Author: Jacques René Zammit

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Values

Stifling Debate

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‘The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum….’ Noam Chomsky, The Common Good

Marelene Farrugia posted this quote on Facebook last week and I find it very apt to describe what is going on in Malta right now. Take the “conversion therapy” situation. I can finally comment on the issue without having to hear yet another pseudo-liberal claim that the only problem in that case is that the PN, and more particularly Simon Busuttil, has not taken a position on the matter. Well now it has, having gathered together its parliamentary group and decided in favour of the criminalisation of conversion therapy.

Labour sympathiser and appointee Cyrus Engerer claimed on twitter that the PN exercise was simply an exercise of counting the votes and seeing on which side of the fence it is best to sit on. He may not have been far off the mark, particularly given how his chosen party’s government had long worked out that part of the equation and was foursquare behind whatever the LGBTQ lobby would propose as a law – even if it had no clue what it would be all about.

Which is where the problem lies. Much was made about what was supposed to be Busuttil’s dragging of feet once the Church Report came out. The “Min mhux maghna kontra taghna” (either with us or against us) brigade was out and this worked fantastically for Joseph Muscat’s “civil rights” credentials. Busuttil taking the necessary time to form a position within his parliamentary group meant some sort of “lack of  leadership” or “victory of conservatism” to the vociferous pseudo-liberal lobby. By necessary time to form a position I mean forming a position amply before any debate and vote begins in parliament on the Bill. Amply before a vote is taken on the Bill.

What about that vote then? Well this is where Chomsky hits you with brute force. Acceptable opinion in this national debate was one: you have to be in favour of the bill. Any other nuance on the spectrum of opinions would be anathema and the LGBTQ inquisition and a bit would be out in force to bash your head in with a club. They did not want to hear anything other than Busuttil’s party say that it is in favour of the Bill. Hell, I was actually one step short of being accused of holocaust denial because I dared point out that the Bill is flawed in its drafting and definition. It turns out that if you don’t “get” the Bill then you don’t get centuries of suffering and persecution.

Which is a load of bollocks. In a sane democracy it is normal to be able to discuss different positions on a given topic. In my case I believe that “conversion therapy”, when properly defined as the direct attempt to alter a persons gender, orientation &c (a necessary addendum) is anathema to the world. I don’t believe it on the basis of instinct but I believe it because a convoy of scientists have proven that any such attempt at “conversion” is harmful to the subject of the “therapy”. So I could willingly sit at a table and begin the discussion on the necessity that society protects its citizens from any form of therapy that is intended for conversion.

A bit of research – thanks also to the #bornperfect campaign for the criminalisation of conversion therapy in the US (4 out of 50 states have enacted bills in this sense) – will show you that one important aspect of legislation being discussed is the involvement of professional entities representing psychologists, psychiatrists and counsellors. It is best left in the hands of these entities to regulate and prohibit certain kinds of therapy that are harmful. That includes defining what exactly constitutes conversion therapy and when what is considered “non-conversion” therapy suddenly becomes “conversion therapy”.

Unless it is protecting the weak, the vulnerable and the easily exploited (which is never in doubt), the state has no place in the consultation room – science should be doing its job perfectly well without its help.  This proposed Bill should have been polishing the current regulation of such professionals and their representative entities if they are still not sufficiently empowered to control their members as happens elsewhere such as in the UK. Instead it goes for the typical blanket criminalisation of an scientific process based on an attempted definition at law – a criminal definition whose first port of call for application will be the policemen who arrest youth for skinny dipping.

Will we have this kind of debate? Highly unlikely. Not when any voice criticising the current draft is immediately flagged as a conservative opponent that must be shut up. It is the way our democracy tends to work when a government meets a powerful lobby and together they decide that a law will pass come what may. The Church up to the 90s and early 2000’s has been replaced by the LGBTQ lobby. The power of parliament to debate laws is neutered both by our system of majoritarian voting that reduces vote-switching in parliament to extreme and final zero-sum situations as well as by the social bullying that will occur in the run up to any law purporting to introduce or amend social rights.

A person who had a part in drafting the conversion therapy bill actually told me that “having struggled against the current for so long he was not going to complain now that the wind is in his favour”. I do not doubt that the sudden rush of being able to legislate whatever you fancy would blind anyone from the fact that he is turning into his greatest nemesis.

The bullying power of lobbies has been exacerbated under Muscat’s populist labour. The Developer’s Lobby is a notorious case in point. The behaviour of the LGBTQ lobby and the pseudo-liberals in the case of the conversion therapy bill does not bode well for the future.

There is no place for moderates or objective debate – even if you agree that “conversion therapy” should never be practiced, unless you agree with THE BILL or THEIR BILL you will be labelled as an opponent of the ideas behind the bill. Which is ridiculous, non-liberal and non-democratic. But then, who cares, so long as the bill goes through?

We are losing sight of civility in government and politics. Debate and dialogue is taking a back seat to the politics of destruction and anger and control. Dogma has replaced thoughtful discussion between people of differing views. – James McGreevey

Categories
Politics Values

The Conversion Conversation

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This weekend’s controversy is all about “conversion”. It must have been the proximity of the feast of Saint Paul.

Just to put you in the bigger picture the government published on the 15th of  December a draft law that aims “to prohibit conversion therapy as a deceptive act or practice against a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and, or gender expression”.  The publication through the Ministry of Social Dialogue was intended to allow public consultation on the matter. Feedback from interested parties was possible until the deadline of the 15th of January this year.

Towards the end of last week, the Church in Malta published its position paper on the matter. I shall refer to this as the Church Report. The report was drafted by a group of professionals who specialise in law and psychology and was underwritten by the Church to the extent that it is a “position paper” – as in the position that the church was taking with regards to the proposed Bill.

I mentioned controversy. There’s a barrow-load of it. It comes in the form of the reactions to the church’s legitimate position. When I say legitimate I mean that the church has every right to state its position on an issue just like any other social actor and NGO. Of course in a world that has inherited all the paranoias of anticlericalism the temptation to switch to church-bashing statements over and above the levels of normal discourse is high. It gets even higher when said church-bashing is still huge vote-drawing potential. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had a field day on Sunday turning the church into a huge conservative monster purely on a very superficial reading of the report.

In actual fact, beyond the rhetoric and facile tribal campanilism to which we tend to resort in this country whenever anything needs to be “debated” the first thing that should be noted is that were it not for the Church Report we would not be having any form of debate on this issue. As I said earlier the church has as much of a legitimate social role as a “value-former” and “value-lobby” as any other sum of parts representing a particular interest. Notwithstanding all the liberal upturning of noses at anything the curia might say the matter of fact is that the church and what it represents is still very much part of our social fabric.

All of that does not make the church right about everything it says. One would expect dialogue to involve a heavy dose of analysis, information and application of logic. Sadly the participants in our consultative mechanisms rarely play ball – and we are not alone in this matter… just take a look at what is going on across the sea in Italy on certain other social legislation.

One could, with a huge amount of goodwill and patience, try to analyse what is going on with a modicum of objectivity far from the need of vote-winning and journalistic sensationalism. Here goes.

A Bill to prohibit conversion therapy

As laws go this is a very very specific law. The proposed bill has a clear aim – to prohibit conversion therapy as a deceptive act or practice against a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and, or gender expression. That is the reason why we are here talking about all this. Before looking into this particular act we have to look at a related act – Chapter 540 of the laws of Malta, the Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics Act.

That law, that I shall call Cap 540 in short, was enacted in April last year. It is already a law. It is the law that defines the terms “gender expression” and  “gender identity”. Unlike the draft Bill it did not include a definition of “sexual orientation”. For the purposes of this discussion, Cap 540 includes three very important articles:

  1. Article 13 makes sure that equality is promoted and that no norm, regulation or procedure violates the right to gender identity.
  2. Article 14 guarantees the right to bodily integrity and physical autonomy – particular in the context of sex assignment treatment (which is NOT, for the record, “conversion therapy”).
  3. Article 15 is very important in terms of the new bill. It ensures that “All persons seeking psychosocial counselling, support and medical interventions relating to sex or gender should be given expert sensitive and individually tailored support by psychologists and medical practitioners or peer counselling. Such support should extend from the date of diagnosis or self-referral for as long as necessary.

That last article seems to have been completely overlooked by the drafters of the Church position paper since on repeated occasions they seem to imply that the very counselling and support that is protected by Cap 540, article 15 would be rendered illegal by the draft bill (as interpreted by them).

Back to the laws for now though. Let us see what the bill does. In order, the bill (1) defines “conversion therapy”, (2) renders the practice of conversion therapy illegal (3) makes anyone guilty of the practice/advertisement of conversion therapy criminally liable.

Definitions

The important definition here is that of “conversion therapy”:

“conversion therapy” means treatment that aims to change, repress and, or eliminate a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and, or gender expression. Provided that any counselling related to the exploration of one’s identity with regard to any of the characteristics being affirmed by this Act is excluded from this definition.

The biggest problem that is faced by the legislator here is the definition of what will be illegal. From a legal point of view it is the crux of the matter. On a policy point of view it is clear that what was set out to be achieved is the practice of “converting” someone from one sexual orientation (&c) to another. Such a practice is abominable in any modern society but alas still practiced as we have seen in the activities of Pastor Manche’. When strictly defined, that practice assumes that the orientation from which conversion is required is an abomination in itself – a sickness, a sin (whatever tickles their fancy and creed).

You will note that the mere fact of having reached the point of requiring “conversion therapy” in the Manche’ sense of the term is already a violation of article 3 under Cap 540 although at that stage there is no criminal consequence (which is why the need for the Bill).

The difficulty faced by the legislator is evidenced in the proviso to the definition. It is also the constant bee buzzing in the head of the drafters of the church report though they fail to put their finger on it since they embark on a series of pre-judged non-sequiturs.

In my opinion, the main problem here is that the definition that is really required is a technical one. This is less a matter of lawyers and more a matter of psychologists and counsellors. In actual fact the debate should be taking place among the community of psychosocial therapists and counsellors who surely already have structures in place that allow them to distinguish between accepted therapies and snake-oil vendors.

Therapies

Bear with me. What I am saying is that if, for the sake of argument, we were to look at a different stigmatised social group – the infamous left-handers. Granted it is not psychologists but teachers who might have been using unorthodox therapies for a very very long time in our history. Tying their left devil’s hand behind the back of an offending left hander was an accepted “therapy” for a long long time. Beatings might ensue (very acceptably in the early 19th century if not later) should the offender persist in his evil left-handed ways. I am quite sure that a teacher applying these “therapies” in this day and age would fast lose his or her license to practise (as for the beatings they bear more criminal consequences for obvious reasons). Strangely enough we do not have a bill on “the prohibition of therapies to convert left-handers to the right and righteous way”. Which is weird because the law would lend itself to much clearer lines of definition.

Back to our bill. The biggest shortcoming of this bill is, as I said, the difficulty it faces in defining what is and what is not conversion therapy. This is not to say that the bill is not necessary – particularly given that we have had instances of the practice that one is attempting to prohibit in our country and recently too. The problem might lie in making sure that the prohibition does not end up catching other areas that have nothing to do with “conversion therapy” but that might be caught in the same net.

This is what happened to the church report. It set off to explore all the alternative possibilities that, in the opinion of the drafters of the report (NOT MINE), might be caught up in the net of prohibition.

Church Report

I’ll begin by saying that apart from ignoring the guarantees of Article 15 Cap 540 when it comes to counselling and assistance, the church report does have a tendency to build arguments based on a false or untrue premise. A clear example of this is the assertion in point one that states “An analysis of the provisions of the bill, however, shows that everyone in practice will be hindered from having free access to professional guidance, advice and any other therapeutic help that may be appropriate with respect to one’s sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression”.

The drafters tried to hinge on the difficulty of drawing a line of when counselling becomes therapy to convert and run with this nuance to reach two very wobbly conclusions:

  1. (point 5 para 3) In practice, nobody will be in a position to exercise freely the right to treat one’s sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. In other words, everyone would be incapable to receive the treatment one may want to have after consultation with a professional person.
  2. (point 7 para 3) The State should respect the legitimate boundaries of individual freedom. It should only seek to ensure that the practices in matters relating to gender identity are undergone freely and that, as in any other therapy, they are not harmful to the person undergoing them.

There seems to be a manifest confusion between counselling and support that is protected by law and that should be offered to persons respect to their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression on the one hand and the outright practise of conversion therapy and what it ultimately means.

This is a recurring confusion and is partially based on the problem that the report nowhere condemns outright the practice of “conversion therapy”. The closest we get to a consideration of what “conversion therapy” could mean to the drafters is the point where they criticise what type of counselling would be allowed.

“(point 3 of the report) … counselling will be allowed in so far as it can help exploring one’s sexual identity but it can proceed no further, even if it can actually assist in affirming one’s sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression through appropriate forms of therapy”.

Now this is very very interesting. The trojan horse in this sentence is the “appropriate forms of therapy”. What would a psychologist do when faced with a person having qualms about his sexual orientation or gender expression? Remember my point about accepted practice? I assume (with no scientific knowledge whatsoever) that a regular psychologist would inform the client that his qualms are normal and that there is no question of his being “diseased etc”. Beyond that? Is the church redefining conversion therapy by saying that one can be brought to “affirm” one’s orientation etc through “appropriate forms of therapy”? Appropriate according to who?

Fine Tuning

As you can see it all risks turning into a vicious circle of nonsense. The critical discourse of the bill should focus on what exactly is being prohibited, how to define it and how to define the consequences of the prohibition. As far as I can see the major problem lies in the definition itself. Personally I would be for the soft-law approach involving the psychologists’ register, accepted practices and criminal consequences for professional malpractice.

There are other issues in the Bill I could discuss such as the automatic assumption that 18 is the threshold for “vulnerability”. Why not 16 as seems to be the trend nowadays?

A badly framed law is only fodder for literal minded bigots, witch-hunting liberals and ill-informed voters. I’d apologise for the heavy wording but I’ve frankly had it up to here with political correctness.

As for the church report, I strongly commend the church and its leaders for their continuous involvement in social discourse. I do not find the report they commissioned  to be very fair when it comes to input – to be honest I found parts of it to be willingly deceitful in order to make a point that does not really exist. The absence of an outright condemnation of the concept of conversion therapy sticks out like a sore thumb in the whole report.

In a way it is the same kind of straw man arguments that were later fabricated by the likes of Joseph Muscat, Saviour Balzan (and yes, others) in order to deviate from the real issue. Thankfully for them the drafters of the report slipped up big time by throwing in non-sequiturs about paedophilia – which is what happens when you pussy foot on faulty premises in order to make a case where there is none.

Muscat has a double-whammy bonus on this one. Firstly he will once again seem to be the paladin of social rights especially among the LGBTQ community  who are really only another vote-farm as far as he is concerned. Secondly, he has managed to jump onto yet another opportunity to do some prime church-bashing and denigrate Archbishop Scicluna who was shaping up to be another difficult intellectual adversary on other political themes including the environment.

Hopefully with a bit of fine-tuning the bill on conversion therapy will go ahead. What we do not need is these side-shows that add nothing to the value of social and political discussion.

Addendum: Mark-Anthony Falzon told me he had written about this subject some time ao. He sent me the link. I love his reasoning (for a change) and I think you should read it too… Curious Case of Gay Conversion Therapy.

Categories
Politics

Unmeritocracy, Undemocracy

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So it turns out that Mario Philip Azzopardi is not the most congenial person to work with. And that, it seems, is putting it mildly. It is ironic that of all the “meritocratic” appointments under the present government it is Azzopardi who joins the magisterial nominees in the eye of the storm(s) currently being whipped up. Azzopardi proudly boasts of being the man behind the infamous “I’m not sorry pa, I’m voting Labour” campaign that epitomises the drivel that was sold by Muscat’s campaign team before the election.  Muscat’s Labour was sold as an all-encompassing movement that would radicalise politics in Malta and take the heavy burden of nationalist arrogance and mismanagement off the Maltese people. The (man who thinks he is) Obama from Bahrija managed to pull off the biggest trick with a sufficient amount of people having swallowed his well packaged drivel hook, line and sinker.

Almost three years of Taghna Lkoll government later the masks have completely washed off (might have been the ice bucket challenge) and any pretence that this government harbours any values that relate to anything remotely resembling meritocracy (one of the trumpet calls of the campaign) have been dispelled. The crisis of this government is in fact first and foremost based around its abject failure to hold up the one principle that shone above all during the campaign : meritocracy.

The arts community is now up in arms because the man appointed as V18 artistic director has reached the limit of yellow cards. In an article in the Times today we find the very dangerous allegation that Azzopardi flaunted his political links in order to pressure artists into collaborating with him. Does it stop with Azzopardi? Of course not. He cannot be made the scapegoat of a virus that has been injected into the whole fabric of our institutional make-up. Take the issue of “persons of trust” for example. Only a couple of days ago our PM was happy-tweeting the fact that the employment rate in Malta was such that 18 persons a day have found employment under this government – of which 80% are in the private sector. Which might sound good but it also carries the interesting fact that under Muscat 4 people a day have been appointed to the public service.

Every week. While Michelle Muscat burns an inordinately ridiculous amount of diesel, and while Joseph Muscat cashes in 144 euros for renting his valueless Alfa to himself, 28 new employees join our government’s wage bill. Most of those, it goes without saying, are employed as “persons of trust” – a twisted interpretation of constitutional principles that is only there to justify one simple point: You Have to Be Labour to Be Trusted. I’m sorry pa.

Does it stop there? Hell not it doesn’t. This week the leader of the Opposition tweeted that the ball is now in the President’s court with regards to the nomination of Farrugia Frendo as a magistrate. New doubts have been raised (and echoed) from different quarters – retired judges, the dean of the law faculty and the Chamber of Advocates as to the eligibility of Farrugia Frendo for the post. Since Justice Minister Owen Bonnici insists on going ahead with the nomination anyway without consulting the Commission for Administration of Justice Busuttil has reasoned that the only guarantor of the consitution that is left is the President. All this is happening when we were supposed to be facing a monumental and uplifting reform in the justice sector – pivotal among which was an improved method of judicial appointment.

Instead of the promised reform we risk a patchwork re-evaluation based on knee-jerk reactions that are in their turn fruit of the current set of circumstances. The judicial reform cannot be the result of such a knee-jerk reaction. Especially not the reform of judicial appointments. A well-thought out reform has to fit in to the general fabric of constitutional discourse – that very discourse that has long been tainted by partisan rivalry and hijacked by hapless interventions that deprive it of all form of objectivity.

The lack of meritocracy is in fact the virus that has terminally poisoned this government and with it the it has gone on and poisoned the very institutional and constitutional fabric of the state. Democracy is in danger. I say these words not with the lightness of the kind that is normally around when campaign slogans are coined. Democracy is really in danger when what is unfolding before us is a general legal and political remake of the institutional fabric but one that is in the hand of power-serving, power-loving and power-hungry incompetents. This kind of reform that has gone by monikers such as Second Republic or Constitutional Change and that was supposedly heralded with the arrival of the Taghna Lkoll Politics is one that is only dedicated to as much self-preservation as possible for as long as possible by a select  circle of individuals who found themselves at the centre of society through a series of coincidental events.

It is dangerous. It is the triumph of ignorance and greed. It is happening right here, right now.

 

Categories
Mediawatch

Hyenas among the jackals

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It might be old news by now – I know, blogging has not been regular to put it mildly – but the visit by Le Iene to Malta still merits some attention and this for a number of reasons. I am an irregular follower of the program  because the Mediaset channels are not so easily available in Luxembourg but I do find the idea behind the show (for it is a show) interesting and worthy of encouragement. Inspired by Tarantino’s heroes in Reservoir Dogs Le Iene go about town doing some dirty investigative works on projects that they choose to follow. These are supposedly bits of news and scoops that the mainstream media has either shied away from naturally or it deals with them with a self-imposed omerta’. It helps to bear in mind that the manner in which a matter or issue is presented by Le Iene is the result of heavy editing – the kind of editing in which the findings that they set out to ascertain play a heavy part.

It’s all A.O.K when the troupe sets out on a mission to uncover waste of public funds in Italy – I remember a particularly cutting service about a fully equipped hospital built in Puglia that simply never opened its doors. It even had operating theatres complete with machinery. The problem is that Le Iene’s stories can be heavily one-sided… and the Malta piece was definitely one of those cases. Having been told by an Italian entrepreneur that “il governo maltese” is refusing to pay some hard-earned cash and that as a result of this a number of “lavoratori” risk being put on the dole, Le Iene saw your typical plot unfold. Here was the opptorunity to play big balls with the big balls in a neighbouring country. The anti-capitalist, anti-big government poor poor unpaid workers story was their type of fodder – better still if some nationalistic element could be thrown into the fold free of charge.

When you’re dealing with a store like this, they’re insured up the ass. They’re not supposed to give you any resistance whatsoever. If you get a customer, or an employee, who thinks he’s Charles Bronson, take the butt of your gun and smash their nose in. Everybody jumps. He falls down screaming, blood squirts out of his nose, nobody says fucking shit after that. You might get some bitch talk shit to you, but give her a look like you’re gonna smash her face next, watch her shut the fuck up. Now if it’s a manager, that’s a different story. Managers know better than to fuck around, so if you get one that’s giving you static, he probably thinks he’s a real cowboy, so you gotta break that son of a bitch in two. If you wanna know something and he won’t tell you, cut off one of his fingers. The little one. Then tell him his thumb’s next. After that he’ll tell you if he wears ladies underwear. … I’m hungry. Let’s get a taco. (Harvey Keitel as Mr. White in Reservoir Dogs).

They don’t cut off anybody’s fingers on the Italian show. They do a lot of sticking in the middle with you though. As in they turn up unannounced, they shove a microphone (not a gun) into your face, feed you the very loaded question and then sit back and watch you squirm. It’s normally a done deal. Faced with the high percentage of corrupt politicians and criminal involvement in Italy the grass is never missing from their usual pastures. It sounded like it would be more of the same when we heard Filiberti plead his case before Piano’s ostentatiously magnificent supertecture. 3 million euro of debts and no payments since the change of government. Hold up. “Since the change of government”? Why would an Italian businessman desperate to get his money back risk rubbing the current government the wrong way by adding the partisan element? Let’s face it he had no reason at all to do so. But he did.

Let me be clear. I now speak with the benefit of hindsight and having seen the video released by (I believe) Zrinzo Azzopardi that shows fuller parts of the interview that were left out by Le Iene. It turned out that the lack of payments was the result of something much more complicated and that Filiberti had not told the full story of the extent of the problems and who was not paying what. We did not even need to wait for Zrinzo’s video though. The Iene clip left one huge question hanging over the whole issue. Where were the courts in all this? Why had Filiberti not pursued anyone for lack of payment? Le Iene was not the right place to get his pound of flesh if he felt so deserving of it. There are the courts of law for that.

So yes, to put it short, the Iene line in this particular program was rather tenuous. We did get to see however a very embarrassing performance by the prime minister of a sovereign nation. Stopped on his way to some black tie event in St Julian’s, our Prime Minister’s performance went through various stages. We first had the glow of recognition – the sad man faced with a paparazzo style moment prepared to bask in the limelight like the four year old called on stage in panto. It segued into a moment of excess familiarity while still lulled into a sense of false security – years of experience as a heckling irritating journalist seem to have vanished from Joseph Muscat’s repertoire. He was caught unawares much like a consummate amateur betraying the fact that his love of the limelight will trump common sense anytime.

I will gloss over the embarrassing exchange that is not fit for any statesman since much has been said about that already. Muscat ended his interview by dumping the troupe onto the next sacrificial lamb – in this case Zrinzo Azzopardi, who was made to bear the brunt of Le Iene’s biased line as well as he could. The rest became an exercise of patriotic spamming all over the internet as the nation split between defenders of the faith (don’t touch my country) and those who would rather applaud a faulty interview so long as tomatoes are thrown at the current government’s face.

Once the charade was over and the hyenas had long forgotten the carcass they had attempted to chew on, we were left with the usual jackals. Those who have now been hovering around whatever is left of the kill. It doesn’t matter though, so long as we get to wear the black tie and pay a quarter of a million euros for tasteless art in Castille Square I guess we are doing fine.

 

“clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you.”

Categories
Politics Values

The wrong sort of talisman

talisman_akkuza

Steel at the Orpheum

That night at the Orpheum Joseph Muscat had gathered the party diehards into a mental and physical fortress. The theatre named after a Greek mythical figure who had ended up dealing with the god of the underworld had a talismanic hold on the hardcore labourites. This was Macina-style territory where the sun of the dear departed leader Dom Mintoff had shone many a time in order to rally the troops with the feel good invincible rays factor.

All this was sorely needed after Labour had taken a not so metaphorical bashing with the forced dismissal of Michael Falzon – the latest in a series of cabinet casualties. The whole Labour philosophy – an elaborate web of promises about meritocracy, transparency and collective wealth – was once again in danger of being uncovered as being the web of lies that it really is turning out to be.

So Muscat needed to rally the troops. Morale would inevitably have been down. Even the most blinkered of diehards and flag-waving troopers could have sniffed the new bombs of insecurity that were beginning to weaken the bastions of blind faith that had been so patiently constructed throughout the Taghna Lkoll election campaign. During that campaign Michael Falzon had famously (and weirdly for that campaign we could also say incongruously) let out his “Fejn huma l-iljuni?” (Where are the Lions?) speech. Montekristo they all answered – not really. This time Falzon was part of the problem. How best to solve it?

Well. Magritte came to the rescue. Muscat chose to inject a botox-cannon of talismanic fervour to the flaying bastions of belief. Ceci n’est pas un politicien corrompu! (This is not a corrupt politician). He brought down the stage by hailing the very politicians who have until now borne the brunt of the effects of the fading make-up of Labour politics. Take one good look at Euridyce, Muscat yelled, here is Manuel Mallia, here is Michael Falzon, these are men above men, these are your soldiers of steel.

Astounding really. Mallia and Falzon were dragged from the muddy pits of political incompetence and limbo to the dizzy heights of Feigned Olympic Glory there to meet that other great soldier of steel – Cyrus Engerer, yes, the very one who was found guilty of crimes that Minister Owen Bonnici would later in the week describe as heinous and disgusting – revenge porn.

While the net effects of his blatant ignoring of any kind of good governance are still to hit Muscat and his band of high flying rhetoricians, the Supreme Leader of Spin (sorry, the Salesman) prefers to hang on to the old trick of rhetoric that is probably only good for the red-eyed accolytes who actually bother to go to the Orpheum. Holding up disgraced politicians as soldiers of steel is nothing other than a retrenching in the unconstitutional ways of hapless governance. The lack of institutional respect, the disdain for a proper system of rule of law, the incredible ability to ignore all semblance of separation of powers – they are all part of the death ride on which this Labour government  is taking the nation.

Having struck a pact with the lords of the underworld Muscat is hoping to get away quickly but is still unable to resist glancing back over his shoulders and taking one look at Euridyce. At this rate he will have little hope of success.

Silk in Pieta’

Speaking of the wrong sort of talisman. While Muscat was engrossed in selling his talismanic soldiers of steel at the Orpheum, PN’s Busuttil had a golden opportunity to sit back and watch Muscat’s party choke on its own doings. Which is why I was surprised and dismayed to see the clip of Busuttil waving some old party ‘kerchief claiming that it was of a historical value and that he would keep it in his office to remind him of the party’s history and his supporters’ fervour.

Now I must admit that to me political party memorabilia – whichever party it is – is tantamount to anathema. At most I can appreciate it in a kitsch collector’s sort of way or in the sort of artistic and historic interest I may take in blasons, symbols and mottos. I cannot stand, abide, tolerate, stomach, suffer or put up with any form of memorabilia waving that represents the blind fervor that I mentioned earlier. Flag waving and flag touting party supporters are the worst kind of demographic when it comes to assessing politics. There is no processing going on in their minds other than “we have to win, the others have to lose” – victory being the ultimate purpose itself.

There is no nobility, no value, no reason behind fanatic affiliation of political parties. That we have developed a large core of party-blind voters in this country is no boon. That party politics is full of the kind of fanaticism that should only find its place on terraces in sporting grounds (and hopefully with a sporting behaviour that goes along) has long been part of the problem of our local political scenario. “Blue till I die” makes little sense outside Manchester or Cardiff (when the oriental bosses are away).

It is for this reason that I cannot imagine what went through Busuttil’s head when he chose to sing the praises of the (purported to be) 100-year old handkerchief/flag  and laud the fanatic fervour of the supporter who had donated this talisman to him. I would see no problem with Busuttil having had a quiet word in private with this supporter, thanking him or her for his/her donation and promising to hold it in his travelbag as a good luck charm of sorts. In private though.

This is not a crime of the calling Mallia, Falzon and Engerer Soldiers of Steel levels. It is still a faux pas on some levels.

Given the state of the government, Busuttil and his party have a duty towards the electorate : that of concentrating on the construction and development of the new form of politics that has until now eluded us as a nation. It is a politics that is based on a pact of trust, on governance, on institutional respect and on rational debate. There is no place for the maduma, the silk handkerchief and the glorifying of the fanatical supporter in that equation.

Shed those talismans Simon, before it is too late. Otherwise you might paint yourself into a corner and find yourself having an Orpheum moment too.

Trust me, that cannot be good. No matter how much he smiles.

 

(Illustration: Ancient Roman talisman found in Germany. Not sure if they’d call it a soldier of steel… but it’s pretty close).

Categories
Internet Rights

Saving Daphne’s Privates

privates_akkuza

Gaffarena Gate has been the black hole of news and information over the past week or so. Anything else newsworthy was sucked into the vortex of the spinning black hole of Falzon’s resignation, Muscat’s double-speak on governance and the n-th celebration of disgraced politicians by a Labour mass meeting. Patriots and pork only just made it past the all-enveloping scandal and this was probably due more  to the ridiculous stunts performed by the defenders of bigilla and zalzett than to any real newsworthiness. Even the Times descended into silly land asking the haplessly controversial question whether persons of a particular religion should be allowed to congregate and play.

Meanwhile in a law court not so far, far away a very important bit of jurisprudence was in the making. In the court presided by the impeccable Magistrate Depasquale, Minister Konrad Mizzi was desperate to prove that he had cause for grievance against blogger (for ’tis in this vest that she hath been summonsed)  Daphne Caruana Galizia. Such cause for grievance had been filed under Malta’s much maligned, misused and abused libel laws – those that have criminal consequences, so to speak. Caruana Galizia had written about some supposed/alleged fling between Minister Conrad Mizzi and one of his minions involving, among other allegations, an exchange of kisses in public. Minister Mizzi could only but cry “lie” at this serious allegation that would, if proven true,  amount to an extra-marital flirtation by said Minister. Hence the law-suit. So far so good.

We were informed, through the medium of the press, that in the sitting of January 18th, the line taken by Mizzi’s lawyers was a rather unorthodox one. Messers Mifsud Bonnici (Aaron) and Lia (Pawlu) were insisting that Caruana Galizia reveal the source of the libellous information. And here lies the problem. Not just for Mme Caruana Galizia but for every single citizen of the island of pork-guzzling patriots and martyred ex-Parliamentary Secretaries. You see, Caruana Galizia was sticking to the age old  universal protection afforded to journalists with regard to their sources. She was not obliged at law, she argued, to reveal her sources for her journalistic work. True. Very true.

The only problem was that the legal team for Minister Mizzi of the government that championed the protection of whistleblowers among many other things decided to become incredibly narrow and literal minded in their application of the law. Shylock was after his pound of flesh. The reasoning put forward by the lawyer who has been touted as the next Chief Justice of the land (pray note that this also means that he would chair the Constitutional Court, guardian of all things holy) was that since the blog in which Daphne writes can not be registered under the Press Act then surely Daphne Caruana Galizia is not acting as a journalist whenever she writes in her blog. Which would mean of course that her sources – who she has called moles, spies and other names through the lifespan of her blog – would be afforded no protection.

Which is a load of hogwash of course. A load of hogwash that would only find place in Kafka’s novels or in the best of Soviet theatres and kangaroo courts. But this is Malta in the time of Joseph Muscat and a very very weird interpretation of the law and legal rights (The government has just gone and sued itself in a case so don’t even dare challenging this assertion).

Let’s go step by step.

1. She is not a journalist

You may not agree with the woman. You may find her blog to be the result of a particularly efficient network that collates information and disseminates it in a selective Wikileaks manner. You may, like me, find her automatic negative reaction to anything Gozitan particularly distasteful. You may think all these things and more but to insist that Daphne Caruana Galizia – even when restricted to the blogging hat of Daphne Caruana Galizia – is not a journalist is complete and utter hogwash. In the year 2000, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe drafted a recommendation signed by most of its member states with regard to the protection of journalists from disclosing their sources. (Full name – Recommendation No. R (2000) 7  of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the right of journalists not to disclose their sources of information). Here’s the definition section of the Recommendation:

Definitions

For the purposes of this Recommendation:

a. the term “journalist” means any natural or legal person who is regularly or professionally engaged in the collection and dissemination of information to the public via any means of mass communication;

b. the term “information” means any statement of fact, opinion or idea in the form of text, sound and/or picture;

c. the term “source” means any person who provides information to a journalist;

d. the term “information identifying a source” means, as far as this is likely to lead to the identification of a source:

i. the name and personal data as well as voice and image of a source,

ii. the factual circumstances of acquiring information from a source by a journalist,

iii. the unpublished content of the information provided by a source to a journalist, and

iv. personal data of journalists and their employers related to their professional work.

It fits nicely does it not? We have not even begun to look at the jurisprudence of the Strasbourg Court (Goodwin anyone?) or the European Charter of Rights. The recommendation is already clear enough about how far the protection should go. It is not restricted to some state defined numerus clausus such as a list of “approved journalists” under the Press Act. Any natural or legal person. Regularly engaged in the collection and dissemination of information. To the public. Via any means of mass communication. I don’t know about you but it is pretty clear to me that Daphne’s blog falls fair and square within this definition and that would make Daphne a journalist even when she is limited to blogging on the Running Commentary.

2. She has to disclose the source

What is this obsession about the source anyway? It is in fact the most dangerous part of the case being built by Mifsud Bonnici and Lia. Don’t be mistaken because there are no scruples here. We all know that Daphne Caruana Galizia is prepared to go all the way to defend her right to publish information in blog form. Blog and be damned she will. Aaron Mifsud Bonnici knows it, Pawlu Lia knows it and most of all Konrad Mizzi knows it. The very public obnoxious shake up here is not directed at Caruana Galizia but at any potential source. What after all is the use of getting the accused in the libel case to give up the source of the information? Very little really. Except that Mizzi and his team do not care about anything other than putting the fear of god into anyone who might in the future be made to think twice about whether or not to send one of those quickly snapped photos of yet another politicians’ misdemeanors.

Whether a Minister chooses to have an extra-marital fling is a debatable piece of news that can be used in various ways. As any Monica Lewinsky, Lord Boothby or John Profumo might vouch, sexual affairs and politicians rarely are just that. More often than not they have repercussions of a constitutional nature and any self-respecting journalist in his right mind would want to investigate and report.

Sources are paramount for Daphne’s kind of blog that is less pundit and more reportage thanks to a long list of willing suppliers of information that end up being a very informal but well-connected network. Muscat’s men know that the effects of this network can be lethal. Which is why in this case they are not really going for the journalist and editor of the blog. They want to get to the source. They want to put an end to the network of informants and to do so they are prepared to attempt to get the courts of the land to apply a very dangerous and literal-minded precedent.

To conclude. The journalistic profession has not had a good last two decades. When more than two-thirds of the people who get their bread and butter from some form of journalistic work are inextricably linked with the major political parties you tend to get a withering of the power of the fourth estate – one of the important pillars of a democratic society. The lack of respect towards the profession was never more blatant than in moments when journalist credentials were handed out to anybody that the parties needed for a particular stunt. Remember JPO bearing a PN press card in order to harass Alfred Sant in his crocodile tears phase?

The profession needs to win back respect and it can only do so by performing its duty of investigating and monitoring the powers of the nation without letting them interfere. It also deserves all forms of protection from any institutional assault such as this one being orchestrated by Konrad Mizzi.

It is not Daphne Caruana Galizia who is in danger. It is an important cog in the machinery of a democracy and it is the citizens of the democracy who have a right to access all forms of information and weigh it on their own account. For all our sake and for all that we stand for, Daphne’s privates must be saved.

“They’re talking about things of which they don’t have the slightest understanding, anyway. It’s only because of their stupidity that they’re able to be so sure of themselves.”
― Franz Kafka, The Trial