The chance to redeem ourselves
Published: March 22, 2011 at 4:22pm [by Maltese blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia]
[…] EU Commissioner Catherine Ashton said [… ] that [the 27 EU] foreign ministers were informed of the European Commission’s contingency plan for a massive humanitarian mission should there have to be mass evacuations from Libya if there is an escalation of conflict.
Lady Ashton said that the European Commission is looking at which of using “military assets, even from the sea” to this end.
I hope Malta will now use this opportunity to redeem itself, and not tell the European Commission that we have only one Grand Harbour or that we are too tiny and insigificant to deal with refugees as opposed to evacuees in 24-hour transit who pay for hotels, and will everyone else please come to our assistance immediately or we will withdraw permission for fighter jets to fly overhead, so there.
Be courageous, finally, give them Gozo, Dr Gonzi, proving that Malta is fully worthy of being an EU member! The Libyan refugees will like Gozo even more than the main island Malta, as it sounds so similar to Gaza!
If you should have financing problems, ask the Iranians to organise the whole thing! They will pay even more than necessary for the project, and be happy to build a few hundred mosques there too, to show their more than good will to promote Shia-Sunni (as well as ex-pro-Gaddafi vs. anti-Gaddafi) reconciliation.
For those among the Gozitans who won’t like to hear Allahu Akbar cries all day and/or – in the longer term – to convert and/or pay jizya and cannot pay for a Hotel stay on the main island for too long, one could still build a temporary tendopoli on the outskirts of Qrendi or somewhere. Financed perhaps by Saudi Arabia and/or the EU and MEPA, or, anzi, even better and more in alignment with the spirit of DCG, the Maltese Curia – ghax after all who, if not them and their ilk, are responsible for what this whole mess was started by: our racist Islamophobic Crusades.