Boxes are being packed and labeled. Furniture is being sold at bargain prices and frantic contacts are being made with various moving companies as D-day approaches. J’accuse is moving base and leaving the city. Come May we will be castellans in the village of Dondelange and you can expect more of the current hiccuped manner of posting on the blog. Meanwhile here are a few things I’ve been meaning to post about and had no time to.
1. Rules of referendum
Our pet storyline is making the headlines. Raphael Vassallo explains the implications of the PLPN drafted rules on the next refered. In the article “Divorce: Law assumes referendum will be held along party lines” Raphael points out the rules of the game and how they seem to be written almost exclusively with two parties in mind. Well there you have it. Further proof that the PLPN Dumbing Down theory is not simply a theory. We now have a ridiculous situation where a party that has no position on divorce (PL) and another that has a position but will not do anything about it lest it loses precious votes (PN) are the only two who can participate in the administrative aspect of the referendum. No amount of public formations f Pro- and Con- entities will change the law. Funny? Not really. This is what we mean when we say that electoral rules are written solely with the intention of preserving and reinforcing the bipartisan status quo.
2. Flights of Fancy
In the same vein let it be registered that J’accuse’s position on the expat vote in the referendum is consistent with previous positions. We firmly believe that in the 21st century expats should be given the opportunity to vote either by overseas ballot or via post – especially when it comes to a vote in a consultative referendum. J’accuse never agreed with the PLPN farce of sponsored flights – and still does not agree with the principle. We doubt whether any sponsored tax-free flights will be offered in this hour of Air Malta need (although they would actually serve as a hidden form of subsidy for the airline) but should they be offered we will use them until the day the possibility of voting from abroad is offered.
3. Referendum and Church Points
The campaign proceeds with inputs from all sides. The consultative referendum is turning into making a point and just that. So yes, vote if you have to and vote in favour of the introduction of divorce. It will be sad to see Joseph Muscat and Labour acting as though they carried the vote themselves – they did not and they are not helping. Worse still those idiots and nincompoops writing away on facebook as though Labour is facing a new interdiction better wake up and smell the coffee – their party is just as cowardly yellow as most of the no to divorce factoid inventing freaks. If ever divorce is introduced in Malta it will be DESPITE LABOUR, DESPITE PN and DESPITE CATHOLIC proselytisation.
4. Giletti… the worst that RAI can get
The Maltese world is in uproar because a third rate “journalist” on RAI TV dared allege that the Maltese shoot on immigrants and that is why they choose Lampedusa. I tend to see the reaction as overblown and for a while I would also go far as to say that an Ambassador phoning in to correct would be a step too far. Then I think of the Mexican Ambassador officially complaining to the BBC “over “offensive, xenophobic and humiliating” comments made about his country on Top Gear.” It’s not a matter of colonial mentality as other “journalists” might put it. I do believe that an official protest is in place – it’s the rabid reaction by the internet posse that really was over the top. The colonial mentality – or rather the PLPN educated reaction is one of violent tirades of personal retribution on anything that smacks of RAI and Giletti. In a nation of people brought up and stunned into an aggressive-other mentality there was little more to be expected. The reaction, though originally justified, tends to obviate any response after a while. And anyway… does Giletti know that our army are too busy daring each other to chew on poisonous beetles?
5. Libya
It’s not that I wanted to relegate the topic but as the UN sanctioned intervention continues there are a number of pressing questions that cannot be ignored. As I read today of the developments in Sirte I couldn’t help but notice that we have moved very, very far from the protection of civilians. At which point did the advance of the rebels become covered by the UN sanctions? I have no shadow of doubt that (a) Ghaddafi has to go and (b) that the dawn of a new, free Libya is ultimately desirable. What I do worry about is the legal somersaults that will be required to differentiate any intervention that is occuring henceforth from the need to intervene in other nations such as Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and who knows…. China. It’s not a war – there is no casus belli. It’s not a UN Sanctioned rebellion (they made pretty sure of that). Then why are missiles thundering over Sirte and getting closer to Tripoli?
