Author: Jacques René Zammit

Categories
Citizenship Politics

In the end there was the Word

promises_akkuzaMinister Mallia will in all probability not resign. He went on record during the “secret” negotiations regarding the IIP scheme that should a residency requirement be included then he would resign from his ministerial position. We are not supposed to know about it  because the negotiations were secret but that secrecy, like virginity, cannot be regained so “Tant pis, monsieur ministre”.

Jason Azzopardi and Karol Aquilina both attest to Mallia’s promise. It would be their word against his, only Karol Aquilina is apparently in the habit of taking meticulous minutes (not like Mintoff’s Cabinet) and neither Owen Bonnici nor the directly interested person have denied Mallia’s promise to resign. Labour of course are trying to make a mountain out of the broken promise of secrecy – during their weekend conference they said that only a child “goes to tell mummy what daddy told him”. Which does beg the question about the kind of families Labour has in mind… but I digress.

The point is that the promise was made during negotiations. Negotiations are built on trust. You trust that the person before you means what he says and would back it up with the necessary action. There would be no point in negotiating if this element of trust went missing. If you do not deliver on what was agreed in negotiations – no matter how secretive they may have been – then you lose your trust rating. You become incredible. The wrong sort of incredible.

Much is being made of the fact that “lawyers are literal minded” and that they believe in “the rule of the law”. The focus though should not be on lawyers but on the diplomacy of politics – whatever the politician’s profession may be (and lets not forget that we now have former disc jockeys in diplomatic circles). Diplomacy is all about negotiation. You can be skillful through conviction or you can be successful through bartering and trade. In all cases you are expected to deliver on your word. Your word counts.

When the EU Commission was sold the idea of the IIP it was immediately clear that it had been given a particular idea of what the revised IIP would consist of. The wording of the first Commission position following the historic agreement included strong words such as “effective residency”. We still do not know whether the revised scheme itself, once made public, will be such as to conform to what the Commission was made to expect in those particular negotiations. Will Joseph Muscat and his Henley & Co. sidekicks (or is it vice-versa?) be true to the words they delivered in Brussels?

Back to Mallia. His position is rather untenable. He may cry foul about the fact that his promise behind the curtains of secrecy was suddenly made public. It does not change the tenor of what is actually happening with regard to the value of his word. Mallia’s position at any table of negotiation is now worthless. His reputation (and in Malta reputation is a big word that covers bloated marketing exercise of the “thick with experienced lawyers” kind) as a convincing criminal lawyer will no longer serve to cover the fact that his word is not worth anything. The opposition will rightly not be able to sit at any negotiating table that includes someone who fails to be true to his word.

When in opposition the Labour party would rant and rave about how the Nationalist Ministers would not resign whenever Labour deemed that it was time for them to go. In this case we have a Labour Minister who himself gave his word that should something happen he would resign. That something has happened. Or at least Joseph Muscat promised the Commission that it will happen. How valuable is the word of a politician? We’ll soon know.

In the beginning there was the word, now all we are left with are politicians.

In un paese pieno di coglioni ci mancano le palle. (reprise)

 

 

 

Categories
Mediawatch Politics

The unpredictable past

portents_akkuzaThe Russians had an interesting expression while under the communist rule. They would say that even the past is unpredictable – because it kept getting rewritten in order to better fit the needs of whoever was in power at some particular moment. I was reminded of this when I read about the PL Deputy Leader’s surreal “Thank God for Simon” speech at the opening of the Labour Party Conference. Particularly interesting was the section about how Mintoff had transformed Malta into a chicken that lays golden eggs and how the nationalist party in government had managed to turn these eggs into leg. Presumably the chicken was not stolen from someone else – seeing how our potential new residents seem to think that Maltese are “chicken thieves” all.

Elsewhere on the net during my latest period of self-imposed exile, we saw that not too endearing man or woman who frequently gets pride of place on the blog that we still like to call the Runs hit the nail on the head a couple of times. It would seem that certain arguments that would not have been seen as valid under a nationalist administration are now worth entertaining. Ah well, the past – as they say – is so unpredictable. The gist of what the Scooter persona said was very much a summary of what was oft repeated on this blog and hence very acceptable to our ears. It had much to do with with why the nationalist party in power lost the plot – particularly with regards to the (un)conscious re-prioritisation of certain values.

Prominent among these values is that of wealth, translated unfortunately by our political aficionados into an idolisation of “money”. In a letter to the press that I had co-authored and co-signed a couple of elections ago we (the co-authors) had pointed out how the Nationalist Party only functions as an efficient vehicle of popular sentiment and representation whenever it manages to put its thumb on a “proper and just cause”. Thus 1987 with all its promises of change from the socialist block, 1992 with the continuation of the change and the beginning of the mission of European Membership … all the way to 2004 and actual membership. Having dragged an overall skeptical nation into the EU, the PN failed to regalvanise its sense of purpose with new blood. The downfall from then on was all too easy to predict. No purpose, no party.

A pragmatic and cycnical Labour has stuck to one purpose – transparently clear through all the marketing stunts – hanging on to power. Labour is the perfect machine of the PLPN era. It sells an idea of representative majoritarian democracy (with hugely familiar consonances with Gaddhafi’s Green Book of Instructions for Popular Democracy) while actually dealing solely in power-trading politics. The ultimate unit is not values but greed in a wider sense. You get what you want if you are willing to play along with the tune. Lobbies are transformed into piglets running around the teat of a mother pig that is itself busy swilling at the trough. Rights are not really so much a matter of discussion as much as a form of barter in the power game. Which explains the roughshod manner in which even those rights that could be described as universally desirable are suddenly introduced.

With the PN currently in “renewal” mode and the PL preparing for its first reshuffle, the present is not half as clear as it could be. The first headlines to trickle out of the PN reform conference seemed to me to be heavily reliant on cosmetics and the cliché point winners (more women, more participation). I may be missing something but I did not really see much that was related to the PN soul-searching for that new basic sense of purpose that builds upon past ones (notably upon EU membership). Ironically much of the way that the Labour government played the EU side with regards to the citizenship issue was not too different from how the PN itself had “used” EU structures for other sensitive issues – and I have hunting particularly in mind.

The PN would do well to examine the possibility of becoming stronger on Europe. More Europeanist. Yes, it is possible. For until this moment what with all the “good” it may have done by forming the bulk of the movement for EU membership, the heritage that the PN left behind points to anything but a Europeanist wave. Our knights in shining armour (as they portray themselves) might have galloped all the way to the door of Europe but their horses are still tied outside. Europeanism might be a solution that the PN could explore and embrace. It will not be easy because for too long has the PN kidded itself that it carries a 100% Europeanist movement behind it. It does not. A battle would still have to take place for such Europeanism to assert itself. And there is no guarantee that such a philosophy and politics could be a “winner” on the Maltese stage.

A murky past, an even murkier future. Things are definitely going to get interesting.

Categories
Constitutional Development Politics

Europeanism: the birth of an ideology

Comical-European-geopolitical-map

In the beginning was the Rome Treaty. 60 odd years down the line the visions that helped forge together that agreement need some new PR. The first steps of European integration were built on the idea that if the main strategic resources were pooled together (coal, steel, atomic energy) and if a situation of mutually beneficial economic interdependence could be created, then nations that had been at each others’ throats for centuries would have a strong incentive to be at peace. The carrot for such peaceful coexistence was economic prosperity and strength. The European Community was born.

60 years have seen the Community transform to a Union and expand exponentially to include 29 member states. The original driving force of the groups of states has long stopped to be simply of an economic character. The exclusive club of states has not only expanded numerically but also has gone through a bumpy phase of deeper integration that extended into the social and political spheres. In the late nineties one of the standard tensions that was closely observed in the community was that between intergovernmental and federalist forces. The reference was structural, the effect strongly political. The negotiation and the project – whatever shape it took – remained firmly anchored among nation states. The demos was still absent – in the late nineties it was still a matter of sovereign states notwithstanding the European legal order having made huge inroads into the national systems. The “give and take” and the legitimacy question was still firmly rooted at national government level.

Yet, even the early case law that shaped the European Union we now know contained references to the role of the demos in what would eventually be seen as a constitutional construct:

The Community constitutes a new legal order of international law for the benefit of which the states have limited their sovereign rights, albeit within limited fields and the subjects of which comprise not only member states but also their nationals. Independently of the legislation of member states, community law therefore not only imposes obligations on individuals but is also intended to confer upon them rights which become part of their legal heritage. These rights arise not only where they are expressly granted by the treaty, but also by reason of obligations which the treaty imposes in a clearly defined way upon individuals as well as upon the member states and upon the institutions of the community.

—Judgment of the Court of 5 February 1963 (Van Gend en Loos)
Scholars have very often focused on the first part of the above quote – intent on highlighting the dynamics between the member states and the Community/Union. Van Gend, perhaps prophetically, also highlighted the role of “individuals” (still not citizens in the jargon of the court – a concept that would only arrive in the Maastricht Treaty a good 30 years later). Already in 1963, the legal branch of the Community was recognizing the concept of a patrimony of rights being bestowed on individuals – describing it as becoming part of their “legal heritage”. For a long time this legal heritage was strictly tied to what could be termed as “economic rights”. The raison d’être of the Community still being forged around economic prosperity.

 

In 2003 two of Europe’s foremost philosophers – Jacques Derrida and Jurgen Habermas – co-signed an important article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (31 May 2003). The authors took their inspiration from a series of public demonstrations against the attack on Iraq (by the US backed by a number of EU states). Mass demonstrations were held in the main capitals and Derrida and Habermas stated that “The simultaneity of these overwhelming demonstrations – the largest since the end of the Second World War – may well, in hindsight, go down in history as a sign of the birth of a European public sphere”. In their analysis of this newborn phenomenon, the authors also examine the question of a “European identity”:

 

Until now, the functional imperatives for the construction of a common market and the Euro-zone have driven reforms. These driving forces are now exhausted. A transformative politics, which would demand that member states not just overcome obstacles for competitiveness but form a common will, must take recourse to the motives and attitudes of the citizens themselves. Majority decisions on highly consequential foreign policies can only expect acceptance assuming the solidarity of outnumbered minorities. But this presupposes a feeling of common political belonging on both sides. The population must so to speak “build up” their national identities and add to them a European dimension. What is already a fairly abstract form of civil solidarity, still confined to members of nation-states, must be extended to include the European citizens of other nations as well. (Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, ‘February 15, or What Binds Europe Together: Plea for a Common Foreign Policy, Beginning in Core Europe’, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 31 May 2003.)

 

Fast-forward by ten years, past the Global Economic Crisis that managed to shake Europe at its core foundation. The people are back on the streets. Nationalism is on the rise and is an easy refuge for stirrers within the nation states. The demos in the states are less appreciative of the “add on” to their national dimension and are much the flames of self-preserving nationalism are much easier fanned. When battle lines are drawn – from London to Valletta – the talk is still the same: “Us vs Them”. National identity is not seen as a core of a much wider and wealthier “European Identity Heritage” but rather as an endangered species about to be engulfed by some European monster.

 

This is where Europeanism becomes an ideology present on multiple fronts. Those that are prepared to take up the baton of Europeanism are those that believe in a common political fate that is beneficial to each and every individual singled out by the court in Van Gend en Loos 50 years ago. The current debate on the sale of citizenship goes straight to the core of this new battlefield. Those who are prepared to defend and strengthen the concept of European citizenship fall on the Europeanist side of the battle lines. There is no space for traditional ideological demarcation lines – it has really become an issue of Europeanist vs non-Europeanist (with the core of the latter being the resurgence of the old nationalistic lines).

 

Europeanists face a daunting task. Theirs is the duty to convince that the time has come for the European demos to be treated as such. It is not simply a commitment to joining the club and then sitting back and reaping as many benefits without any worry about obligations. It is a commitment to develop a common European identity that can serve as a basis for improvement of the common wealth of all the Union’s citizens.

 

This raises the question of “European identity”. Only the consciousness of a shared political fate, and the prospect of a common future, can halt outvoted majorities from the obstruction of a majority will. The citizens of one nation must regard the citizens of another nation as fundamentally “one of us”. This desideratum leads to the question that so many skeptics have called attention to: are there historical experiences, traditions, and achievements offering European citizens the consciousness of a political fate that has been shared together, and that can be shaped together? An attractive, indeed an infectious “vision” for a future Europe will not emerge from thin air. At present it can arise only from the disquieting perception of perplexity. But it well can emerge from the difficulties of a situation into which we Europeans have been cast. And it must articulate itself not from out of the wild cacophony of a multi-vocal public sphere. If this theme has so far not even gotten on to the agenda, it is we intellectuals who have failed. (Habermas & Derrida, vide supra)

 

Derrida and Habermas were writing 10 years ago. The citizenship issue has been the elephant in the room for quite some time now. As has the issue of a defined and empowered “European Demos” beyond the nation (but part of) the nation state. Will this citizenship debate become the “difficult situation into which we Europeans have been cast”? Will it be the first domino that finally obliges the EU to take up a transformative politics that develops a common will empowered by citizens?

 

It is time for Europeanists to gain momentum. The call has been made and the moment must be grasped.

 

O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!
Sondern lasst uns angenehmere anstimmen,
und freudenvollere.
Freude!
Categories
Euroland Politics

Tabloid-itis

tabloiditis_akkuza

Inevitably, the shift of the “Citizenship for Sale” controversy to the European Parliament has brought along with it a severe case of tabloid-itis to the Maltese discussion fora and social media. The British tabloid press is hugely responsible for a variety of EU myths and thrives on stoking anti-EU sentimentalism among the lesser informed throngs of the population. Malta, with its passionate partisan electorate, was never going to manage to avoid the pull of the fantastical baseless controversy.

As the European Parliament debate could have (might have) proven, the question of the value of European citizenship cannot remain confined to mentioning one or two countries that have initiated a rush on the gold standard worthy of Klondike in the 1890’s. The European Union still has to take the proverbial bull by the horns and (probably, hopefully) redefine the notion of citizenship- a crucial point in the definition of a demos that has hitherto only been loosely attempted at the various steps of Maastricht and Amsterdam. Nationalism being what it is, council meetings (or failed constitutional conventions) tend to treat the matter of nationality with gloves – and this also thanks to the huge backlashes in the tabloids that would occur should the Holy Grail of nationalistic sentiment be touched in some way.

On Citizenship, Traitors and Europeanism

Back to the tabloids though. We were treated in some papers to the idea of “traitors” – those dastardly nationalists doing the unthinkable in Europe. This should have nothing to do with “betraying one’s country” and much more to do with a concern for the future of the European Union and the benefits that it brings to every single member of its rather exclusive club. Concern that the values of the European Union are being diluted are not anti-nationalistic concerns if you are a Europeanist. A Europeanist wants a stronger Europe because he wants a stronger nation. A Europeanist sees a stronger Europe as a solution for his nation.

The other perspective on citizenship involves seeing the whole sale of passports business as some form of competition between individual states. In one fell swoop this perspective ignores the very package of rights and gains for citizens that have been obtained since the 50’s. Admittedly in fits and starts, admittedly not without huge margins for improvement but being an EU citizen in 2014 has much more value and rights and benefits than being, say, a BENELUX citizen in 1957. Seeing the issue solely as a market where every team plays ‘away’ and solely for its own interests is missing the point. Worse is the perspective that looks at Europe as an “us vs them” game.

On Myths

Malta was not the only nation that was “hanging its linen in public” so to speak. We did witness a vociferous exchange among two Portuguese MEP’s. These national rivalries are the collateral effect and should not be the focus at a European level. The focus should be on strengthening the EU citizenship – not, as some mistakenly supposed, via some Commission masterminded plan to overrun national sovereignty, but by the Member States themselves agreeing to redefine the concept of EU citizenship for their own benefit. Why? In order not to lose what they have achieved until now.

I received an email yesterday. Funny how some “myths” go viral just at the right time. This one was supposedly about the European Parliament and the laggards that work there. The title was simple “MUST SEE!”. Then it opened with a very typical Maltese English-ism: “Following are some of the reasons why you will vote next May  !”. Next we had these phrases: “European Parliament in session …..according to the time sheets all members are present….The reality is they all clocked-in in the morning and then went about their personal affairs !” followed by a series of pics that I will put into two sets for the sake of presentation.

First there was this pic of an empty EU Parliament.

European Parliament in session. These photos must be circulated… time and again and again.. ... PRODUCTIVITY AT THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT… THEIR SALARIES ARE 12,000 EUROS A MONTH !
European Parliament in session. These photos must be circulated… time and again and again.. …
PRODUCTIVITY AT THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT… THEIR SALARIES ARE 12,000 EUROS A MONTH !

Then there was series of pics under each of which was written simply €12,000. I put these pics together as a collage to make them easier to post. You’ll get the gist.

€12,000
€12,000

The email ended this way:

AND YOU, YOU HAVE TO WORK UNTIL YOU DROP
..
OF STRESS… UP TO THE AGE OF 60-65 OR OLDER !
THIS EMAIL MUST BE CIRCULATED once,
a hundred times,
a thousand times,
a million times !
These people above give directives,
to fill their pockets!
.
AND WE ARE FORCED TO VOTE FOR THEM
They’re not the dummies !
WE ARE!
DON’T HESITATE TO CIRCULATE THIS

Shocking isn’t it? There is only one problem. Apart from the first photo that could very well be a photo of the parliament building before a session starts or right after it ends, all the other photos are not of the European Parliament. My guess is that it is the German parliament but I could be wrong. In the eagerness to badmouth the European Parliament (especially because it is currently debating a motion that puts Malta in a bad light) some geniuses somewhere (and I have a good idea where) came up with this hopeless email.

Now I am not going to imagine that all Europarliamentarians are saints and that they attend each and every session. The EP is as afflicted as national parliaments with lesser dedicated parliamentarians – in a parliament that is just as full of the kind of Eurosceptic politician who would encourage the above email incidentally. What is pathetic is how easily such an email gets picked up and forwarded while we are on the cusp of a wave of anti-EU enthusiasm.

The EU institutional machinery works along defined lines. They are not being invented now because Malta has come up with this Golden Passport plan. They have always been there. Besides, the EU has EU-wide matters that need tackling (the question of redefining EU citizenship being one of them). Looking at the goings on through the eyes of the tabloids and their copycats will only make fools of ourselves.

There is a cure. Get informed (and don’t be so damn gullible).

Categories
Mediawatch Values

Getting selfies right

DogSelfie_akkuzaIn an article entitled “Sharing explicit selfies without consent may be made illegal“, the Times reports that Social Dialogue Minister Helena Dalli has reacted to the current furore on selfies. Minister Dalli is quoted as saying that “the sharing of explicit material without a person’s consent is a clear breach of data protection”.

It is important to be clear about two aspects here. First of all “selfie” has snapped its way into the dictionary and has a very specific meaning. A “selfie” as the name implies (btw… it’s a “stessu” in Maltese – and that’s semi-official) is a snapshot taken of oneself by oneself. The crucial element in all this is the “self” – it is not a selfie if the person pressing the button of the camera is not the same as the person depicted in the picture. Why is that important? Well, simple really, it stops being a selfie if someone other than the person who took it (and is depicted in it) publishes it. It may sound like pedantic playing with words but in actual fact the point is that you don’t need consent to publish a selfie because technically the only person who publishes a selfie is the same person who took it.

When someone other than the selfie-taker publishes what was originally a selfie then what they are doing is publishing a photo – this falls under a wider category and not necessarily a selfie – of someone else. Who cares? The law might. You see if you are in possession of lewd photos of another person and publish them without his or her consent then chances are high (let’s say close to 100%) that what you are doing is illegal on a number of counts. It is ALREADY illegal.

Which brings me to the second point. I am sure that Minister Dalli’s intention is legitimate and I am also convinced that there might be lacunae that may need to be filled insofar as the Data Protection Commissioner is concerned. There is definitely a need for an educational campaign with regards to the use of private date and publishing thereof. Magistrate Depasquale was reported in the Independent to have referred to the fact that anyone uploading images of oneself that will be available publicly is exposing himself to “fair comment”.

“Magistrate Francesco Depasquale said in his judgement, the accusations were with regard to posts and photos which were openly accessible online. While it is a person’s right to make photos and material public, they should be conscious that this can be subject to people’s comments and ridicule.”

That is a positive development in the sense that our jurisprudence goes on record to remind the citizen the dos and donts at law. Back to selfies though. What the law does not need is complication. It must also be kept simple – Occam’s razor and all. There is already sufficient protection against other people uploading pictures of yourself without consent. It would be crazy to include/add a trend-driven definition such as “selfie” into the equation: it just does not add any value.

Categories
Mediawatch

Private Liaisons, Public Affairs

trianghollande_akkuza

Valérie Trierweiler has been hospitalised following revelations in the press that her companion – French President François Hollande – had been having an affair with actress Julie Gayet. This latest sex scandal in France involves an actress who had taken part in a promo video for Hollande during his 2012 campaign. A bit reminiscent of the “billboard favourites” in Malta, only this time, the video promoter found herself on the lap of the French President – incidentally another son of the famous ’68 ‘student rebel’ generation.

The French media is split controversially in two factions between those who see these revelations as a violation of privacy and others who went ahead and published the videos and pics that seem to confirm this liaison. What can or cannot be said in public about such affairs will remain a moot point for years to come – even certain corners of our own blogosphere seem to put much reserve in the “pinker” points of information that might please their readers.

It’s the moment when you drawn the line between what is merely ‘pink’ info worthy of your Paris Match and, on the other hand information about the private activity of a leader that might impinge on his public performance. To take the grotesque example, Italy’s Berlusconi met his downfall precisely due to his not too private activity that was deemed to have jeopardised his way of thinking. Closer to home we are beginning to be less shocked whenever that elephant in the room is mentioned – liaisons, trysts, betrayals. For some time you’d be forgiven to believe that much of what goes on in Maltese politics is the result of jealousies, rivalries and revenge processes worthy of cheap paperback novels.

Wives, lovers and boyfriends seem to hit the headlines more and more and have become part of the intricately woven web of power politics. Learning to deal with such reporting in the press is a delicate but important process. The word “nepotism” implies a familial link with the favoured and Malta’s current government will soon be able to display family trees in lieu of organisational charts. Reporting such appointments is paramount. Extra-marital affairs however? Well, the principle of “Caesar’s wife” can always be quoted as a measure. Voters might rightfully want to know whether fidelity forms part of the repertoire of their favoured candidate.

Given voter’s trends and shifts don’t blame them when the unfaithful politician becomes even more popular. Sic transit gloria politici.