The images, numbers and language that characterise the debate on ‘overpopulation’ scream out one dominant message – ‘they are the problem’. Images of sprawling slums, hungry and unhealthy children, endless lines of pregnant women at clinics – any image that supports words such as ‘explosion’, ‘hordes’, ‘spilling over’, ‘bomb’, chaos’ will suffice. The debate has one core message – because the largest concentrations of population are in the Third World (what an accurate label that is in these times of vaccine imperialism), it is self-evident that the problem of ‘overpopulation’ is over there. The corollary sentiment is that we must therefore take action to stop it coming over here. This line in illogic leads us all the way from the facile argument that Malta is ‘closed’ (to a highly selected group of people) to the impossible argument that millions are massed on the north African coastline just waiting, to the more insidious ideology of white race displacement. Extreme hyperbole is the order of the day when ‘overpopulation’ is the subject. Much of this was on public display around the editorial published by the Times of Malta on June 10 and in the subsequent commentary and...