Author: Jacques René Zammit

There’s an appalling letter in today’s Times of Malta signed off “Marisa Micallef – London, UK”. I am not sure if this is not the same Marisa Micallef who is currently the toast of opinion columnists and journalists alike (along with Jason Micallef and, to a lesser extent Claudio Grech) for having created newsworthy material there where there was none.

I am only thankful that my breakfast consisted in a skimpy gluten free waffle with lemon curd and PG tea beacuse whoever this particular Marisa Micallef is she sure made the paltry contents of my stomach make a run for the first exit. The letter is one big overused and exhausted metaphor about the tribes of the blues and the reds (seen as the “blurreds” – Even Jesus Wept – by the outsiders) and about how King Blue was much nicer as the Prince who took care of the poor than as an absolute ruler (albeit democratically elected). It is also about the half-blood prince (or as she sees it – the son of a mixed blue and red family) who is now challenging the greedy establishment.

The whole plethora of deities in Olympus, Valhalla and Paradise wept after this letter was penned and sent to the Times. That people in this day and age cannot call a spade and spade but prefer to speak in “in-your-face” metaphors about “they who cannot be named” (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) is baffling. There is an embarassing moment of conniving conspirancy that the writer wants to create with the reader – you know who I am talking about (wink, wink) but I am not going to call them by name (nudge, nudge). Little does the writer know that the absolute lack of effort to decipher the maskèd personalities in her parable can only mean one of two things: either she thinks her readers are stupid, or she she is simple.

Now. Having said that, I am sincerely hoping upon hoping that the parable writer in question is not the person who has just been engaged by Malta’s new Labour because of her “blur-eyed” vision (as the metaphor writer would have it). This would not just be a faux pas, it would be an end before the beginning. It would be a bit like Sol Campbell’s fleeting adventure with Notts County – 90 minutes of third tier football before realising that the team he joined was not exactly up to scratch. [click on Read More for the letter in full]

David Casa’s favourite journalist at the Guardian describes Angela Merkel as “Non-ideological, centrist, eschewing confrontation” and “non-partisan” to boot. Ian Traynor’s analysis on Merkel’s electoral victory last night (Merkel persuades Germans she is people’s chancellor, but result leaves her vulnerable) concludes that the second weakest result for the CDU menas that Angela Merkel is now exposed to possible backstabbing from within her own party.

Have we not seen that happen elsewhere before? The watered-down, appease-everybody politics of the noughties risk giving us a plethora of weak and unstable options. Seen in this light, Obama’s trail-blazing campaign in the US might only just have stuck out because the man tried hard to give a sense of purpose – as politicians of the past always strove to do – to his politics, beyond the marketed words of appeasement.

This article and accompanying Bertoon (click image to enlarge) appear in today’s edition of The Malta Independent on Sunday.

This week we start with the plaudits. Antoine Cassar, former blogger and current poet has won the Grand Prize in the United Planet Writing Contest 2009. It’s a great achievement for the man who I got to know through his blog during the first phases of the Maltese blogosphere. Antoine’s blog posts on “il-Maqluba” (a nod to his origins in Qrendi and thereabouts) were always a breath of alternative fresh air at the time when blogging was still an adventure, comments were spontaneous respectful exchanges and we could still talk of a blogging community.

Antoine specializes in what he called “muzajks” – multilingual poems that manage to fuse together many tongues into one single expression. His work is the work of a son of the earth that knows no boundaries and who is constantly trying to feel the pulse of the lands he explores by harnessing the word. His exploration involves identifying the common expression, understanding the power of the word that has always thrilled generation upon generation ever since homo sapiens harnessed it in writing. And it works.

Antoine experimented with his novel form of poetry by alternating lines of Maltese, English, Italian, French and Spanish on us, the pioneers of exchanges in the form of posts. We liked what we saw and since then Antoine has all but abandoned the claustrophobic blogging world and dedicated most of his time to the publication and development of his preferred medium – inspired verse. To Cassar, Babel is not a curse but a challenge and a thrilling continuous experiment… and even the most detached listener or reader will find that sharing this thrill provided by an endekasyllabic verse, even for a fleeting moment, is pure entertainment.

This letter appears in today’s edition of The Times (UK) under the heading “Britain must do its bit to sort out the Calais Jungle Problem”:

Sir, Recent media coverage of the situation in Calais (“Dawn raid on the Jungle to end migrants’ stay in Calais shantytown”, report, Sept 23) does not reflect the fact that some states, mainly on the EU’s southern and eastern flanks, such as Greece and Malta, are receiving disproportionate numbers of asylum claimants.

Regretably, reception conditions for asylum seekers and chances for refugees to find protection differ among EU countries. As a consequence, asylum seekers will move to France or even onwards unless better standards are implemented across the EU. The European Commission is looking at voluntary initiatives, such as responsibility-sharing among EU member states, to help to share out some arrivals rather than leaving frontline states bearing inordinate responsibility.

Considering the long tradition of refugee protection in the UK, as well as the competence of its institutions, the country is well placed to encourage better practice and to share its expertise. Of the 42 million uprooted people in the world last year, only some 0.7 per cent entered Europe and 0.074 per cent reached the UK. The UK is not in danger of being “swamped” by asylum claimants, as some commentators suggest, but is certainly in the position to extend its support to states elsewhere in Europe and in other parts of the world which, due to their geographical location, indeed bear a disproportionate refugee burden.

Roland Schilling

UNHCR Representative to the UK

Speaking to Brasilian bishops, Pope Benedict the sixteenth was unequivocal about his opinion on the effect of divorce:

«La Chiesa non può restare indifferente davanti alla separazione dei coniugi e ai divorzi – ha detto papa Ratzinger rivolgendosi ai vescovi brasiliani – davanti alla rovina delle famiglie, e dalle conseguenze create nei figli dal divorzio. Questi, per essere istruiti ed educati, hanno bisogno di riferimenti estremamente precisi e concreti, di genitori determinati e certi che in modo diverso concorrano alla loro educazione. Ora – ha aggiunto – è proprio questo principio che la pratica del divorzio sta minando e compromettendo con la cosiddetta famiglia allargata e mobile, che moltiplica i “padri” e le “madri” e fanno in modo che la maggioranza di quelli che si sentono ’orfanì non siano i figli senza genitori, ma i figli che ne hanno troppi». (La Stampa)

Hold your breath and wait for the ripple effect on the Maltese “debate” on the introduction of divorce.

The UN Security Council has unanimously endorsed a resolution that commits member nations to work toward a world without nuclear weapons, and endorses a broad framework of actions to reduce global nuclear risks. (BBC)

In the UK the reduction of spending on nuclear armaments has become an integral part of the political debate.

At approximately 2345 hrs last night, in Hal-Ghaxaq, Malta the Ghaxaq Saint Joseph Fireworks factory suffered a serious of explosions. “Officers from the AFM’s explosive ordnance disposal unit, the Civil Protection Department and the police were on site to make the area safe. A large number of people watched proceedings.” (TOM, 25.09.09).