Moviment Graffitti are organising a “Walk against racism” tomorrow evening. Here is an extract from the invitation I received:
Paceville has long been a place where racism is the order of the day. The majority of clubs do not let black persons in and when these persons try to protest this decision they often risk violent aggression.
This is NOT acceptable! We will NOT accept an Apartheid in Malta!
We are not in any way accusing the Maltese people of being racist, however we cannot ignore that realities of racism are also taking root in our country.
Let’s show that there is a part of Malta which rejects racism. On Saturday 13th June Moviment Graffitti is inviting the public to a peaceful walk in the streets of Paceville, starting at 7:30pm from Baystreet.
Bring candles with you
Much as I find this personification of “Paceville” as some kind of being with a will of its own unproductive, I agree with the idea of a peaceful demonstration to make a point about intolerance.
It might be time to revive the dormant project of “The Lamppost Movement” that was, at the time, a reaction of the Maltese blogosphere to rabid, racist comments by some members of Maltese society. The Lamppost had been adopted as a symbol of light in the darkness of intolerance also in reaction to the nazi idea of hanging reactonaries from lampposts. Every blogger had chosen his lamppost (as collected on flickr) and adhered to the campaign.
I am willing to hand over the idea and organisation of the Campaign to someone who is in Malta. It’s a campaign that is needed and once again I insist.. it should not be “against” something but in favour of values such as tolerance and diversity.
Slideshow of blogger’s lampposts here.
