention centres do not stop people from making the journey from Libya. All detention does is promote suffering,’ he says, shaking his head. He cannot, and will not, accept that things do not change.

“I believe change can come. It may take long, but it can come. All I wanted was peace and freedom. I have peace, but not complete freedom because of the social segregation surrounding me. I have to be part of the community to contribute to it,” Abshir insists.

He finds the authorities’ silence particularly disturbing. The most recent case involving the rescue of 55 migrants from his country is impossible to ignore at this point.

Those among the migrants who made it to Malta that day described how the Somalis rescued from a sinking dinghy in Malta’s Search and Rescue Area on July 17 were divided into two groups on the high seas with 28 being brought to Malta and the rest taken to Libya.

Concern focused particularly on the alleged separation of a Somali pregnant woman from her husband. When he arrived in Malta, he claimed that his wife had been transferred to the Libyan boat during the operation involving Maltese and Libyan rescuers. The army has denied the allegations.

The government did not see any need t
o question the army’s version of events, even when respected international and local human rights organisations cast serious doubts on its veracity and demanded an inquiry in support of the migrants’ statements.

The Prime Minister’s unrelenting stand sent a message to the entire country and the world. It was loud and clear. Perhaps this would explain why the appeal made by the Migrants’ Network for Equality has so far been met by a deafening silence.

Abshir cannot give up: “Our options are limited, but what can we do? We cannot give up. Believe me, I miss the love of my wife, and I miss my children, but I can’t go back. Here, I can’t move forward either. I can only hope for change”.

That change starts to happen when every individual who witnesses discrimination refuses to turn away. Change is possible when citizens demand it from their elected representatives. How a state deals with immigrants should be a measure of its social and political health.

Migration has always been a core process of global politics and historical change. The theme of migration has been part of the collective human narrative for as long as there has been recorded history. Its roots lie in poverty, economic deprivation, persecution and failed states.

It is simply not possible to ignore the world’s dispossessed.

Advice and support are available at the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality: call 2590 3850 or visit www.equality.gov.mt.

This feature was published in The Malta Independent on Sunday on August 22, 2010

Category: Equality