On 3rd October 1992 Irish singer Sinéad o’Connor appeared on Saturday Night Live and gave a rendition of Bob Marley’s song “War”. During the a capella rendition she switched the word “racism” with the words “child abuse” in protest over the problems of sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. At the end of the performance she displayed a photo of Pope John Paul II which she proceeded to tear up while pronouncing the word “evil” and “fight the real enemy”.
Incitement? You be the judges of that.
Some guy gets fined €500 under the Press Act for having commented that the pope should be shot through the hands and feet in order to feel closer to Jesus. This declaration was made within the “confines” (that’s sarcasm guys) of a facebook group called “No to the Pope in Malta”.
The charge was of incitement under the Press Act. Some people including, surprisingly, defence lawyer Owen Bonnici, argue that the publication in question (a Facebook entry) is not made in Malta but wherever Facebook has opted to have as a place of abode. What rubbish. We have repeated time and time again that the important thing with regard to publications is not where the site is registered but where it can be read. Hence anything you write on public forums/sites/comment boards etc is liable to be subject to Maltese law for the simple reason that it can be read on a computer in Malta.
My gripe is more on the issue of “incitement” than anything else. the police must have received a complaint and proceeded thereupon – they are not so much to blame. My worry is how far do we define this incitement and with what limits. For one thing it would be evident to any reasonable minded individual that Karl Farrugia’s comment regarding the perforation of the papal limbs with projectiles is surely not in the same league of seriousness as, let’s say, a loony rightist leader’s intimation of the use of violence methods for the expulsion of immigrants.
I believe that neither in the case of Karl nor in the case of the (fictitious) loony leader are we confronted with an equivocal statement as that uttered by Henry II. History leads us to believe that speaking of Becket Henry said “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest”. In actual fact it went more like this:
“What miserable drones and traitors have I nurtured and promoted in my household who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric!”
Four knights – Reginald Fitzurse, Hugh de Morville, Willieam de Tracy and Richard le Breton – overheard the regent’s appeal and took him to his word. They found Becket in Canterbury cathedral and brutally murdered him. The King lived to regret this deed while the four knights ended up being excommunicated for their troubles. In any case their interpretation of the royal despair as some form of command might be forgiven. Whether we should think that Karl Farrugia’s exhortation is an invitation in the manner of Henry II is something I doubt very much.
True, people should be more aware of the consequences of their utterings and postings on such tools as facebook but surely no one in his right mind would believe that Karl Farrugia’s statement was meant to be taken literally?
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Lights are out or returning back on this morning in Malta. It’s long past being a funny situation – the power station business that is – and the blackout will ironically throw more fuel into the incandescent fire that is every discussion about power stations, government contracts and governmental mismanagement.
While Malta floundered around in the dark UK Deputy PM Nick Clegg was busy reassuring his voters that the forthcoming government programme will include “the “biggest shake-up of our democracy” in 178 years”. This includes fixed-term parliaments, a fully elected House of Lords and a referendum on electoral reform.
The Liberal leader is in charge of the reform plans and has stated that he wants to “transform our politics so the state has far less control over you, and you have far more control over the state”. Centralised states were on the mind of Clegg throughout his presentation and at one point he stated:
Britain was once the cradle of modern democracy. We are now, on some measures, the most centralised country in Europe, bar Malta.
Now that’s a bugger innit? The contrast being made is obvious. Britain has relinquished its past as a “cradle of modern democracy” and having done so has approached – what? – Malta. Ouch. That hurts. It’s painful. But there must be a reason why Nick’s first thought when thinking of a decentralised (and consequentially distant from being a cradle of modern democracy) country leaps to Malta.
My bet is that if any repercussions will be had in Malta all blame will fall squarely on the nutjobs at the Alleanza Liberali who have carried the “Liberal” name for quite some time now – with dire consequences on any chances that name might have if taken up by normal minded people. There might even be a photo of Nick with John Zammit (who is currently busy working on www.freewebs.com/mintoffjani) as part of his Mintoffjan/Liberal project.
It would be too easy though to blame it on the nutjobs though. Nick Clegg, deputy PM of one of the largest political realities in Europe does not think highly of our political system – were it just a voice out of the blue it would be something we could easily ignore. Instead, Clegg is simply confirming what this forum has said for ages – the PLPN duopoly has much to answer for in this respect.
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You already know what we think of Bondi and Bondi+. But we’re a blog – a particularly difficult customer in the market of public opinion. We pronounced the death of investigative journalism quite some time ago and we never got a reply to the many questions we posed to Lou and his programme guest. But we’re a blog. We are but one opinion in a world of different opinions.
We may have a boringly irrelevant opinion and we may attract a few commentators (not bloggers Lou, not bloggers) that reflect even more opinions yet we are out there – to be read, agreed with or disagreed with. We too create our ripples in public opinion. And sometimes those ripples can be irritating. Irritating to the point that both blogger and commentators can be seen as “paċlieqa” – troublesome chatters that threaten the order of things. (video clip available further down).
Last Tuesday the sans-pareil of Maltese journalism had a programme about the environmental effects of the Delimara project. At one point in the programme he had a little battibecco with Leo Brincat when Leo dared to suggest that it is not only the experts who do not like the government plans but that there is also a strong wave of negative public opinion. At that point Lou Bondi – having earlier dismissed the importance of public opinion in such technical matters – feels threatened and interrupts on one of his classical “points of order”.
Lou is not against public opinion but against public opinion being the measure on technical issues. He throws in a stab at blogs and bloggers “ipeċilqu fuq il-blogs” – an indeterminate verb that is an attempt at superior disdain that backfires. You see Lou’s problem here is that he loses the plot quickly. Very quickly. On the one hand the whole spirit of his program is supposed to be that of an information exercise and the clients of such an exercise are the general public. Presumably they are being provided with facts with which to form an opinion – either that or this is pure entertainment and majtezwel have the bearded lady and a few elephants on the show.
The greater order of things however require that Lou is the arbiter of what is relevant (and definitely not the public). How wrong can he be? The public do not get to choose what is the right machinery – we are not all Profs Edward Mallias – but surely the exercise here is to see whether those entrusted with the choosing have done so in a proper manner and with the public good in mind. That is the relevance of the wave of public opinion that Leo Brincat rightly mentioned. It even goes beyond the NGO‘s.
Public opinion, according to Lou, is not relevant in technical matters. We should assume of course that Lawrence Gonzi‘s place of abode and the distance in meters from the San Antnin processing plant and from Delimara is of some obscure technical relevance only graspable by the likes of Lou. By his reasoning we should not really vote unless we grasp the full (technical) consequences of the decisions that our elected representatives will take – all the decisions.
Moving away from the issue of whether public opinion is or is not relevant in such a discussion, Lou’s blatant disregard of his very clients – the thousands supposed to be watching his every programme (why? not to have an opinion since it is irrelevant – so presumably to drool over his immense capability to orchestrate the stage) is shaming. Where’s Everybody has an English slogan: Programmes People Watch. They really should put a question mark at the end of that statement. Or simply add – Programmes People Watch – and hell if we know why.
Fast forward to proceedings before the Broadcasting Authority and Lou has a damascene moment – he is suddenly all for the public pulse and what they are thinking. Defending his cause for the right to have Norman Lowell on his programme he whips out a very technical criterion:
However, Mr Bondì claimed that, although there was a lot of feedback about the programme, he spoke to all those who felt offended and they later understood the producers’ reasoning that such ideas had to be exposed and challenged. He said Mr Lowell’s popularity had increased over the past years and he garnered almost 4,000 votes in the last election. This was partly because he was only allowed to appear on television without anyone rebutting his claims. This meant there was a public interest motivation in making people realise how dangerous Mr Lowell’s arguments were.
Funny. Leo Brincat (who is also guilty of throwing bloggers into the bipartisan basket – “bloggers taz-zewg nahat”) had simply stated that public opinion should also be important when measuring whether the government was being considered as the right administrator for the awarding of contracts. Lou was quick to dismiss that with a trademark non sequitur and leapt at the opportunity to side-jab the fora he has avoided to face time and time again.
Paċlieqa he says. Programs Paċlieqa Watch. Quite fitting I guess.
Here’s the clip of the relevant parts… and the useless song at the end.
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Lettere da Alfonso Terzoli a Beppe Severgnini. Il perchè dell’antipaticità degl’inter-cettati. And someone please tell “pacliequ” Bondi how to spell “abbiamo”. Ich bin ein bayerischer!
Have a break. This is our song for the moment. What with volcano dust, euro shambles and a general feeling of depression we turn to Belgian artist Stromae and the catchy dance song: Alors on Dance. Lyrics provided below.
