Following the last presidential elections in the United States a couple of states will be legislating the universal right to marry (including same-sex marriages) and a couple of others will be legalizing the personal use of marijuana. The French government has itself begun to debate a bill this week that if successful will pave the way for same sex marriages in the hexagon. British society is dealing with the ghosts of paedophilia while Italy is in the throes of the umpteenth attempt to “clean up”its political act.
It could be a banal exercise in comparative politics – or rather comparative hyperbole but it would only be as sensational as the Fat Moustachoed Lady at the circus. We no longer afford to, and nor are we interested in, laughing at the latest vestiges of ottocentismo that has struck our island’s politics. On Tuesday afternoon Tonio Borg is in the dock having the values in his head examined in order to see whether or not he is fit to be one of Europe’s 27 commissioners. The EU itself went into a sort of seizure the moment somebody somewhere (Is that you Mr Giscard d’Estaing?) tried to define the value heritage it incorporates. We went something between comatose and autistic as words such as Judaeo-Christian and Humanist were whispered in halls between croissants and beer. In the end we gave up and thrashed the grandiose thoughts of a Constitution for the less optimistic (but equally radical) Lisbon reforms.
So our dinosaur is getting his head bashed in Brussels by an institution that is itself at the heart of a wider system that prefers the sanitary non-controversy of non-commitment than the idealistic aspirations of a society trusting in a deity and his inspiration much like the cousins across the pond with their “In God We Trust”spiel. Still. Still our island does manage to make a hash about our approach to ideals and ideas, to principles and to values. It’s less of a question of not having them and much more of a question of how to use them.
The supposed depositories of condensed popular values have long abdicated from their duty of guiding or elucidating a combination of lesser common factors in order to make the society of ours an open one that is acceptable for those who live therein. Concerned as they are with populistic masochism they have condemned our society’s development to a series of hiccups and bumps.
Which brings me to Adrian Vassallo. Apparently in a bout of pipe-induced fury he has condemned his calumniators to forever carry the moniker of “pigs”. Their crime? Having described him and those of his ilk as “dinosaurs”. It’s all a freak show in the end. A trumped up charade designed to make us believe that these are people who would die for their principles. Vassallo will be paraded as the pariah that he is (ironically with only those such as Tonio Borg who could embrace his ideals) both within and without his party. His shenanigans and porcine vocabulary will definitely serve to fan the flames of facile satire on the web but it will serve more the likes of the leader of his party who by distancing himself from the Vassallo position will end up sounding much more progressive than he really is. Actually he isn’t. Progressive. At all.
The misfits of the current band of parliamentarians will take their last stand in this particular parliamentary session of folly. They are irrelevant. irrelevant because their voices are in representation of no one but themselves. What remains to be seen is whether the population will accept the bland non-committal positions of our two parties in such areas as are normally labelled progressive and liberal. Given that none of the PLPN lot will be tempted to corner the sty for their own the real question is how much of the voting population can be tied to the liberal vote and what will they do with it?
The divorce debate had been one great window of opportunity for the liberals of the island to break ranks from the behemoth party of dinosaurs and fence-sitters. That occasion was lost and the spearheads of that liberal campaign were soon absorbed into the fold of false propaganda and hope. This election might not be too late for the liberal vote to form a critical mass that stands up to be counted. Will they find an alternative means of expression or will they insist on biting their nose to spite their face – voting for the parties that con them year in year out only to laugh at them and their temptation to waste their vote when the time comes?
The liberal movement needs to start seriously weighing the use of its vote. It’s either that or make a pig’s meal out of it all.
