MALTA
Malta Independent
by Marisa Micallef
In the 1950s and 1960s, difficult as it may seem to us parents now, hundreds of Maltese children (not orphans as I had previously thought) were sent to Australia to be educated by the so called Christian Brothers. Instead, these children were exploited, made to work for 14 hours a day, suffered terrible emotional and sometimes sexual abuse, and generally received no education at all. But more about their ordeal later.
This group of children, now adults, who suffered so abominably, are asking that Malta commemorates their plight with the following proposed wording inscribed on a plaque:
“This plaque commemorates the 310 child migrants who travelled to Australia in search of a better life between 1950 and 1965
We respect their achievements. We rejoice in their success. We regret any unintended consequences of child migration.”
They're not asking for much are they? It’s hardly asking us to go down on bended knee in shame for the crimes of our predecessors. Why do we find it so easy to praise ourselves but never to say sorry? This county is littered with plaques of various politicians opening up this, that and the other with our taxes. This country is littered with plaques, statuettes and God knows what else celebrating the achievements of our political classes and their sycophants. As a country we delight in composing self-congratulatory prose and text. Why is it so difficult to commemorate real suffering and sacrifice? Why is it so difficult for both the Church and the State to make an apology on behalf of their predecessors? None of the people involved are in power now so there should be no reluctance at all in this matter! But then this is a country where the freezing of two fused cells in a test tube creates more, or as much, moral outrage as children allegedly being abused by priests in Church homes, by millions of children starving to death in Africa, or any of the real problems children face here and elsewhere.