Behind the Times

The Times editorialist has finally stuck his head above the parapet and written a proper editorial after spending the last two weeks wishing people merry Christmas and happy new year. Incidentally, this habit that our columnists have of wishing people happy new years is something that really needs to be stopped. Why do they, politicians in the large, deign to treat their forum as a giant notice board where they can put up their fatuous little notes? Next thing they'll be putting up their shopping lists and asking their wives to run the bath for them.
Anyway, the Times today writes about the resettlement of 33 refugees in Holland, a mere 20 days after the event. This is clearly unsatisfactory, as was the way in which response to the Depasquale report dribbled out over the festive season. Somebody remarked on another blog that the timing of the publication was cynically coincided with Christmas in the hope that it would be overlooked among all the merriment.
I fear this was overrating the abilities of the local press and "civil society" to respond adequately to fresh news. Well until the end of December slow-reading stragglers, many of whom have evidently never heard of skim-reading, were voicing their feelings on the matter. Pressure groups' inability to read at further than Year 6 level made sure that the report stayed on the main news pages till well after publication.
And now, after all this time, the top minds of the Times have endeavoured to synthesise these two month-old news items. The image that comes to mind is of a caveman bashing two bits of flint together and shrieking excitedly.
The intuitive account of Malta's immigration problems is similarly Neanderthal and is developed thus: "Malta small, ug, people many, immigrants many, ug (scratch mate and pick fleas), it is right and proper that countries in the Union better able to cope with an influx of immigrant labour ... help us out, ug." All this is editorial gold dust, no doubt about it.
This dull strain of thought is continued in the editorial's whitewash of the Hal-Safi incident, which is effectively a reprisal of the recommendations of the Depasquale report itself. No mention is made of the misgivings of Amnesty International about the report, or the fact that the report deems it worthy to spill out into a general study of the secondary problems of immigration as evinced by this passage:

"Problema ohra li tissemma fil-kwistjoni ta’ l-influss ta’ TCNs gejja mixxoghol. Bhal ma gara f’diversi pajjizi Ewropej dawn it-tip ta’ haddiema jidhlu ghal xoghol li c-cittadini tal-Pajjiz jiprovaw jevitaw; b’dana kollu llinja ta’ demarkazzjoni xejn ma hi cara u nsibu ukoll hafna minnhom jahdmu f’xoghol li normalment isir min Maltin."

Of course, if the Times did actually do some journalistic legwork that could upset a few applecart, and nobody wants that, do they?