I remember perfectly where I was 10 years ago today. I was at home, sick with a heavy dose of “man-flu” (a newly added term to the Oxford dictionary) zapping through tv channels rather disinterestedly when the news broke and the crawl at the foot of most channels led me directly to the live coverage on CNN. The horrible scenes of panic and disorder as Hollywood-style pictures were screened live into living room televisions the world over brought home the savage dawn of a new era.
Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda had struck directly at the heart of what for many was the norm of civil society. What is arguably the world’s most metropolitan city was ending its night shift (you cannot use the phrase “waking up” for the city that never sleeps) and the al Qaeda directors scripted a new dawn calculated to instil terror in the heart of civil society. These were not the bullets and bombs that were the choice weapons of the hitherto “conventional” terror organisations. No, al Qaeda’s cruel orchestration required that civilian transport and civilian buildings would transform into weapons of mass destruction.
It takes a second to wreck it
Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek has written about the two epic moments in recent history and how they signified important turning points for civil society. Fate has it that the dates of the two events are palindromic once we remove the year (a game for conspiracy theorists but nothing more than a coincidence). On the one hand, if we use the US system of writing dates (month/day) we have 11/9 or November 9th 1989 when the Berlin Wall finally fell. That day was declared to be the end of history and the beginning of a liberal-democrat utopia.
The 11/9 era was to come to a crashing stop on 9/11 (September 11th 2001) − after almost 12 years of the liberal-democrat utopia. Zizek argues that “real history” came crashing back into focus. With the onslaught of terror began the gradual crumbling of the liberal dream best typified by the tightening of the noose on civil liberties by governments acting in the name of the “War on Terror”. As Zizek put it, we entered a time when a state of peace became also a permanent state of emergency as the distinction between war and peace became blurred.
It takes time to build
The shoestring budget terror attack catapulted the world into a new set of paradigms and we are still bearing the consequences of the political shifts that were involved. It took a few seconds to strike at the heart of civil society. It will take time to rebuild. Meanwhile, the world (and to a great extent most of civil society) is also trying to weather the economic hurricane that has been besieging its normality for almost three years now. “Le borse affondano” is the latest title in the economy pages of La Stampa. The troubles in Europe have shifted to the sacred cows of “government bonds”, and the resignation of the German Starke from the European Central Bank this weekend sent shockwaves that “burnt” €157 billion on the markets.
Milan, Frankfurt, Paris − all the markets suffered the shock as governments try desperately to tackle problem after problem. Deficit reduction, spending reduction and other such bywords have become the daily crux for the European 27. Italy has just managed to squeeze through a budget of sorts (La Manovra) while hear in Malta we are still trying to digest Moody’s downward revision of our credit rating. These are big signs in important times and the reactions from the Opposition benches are bafflingly petty, provincial and transparently populist.
It is a sad truth of the Maltese reality that Muscat’s posturing and finger-pointing about the economy will be swallowed hook, line and sinker by the world of the “disgruntled”. It is those very same disgruntled who will eventually be voting “by default” for a Labour government that claims to have the solution to all the problems but seems to prefer to hold the cards close to its chest. Presumably that is because the solutions can only work with a Labour government in place − either that or the solutions are as real as the Tooth Fairy.
The Rule of Law
That Joseph Muscat and his party can peddle hot air as concrete party policies comes as no surprise to this columnist. The fuel for (all) the power circles in our community is all made from the same material where opportunism trumps diligence, where nepotism trumps merit and where the imperatives of populist policies have eroded the value base, which could have provided a proper compass and direction. Our nation’s assault on civil society did not come out of the sky in the form of planes but has been a gradual process of erosion much like the Mediterranean battering against our rock formations.
This week the Plategate saga shot back to the headline news. A defamation case that has been dragging on for some time now is actually the scene for much more important and crucial allegations about the workings in institutions that are important to the stability and functioning of our civil society. Beneath the pink news and name-calling lie facts that have finally (and it took them quite some time) begun to bother those among us who manage to attract the most attention and make the most noise.
It’s not like many of the allegations were not already within the grapevines and Chinese whispers of our society. Malta’s civil society is more and more dependent on the wink-wink nudge-nudge philosophy where standards vanish in order to accommodate the latest johnny-come-lately. Profession after profession has been succumbing to the new rules of the game as the words “ethics”, “standards” and “values” are ditched for the sake of social expediency.
The lack of public trust in politicians and institutions is doomed to get worse. Our society desperately needs a ground up change in order to reinvest in the lost values and reconstruct its ailing institutions. Unfortunately, it is beginning to seem that everyone under the sun has a vested interest in one power circle or other that is the main culprit for the erosion of our civil society. That sad indictment will be written once again come next election. It may take time to build, but unless we realise the proper foundations and adopt a winning philosophy it all risks crumbling to the ground all over again.
Welcome home
The inauguration of the new Juventus stadium on Thursday was a moving and thrilling experience. The words class, style and pride formed the perfect framework for the event that was described as the birth of a new era in Italian football. Juventus too has been forced to rise from the ashes as the team attempts to shed the effects of an unjust and unequal application of a twisted legal system. I am looking forward to the day when the team of shame visits our stadium and while they are preparing in the changing room they will face the 29 scudetti won by Italy’s most loved. Juventus too has adopted a philosophy inherited from the Agnelli family: “At Juventus winning is not the most important thing. It is the only thing that counts.”
Fino alla fine.
This article and accompanying bertoon appeared in today’s Malta Independent on Sunday.
