Self-Determination

All eyes were on London this week as the leaders of the world’s countries who think they count most met to try to solve the globe’s economic and financial woes while protesters dressed in anything from polar bear suits to hooded tops wreaked the kind of senseless chaos that passes for making a point nowadays. London meant that the UK was playing host country and that world leaders would be entertained by Queen Bess and her unrelenting husband Philip.
 
All this lent to transforming the daily news into an interesting read as the international tiffs and disagreements on economic formulas shared the same pages as streams of opinion columns analysing the sartorial choices of Michelle Obama. Why we persist in wondering what the better halves of elected representatives say or do is a mystery to me – unless of course we are talking of President Sarkozy’s wife showing up somewhere in a skimpy dress (in which case I would of course be in the front row). On the other hand we were gently reminded of the usefulness of protocol and the importance of decor thanks to kind folks like Berluska and Prince Philip.
 
I spotted a hilarious video online of Queen Liz saying “Does he have to be so loud?” to other leaders just after Berlusconi broke up a photo session yelling “Barack Obama” while skating quickly towards the “tanned President” (His words not mine) in an obvious backside-licking disposition. The Obamas were the center of attraction and outshadowed other willing world saviours like Sarkozy, Merkel and Brown. The European trio had already had a hard time trying to find a point of agreement on how best to face the financial disasters that still lie ahead, all they needed was an American president eager to secure the best world deal within which to place his financial stimulus package back home and Tokio and Beijing chefs doing their own part to belittle any European idea.
 
Yes they can
The actual goings on at the G20 summit were somewhat confusing. On Thursday it was all doom and gloom as reports coming from London seemed to highlight the divergence between the great powers and there seemed to be no chance for a positive outlook. Friday morning’s papers however reported a successful, world changing and stabilising agreement that caught all onlookers by surprise. Somehow you still get the nagging feeling that the reassurances from Obama that the agreement was “by any measure historic” and that “the patient (referring to the world economy) is stabilised” are not entirely spot on.
 
OK tax havens will be severely hit. There are two categories of those and the country in which I reside breathed a sigh of relief when it narrowly avoided the Black List and was instead lumped with the Grey Listers – those who have already been warned to change (read asked politely) but who still persist in not changing their ways. Failing nations will have a $500 billion fund to plunder at the IMF and troubled economies will soon find a $250 billion global ‘overdraft’ facility. Which does not mean that you will be receiving a cheque in the mail to relieve your financial worries any time soon.
 
The fat cows have long run away and governments are only just coming round to the idea of actually arresting and responsibilising culprits. The problem, as Italian comic Beppe Grillo likes to point out only too often to anyone willing enough to listen, is that the banks have long been in bed with politicians, lawyers, notaries, accountants and economists and that it becomes ever more difficult to punish someone and recover anything when this would mean bringing the whole system down. Which might be the only lead we could have to understanding the No Global / Anarchic movement which blames anything from MacDonald’s Burgers to Windows in Main Streets for the world’s ills and appears at every G20 summit in order to persuade the world leaders with a manifestation of violence and disorder.
 
Autochthonous
While the world’s elected leaders met in London trying to solve real and tangible problems, Labour’s unelected Leader of the Opposition was busy lighting a fire at an anachronistic monument, delivering an anachronistic speech and firing up another anachronistic debate among the Maltese nation. And we gladly indulged. Settegiugnoists were pitted against Independentists or Republicans or Freedomists. The Global Financial Crisis was after all only a minor event compared to the earth moving occasion when a rental contract was not renewed and the autochthonous indigenous peoples of the Maltese islands felt liberated enough to transform themselves into an economically independent nation. Economically Independent of course meant that we were free to choose the size of our begging bowl when running from Italy to China to Korea in search of some form of material justification for Malta’s own version of the Libyan Jamahariya.
 
Yes. You may have guessed that I would never vote for Freedom Day as National Day in any referendum. I am quite sure that if Inhobbkom J is half as intelligent as he shows he is then he too knows deep down that there is about as much significance in that hideous monument as there is in certain other monuments that adore roundabouts in this country. He does need to play the people’s song though and since playing the Freedom Day card is all about recovering the Mintoffian fringe then so be it… a night at the Waterfront is all that it takes.
 
Don’t get me wrong. I am very proud of my nation’s history and particularly so of it’s two steps towards nationhood – Independence and Republic Day. In my mind that is where it all starts and stops – and by making such a statement I am aware that I too am taking part in the anachronistic debate. It will take more than two political parties “agreeing” for us to learn to recognise what makes us a nation and give us something to celebrate together in much the same way as the Americans have their 4th of July and the French have their 14th July.
 
This whole business of “the parties agreeing” is a bit the crux of the problem. They are after all the reason behind so much crass division and partisanism. How they can con themselves (before even trying to con the people) that simply by giving their nihil obstat then we would all rush out bearing blue and red banners on our new National Day is beyond my comprehension. But they do believe that the world begins and ends with them. The two parties – the all pervasive organisations that should long have faded into the background and yet still haunt our everyday lives.
 
Father of Modern Democracy
Dom Mintoff would probably love to be remembered as the Father of the Republic. Eddie Fenech Adami (as we long knew him, even in the days when Xandir Malta would not pronounce his name) would love to be remembered as the man who ushered in representative democracy with the call of “Work, Justice and Liberty”. No matter how you read the turbulent years that were the early eighties you have to hand it to EFA for having stood strong and hard against adversity while moderating the more violent souls within his own party thus avoiding an all out civil war. Instead through civil disobedience and the adoption of a centre-left ideology that charmed many EFA led Malta to the ultimate target of EU membership (again, a great day but far from being a candidate for National Day).
 
In 1981 EFA and the party he led felt cheated by an electoral result that stank of gerrymandering. The representation in Parliament did not reflect the will of the people. Worse than that was the fact that as a result of this skewed representation the government of the day was a government of a national minority. EFA’s party rightly embarked on a process that would prove scary and required a strong resolve in the face of a violent and ignorant mass that was oftentimes protected by the very government that was supposed to be a government for the people. I was but a child then (though I would not claim to have vivid memories when I was 5 years old… it was more like eight, nine and ten) and I remember the fear in the eyes of my parents and close family memberes when events like Tal-Barrani and the murder of Raymond Caruana unfolded.
 
All this was a struggle in the name of democracy and proper representation. In the end common sense prevailed and after having narrowly avoided an ugly trouser leg of time we ended up with new rules for elections and a guarantee that a result as skewed as the 81 election would never happen again. Unfortunately nowadays, the very party that worked so hard in the eighties for proper democratic representation is often embroiled in rule-bending exercises that hardly befit the heritage of which EFA is entitled to be so proud. The Wasted Vote dilemma of the last general election was milked dry by Nationalist exponents and the same party has done close to nothing to ensure that all wrongs are righted. All it would take is a reasonable national threshold for parties and a guarantee of parliamentary representation. Until that is done then the legacy of President Edward Fenech Adami would all have been in vain.
 
Ambition
Pride and ambition are often necessary ingredients in the development of a nation. In Malta we often find examples of misplaced ambition. Today’s world allows many more people to get their few minutes of fame that Warhol had spoken about. From Big Brother to candidacy for some election or other we can all become famous. Then there are awards – and here I tread a fine line because I could be misconstrued as having some form of whinge.
 
I’ll say it anyway because if I do not nobody will – and since I do not care much anyway I might as well. The Institute of Maltese Journalists has announced its nominations for this year’s Journalism Awards. I must confess that when the first e-journalism awards were handed out I did have an eye on this possible form of recognition for my budding blog. Yet year after year I did notice a funny trend as to nominations being made and when J’accuse failed to get even a mention in the year when it practically put the Maltese blogosphere on the political map (there… the arrogant touch is still there) with quotes and counter-quotes all over the place (to be followed by the blogging flood on the MSM) I sort of gave up on following the awards.
 
So back to this year. As I said, I gave up on the e-journalism bit since the nominations seemed to have as much awareness of what goes on on the net as a Chinese citizen would, but I did take a peep at the nominations for Opinion Articles. I’m sorry but once again the IGM seems to have made a meal of it. My favourite local columnist was nowhere to be seen (and no, I am not referring to myself but to Mark Antony Falzon) and as was the case with the e-journalism the “opinion columnists” that were , let me see how to put it, not exactly the first thing I look for in the papers. Anyways, I seem to have confirmed my suspicions that the whole system in these “awards” is about as reliable as the Eurovision. Tant pis for the importance of journalism in an open democracy.
 
Skill
My parting shot is of a sporting kind. In the week of the international football festival of WC Qualifications it was ironic to see England continue in their resplendent form now that they have a real coach (Italian). It was sad to see Trap’s Ireland not leave Bari with the full booty thus giving the Iti’s a run for the money. The best was saved for last. Brasil woke up from their slumber to beat lowly Peru and save their faces… then came the result that gave me a permanent smile for the rest of the week. The Argies led by that drug guzzling scoundrel of a coach succumbed to the world superpower of Bolivia letting in the beauty of six goals to their one goal. And no… it was not the Davis Cup.
 
Jacques is getting ready for the Easter holidays at http://www.akkuza.com. All angry comments regarding his distate for freedom day may be posted on that site.