This article and accompanying Bertoon was published on last Sunday’s edition of The Malta Independent on Sunday (01.10.09).
It has definitely been a weird week chez J’accuse. It’s mostly been all work and no blog for Jack. The main victim has been the blog as well as the general following of news that allows this correspondent of yours to keep your reading interests satiated on a weekly basis. As I sit down before my PC late on Wednesday evening, I am engaging in what can be described as a tour de force of what has been on in Malta and beyond in order to be able to provide you with the weekly digest notwithstanding my “out of sync status”.
Before you posit that most pertinent of questions allow me to pre-empt your query, pregnant as it is with demented curiosity, by informing you that as of Thursday I will have quit the mainland on what has become my annual trip to Albion. My annual visit coincides with the period when the foulest stench is in the air, that funk of forty thousand years with grizzly ghouls from every tomb that close in to seal your doom – and although the unwelcoming villagers of the most haunted village of Pluckley have decided to renege on the Halloween festivities this year, I intend to be have a well-deserved rest after the over-drive of the past few weeks.
All of which means that it is of the essence for you to know that most of the news that I report happened up until the eve of the 28th of this month (and with a bit of hindsight I add on the eve of the 29th – there’s an Internet connection at the Lodge!). That should suffice as insurance lest subsequent events have the unpleasant effect of nullifying any of the arguments made hereunder.
Synchrony
This was the week that began with our watches shifting hour as the autumnal period began to get serious with the shedding of leaves, lengthening of nights and general freezing of the physical constitution (at least this far from the Equator). Saturday was the night celebrated among youth who get to extend their evening of revelry thanks to that wonderful extra 3600 seconds materialising out of nowhere – just like the funds in an Opposition plan to tackle the budgetary deficit. That meant that a good part of Sunday would be spent setting the clocks right unless aforesaid clocks were intelligent modern gizmos that performed such setting of their own accord.
What I did notice is that the week of the changing of hours presented us with some interesting examples of people, programmes and events that were out of sync with the real world. In fact it was a week that was anachronistic on the whole, and speaking of anachronisms where best to begin than that walking investment in hair gel that is Lou Bondi?
Bondi’s X factor (PM Style)
It would only take a rotation of a few degrees to transform the “plus” of Bondiplus into a letter “X”. A few days after exorcism made it to prime time television in the mother of all Maltese talk shows, Lou “mind the braces” Bondi decided to dedicate a show to a “different” political discussion. To call it a political discussion would be shooting a bit high off the mark but it did discuss matters that were political nevertheless. Bondi assembled a panel of people who could be said to have an opinion on the subject in question and then proceeded to enquire of them their preferred choice among the not too big a panoply of former Maltese Prime Ministers ever since independence.
The panel fell short of having the local equivalent of Simon Cowell or Italy’s Morgan, but the programme still had all the necessary requirements to qualify as a local version of X factor. The only difference was that the panel of judges were not being asked to vote for artistic performance, stage presence and other similar qualities but rather they were being asked to choose from among the past leaders of this isle. Notwithstanding her aesthetic pleasantness, Bondi’s able sidekick lost my attention early in the programme as she presented a sort of Top Trump Card of George Borg Olivier’s qualities.
The scene may have been set for an evening of nail-biting, gripping excitement but I could only thank the busy heavens that I was watching a streamed version of the programme. That normally allows you to fast-forward through the obscene amount of advertising, but this time round I opted straight out of the programme right after seeing the first table of points attributed by the panellists. It was evident that this was the Independence Day v Republic Day being extended and milked. Yes, it probably does sell as an idea and as a discussion, but given the gaping absence of intelligent discussion on the box nowadays we are surely entitled to ask whether public prime time is being well spent on such puerile disquisitions as “My Prime Minister Was Better Than Yours”.
This is not the time
I am not normally the kind who bothers with the contents of TV schedules but we might find time to ask ourselves whether we believe that the national TV station has a duty towards “education” or “intelligent information”, or whether we have resigned ourselves to the mind-numbing droning that is generally offered. It’s not really a gripe on “use of taxpayers money” per se as much as it is another symptom of all that is wrong in the general resignation (cynical as it is) of the population to the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) of “political” TV programmes. The debate on the responsibility of national broadcasters is ever present in Italy and has been rekindled in the UK thanks to the Conservatives. It is therefore only fair to wonder how come this supposedly highly politically-charged island takes the absolute neutralisation of intelligent discussion on national TV for granted.
Mike Briguglio was one of the unfortunate panellists on Lou Bondi’s programme. He was described by gel-man as being there in his own capacity as an “activist” – with all the interesting connotations in local political parlance – and I am sure Mike would allow us to translate it to “naughty shit-stirrer”, if only for sociological purposes. Mike is also the uncontested candidate for the post of Alternattiva Demokratika Chairman, a post he fully deserves. He has worked his way up to it in the real sense of the phrase, as against the backside-licking qualities (or if you want the politically correct version, the diplomatic nous) that it takes to climb to the higher echelons of established parties. What Briguglio brings to the AD is probably a different direction that is more attuned to his idea of green activism and possibly returns to the grassroots of AD’s inspiring ideology.
That means, in all probability, that the baton for a reformist movement to tackle duopolistic politics has been definitely dropped by AD (as was within its rights) and that there is no party in existence that can take it up. It leaves us with a bleak landscape insofar as voting in a few years’ time is concerned – and it confirms the perceived idea in some circles that in all probability the metaphorical gun will be back at our heads when it comes to marking our preferred candidates. So much for the progressive politics of change – Muscat’s Zabbar speech that doubled as a sort of shadow budget speech in the making seems to have got the thumbs down from all quarters (mine included).
The anachronistic Christian Democrats
During my time at university, Mike Briguglio and I were on two of the (thankfully) multiple ends of the student political spectrum. While I militated in what has now definitely been consecrated as an anomalous SDM, Mike was a founding member of Graffitti – the group we affectionately called the “commies”. Without groups like Graffitti we would not have been able to feel challenged about promoting our ideas and policies. Without people like Mike there would have been much less of the real political debate on campus than the little there actually was. The sad truth is that the majority of our intelligentsia at university always mimicked the general trends in Malta and was actually a microcosm of the two-tribe mentality.
In any case, the little politics we managed to get going at Tal-Qroqq was meaningful even thanks to the reformed Student Union with a wider representation (Social Policy Commission) that encompassed all groups. I recall that a meeting convened by Adrian Gellel somewhere in the mid-nineties to discuss room allocation in Students’ House among other things was an unintended genesis to the wide-ranging reforms that transformed KSU into the union it is today. I was therefore very, very angry to read of the happenings in Students’ House last week. Apparently Graffitti are being ejected from their allocated room in Students’ House, and even worse, they are to be ejected from the body of representation for having failed to attend three consecutive meetings.
I do not know which clown purports to apply such rules in the name of a working democracy and student representation, but he or she surely must be missing a rationality pill or two. Surely there are better ways of cajoling an organisation into attending Social Policy meetings – particularly after the recent birth of a new political movement on campus? Judging by Graffitti’s vehement reaction to the expulsion they do not need much cajoling either. If this turns out to be another sorry excuse to eliminate different ideas from the discussion then I can truly say that I am proud that the SDM I belonged to was an anachronism that might alas never be repeated.
Santa Claus comes early
I wanted to write a thing or two about possible unions for police officers and about Simon Busuttil’s latest achievement in the European Parliament (hurry, tell EVERYONE who was travelling to Mauritius and the Seychelles that they no longer need a visa!!) but a much more important bit of news should take precedence. While I was driving through the fog and mist of the land of the Ch’ti (Nord Pas de Calais) and through the Chunnel there was much ferment going on in the EU as all and sundry negotiated with President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic in order to cajole this obstinate individual to sign the Lisbon Treaty.
Vaclav had blocked the whole process in the hope that he would get some concessions on the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. He had managed to get all of the EU in a bit of a worried flurry and thankfully there has been a last minute breakthrough. The EU leaders have granted the concessions and the Lisbon Treaty will go through – and Blair still gets a stab at being the first “EU President”. So a potential Czech Mate (if you will excuse my pun) situation has been averted. We might finally be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel insofar as this treaty is concerned. What we have learnt is that the path to “an ever closer union” is still wrought with uncertainties and outright opposition. Europe still has a long way to find itself before it goes out to face the world as one.
Still. For many of the EU leaders Claus has come a bit early this
All Hallow’s Evening
So, I finish typing this article in the heart of Kent – Biddenden to be exact – where I prepare to celebrate the end of the “lighter half” of the year” and the beginning of the “darker half” on the evening of all Hallow or Halloween – or as we would call it in Christian parts, the eve of All Saint’s Day. You can only adore Kent at this time of the year with its crisp mornings and panoply of things to offer. There’s only one thing I would change – that’s the ghastly A-roads probably built for carriages and on which the crazy Brits tend to speed past like there is no tomorrow. The roads were probably built for another, lazier era when “rush” meant a family of plants, the Empire was still at its peak, and red poppies did not have a sad, sad connotation of remembering how sadistically cruel humankind can be.
Jacques is in Kent this weekend but www.jacquesrenezammit.com/jaccuse returns to normal service from Tuesday.
