This article and accompanying Bertoon appeared in yesterday’s edition of The Malta Independent on Sunday.
As I sat down to type, the news reached Rue De Bragance that Sliema Water Polo Club has won a crucial game against Neptunes. I don’t really dig water polo, and beyond a fetishist support for Otters ASC, I usually follow as much of the sport as I do cricket. Frankly, I find watching the game a rather yawn-inducing affair and I get the impression that most of the action occurs underwater. I do however respect sporting interest, whatever the sport and whoever the supporter – I can develop a curious interest in the history of lacrosse or the rules of the Mayan game of “poc ta poc” – and therefore I will find no fault in the hundreds who will be celebrating this victory over what I understand to be their bitter rivals.
Water polo leagues generally served as a trivial palliative for the sports fanatic waiting for the resumption of what he considered the “real” season. The football fanatic would keep his league table reading skills honed thanks to matches like Neptunes versus Sliema and might even feign a passing interest in the players themselves. Don’t kid yourself though, not too deep below the mask lies the beast ready to explode with the kick-off of the new season – the real season of football that is.
That’s what the “silly season” is all about. It’s when you expect to read columns complaining about the dearth of writing material and when the news reverts to auto-drive: fires in the south of Europe, fireworks in Malta, heat waves and melanoma warnings and soon, very soon – the crazy long break of the 15th of August. So you’d expect blogs like J’accuse to be having quite a quiet period. And you’d only be partially right.
You can’t really bet on it
This week’s big news items were both in relation to the economy. In different ways, representatives of the two behemoths that vie for the driving seat of the country managed to continue to prove the J’accuse theory that they do not really consider themselves accountable to the people. A close friend of mine remarked this week that Mintoff’s greatest legacy to “the people” is that they got used to the idea that the business of government is to screw them… to put it mildly. Which is why we don’t mind voting obstinately for more of the same – they’re bound to screw us anyway.
Let’s kick off with what I consider to be the most outrageously interesting bit of action this week. We woke up one morning to the news that the various gambling arcades that had sprung around the island were being clammed shut by the boys in blue who had engaged in a massive island-wide raid. Conservatives must have felt that those shady looking holes that had begun to compete with kazini and pastizzi shops had finally got their comeuppance. Liberals must have yelled foul at this latest invasion by big brother on their right to fritter their earnings away on one-armed bandits and slot machines.
In the newspapers we got to read the official “big brother” version straight from the mouth of an “official spokesman” of the Finance Ministry. It was an ominous ending for the arcades since, according to the Finance Ministry spokesman, “none of them was operating with the necessary Gaming Authority licence.” That’s it then. “Game Over”. Forget about “Insert Coin” or “Press P1 to Start”. The game was up and “No Licence, No Party”. But it would not be that easy would it?
Assiduous readers of J’accuse are now invited to return to their scrapbooks and fish out the article entitled “Of Leopards and their Spots” from mid-March (from the “March Hare to the Silly Season – the Saga of Gaming continues”). You will find that in that particular, sumptuous edition of this column (if edition it may be called) we discussed the conflicting messages that were being transmitted with regard to gambling by the authorities. Some might recall a Parliamentary Affairs Committee recommending better regulation of the situation back in March, while Minister Fenech could only shrug his shoulders complaining about “lacunas in the law” that rendered enforcement complicated.
Jack’s Pot
So. That was March. A full five months ago. Since then no regulations were approved by Parliament (they have been drafted but are only expected to pass in September with the resumption of work by our representatives). So no new laws apply to the situation today – the same laws that applied in March apply in August. What happened to the lacunas (I believe it should be lacunae)? Why were the Minister’s hands tied in March but not in August? In short – if the law did not change, how come the interpretation of the manner in which it should be enforced did?
It’s worrying. Not worrying because I give two hoots about gaming arcades and the generally shady bunch that hang around them (judgemental? moi?). It’s worrying because yet again the Nationalist administration has proved to be rather shoddy in its respect for the rule of law. I dealt with this only last week and was hoping not to bore you with more of the same for a very long time, but it seems that constant grist to the mill of J’accuse’s theory is being provided – even in the middle of the silly season.
In March I had detected a “contradictory” message in the Parliamentary Committee’s comments on gaming arcades. It had described them as illegal while stressing, in the same breath, for the need of regulation. I had hoped that the government would have a better understanding of the principles of “legal certainty” and “legitimate expectations”, which now also underpin the system of EU law. It seems I was wrong. Because when the Minister can wake up one morning and decide that what was a “lacuna” in the law yesterday is a legal certainty today, we are sending the checks and balances of the legal system to the dumps.
Goody Two-Shoes
And it doesn’t matter one iota if, as the Minister was prompt to say, he is “not here to safeguard business which is abusing the vulnerabilities of people”. Nice to know Tonio, but then again yours is the ministry that revels in the “direct foreign investment” of companies engaged in the business of online gaming (and gambling). How does that reconcile with the “abusing of the vulnerabilities of people” business? There is an inherent contradiction in the two positions that smells foul and fishy. Only in June we were being served the wide array of pick ‘n’ mix candidates by the PN – you know, pro- and anti- hunting at the same time. Now we can see where they are coming from. Worst of all, we can see the direction in which they are heading… and you can bet your last euro that it does not look nice.
Meanwhile, determined not to be outdone by the Nationalist’s schizophrenic policies, Inhobbkom Joseph and his party were busy promoting that most progressive, liberal and social-democratic of solutions for the economic crisis. It was described in a way that managed to use kid talk while sounding convoluted. Essentially, it said that the government should engage in buying stuff from abroad while selling the same stuff differently locally. In The J’accuse Thesaurus of Political Terms, you will find that this solution fits cosily under the entry “Bulk Buying” (cross-reference with Dom Mintoff, tightening of belts and the daily fluctuations in the price of corned-beef – and did I mention an embargo on edible chocolate?).
As The Economist announced glumly that the second Castro is taking Cuba backwards instead of forward thanks to his reversion to the old commie way of managing the economy, Malta’s latest product of the economy graduate party was hard put to find a reasonable justification for this monumental gaffe. Like the Liberals in the UK, Malta’s Labour just does not know when to stay put and let the wind blow them into power. Thank God for that it seems. Heaven forbid we allow Joseph Muscat the extreme luxury of toying with the islands’ economy. Many points have been lost with this document and it will be hard to win them back.
The presidential gambit
Which makes it all the more worrying that the signs from the new generation of PN politicians this summer give an all but positive outlook. First we had the shenanigans of that ambitious upstart in Siggiewi, who had to go through the whole charade of a vote and a PR campaign in order to project himself to the frontline of the race to that “Oh-so-coveted” seat as president of the Party. With about as much political acumen as Berlusconi in the bedroom, the Siggiewi maverick managed to orchestrate a huge carnival that would only impress the party diehards, blinded and oblivious to the fact that his was not the instrumental role in this matter (I would hope it was absolutely unnecessary and that the lease on the building formerly owned by the Stricklands would have been terminated, vote or no vote).
From what I am told (unhappy insiders are always ready for a shoulder to bawl on), internal party battles are more akin to gladiatorial fights and underhand tactics than a battle of wits and values. The network of nepotism and avuncular patrons is crucial to the obtaining of strategic posts. This is true, especially at this moment when (it seems) it is important to be in such positions when the party begins to fall apart – and to be able to rush to the rescue seeming like the saviour (a sort of latter day 70’s Eddie without the side-whiskers and thick rimmed glasses).
In another corner of the hypothetical presidential boxing bout was the Government Whip. I would not think of him with reference to that particular post he holds, especially since he is an amiable person who you cannot really picture as the discipline man holding the ranks together. Yet, the Government Whip must have insisted on signing off his midweek contribution to the Independent with just that title. Following an article that could very well have been penned by Joseph Muscat, the signing off was surprising: Name Surname, Govt Whip. Like it is some diploma or something.
So much for promising replacements. The battle is as exciting as a midsummer water polo league table. We’ll have to see which of the contestants will be anointed by the party illuminati when the time comes. As I like to warn readers: expect more of the same.
The Heat is On
Or sometimes it is. As of next week I begin my final bout of summer holidays. I will gladly leave this Duchy of Summer Madness where it is 30° degree swimming hot at two in the afternoon only to revert to 20° with thunderstorms by five. First stop is the west of Sicily from Trapani to the province of Camilleri. I promise to eat healthily (and not copiously). J’accuse will be blogging from Malta in the last week of August – just in time to have missed the summer theatre season (why does that always happen to me?).
Till then sleep safely, shop wisely, swim carefully and pray to God that Minister Fenech does not wake up one morning and decide that driving to work is illegal.
www.jacquesrenezammit.com/jaccuse is still running until the statutory period of estivation that will begin around the 15th of August. Come drop us a line and tell us what you think should be outlawed next.
