Some Cash Gets In

Saturday 1^st of September, I went to Ivan's office. I needed some cash. I knew he wouldn't pay everything he owes me, though, but I thought to myself that as long as he didn't make me sign anything stating that he had paid everything he owed me, I would accept. And that's what happened. With almost a month of delay.

He gave me 80€, which includes a part of my commissions.

Still some to go Ívan...

Ivan's (And Other Criminals') Best Friends: The Pulizija

People have too much respect for the police. They see them as a bulwark against criminals. In reality, while they do indeed punish some criminals from time to time, they are criminals's best friends. In fact, going beyond this affirmation, we can say that cops are themselves criminals, much worse than the ones they pretend to fight. Just think about all the liberty-killing laws they apply. 

That is why a man like Ivan can be so mean without immediately suffering the consequences of its crimes. The laws, the police, and the institutionns end up protecting people like him. Otherwise, he would quickly receive his well-deserved violent reward, which would make him think twice before committing crimes.

Let me make this point easier to understand:

• Gun laws restrict the means of self-defense. Peaceful citizens (who are not going to find a gun on the black market, contrary to criminals) are left at the mercy of bad men. Moreover, they make it harder for victims, ex-post facto, to punish (by payback) those who have harmed them.
• Anti-free speech laws protect pigs. Laws protectings privacy, and libel/difamation laws, end up protecting them. You cannot show their face, their personal details (like their home address and car registration number), which would contribute to put a lot of social pressure on them. They will sue you if you do it.

Most crimes are committed far from any witnesses (or where the witnesses won't be willing to testify. Criminals will use that fact to accuse the victim of defamation, because she cannot prove in a court of law, that she has been wronged.

• The State monopoly on violence favours criminals. The law doesn't recognise the right of people to defend themselves, nor to make justice by themselves (“take the law into your own hands”). This is not “to prevent chaos”, as government officials claim. This monopolization of policing historically arised as a way, for the kings, to earn higher fees from court proceedings. People were made to depend on the king for their security. A tax measure, in reality. (See Bruce Benson, The Entreprise of Law).

Let's review how this monopoly favours criminals. Imagine a case where an employer doesn't pay what he owes to an employee, despite having the funds to do it. This is a violation of the workers' property rights. The worker comes to his boss' shop, and bang his head a few times with a stick. Something proportional, not too excessive.

Now what will the police do? They will probably take sides with the boss. He is an “established person”, he pays taxe, while the worker is just a poor guy. He may even have corrupted the chief of his local police station. Moreover, the boss is probably from the country, while the worker may be a foreigner without connections and without the right to vote. Finally, his act (banging the head of the boss, or breaking the window of his shop) will look much more impressive and sensational that the boss' act (refusing to pay). That is why the police is much more likely to attack the worker than the boss.

The worker, while being in the right, will have the full weight of the state against him. He will have to fight with his own meager ressources a blind, tax-subsidized system. At the time when he needs the money to survive (he has just been fired).

The same will happen with courts. If the worker tries to sue his boss, he will spend money with lawyers, he will have to spend time in the police station (where they will probably not even register his complaint – rembember, they are lazy and corrupt officials), and he will have to wait months and years till the process ends. In the end, he may lose his case by lack of proofs, and be forced to pay court proceedings, which could cause his ruin.

It is relatively easy for the police, who has big means at his disposal, to prove that the worker beat his boss. And since the law doesn't recognise the right to self-defense and revenge, he will get condemned. But it is much harder, for the employee, on his own, to prove that he worked for his boss. His main witnesses may be his former co-workers, who will no testify againt their own current boss (no matter how nasty he is), by fear of being fired.

So those who say that people “Shouldn't take the law in their own hands” are just dumb and dishonest. They lack a sense of justice. More than that, they lack of compassion for the victims: they are in fact accomplices of criminals. It would do them some good to take a few kicks in the balls from some unknown in the street. And then we would see if they still think the same, when confronted with the inefficiency of the policial-judicial system.

The right of self-defense, and even of revenge, should be respected. It is sacred. The only question that can be settled in court is whether this revenge has been adequate or excessive. But the right to punish criminals should be granted.

The World Is Small

After working for Ivan, I quickly found another job.

Interestingly, one of my workmates, a maltese teenager, told me he had been duped by Ivan, in the same way as me. He told me that another girl had problems with him as well. Definitely, Ivan likes to make ennemies...

An Infructuous Attempt

After these episodes, I didn't do anything related to Ivan for some time. But I did try to press charges against him. I passed by M'Sida Police Station and spoke to two policemen, on the 9^th of August. They told me this matter was not of their competence, and told me to go to the ETC.

I very much doubt they couldn't do it. But being cops, they were lazy (civil service oblige: you can't get fired).

Once more, the police was helping a criminal. They won't allow you to protest his crimes, as my case proves, but they will not help you punish him either, by legal means. They will not even accept your complaints, using the well-know bureaucratic trick of discarding their responsibility on some other bureaucracy.

In The Loving Care Of Maltese Cops, Reflexions

• Cops are sick.
• Cops are like mafia killers, or nazi soldiers: they follow orders, without asking questions, with no regard for justice.
• They treat citizens like cattle: I did five or six “travels”, in less than 20 hours.
• They put a lot of stress on you (insults, sarcasm, dress downs, threats, ominous silences).
• If you are weak (a young man, a gay, a foreigner, a woman, an old person), they will make you pee in your underwear, and might lead you to self-incriminate, even if you are innocent.
• They keep you in the dark concerning your rights, your future, why you are under custody, etc...
• They are all about power and order, not about justice.
• They always assume you deserve what is happening to you.
• Like any small time criminal, they know the legal guarantees of the judicial system (burden of proof, right not to self-incriminate, unacceptability of hearsay) protect them, and they use it to commit crimes/indecencies with impunity.
• They commit crimes on a massive scale, but are desensitized to it. Contrary to most people, they feel comfortable using violence on a daily basis. It has lost, for them, its unusual character. They don't see it as something unusual and dirty to be used as a last recourse.
• And keep in mind that Malta, whatever the bad things one can say about it, is a cool, small, peaceful and relax country. A relatively free country where cops roam the streets disarmed. Now just imagine how cops behave in more authoritarian countries (France, Amerika, Portugal, Turkey, etc...).

In The Loving Care Of Maltese Cops, Part VI

When I arrived in Floriana, Prick-Guard was still there. Being a nasty bastard, he ordered me, with his usual arrogant tone, to follow him. When I asked him why, he didn't answer and repeated his order. I should have refused. At the time, I was not under custody anymore. So he didn't have any authority to give me orders. It was just pure abuse of power, to satisfy his will for domination. But I was tired, and didn't have the strength to resist.

He took me back to the cell where I had spent the night, and told me to take away the bedsheets. Basically, he was asking me to do his job, the lazy bastard. He told me to flush the toilets too! When I told him it wouldn't work, he did it himself, showing me the “trick”. I had spent the night in the stench of shit because they didn't show me that... Useful for next time.

That done, I came back to the hall. They finally gave me back my stuff. But they forgot something: the thick black marker. I had used it to write my slogans on my cardboard. This marker was important to me. It had sentimental value. It was a gift from two homeless people I had met in Genova, while traveling through Italy. They had greatly helped me. It was a gift given by very poor people, in a true act of generosity.

We got out and went to the patrol car. The sergeant-in-charge stayed inside with his colleagues for a little while. So I had a chat with one of his subordinates, who was driving the car. He acknowledged I was right, advising me not to make waves, though, in my self-interest. This man is the only half-decent cop I met through my detention. Anyway, if his boss had asked him, he would have jailed me all the same.

The sergeant came back and got into the car. We went out of the police headquearters (which is a kind of bunker). As soon as that happened, the sergeant told me to go out. I was finally free.

But I was far from home, half-naked, and he knew it. In fact, he was abandoning me, despite the fact that he would pass close to my neighbourhood to go back to his police station. He did that just to humiliate me, forcing me to walk almost for an hour, barechest, before I could fall on my bed and sleep.

Before going, I asked his name. As a final act of cowardice, he refused to answer. 

In The Loving Care Of Maltese Cops, Part V

In the morning, I was served a little bit of white bread, and a cup of coffee. It was the first time I ate in more than 12 hours. It really felt good, despite of the poor quality.

Three cops were waiting for me while I ate, to take me to another roadtrip (what a waste of taxpayers' money!). Two men and one ugly woman (fat, virile demeanour). The jailguards didn't give me my stuff. They told me I was coming later to get them back.

The cops put me in the car, and we rode back from Floriana to Sliema police station. I had a discussion with the “female” (sort-of) cop. She told me I shouldn't have done what I did. I explained to her that I didn't have the smallest amount of money to buy food, and that my boss was a thief, the one that should be in jail. She wouldn't have it: as most cops, she was interested much more about power and order than about justice. I told it was easy for her, with her regular wages, to say that kind of things. Since she didn't have the minimum amount of fairness and compassion, I stopped there the conversation. No point talking to sick people.

Usually, female cops are fat, ugly, manly, and have never had any success with men in their young age. For this reason, they tend to be frustrated, and they have a thirst for revenge over men. They are pathetic. But in a sense, they deserve our pity as much as our disgust.

In the way to Sliema police station, we followed an old man driving slowly in his pick-up truck. He looked like some kind of farmer, and not a very bright man. He looked tired (it was morning). His pick-up truck blocked the way of our patrol car for half a minute or so. They pressed the horn. He didn't do anything. That was enough for the cops to get pissed off, to shout at him, to stop him, and to fine him. The poor man looked as if he did not understand what was happening to him. Once more, a cop showing off his “authority”. Sick bastards.

Technically speaking, the driver had committed an illegality. He had driven for too long in the passover lane. But he had not endangered anyone, and his error was a minor one. The cop could easily have been lenient, if he wasn't a dick.

We finally arrived at Sliema. Once again, I asked them a lawyer, or a call to my embassy. Denied. They put me in a cell. There was no air conditioning. It was very warm. The cell was kind of “in the open” (if you can say so of a jail!...), looking to an open-air space inside the police station. Again, a battery of questions. Some idiot even asked me how much money I owed. I told me this was not his business. I stayed there one hour or so.

On that occasion, I saw for the first time the head of the police station, with whoom I had spoken the night before. Once again, I told him to charge me or to release me. That bothered him.

They brought me some Ice-Tea, and some sandwich. It felt good. I had a great ironic laugh with myself. That “experience” with the police had at least had the advantage of filling my empty stomach (the eason for which I started my protest in the first place).

Suddenly, while I was expecting and prepared to spend another day in jail, the best moment of my kidnapping arrived – the time of my Victory over the Forces of Evil and Darkness. The Sergeant-in-charge came to my cell. Alone. He had a strange look on his face. He looked like a kid who has just been punished by his father. He opened my cell and told me: “We are going to release you”. I put an ironic smile on my face. He must have seen it...

The “journey” was not over, though. All my stuff (clothes, wallet, mobile phone, and so on) was still in Floriana Police Headquarteres, where I had spent the night. I asked them to take me there. They told me they would do so. But they were in no hurry at all... They were happy to let me wait there as an idiot, for more than an hour.

From then on, everything looked a bit surreal. They asked me if I wanted to rest in my cell, while we waited for somebody that could take me to Floriana. I said yes, to their amazement and laughter. I went to the cell on my own and relaxed a little bit. They didn't close the cell. So at the time I was just having a little nap in the police station. ;-) I was no more a prisoner. I had a laugh at this banana republic-style police force.

After some time, I got bored, so I decided to move around. I wandered through the police station half-naked. I discovered the bathroom, the kitchen, the stairs, the hallway, and satiated my curiosity about this place of Evil. But I was an embarassment to them. People could see me in my short clothes... For this reason, at some point two guys gently asked me to move out of the hallway. But at the time I was very happy at this place. I teased them, asking them if they had some police shirt that I could wear... I moved away, to shut them up, then 5 minutes later I came back.

Another set of cops was in the reception. I stayed there. They would talk about me in maltese, with angry looks in their faces (the kind of look you do when you think “I wish I could beat you”). Interestingly (to understand the type of people they are), they said many times “Auschwitz, Auschwitz” when looking at me. I suppose they were not wishing me good things... Fortunately, there are no railroads in Malta, or they would have sent me to the gas chambers.

COP 455 arrived. While I was spending the night in jail, he had gone home to sleep. He was now starting a new shift. Seeing I was still in their “care”, he had a laugh and cracked a joke with his colleagues. Not to be one step behind, I told some cop I wanted to make a complaint against COP 455, for abuse of power. It was funny to observe the old man (who was listening) throw smoke by the ears. Of course, as I expected, nobody moved to write my complaint. But my point was made.

Finally, the Sergeant arrived, and after dragging his feet, he took me in the car and we went to Floriana.

In The Loving Care Of Maltese Cops, Part IV

For the first time of the night, I was alone. Nobody was around to harass me, to shout at me, and to move me from one place to another.

The cell where they had put me had a smell of shit: the flush was not working. There was a water tap, with a very thin string of water coming from it: it was quite hard to drink from it (remember, this happened in the torrid days of early August). Some insects were crawling around... Else, a mattress, a pillow, and a bedsheet. The cell had a window to the “street”, inside the police headquarters. Actually, there were not one, but two layers of bars. I couldn't see the outside world. The cell was under the level of the street. The light came from up the cell. It was gloomy. As if you were in a dungeon. The air was heavy to breathe. Else, I was alone. No cellmate.

Nobody came to give me food. Worse, all night long, the lights were on, which made it difficult to sleep. I called a guard and asked him to turn off the lights. He told me he would do it, but he didn't.

I was free to relax a little bit and think. On one side, I was confident nothing special would happen.. I knew that their main goal was just to tame me, by making me spend a rough night. I was quite confident that I would be sent free after one or two days, or after seeing a magistrate (after all, I had not killed anybody, I had just staged a protest).

On the other side, I knew that I was dealing with sick and dangerous people (cops, jail guards, judges). There are a lot of things this kind of people can do to you if they want to screw you:

1 - Jail guards are sick. They tend to be sadistic, because the people they deal with are completely at their mercy, far from any witness from the outside world. In fact, jail guards don't even respect themselves: when they are working, they are themselves prisoners.

2 – They can put you in the cell of some violent criminal, so that you will get beaten, raped, or killed. You will get a mortal disease.

3 – They can plant drugs on you, and say you are a drug dealer. You will get a long sentence, because the judge won't believe you, but the cops.

4 – They can enter in your cell in the middle of the night, at 4 or 5, beat you and rape you. You may end up in a wheelchair for the rest of your life.

5 – They may charge you with something you didn't do, even if they know a judge will dismiss the case in the end. With the backlog there is in the criminal justice system, you will spend months or years in preventive detention, before you get judged.

6 – They can “bombard” you with a roll of silly charges. Since there are so many laws and regulations, that nobody knows, you always have the possibility of having violated some bureaucratic edict. They will charge you, so that you have to spend loads of time and money defending yourself. You may get ruined, because they have the huge means of the state at their disposal, but for them the important is to screw you on at least one count.

7 – The judge that will see you in the morning after you have been detained is just a bureaucrat like any other. He follows laws and rules blindly, and never asks himself if they are just or fair, or if the charges have ulterior motives. HE IS AN IMMORAL MAN. As someone used to crush human beings, he tends to be very authoritarian, and won't even allow you to present your case. You will not have a fair hearing, contrary to what you may think if you have never been in a court of law. Specially if he had a bad night of sleep! Judges are petty tyrants. They don't deserve the respect the population gives them.

8 – There is no such thing as an “independent judiciary”. Judges are paid by politicians, apply rules made by politicians, and depend on the cops who work for these same politicians. Those cops hunt for the taxes on which these judges depend for their very good living. These cops apply the decisions of these judges. And those same judges need the protection of these cops from the people (real criminals or not) that they punish in their daily activities. So there isn't enmity between judges and cops: they are friends. They need each other.

There only is some rivalry between them. Judges despise cops because they have more intellect than them. And cops despise judges because they have more physical force than them. Judges need the brute force of cops. Cops need the pseudo-legitimacy that judges give to their barbarism.

But they work in tandem against the population, applying the countless liberty-killing laws that exist in every modern society. This means that when there is some conflict between the population and the cops/the State, the judges are not impartial, nor independent. They are dependent on one of the parties they are judging. They have a built-in tendency to take sides with the cops. That is why, for example, a sentence for an action against a cop is always harsher than the same action taken by a cop against a “simple” citizen. Cops are treated as untouchables, who can do pretty much whatever they want.

So knowing all this, and coming back to my personal case, I was afraid the judge I would see in the morning if they decided to charge me (when it was my dishonest employer who should be spending a night in jail) would be a dick, biased and unfair, like most of the people I had seen that night.

For all these reasons, that night, I prayed. I put myself in the loving care of God, asking him, as Jesus Christ taught us, “Thy will be done”, “but deliver us from Evil”. And I slept for two or three hours, calm and without fear.

In The Loving Care Of Maltese Cops, Part III

Before taking me to Floriana, they took me to the hospital. They wanted me to be seen by a doctor. I saw one. The only decent person I met that night. He asked me a few questions, to check if I was sane of mind. (Retrospectively, I should have acted as if I was crazy. They would have sent me to a psychiatric ward, which would have been a funny and interesting adventure.). The doctor checked my health. As everything was OK, we said goodbye, and the cops took me away to Floriana. But before taking me for another “roadtrip”, COP 455 looked at me with his best paternalistic look, and told me: “Listen, I am talking to you as a brother! You have a chance to go home, or to go to jail. It is your choice. It is your last opportunity!!”. He told me this with the voice of God talking to Moses, on Mount Sinai, when giving him the 10 commandments. I almost felt like kneeling in front of him.

He yells at me, he humiliats me, he puts me under stress, he kidnapps me for the night, he might charge me with whatever he wants, but then, he still has the audacity of pretending to be “my brother”. What a D**K, honestly!

So there I went to Floriana. It was already the third building I visited that night. Talk about feeling like a powerless pawn! That said, all the time I was without handcuffs, despite being under arrest. It felt strange, as if I was in the clutches of some banana republic (which in a sense is true).

There were two men and one ugly woman working the night shift. On my reception, they took my few possessions away. They started doing their paperwork, very slowly. They wanted me to sign something, but I refused. I don't even understand maltese, and I was afraid that I would unconsciously self-incriminate about something I didn't do.

There was some sheet on the booth, talking about my rights as a detainee. I asked them to have a copy of it, but they didn't accept.

One big, fat, brown-skinned guard (who can be recognized by a tatoo on his forearm) immediately started behaving as an idiot with me. Since I don't know his name, I will from now on call him Prick-Guard (PG).

He looked at me in an intimidating way (remember, the guy is strong, and I was half-naked, and so, vulnerable) and told me “So you think you are going to fuck with me?”. The guy had not seen me before, he didn't know me, I had not said anything to him, he didn't know what I was accused of, whether I was guilty of something or not, but still, his very first reflex was to dominate me. You know, just to show “who is boss”. That is what I call human garbage.

After this gentle “introduction”, he and another guard took me to another room for the most humiliating part of the night. Despite the fact that I only had my underwear, they made me dress down (they were probably afraid I would hide some explosives around my willie). Then, they asked me to bend down, to check my arse. Fortunately, they didn't put the finger inside. They would have found the long rifle I was hiding in it, that I could have use to escape from jail, if I wished so.

So, Prick-Guard, pathetic idiot, that is what you do for a living? Looking inside of other people's butts? And you still act as if you were some kind of “macho man”? It is a pity I didn't have a fart in stock for you that night. If you want a picture of my arse just email me, I will send it to you.

After all this pathetic comedy, I was put in a cell for the night.

In The Loving Care Of Maltese Cops, Part II

The two cops took me to Sliema police station, at the intersection of Triq Rodolfu and Triq Manwell Dimech. I stayed there for one or two hours, half-naked, behind their counter. They didn't take the trouble to put me in a cell, or give me clothes. They put me the handcuffs. Then they took them away, when it suited them.

Many times, I asked them a lawyer, a call to my embassy. Each time they refused it. I asked them to loosen the handcuffs, which were hurting mme. They refused. Cops, who are sick people, love to do that. It hurts, it shows “who is the boss”, and it humiliates. All the time, they were talking about me in maltese, which I can't understand (it sounds like arabic).

Very quickly, I understood they were embarassed about me. They wanted to take me home, and even proposed to take me there! But I didn't accept their proposition. COP 455 would tell me that I “couldn't be like that” (in underwear). Tell that to the hundreds of tourists who wander half-naked through the streets of Malta. He would tell me that I couldn't call my employer “a thief”. Are there any laws in Malta that forbid people from calling a thief a thief? If they do, they are crap, and don't have my respect.

All the time, they were pressuring me. I told them to charge me, or to release me, so that I would continue my protest. I told them I was ready and willing to go to court (to make a bit of fuss about my precarious situation). And without falling in illegality (no insults, no threats), I would tease them, ask them questions, tell them that I would sue them if they behaved poorly, and so on. I was proving to be more annoying that criminals.

With criminals, they know how to deal: with violence. They know that they have the support of public opinion to crush them. But it is harder to break a protester, a poor guy who doesn't harm other people. You look like the bad guy, if you do that. And how do you react when the people in front of you just doesn't cooperate? Especially if you are used to have all the people cral in front of you, most of the time?... Cops have small brains... They tend to react by violence, always. But they are only vaguely conscious that their force is powerless if it goes against public opinion. They are a tiny, tiny minority of the population, and can only go against it so far. In my case, how would they look, in court, if they had to justify my arrest to a judge minimally honest? Like idiots and like dicks.

So here I was, in my underwear, behind the desk of the police... A lady arrived. She was with a man. She came to complain about a man who had been violent to her. The man on her side was a witness. They were angry. They wanted to sue. Here, I observed once more something that I had already discovered many years ago: cops are super lazy. In this case, just to avoid doing the paperwork, they invented some bullshit (“we cannot process your complaint, you have to go to the police station of your area of residence”). Even in a case like that, that involved aggressions and threats, they wouldn't move their lazy tax-sucker arses. They “cooked” the girl so well that she went away.

But my case was still unsolved. They took my handcuffs off, and put me on the phone... with the sergeant-in-charge! He wasn't at the station at the time. To have the privilege of talking to such an important man, the Boss himself, I suppose my case must have been of the higher importance. He wanted to go home, ad told me he would call my boss to the police station the day after to sort things out. I knew he was lying. I have been thinking, writing and reading about the State since I am sixteen. So I know cops lie systematically. It is a second nature for them: they do it all the time. In this case, what he wanted is to get rid of me ASAP. He thought “This guy is going home for a good night of sleep, tomorrow he will be cooler, and won't bother us”. I told him, if he wanted he could call my boss right now, instead of waiting the day after. Ivan has his shop open till late in the evening. I told the sergeant-in-charge to have an informal talk with him, so that he would pay me. He told me he “couldn't do it, it is not legal, bla bla bla”. Of course, this was bullshit. The minute before he had proposed me to have that informal chat in the morning after, but it was illegal to have it now, in the evening?!!! Liar.

I saw that he was not honest and frank, and that he had no intention of using his authority to solve the case quckly, in a just manner. He could have helped me press charges against my boss, if he wanted so. He was just taking the side of one of his own, against a foreigner. I told him to charge me if he wanted, or release me so that I could keep on protesting. I was not going home with them.

Since they are not men of good will, they decided to make me spend the night in jail. They put me in the car, and we crossed the town direction Floriana (near Valletta), where the police headquarters are located, and where a bigger jail would “great” me for the night.

In The Loving Care Of Maltese Cops

That night, my situation was very precarious. I didn't have a single euro left! I didn't have a job. My best friend had just gone on holiday: I couldn't rely on him. I only had a few tuna cans in my kitchen drawer.

I had lived my full week of work on a tiny-tiny budget, expecting to get by with my wages, at the end of the week. And now I wasn't going to get paid...

What kind of man doesn't pay his due – purposefully, having the money to do it – to a poor guy who doesn't even have money to buy food?! A disgusting man. .

I was in a situation of destitution, and I decided to show it publicly, to embarass my former boss, and make him lose some customers. I took out my trousers. I took out my shirt (which belonged to the shop, anyway). I had only my underwear on, hiding my willie. In that “uniform”, I sat down in front of his shop. I had brought some cardboard from a supermarket. With a black, thick pen, I wrote something on it, of this kind (can't remember the exact words):

“BOYCOTT THIS SHOP. THE OWNER IS A THIEF. HE DOESN'T PAY HIS EMPLOYEES”.

Then, sitting in the street, in front of the shop, I would shout loud: “Boycott Ivan, he is a thief”. I did this, for approximately half an hour. Then, Ívan's friends arrived. Feeling (and looking!) embarrassed by my protest, and constating that I was making him lose customers, he had called the cops.

A pair of them arrived. One of them immediately started yelling at me: “What is this? Stop this! Go away!”. He didn't make the slightest effort to listen to me, and then Ivan, as an impartial and fair man. He just gave a kick in my protest-cardboard. He didn't try to have a word with both of us, so as to try to settle things peacefully. Instead, he immediately took side for a thief. He immediately took sides for one of his own (a maltese vs a foreigner). He took sides for the owner, versus the dispossessed. He decided to suppress “anormality”, instead of doing justice.

As I sat on the ground, he shouted at me “Do you want to go to jail?! Do you want to go to jail?!”. I told him I was not afraid to go to jail, and I presented him my hands, as if saying “come on, put the handcuffs”. That further enraged him. Unable to tolerate this slight challenge to his authority, he dragged me to the car. He didn't even bother to put me the cuffs. A dozen of witnesses were in the street. I shouted to them: “This is maltese justice! The cops are with the thieves”.

They took my stuff: short trousers, a thick pencil – of which I will talk later on, my mobile, and that is pretty much. I told them I wanted my cardboard (useful for further protests!), plus two bottles of water ( 1 ½ litres) that I had brought with me, being prepared to spend the night over there. But they didn't take care of my request, and I lost these three items.

For the record, I want to denounce publicly the cop who arrested me. I don't know his name, because he didn't tell me, despite repeated requests over the course of the many hours I spent in jail. But I know his number. He is COP 455, from Sliema police station. A small, white haired man, in his 60s. I am asking to the competent authorities to fire him from the police force. It is too dangerous to have men like COP 455, who completely lacks any sense of justice, and who has such a high opinion of his power, in any position of coercive authority. This man reacts like a dog: when it sees something strange, a cat/a protester for example, it barks and it bites.

Moreover, and since I was kidnapped and sequestered for almost a complete day because of this abusive man, I am asking for the laws and even the constitution to be changed, so that it becomes legal to kidnapp him and sequester him for a period of 2 or 3 days at least, as punishment for the injustice and stress he made me suffer. He can stay in my room, and doesn't need to worry, I will give him fresh bedsheets. That is, for justice to be done, he has to suffer the same kind of indignity he does to others. I perfectly know that won't happen (you do not change the “System” with just a few blog posts...). But I am asking this as a matter of principle.

COP 455, I am talking to you directly, now:

I DO NOT RECOGNIZE YOUR AUTHORITY.

I DO NOT RESPECT YOU.

More Ivanesque Dirty Tricks

That same day (saturday), I came back to his shop. More or less 2 or 3 hours after I had left him (so it would be around 20 or 21, by now). My aim was to stage a protest in front of his shop.

But before I tell this story, I have to report how much Ivan owes me, exactly.

I worked 6 days for him. I started on Monday 30^th , and I finished on Saturday the 4^th of August. Everyday, I worked 5 hours (15h-20h). Except on Saturday, when I was fired (I only worked three hours). So in total: 5 x 5 + 3 = 28 hours. Since the agreed wage is the minimum wage (3,87€), that makes for 28 x 3.87 = 108.36€. Now, from that, one can knock down 5 euros (103,36 €). That's because during the week they went missing. Either because they fell from my pocket, or because I gave them to Ivan's father (who works on the premises), and I don't remember. I can't say exactly what happened, but in any case it is my responsibility.

To these 103,36€, one has to add 3% of commission for my sales of the week, that Ivan has to pay me at the end of August. Those sales are as follows:

30.7: 0€

31.7: 198€

1.8: 0€

2.8: 338€

3.8: 0€

4.8: 0€

Total, 3% of 338+198, which is 16,08€.

Grand total: 16.08 + 103,36 = 119.44€.

Those amounts (sales/hours worked), are written in a blue book in Ivan's office. Except for Monday and Saturday. On Monday, I didn't write down my hours, for the simples reeason it was my first day at work, and nobody told me I had to write those informations. And on Saturday, I didn't write them for the simple reason that I had just been fired, and told in the face that I wouldn't be paid what I was due. Anyway, he was angry, and would probably have barred me from doing so. But there is CCTV in front of the shop, and in nearby shops, and it is easy to show I was there those days.

This lack of book signing, for Monday and Saturday, is where his next trick comes in. That day, when I came back in the evening, he had somewhat cooled down. He had put some water in his wine. Before starting my protest, I talked to him. After showing off his machismo by telling me that he wasn't afraid of me, he gave me an “offer”. He accepted to pay me, but only around 70€. Why this concession? Because he knew that in a court of law, his case was lost if he refused to pay me this minimum (which corresponds to the 20 hours that are written in the book). The hours worked, and my sales, were written in the blue book. And he couldn't easily burn it or “lose” it, because all my other workmates have their hours written in this book. But since I didn't write down Monday and Saturday, for the reasons explained above, it is now up to me to prove that I worked these days and hours, if the case ever goes to court.

Basically, Ivan is using a technicality, to screw me. How do you call that? “Casuistry”? “Judicial tricks”? Whatever... It shows the kind of dirty man he is.

I refused this mafioso “deal”. By pride, first. And because I was concerned this would be considered as an acknowledgement of him having paid me what he owes, if the case escalates to court.

I started my protest.

Things Warm Up

On Saturday, the 4^th of August, I went to work as usual. I intended to quit as soon as he paid my wages, at the end of the day. I was fed up with the man, and his bad manners.

That day, after just three hours of work, the telephone on Ivan's desk rang. Ivan was in front of the shop, taking care of his motorbikes (which he rents). As usual, I was in front of the shop, selling tickets. He immediately started talking to me in his usual nasty way: “Pedro! THE PHONE!”. The tone was the one you use to ask something to someone who should know he has to do it, without anyone asking. Supposedly, I should answer the phone on my own.

The problem with this “theory” is that it doesn't make any sense. Not once during the week did I answer the phone. After all, it takes authority to take the phone of the boss and answer his calls (and seating at his chair, by the way?!). An authority I didn't have. He can give me his business, if he wants to give me authority. I won't refuse it.

This tone, its complete lack of sense, after a full week of vexations, was too much for me. I told him straight in the face that his manners were rude. Instead of backing down, he immediately fired me. That was the least of my worries, I was going to quit anyway.

But I wanted my money, and I told him. His garbage-manners showed off immediately. He told me I was just a piece of shit, and I wouldn't see the color of my money. We started throwing flowers at each other. I told him he was despicable, and I would make him pay. He told me I was an idiot thinking he had come to Malta to “make the law”. I could have asked him, ironically, if Maltese law allows maltese employers to steal foreigners.

From the days I worked for him, and from the comments of others coworkers, I discovered his main characteristics:

1. the man loves money above everything else.
2. he despises foreigners intensely
3. despite despising them, he doesn't have the balls to cut ties with them (customers and employees), because he needs them to make money.

A quick note about point 2: foreigners tend, whenever they are in conflict with someone of their host country, to throw the catchwords of “racism” and “xenophoby” at their opponent. Those attack are, very often, sickening and dishonest. If a foreigner behaves as a criminal or simply as an idiot, he deserves to be treated harshly in response. And that is not “racism”. Moreover, the simple fact of distrusting foreigners, of not wanting to associate with them, is perfectly legitimate. It very often makes sense, from a practical point of view. That said, there is indeed something called “xenophoby” which is sick and immoral. Treating foreigners like garbage, just because they are foreigners, falls in this category. And Ivan The Crook has this trait of character.

That day, even after our angry argument, Ivan refused to pay me. He even tried to fool me into committing a crime, so as to have a pretext to jail me.

Every day, at the beginning of work, we would be given a banana bag with 25€ in notes and coins: the float of the day, used to give change to customers. That money has to be given back at the end of the day.

After our hot-tempered discussion, and facing his shameless dishonesty, I could have taken it, to pay a part of what was owed to me. Morally speaking, I was in my right to do so. The man was telling me in the face that he didn't have the intention to pay me what he owed. He was telling me, basically, that he was a thief. So, taking the money from this dishonest man would be nothing wrong. But legally, this would have been considered a theft, and he would use it against me in a legal fight. So when I handed him back the bag, he refused it. He told me, with sarcasm, to keep it. I had to place it in front of him.

I went into the shop and sat in the couch for some time, so as to pressure him. Seeing that he wouldn't pay me, I left him and the place, so as to think more calmly about my next moves...

One Week In The Life Of Ivan The Thief

On Monday morning (30th of July), I started working for Ivan. It was just a 2-hour trial. I actually managed to sell something! That morning, he gave me five euros as a commission for my sale. These five euros are the sole money I received from this man for weeks!

I came back in the afternoon, and worked again from 3 to 8. From now on, that would be my shift, every day of that week: 15h-20h.

The work, basically, was about selling tickets for boat cruises to the tourists passing by us in the street. Captain Morgan, Eezee Cruises (Ivan's company), Sicilia Tours, and so on. It was hard, because you had to be in the heat all day long (August, in Malta, is VERY warm), standing and talking to people who most of the time couldn't care less about you. Moreover, when working in front of the shop, I would invite people in, for car or motorbike rentals.

On Monday and Tuesday, I discussed the terms of my payment with Ivan. The deal was: the hourly minimum wage (around 3,90€) + a commission of 3% of whatever sales I would do. Since I was very short on cash, I asked him if he could pay me weekly, the commission being monthly). He agreed.

The week was spent normally, selling tickets with more or less success. Despite that, it quickly became clear to me that I would not work there for long. After tow or three days, I could not stand him anymore: at every turn of the day, he would behave in a despicable way.

He would not explain to me how things worked and had to be done, but then would nonetheless expect me to know how to do it. Right at the beginning.

When I was stationned across the street (there are many “outspots” on the strand wherefrom his employees sell tickets), and some customer would ask for an information, I would call Ivan to check the details of the offer and try to close the deal. His answer would be to treat me as an idiot, and tell me to look at the brochure. After this warm welcome, I would stop calling him. And he would lose sales...

When for some reason I would not close some sale, he would talk in a nasty way to me, in front of other customers. They would themselves feel uncomfortable at his behaviour, feeling that he just saw them as sales. He doesn't have the intelligence to understand that customers often “fish” for information before committing. So that you have to be nice to them, even if they don't buy right at the moment.

He would be cold to his paying customers, who would come out of the shop with a strange look on their face... and would complain to me about his coldness!

If I had to summarise: the man is a complete idiot. He doesn't understand that he has to be minimally to his team and his customers, if he wants to have success. That is why his shop is messy, dirty, small, and old: he is a loser.

Many employees confirmed to me that he was always like that, just interested about money, treating all around him – even those who didn't harm him in anyway – like garbage.

The Context

After a month-long travel through Italy, I arrived in Malta a few weeks ago (end of July). I have a friend living here, and he had told me this is a nice place for expats: good weather, low unemployment, good wages, beautiful women, and low taxes. I decided I would settle here, at least for a good few months, finda a job, and make some money.

My friend helped me at the beginning. He housed me and he lent me some money. I still owe him some. I was very short on cash, so I quickly started looking for a job: any job would do. For a few days, I knocked on doors, in Valletta, Sliema, and some work agencies, proposing my services.

On a Sunday evening (strange day to find a job...), I passed by a tourism office on Sliema Strand. One of the many that sell tickets for boat trips around the island. The boss was at the door. I asked him if by chance he had any vacancy. He proposed me to sell tickets for him, and told me to come the day after for a trial, to see how the business operates. I accepted.

Introduction

This blog will tell the story of a foreigner (Pedro) living in Malta, as he tries to receive the money he is owed – for work done – by his employer: IVAN ZAMMIT.

IVAN ZAMMIT

Kollections Booking Office

46, the Strand

Sliema SLM 1022

Tel: 21341695

Mob: 99447986

Email: ivan1111@maltanet.net 

It will serve as a criticism of the man himself, and as an eye-opener about the incompetence (or outright dishonesty) of the authorities.