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After the flood, the deluge

In Greek mythology, the river Styx divides this world from the underworld. Charon ferries people across the Styx to the netherworld and very few people return from the bowels of the earth (Orpheus and Dante are some examples of men on whom lady luck smiled). The only other people who return from the land of the dead are those made famous in the sixties horror movies and those enjoying a revival among the deprived youth of today – vampires and zombies. And what better period to talk about the undead, the unliving and the general ‘uns’ than the weekend of Hallowe’en (or All Hallow’s Eve)?

This year Halloween came early. Or at least it seemed to do so from the point of view of us expats basking in the rare Luxembourg sun (admittedly an icicle-inducing zero degrees Celsius, but sunny just the same), peering into the internet pages in order to get the latest updates from the Mediterranean. For once you set aside the proliferation of Youtube videos bearing witness to nature’s wrath, we were mostly fascinated by the business of the 800 Qormi coffins. Sparta had its 300, Garibaldi might have had his 1,000 (poetic licence of an approximation by history buffs) and Jesus might have walked around with 12 men, but Qormi will henceforth always be associated with the number 800.

That’s the number of coffins that broke loose into the troubled waters of Qormi’s high streets transforming the home of bread into a remake of Michael Jackson’s Thriller – and brought to mind Charon’s river Styx in all its eerie horror. As darkness fell across the land and the midnight hour got close at hand, we had coffins floating along the streams while a record amount of rainwater was lost to the sea. I must confess that I was blissfully unaware of the high mortality rate in Malta that supposedly justifies such a high stock of boxes intended for human consumption (I know a bad pun when I see one but hey – it’s worth it). You cannot help but question whether the undertaker has been doctoring his figures in order to claim a €350,000 loss. From who exactly?

Floater

The tendency towards “pink” reporting in our supposedly reputable papers did not help matters much with regard to the undertaker’s plight. We were not told whether the figures thrown around when estimating his loss were simply a dismal calculation of losses in the same manner as Antonio mulling the sad news of his sunken ships in Shakespeare’s Merchant, or whether a Shylockian calculation was concealed behind such assessment with the next step being some exorbitant claim from the insurers. Worse still, we were left to wonder whether the Qormi merchant of post-mortal solutions would have the cheek and gall to claim remuneration from governmental hands in order to compensate for his misfortunes that seemed to have been caused by what, in insurance terms (and not spiritual) is an act of God.

Classifying damages as being caused by an act of God will definitely not result in his representatives on earth rushing to their kitties to shower compensation In Nomine Dei. This is because the particular representatives who seem to have a monopoly on both spiritual and lay matters on the island have recently declared publicly that they are having a hard time making ends meet. Which leads me sweetly to Tonio Fenech, who has had the unenviable position of Finance Minister during economic crises for the best part of the last three years. When he is not busy holding back on paying the dues for his housemaid, Tonio is attempting to balance the books of the nation.

We almost did not notice the budget, thanks to the floods and storms that were Malta’s mini-version of hurricane Katrina. Then news started to filter out. Some complained about the higher price of booze and fags. The Minister had targeted bad habits but someone had forgotten to tax ignorance – a sure-fire way to pay off our deficit. Labour hooed and haad as only an Opposition could and even went the extra mile to create a website called therealbudget.com in which we were supposed to learn something about – wait for it – not Labour’s alternative proposal but why Gonzi is a bad bad man. GonziGvern countered the website with a few propagandistic slides of its own, as PL and government proceeded to spam our inboxes with regurgitated propaganda.

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Creeks and no paddles

It’s boring. It’s irrelevant. Frankly, it just reflects the puerile levels of chicken-headed reactionary planning that both parties are capable of spouting. That’s what budget period brings along nowadays. You just had to look at the whole discussion about the lungs of our economy aka tourism – to see that we were being taken for a ride. Gonzi’s aforementioned web page boasts of all the connections to the world our airport has, blissfully ignoring Air Malta’s downsizing of routes the day after budget day. Labour squealed that the government was killing a whole industry by increasing accommodation tax to seven per cent and the private entrepreneurs chimed in in agreement.

What I would like to know is whether any of the aforementioned characters in this charade have any idea of what is going on at a European level. Huge companies are downsizing, countries like Germany and France are busy inventing new ways of taxing – guess what – tourism. Thomas Cook has defaulted on five per cent of its payments to partners – willy-nilly and nolens volens. Ryanair is cutting 30 per cent of its services from Frankfurt-Hahn airport because of a new airport tax. Luxembourg and Germany have threatened not to send trains to Lorraine (France) because of a new tax for the use of rails.

Have I got news for Labour’s whingers: there’s a world out there that exists beyond the knee-jerk reactions of Joseph Muscat and his sidekicks. It’s time Inhobbkom Joseph did a bit of homework – who knows, maybe he might find time for a stage in Brussels to get the latest snapshot of the big picture. Actually, I am quite sure he knows what the facts really are like but he also knows that he has to sell his wares to a Bondified audience – used to being fed in clichés, superficial argumentation and kiddie-partisan politics. It’s a no-brainer. How Joseph manages to make this arrogant government of ours still seem like the only viable alternative to anyone with half a brain in his skull is one of the magical conundrums of the 21st century.

Weather girls

Budget or no budget, the D-debate goes on. After the groundbreaking news that the non-couple of the Pullicino+Orlando almost proposed the Private Members’ Bill as a bipartisan proposal that would rival Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde in levels of monstrous creations, the debate continued on weirder terms. We seem to be resigned to the Pontius Pilate referendum, as the present generation of politicians are unable to shoulder the responsibility of introducing a civil act. We also seem to have established that Nationalist MPs will be given a free vote should they ever have to face the ordeal of actually voting on the issue.

Somehow you could imagine a lot of sick notes the day of such a hypothetical vote: “Mr Speaker/Mr Whip I’m afraid “INSERT MP NAME HERE” could not come to Parliament today due to a violent attack of cold feet, chicken pox and jaundice. In any event his/her car is out of order and our maid (on voluntary duty) advised him to stay away from public transport lest he come across an irate bus driver. Please accept our excuses, cannot write more because our parish priest is coming for a private confession. PS. Tell Lawrence/Joseph we’re mortified.”

Then there was Carm Mifsud Bonnici, who wrote in a rival paper to explain that while the State will not interfere in who you marry and when, it has a civic duty to ensure that you are happy in your marriage for as long as possible (eternity is just about right). CMB then told us that the indissolubility of marriage is “the anchor that keeps the relationship firmly in the harbour” (my paraphrase but his metaphor). Sweet. There was a little flaw in this kind of reasoning, though, that is as glaringly obvious and in your face as 800 coffins floating across a main thoroughfare in a Maltese town.

You see, those who advocate this kind of “common good can only come out of indissolubility” argument tend to make a logical leap that overlooks an important part of the equation. For if the state is genuinely interested in ensuring that marriages work as well as possible because of the positive outcome for civil society, then the only good thing to do would be to certify marriages from the start wouldn’t it? What’s the use of letting all and sundry traipse happily into the contract of marriage only to be told that the anchor (or ball and chain) that keeps them happy in the harbour (or prison) is the fact that there is no way out – EVEN WHEN ALL EFFORTS HAVE FAILED?

Swampy ground

You see what I mean? If CMB and his like were serious about the State’s role (and I hope that they are not – and that they admit the ruse for what it is) then they would be advocating State-certified marriages. You’d have to be tested for your suitability to marry and – taking the argument to its logical conclusion – you’d have to be tested and screened for suitability to procreate. What’s that I hear? Illogical? How can the State interfere with your right to marry who you like and procreate? How indeed? What’s stopping the possibility of divorce when there is an irretrievable breakdown of marriage then? What indeed?

But CMB cannot suddenly argue for a marriage suitability test, can he? Not that it would not be a good idea in many, many cases, but there is something that is revolting about such interference – even in our conservative society. It’s going to be hard to wriggle out of that particular argument for the anti-divorce people. Meanwhile, I expect a D-Party to start to form… a pro-divorce legislation equivalent of the Tea Party in the US. It’s sad we’re going to be polarising this affair on the road to a public vote rather than having the right legislation voted in by an intelligent bunch of beings for the common good but hey… I hate repeating this… we reap what we sow.

La Moselle/Mosel

Finally, time for a quick round of news from Luxembourg – just look at it as news from a similarly sized nation dealing with the same difficulties as Malta. First there’s Viviane Reding. She’s taking on the French. Again. In August she disagreed with Sarko’s treatment of the Roms, telling him off in no uncertain terms (compare and contrast our government’s approach). She has few friends left in the French government and Minister Lellouche went so far as to say that “one does not speak in this way of a big country like France”. Now Reding is angry at Sarkozy and Merkel for their agreement in Deauville on the European budgetary discipline. She believes that they are needlessly tampering with the Lisbon agreements and called the Deauville pact irresponsible. Reding, a Christian-Democrat, has the support of Prime Minister Juncker and Foreign Minister Asselborn (socialist – it’s a coalition) in the upcoming talks next week.

Elsewhere, the Luxembourg Court of Appeal found that a foetus has no juridical personality in a case where a person who had suffered a miscarriage tried to file for involuntary homicide. At the other end of the life-spectrum, a new study foresaw an ageing population in Luxembourg by 2060. By then one in four people living in Luxembourg will be pensioners – a big headache for the financing of pensions in the future.

It’s been a week in the sign of rivers, streams and canals so it’s a good thing that I’m ending it in the city of Shylock, Portia and Antonio. Have a good long weekend.


www.akkuza.com is engaged in Venice. Let’s hope no coffins are sighted floating in this corner of the world.

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J'accuse : I.M. Jack (The Uncouth)

I’ve got a running series of posts in the blog that goes by the name of “I.M. Jack”. The title came around as a bit of a spoofy nod to the rotund columnist who graces the pages of a rival paper every Saturday. Every time I blog an “I.M. Jack” post it’s more of a round-up of different stories that serendipitously find themselves sharing the same post and limelight. I normally do that out of expediency and to save myself from posting a series of mini-posts, and also because by the time the third “I.M. Jack” got out I sort of got used to the little “round-up” idea possibilities that it afforded.

So yes, this week’s effort comes to you in a disjointed, I.M. Jack-ish sort of way, that is it can be read in little snippets or (for the well-trained in J’accuse loghorrea) all in one go. The quality of the articles, incidentally, should be improving exponentially (modestly speaking of course) as the cold weather begins to bitch-slap the Grand Duchy earlier than usual. Like Terry Pratchett’s golems and trolls, I tend to function more sharply as the weather begins to get colder. (Speaking of Pratchett, do get your hands on his latest novel I Shall Wear Midnight – it rocks). Let us then begin the I.M. Jack tour.

On the dignity of Parliament

Is it just me or is Parliament really becoming government’s bitch? I know, I know, I should be more reverent towards the hallowed institution that is fundamental to our very democracy but hey, if our very own representatives seem to be having a tough time understanding the importance of their roles, I don’t see why we should bother – right? Austin Gatt usually figures high on my list of valid politicians in this country of ours but he took the lead in the dismissal of the request for hearing of witnesses in the PAC on some wobbly excuse that the Auditor General had already carried out much of the hearing.

Bollocks. Even the kind of papers that do not usually lend themselves easily to government criticism carried harsh editorials condemning the lacklustre sense of wanton disrespect that everybody under the sun could read into the happenings at the PAC. We did not even have to fight off the temptation to be balanced and to apportion a fair share of criticism to the Labourite side of the benches by questioning their constant nagging and moral convictions. The message Austin et al were sending was plain – they refused to submit the BWSC process to a parliamentary level of scrutiny that is normal in most parliamentary democracies. The words of Franco Debono come back to haunt the mind now – the dignity of Parliament is being seriously diluted and something must be done quickly to repristinate a good working order.

On money

It is not just our sense of democracy that is being put into serious question. This week, EU leaders sat around a table somewhere in Luxembourg and agreed to revise the rules on budget deficit. Meanwhile, in the House of Commons in London, George Osborne delivered a budget that was described as a “historic attempt to turn around the juggernaut of state public spending”. The Daily Mail headlined Man Who Rolled Back The State on Friday, as the Con-Dem coalition embarked on a programme that would savage benefits, axe jobs, slash budgets and attempt to reverse 60 years of public spending.

An interesting article in the International Herald Tribune took in these latest European reforms at both EU and national level and questioned whether the Keynesian formula has been ditched once and for all. European governments no longer seem to believe that the solution to the recession is to pump more money into the economy and let the economy fix itself. Probably this has much to do with the distrust in the key power centres of the economy and how they seem to have brought about this recession themselves with their unethical way of thinking.

So yes, capitalism as we know it is in a bit of a fix. Which is when the loony left goes out on the streets and begins to whine. Fairness, as they know it, is about to go terribly wrong and the welfare state in which money seems to grow on trees for those who qualify for the big safety net in the sky is suddenly shrinking before their very eyes. Which is why we have angry men in streets preparing to raise barricades and fight with the riot police. Like the money will come flying from the sky once the capitalist monster is dealt the final deathblow. Go figure. Baroness Thatcher was hospitalised this week so she was saved the horror of having to see reminders of the age of her iron hand when minors and other representatives of the leftist workforce took to the streets.

On values and relativism

Maltese relativism is back with a twist. The House of Lords (UK) this week opened up a new world in the universe of marriage law by accepting the validity of a prenup. That’s short for prenuptial contract and has been the stuff of movies and murder stories across the pond for quite a while, but it may surprise you that its legal validity is very much a novelty this side of the Atlantic. What a prenup does is that it stipulates what will happen in the unfortunate eventuality that a happy couple that is about to engage in lawful matrimony should somehow fall out.

It’s a divorce settlement signed when things are still rosy, when the amours are still love struck and when altruistic lovey-doveyiness still pervades the inner sanctum of the quasi-conjugal unit. It takes advantage of the goodwill of the parties to pre-draft and establish what can still be considered to be an amicable settlement as to the division of all property. Thusly, later, when the better half is reaching for the short and curlies armed with a knife, and it is clear that it will not be death that will “us part” but rather the manifest impossibility of future cohabitation, the couple will find that the prenup they signed in what must seem another life will come into force and the pre-ordained division of assets as per prenup will take place without too much acrimonious battling.

The House of Lords hath ruled that such prenups will always apply unless they are manifestly unfair (leave it to the men of law to argue whether charm by fatal attraction could sufficiently qualify as having succumbed under sexual duress). Meanwhile, back in Malta (and back is the operative word here) we are still facing the discombobulating farce of wondering whether or not to introduce divorce by popular suffrage. As I said last week, this is a result of our testicle-less politicians (sanscouillistes) wanting to hide behind the “will of the people”. What next? A referendum on Income Tax? I wonder how that one will go.

Then, as fellow columnist Caruana Galizia pointed out on Thursday, there was the blatant contradiction between on the one hand all the disquisitions as to the morality of voting for divorce and on the other hand, the facility with which some parliamentary committee had no qualms in proposing the freezing of embryos. Climb up walls? We do that… every five years. All we needed was the LGBT movement complaining about the prohibition of IVF accessibility for gay couples. Sure – this country is having problems coming to terms with the idea of divorce but it will have no problems with little Capslock (I’m sure someone, somewhere has that name) being raised by mummy and … mummy. (The ghost of Beppe shudders).

On the strong arm of the law

The next time you are angry with someone and your anger leads you to the uncontrollable urge to punch that person, just remember one thing: it comes at a price. And if you can afford €100 then go ahead and do your Mohammed Ali. That is the going rate for a punch, as the man who assaulted the CABS officer discovered. Not that expensive, is it? As for letting loose with a gun on officers of the law and putting their life in manifest danger (vide HSBC hold-up and shootout) – that still does not disqualify you from bail.

Sarcasm aside – it is pissing off isn’t it? I mean, what the hell? Personally, I am not of the very physical kind and my best weapon in a punch up is my wit that sends one three-letter word to the brain: RUN. So if ever I risk being on the receiving end of someone’s clenched fist, I would like to think that there is also a sufficient disincentive in the form of a legal deterrent that will allow me to bargain my way out of such fury without having to resort to the Coward’s Gentlemanly Exit. It should be so for any law-abiding citizen, who would prefer not to have to calculate at which point throwing a punch or two towards the rabid bully could constitute valid self-defence (assuming he has a punch or two he can throw). The news from the Law Courts is not promising in this respect.

Traitors and idols

When some members of the black and white community of which I form part labelled Zlatan Ibrahimovic a gypsy whore, I tended to turn a blind eye and deaf ear and glossed over the possibility of tut-tutting such unsporting behaviour. I despised the lanky, self-pompous oaf all the more for leaving Juventus bang in the middle of what is now evidently a frame up to play for the saddest of teams ever to have disgraced Italian football grounds. When he actually moved on to another team a few complaints later, I did not shed a tear of sympathy for his latest dumped girlfriend but confirmed my earlier suspicions that here we were seeing the epitome of modern footballing greed. He’s moved on again (go figure) and is still worthless when it comes to crucial games on the European football stage but I’m not here to talk about Zlatan.

It’s the Rooney saga that really lit up more red lights as to the general decline of the gentlemanly side of football. Where are the Ryan Giggs, the Francesco Tottis, the Rauls, the Maldinis – and above all the Alessandro Del Pieros – in modern football? The word mercenary does not even begin to explain the spirit of today’s breed of men of the leather ball. No matter that by the time I finished typing this article Wayne has signed a new, improved contract keeping him at United, as predicted solely by Luciano Moggi when everybody else was betting on his next destination. No matter that he has been appeased with some beefing up of the contract.

What I would like to know is how the little Scouser will walk into that changing room and face his “team-mates” from Giggs to Nani to Bebe to Fletcher without being overcome by a sense of shame. Forget fidelity to the club, forget respect for the supporters, forget gratitude to a coach who fathered him. What jarred most in the Rooney saga was the ease with which he could bad-mouth his fellow team-mates by going public and basically claiming that they are not good enough to play with him. It’s stuff that makes you sick and I seriously doubt how easily Rooney can win back the respect he blew away over two crazy days in October.

Milos Krasic, Juventus’ latest idol, is a step back out of this world of mercenaries. I was not sure whether his determination to join Juventus should be taken seriously but the stories coming from Torino day after day show an old-fashioned, dedicated footballer who is in love with his new environment and determined to show the kind of attachment to a club that is sadly becoming rarer and rarer. He has one captain he can look up to who has broken all kinds of records and won all sorts of trophies. Last Sunday he broke one of the latest barriers, reaching the great Boniperti’s goal-tally in the Campionato. He turns 36 next month but we could be lucky enough to see him in action for some time yet.

Grazie Alex.

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J’accuse : ‘Les sanscouilles’

At the time of the French revolution, part of the French population took to calling another part of the population “les sansculottes”. According to one theory, the name is derived from the fact that the partisans of this particular revolutionary faction wore pantaloons (full-length trousers) instead of the fashionable knee-length culotte. (Wikipedia’s summary). I’ve always wondered why rather than being called ‘Les Pantaloons’, they were defined by what they did not wear, but that must be down to the fact that the point where sartorial affairs and politics converge more often than not involves criticism rather than praise.

Anyway, together with the Jacobins, the sansculottes were among the violent elements of the revolution. Unlike the Jacobins, they came from the working class and have bequeathed us the term “sans-culottism” meaning extreme egalitarian republican principles. The sansculottes disappeared shortly after the fall of Robespierre’s reign of terror and they left us the image of the carmagnole, the red cap of liberty and the sabots (clogs).

In today’s exciting times we have witnessed revolutions linked to colours, such as the red, purple and orange revolutions. We have also, in moments of great social upheaval, witnessed the blooming of “styles” and “fashions” that are a result of or reaction to the current political mood. In that sense, the sansculottes were the precursors to the mods, the punks, the rebels and the twittervolutionaries of today’s world but never, ever in his life would Jacques (René, if you please) Hébert, the revolutionary mentor of the sansculottes, have imagined the possibility of the movement of “les sanscouilles”.

Balls

Yet, all through this past week you couldn’t help but wonder whether just such a movement is forming in our collective sub-conscious and whether or not it manifested itself in the guise of our more prominent politicians and so-called investigative journalists when the divorce issue was once again discussed. Maltese, being the flowery expressive language that it is, lends itself perfectly to explaining what les sanscouilles is all about – and unless the linguistic fascists are hiding in ambush behind some corner, the best way to spell the Maltese version of sanscouilles is bla bajd.

Yep. The sanscouilles movement is made up of a combination of political Farinellis combined with the journalistic eunuchs who tend to fan their divas during performances. Lest I be accused of gender bias, I invite you to consider this whole ballsy business as an extended metaphor that applies to male and female alike. The defining trait of the sanscouilles is their inability to shoulder a modicum of responsibility and provide an inkling of inspirational politics; instead of responsibly taking a stand one way or another, they will wait to see which way the wind is blowing and find innumerable ways to postpone putting their neck on the line.

Contrary to public perception, the notion of the sanscouilles has less to do with ideas of virility and more with the ideal of responsible leadership. A quick run through the week’s events on divorce should really lead this country’s last remaining conscientious voters to despair. The sanscouilles movement is gaining ground… it is out there. It is everywhere.

The Emperor’s Clothes

I was told that Joseph Muscat pulled of quite a performance on Tuesday’s self-referential show of investigative journalism. I was told that by friends of mine who don’t usually bother turning up at the ballot box on Malta’s five-year anniversary equivalent of Doomsday. It was when the press started to report Joseph’s refreshed position on divorce that I wondered how my friends could buy this kind of pitch from a politician who, in the words of a commentator on J’accuse, “appears to have acquired his political education from the back of a Belgian beer mat”.

Then it clicked. Surely the prancing and sashaying of Malta’s prime example of castrato journalism could only have unwittingly (absence of wit is taken as read in most programmes) aided and abetted Muscat’s unprincipled approach to the divorce debate. Of course, if, unlike me, you are more than willing to watch the Emperor march around naked without giving him so much as a word of warning as to his glaring state of nudity, then you too will be equally appeased with his idea of “responsible divorce” combined with a “free vote for his party”.

The presenter’s position is compromised from the start. Comforted by the fact that his bias no longer needs to be declared (it’s to himself, lest you were wondering), his programmes are beyond “boring and dull”, having transformed into a self-referential sequence exposing the very best of selective journalistic incompetence. At any other time, on any other channel, Lou could be playing whatever tune he likes but prime time investigative journalism on national TV deserves much more than the image of castrated journalists playing second fiddle to whatever member of Parliament is on stage at the moment. Given that WE’s other programme has now completely taken leave of all senses and started to discuss close encounters of the third kind, the urgent need of a non-castrated style of journalism is all the more glaring.

But back to Muscat. His particular brand of sanscouillism is of the incredibly non-committal kind while sounding the exact opposite. Unless you manage to cut beyond the words and look into what is really being said, you might as well be listening to Ahmed the Dead Terrorist. Which is why Bondi’s castrato style journalism could not work. If he challenges Muscat he gets reminded that he is biased. If he goes along with him he ends up promising to endorse his “responsible divorce” campaign.

Muscat’s tergiversation stems from an inability to place the divorce issue in real constitutional terms and fails to appreciate his responsibilities both as Leader of the Opposition and aspirant leader of a nation. Divorce is not the kind of “right” that results from some majority-voting stint but is a legal possibility that is enacted in the interests (more often than not) of the few. What Muscat fails to understand is that you can be in favour of divorce legislation without necessarily being in favour of divorce.

Muscat tries to get away with this new-fangled notion of “responsible” divorce as though there is such a thing as irresponsible divorce. Sure we do not want a situation where the mere repetition of the cursèd word thrice would result in divorce like some Red Slippers gone all matrimonial. On the other hand, this shuffling of feet and hiding behind terms is not progressive at all. A progressive leader should have taken the bull by the horns and by this time presented what his idea of divorce should be – caveats and all – and be pushing to get it enacted in parliament for the benefit of those citizens who fulfil the conditions and desire to move on to a different, married life. Instead we get enigmatic “responsible divorce”. Well, so long as it’s responsible. Then again. What if I said “responsible mercy killing”? What say you about “responsible heroin consumption”? “Responsible castration”?

The high kind of pitch

And while Muscat was busy dancing with Lou to whatever music was being played at the never-ending end credits, Malta’s own Don Quixote was busy meeting our Prime Minister on the matter of his draft law on divorce. Now, I have already once more lauded JPO for the single-handed way he has pushed the sanscouilliste movement into some form of action on the divorce matter. On the other hand it was particularly jarring to see the push and pull of the JPO-Gonzi saga shortly after the meeting took place. First JPO met some members of the free press and declared that next year would be a great time for the harvest of both parliamentary discussions and referendum.

What-ho? Yep. The erstwhile backbencher had apparently been given the nihil obstat from up high to announce to the men of the realm that divorce would definitely be on the agenda in 2011, as would be an eventual referendum. Referendum? Did anyone say referendum? Is our hero tilting at windmills, suddenly drained of all mental faculties? Has he too succumbed to sanscouillism? Who on earth mentioned referenda? Do these folks even know how things are meant to work in this constitutional republic of ours?

Better still out came the OPM claiming that, yes, there was an agreement to proceed with the discussion but there was no mention of a referendum and that it would be best left to the electorate to decide. The electorate? It was like being knocked out twice within an hour. No referendum plus the electorate can only mean one thing in my book: that we will wait for the next general election for the divorce issue to be placed in the party’s manifesto and that a vote on the matter could only be taken after such a national vote.

Marchons! Marchons! A la Castille! You could hear the hordes of sanscouilles marching in line. They would storm Castille once again and spread the revolutionary fervour of the ball-less to the four corners of the islands. The divorce question had become a question of pass the parcel all over again and from Muscat to JPO to Gonzi the movement of the sanscouilles could only offer the electorate a castrato version of realpolitik. Wash your hands and let them decide. Pontius Pilate would be proud.

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The seven brothers

Then it came. When you least expected it and from the last place you would expect it. The voice of reason. Seven Church brothers sat down around a table and fleshed out a declaration “on conscience and divorce”. In the land of sanscouillism, seven men of the cloth came up with an eye-opener of a declaration that made you want to stand up on the nearest pulpit or stage and shout “Hallelujah”. Here was a ballsy statement divorced from the fire and brimstone rhetoric of brother Said Pullicino and divorced from the foot shuffling opportunism of the sanscouilliste community. The seven brothers called a spade a spade. And they reminded the whole bloody lot of the sanscouilliste community of the political role of one’s conscience – and one’s responsibility towards both society and one’s conscience.

For yes, there was much more to be read into the seven brothers’ invitation than a simple reminder that a real Catholic votes with an informed conscience. They went beyond that. They had no qualms reminding the devout that “for Catholics divorce is wrong whether permitted by civil law or not”. However, they did also emphasise the importance of evaluating one’s options by acting with an informed conscience bearing in mind one’s own morals and values – in this case God’s teaching.

The seven brothers introduced a new, important angle to the argument. They have not only repaired the damage to the Church’s image caused by Said Pullicino’s media-eval stance, but have provided an important example for the wider society. I dare go so far as stating that theirs is the real Christian democrat position that is miles apart from the tergiversation within the soul of the supposed Christian democrat party of Malta.

This is the how the role of a social actor is fulfilled. With a clear indication and an appraisal of every individual’s role in society and how he should go about fulfilling it. Instead of fire and brimstone, the brothers gave us the duty to inform our conscience and decide in good faith based on those considerations. After all, it is not just votes on the introduction of divorce that require greater reflection and an informed conscience. Someone, somewhere, still has faith in intelligent voters who will get us out of this mess.

www.akkuza.com is still sick of laryngitis. We’re sicker still of the sanscouillistes but still can’t find the right prescription.

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J'accuse : Abre los Ojos

Labour (Inhobbkom’s Labour not Ed’s New New One) is busy conferencing this weekend. They’re huddled cosily in the university’s Aula Magna for a full day of talks in a conference entitled “Revisting Labour’s History” and I still cannot get over the fact that I was unable to make it there. Yes, you read that right, I would have loved to witness at first hand this conference of sorts that is part of the wider Labour strategy of “Re-”s. They’re re-visiting their history, re-inventing their logo, re-gurgitating old economic principles, re-moving their facial hair and (once again) re-cycling an image that has been a work in progress since is-Salvatur ta’ Malta went into re-tirement (never a minute too late).

There’s something manifestly wrong in the way Labour went about this whole “re-” business though, and this weekend’s conference contains some clear pointers to what that could be. Someone, somewhere is guilty of a gross miscalculation when choosing the title first of all: “Revisiting Labour’s History”. It’s the political equivalent of a Freudian slip combined with all the evident trappings of a modern day “Pimp my Party” in the making. The term “revisit” is a few letters away from becoming “revise” and I have a hunch that this is not a small coincidence.

In legal terms, when a court revisits an earlier decision it normally does so because of the necessity of reinterpreting the earlier position – there would be not other reason to revisit and reopen the case. In historical terms there is another “re-” word that is of relevance here. It’s the idea of revisionism. Revisionism need not always be extreme as in holocaust denial. Reading through the agenda of this weekend’s conference, I couldn’t help but think that Labour is sorely tempted to rewrite some chapters of history of its own. They’ve been at it for a while now and we have all become used to the polyphonic history of our islands – whether it is sung by Mary Spiteri to the tunes of Gensna or whether it is yelled from the pedestals of il-Fosos by the latest crowd-stirring nationalist orator – the messages are always excitingly dissonant and cacophonous: the result of two virtual realities and perceptions colliding.

Rapid eye movement

The political audience is already, as it is, doomed to the regular resurrection of revisited myths and legends in our political discourse. The narratives woven by opposing parties are now firmly ingrained in our collective minds and it is hard to reasonably detach from them completely. It is extremely significant that, bang in the middle of the process of change and reinvention, Labour chose to “revisit” its history and discuss, among other things: “The Worker Student Scheme: 1978-1987”. As I type (11.30am, Saturday, 2 October), Peter Mayo is about to launch into an explanation of how Great Leader Mintoff (May God Give Him Long Life and Order a Hail of Stones on All His Evil Wishers) sowed the seeds of the stipend system and how we must be eternally grateful for his insights that allowed us to progress to a university accepting 3,000+ freshers this year.

The irony will be lost on the listeners sitting in that cosy hall of the Aula Magna on the 2nd of October 2010 that 33 years and one day before this the atmosphere in that very same place would best have been described as tensely electric. I wonder whether Peter Mayo will stop for a moment to explain to the young listeners (I’d imagine a Nikita Alamango fawning in the audience – one who according to her latest Times “blog” post cannot stand the PN reminders of the past) that on the 3rd October 1977 the opening ceremony at university featured heavy protests by the medical students who had just been shut out of the course (and always risked brutal cancellation if the thugs decided that it was open day at Tal-Qroqq).

Sure, it was not yet 1978 so it might (just) be beyond Peter Mayo’s remit. He will be forgiven therefore for not reminding those present that only two days later, on 5 October 1977, the man dubbed as is-Salvatur tal-Maltin would walk past a group of students chained to the railings in Castille oblivious to the fact that his government’s decisions in the educational sector (the much lauded Worker Student Scheme) were about to deny thousands of young people the path to tertiary education and send them abroad in droves.

Remember, remember the 5th of October

To be fair to Peter Mayo he probably couldn’t dare criticise the workings of the Great Leader. Not after a wonderful morning discussing his battles with the church in the sixties and his “electrifying” speeches to the proletariat. The electric effect Mintoff and his handymen had on some parts of the population would best be described as “shocking” actually. Whatever you may think of Labour’s dim-witted purposive ignorance of the past and bulldozering of historic relevance, don’t you for one moment run away with the idea that it is only the party of Joseph, Evarist (Bartolo – of removed stipends fame) and Alfred (Sant – of interview boards at university) who is in the business of revising historical facts.

You see, I sympathise with such Young Turks as Nikita Alamango who are frustrated at having to carry the burden of Labour’s past every time they squeak a new idea or criticise the current regime (sorry – did I say regime? – it’s the “Re” word fixation). Hell, this week even the German Republic paid the final instalment in World War I Reparations (started paying in 1919 and was suspended as long as Germany was split). Ninety-two years on and the German conscience is slightly freer – so why not Labour? Most times they are right. PN lackeys all too often emerge from the primordial slew of infertile political ground and rely on historical mudslinging for want of a better argument.

The problem I have with Labour is twofold – disputing the relevance of past actions is one thing. Revising (sorry, revisiting) them is another. Revisiting them on the anniversary of events that marked the watershed of Old Labour’s hopeless politics of the late 70s is insulting – insulting not just to the PN hardliners but also to neutral observers like myself who can see through the charade. Labour cannot expect this to go unnoticed. It is strategically stupid and politically insensitive. It does not stop at conferences: Recently, someone from Labour’s “think-tank” (IDEAT) was busy on Facebook quoting a party press release which stated that the current government’s agreements with China are a confirmation of the Labour vision of the seventies. Sit down and weep.

Virtually real

Mine is not simply an angry case of indignation though. Labour’s Revisionist Conference is part of a wider mentality that is the inner workings and thinking of the two major parties in this country. In this day and age of multimedia and mass communication, the modes of communication might be evolving at such a rapid pace that we will soon be tweeting in our sleep, but there is one basic constant whether it’s TV, radio, newspaper or Internet and that constant is the word. In principio stat verbum (in the beginning was the word) and it’s going to be with us for a long time yet.

Words and their meaning are at the basis of whatever construction of reality we choose to live in. Einstein once stated that reality is an illusion but a very good illusion at that. The PLPN (un)wittingly engage in a constant battleground of establishing the reality in which we live (and that is why they NEED the media influence). Whether we are considering the “cost of living”, the “minimum wage” or the “living wage”, we sometimes fail to notice that a large number of constants that we take for granted in these arguments are the fruit of elaborate definitions of perception suited to whatever party is making its claim. We are not that dopey really – there is a general acceptance that “parties colour the world as best they see it”, and although as a nation we struggle to come to terms with irony and sarcasm we still manage to joke about the PL-PN chiaroscuro worlds.

I am not sure however about how much the electorate is in control of the button that switches us between perception and reality. How capable are we of switching off the virtual reality and putting our foot down when we believe that things have been taken too far? Can we decide when we want to open our eyes? Are we, like the character in Almodovar’s Abre Los Ojos (open your eyes – spoiler warning) still able to opt out of the programme that creates a “lucid and lifelike virtual reality of dreams” and yell that enough is enough? Worse still – have the very parties that are responsible for the manufactured realities that we inhabit become so embroiled and enmeshed in them that they are unable to find the switch themselves?

Denial

Take the Nationalist Party. They are an incredible subject for this sort of test. This week they engaged in a mind-boggling collective exercise of denial of truths. We had Minister Tonio Fenech and his cataclysmic Tax-Free Maid slip. Watching The Times interview that gave Tonio a chance to right his previous wrongs was like watching an exercise in verbal prestidigitation featuring a ministerial equivalent of the Mad Hatter. Quizzed on VAT he replied on Stamp Duty and vice-versa, and then went on a trip about not having to answer about private affairs that he himself had brought up as a public example. You could only squirm in your seat as you watched Tonio attempt to make his statements vanish into thin air. Apologists tried other tactics – the cream of the crop coming from the Runs claiming that since the law is inadequate then Tonio and his maid are right in not following it to the letter. Perception? Forget the doors… they’ve swallowed the key.

Meanwhile El Supremo del Govermento was busy wearing the party hat, having been asked to pass summary judgement on the PBO-VAT saga. Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi found absolutely nothing incongruous with the fact that his very exacting sec-gen failed to apply his own standards of political propriety when faced with a legal crisis of his own. Same same but different – just like in the alleyways in Thailand when they sell fake brands. Fake – it’s just an illusion of reality but not exactly so.

As if PBO and Tonio were not enough, we also had the DimechGate spin-off in the form of the uncomfortable presence of Robert Arrigo – the last of the disgruntled backbenchers. PN councillor Yves Cali was the latest to slip in a frank interview with The Times in which he more than just alleged that Arrigo was in the business of throwing his weight around the council to get what he wants. Yves (or Bobby) tried to retract his statement so an irritated Times published a transcript of the interview in which the allegations were made. A transcript – that’s a word for word proof that the statements were made. Quizzed about this, Paul Borg Olivier (fresh from his own reality check) came up with the quote of the week by insisting that the transcript published by The Times was “not faithful to the statement of clarification made by Yves Cali”.

Open your eyes

bert4j_101003

Take your time and read that short, Orwellian PBO phrase. If ever there was an example of the convoluted logic somersaults performed by parties to twist your perception of reality, here it was.

The transcript (a text bearing witness to reality at its crudest) was not faithful to the statement of clarification (an attempt at revising/reinterpreting that reality). And which reality does PBO want you to believe? No prizes for guessing.

We need to open your eyes. This is a political generation that one week expresses its love for the environment on car free day while parading in front of journalists using alternative modes of transportation and then, in the following week, the collective parliamentary group (PLPN) self-allocates a huge chunk of (previously pedestrian) Merchants Street for reserved MP parking in connivance with the Valletta Local Council (remember Cali? “We serve our MPs and Labour serve theirs”). The excuse? It will free up more parking for residents and visitors. Park and Ride anyone?

It’s time we opened our eyes – and remember, sometimes actions speak louder than words.

www.akkuza.com would like to congratulate Toni Sant (and friends) for the www.m3p.com.mt project. Happy Student’s Day to you all!

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J'accuse : The Forces of Daftness

Thursday night I watched a great documentary called Teenage Revolution on Channel 4. In it, stand-up comedian Alan Davies charts the political, social and cultural upheavals in the UK of the eighties. During the programme, Davies chooses to interview the then Labour leader (now Lord) Neil Kinnock, who was busy with a revolution of his own. At the time, the Labour Party was in turmoil and, as Gladys Kinnock (Neil’s wife) pointed out, “there was a feeling that the Labour Party was in danger of going under and that people where in absolute denial about where they actually stood as a party”. Kinnock explained how he had to battle the “short-term egos” – the ones he would describe in a historic speech at the 1985 party conference as “those who – in mockery of history and poverty of purpose – like to call themselves Social Democrats” and who, according to Kinnock, offered no means of progress because “they neither pacify Labour’s enemies nor inspire Labour’s friends”.

Kinnock was attempting a purge of his own. In the documentary he describes his opponents of the moment as “The Forces of Daftness”. He challenged them head-on at the 1985 conference: “You start with far-fetched resolutions, pickled into a rigid dogma or code and you go three years sticking to that, outdated, misplaced, irrelevant to the real needs and you end up in the grotesque chaos (…)”.

‘Sed libera nos a malo’ (Deliver us from evil)

Hardline extremists would have none of it. Eric Heffer, a Liverpudlian left-winger, felt aggrieved by what he deemed to be Kinnock’s attack on Liverpool Council and walked out in protest. In his interview with Davies, Kinnock points out that later on, when Heffer was on the point of dying, he told Kinnock: “You should be dying not me” – which only goes to show that it is not just in Malta that there are people (not just political) who are incapable of separating political grudges from personal hatred and who end up wishing the most despicable of things on their opponents long after they have left the scene.

Kinnock was battling against a species of extreme socialism that was grounded in the belief that the solution would be born of the deepening and widening of the suffering among the people. The slogan for the ultra-left was “it’s gotta get more grey before it gets more red”. Kinnock describes this movement as “infantile leftism” (a term originally used by Lenin) and at the time warned of the dangers posed by those “for whom politics is a diversion from undergraduate boredom or postgraduate senility”. Kinnock went on to win the battle in the party but not the next national election. He closed the 1985 conference with a messianic call: “We’ve got to win. Not for our sakes, but to deliver the British people from evil. Let’s do it.”

Still doing it (25 years on)

Politicians who present themselves as some form of messiah saving the world from evil have a long and hard trek trying to put their money where their mouth is. Just look at Obama and Blair. We have not been spared any of these shenanigans on our islands, of course. Last week we witnessed an ugly exchange between the main exponents of two very particular tribes in Malta – those who believe that we had a “Salvatur ta’ Malta” and those “Egging On for a Funeral Praesente Cadavere just to make sure he’s dead” and it’s not as if there is a lack of contenders for the throne of New Saviour.

Malta’s Labour has been belatedly going through the motions of renovation. A slap of paint there, a think-tank here and soon we will also have a kitschy new logo to adorn the flags of the fawning fanatics. You can distinctly perceive the message of “it must get more grey before it gets red” in the manner by which the Labourites go about their mission. It is patently obvious that with or without a bumbling, populist Nationalist Party living in denial of its representational obligations, this Labour Party would still be attempting a reinvention of the Maltese story – with the culmination being the dark ages of nationalist governance and of how The New Saviour – Inhobbkom Joseph – will deliver us from all evil.

Unfortunately, the more time that passes, the more we get to notice that what previously featured as hope (for those fleeting months post his election as il-Lijder) is now being uncovered as a 21st version of infantile leftism, packaged in a quickly assembled hamper of empty slogans, insubstantial

proposals and the kind of populism usually associated with the badly formed Nationalist rookies that populate Dar Centrali in Pietà. In other words, the Labour Party is busy depicting an axis of evil there where there is none, and painting the country grey in the wrongful hope that this will suffice to bring The Great Leader to power. On its path to this supposed redemption, it is committing error of judgement after error of judgement and only exposing the crass amateurism that is fuelled by short-term ego trips and misplaced ambition. Labour’s promise is not a new age once the Nationalists are long past their sell-by date but an era that will be a cornucopia of presents such as “poverty of purpose”, “the mockery of history” and the vacuum of a clear direction.

‘Crimen falsi’ (Crime of deceit)

Daftness and its forces are prone to act rashly in order to achieve their short-term objectives. This week’s saga, prompted by the resignation of Chris Said as Parliamentary Secretary, gave us much to ponder. Whether or not there is a direct political link between the origin of the happenings in court and the political maelstrom that followed will in fact be up to the people to decide – as Chris Said stated at his press conference. The issue though, is whether the judgement of the people – at least insofar as the political element is concerned – is allowed to run its normal course or whether those who are interested in painting a grey picture engage in the business of cultivating ignorance.

The farming and cultivation of ignorance is a speciality of those in power and of those who would love to achieve it. It is why our political parties hold on to their broadcasting facilities as if their life depends on them. It does. I do not mean “ignorance” in a denigratory manner but in the sense of “the veiling of the truth”. A people that is deliberately kept ignorant of the facts or fed half-truths cannot ever be in a position to pass political judgement, even more so if the political judgement is dependent on a clear understanding of the workings of the law with all its procedures and elements.

Listening to the Labour mouthpieces you would be forgiven for believing that the Criminal Court judgement that led to Chris Said’s resignation had already found him guilty of the “crimen falsi” or perjury. The rushed popular judgements and counter-judgements were not aided in any way by the performance of certain elements among the representatives of the people. Sure, had I been the Prime Minister I would have avoided appending the equivalent of a political “get well soon” when accepting Chris Said’s resignation. It is, however, a huge leap from that lack of tact to the allegations of prime ministerial interference in judicial autonomy and independence.

V for Vendetta

Joseph Muscat opted for the “very worried” (“ninstab imhasseb”) stance with regard to the Prime Minister’s wishes of a speedy return to the governmental fold. Over at J’accuse we were also deeply worried. What worried us mostly was the Pharisee-like zeal displayed by the prime minister-in-waiting that was contemporaneous with the obvious fact that he had not given the slightest of legal considerations to the actual weight of the perjury accusations. Given the choice between fuzzy grey and transparent clarity, Muscat will blindly leap into the grey any day if it serves his purpose.

The journalist who posed the question regarding Justyne Caruana’s involvement in the case opened up another can of worms as the honorary member from the Isle of Calypso slowly (very slowly) moved to deny her direct involvement in the perjury proceedings. There was something amiss, though. And strangely not many in the fourth estate were willing to go beyond taking the politician’s various assertions at face value (that would be “prima facie”, no?).

So back to the case. It’s a mother who just lost control of her still breastfeeding infant. Try not to lose yourself in the emotion and the passion of it all. Simply focus on the case. Enter Chris Said – the mum’s lawyer. He files an urgent rikors (application) before the Magistrates’ Courts requesting that the child be entrusted to the care of the mother (not “custody” which has far greater legal implications). The rikors lists the points of urgency among which is the fact that the mother needs to have the child because it is still being breastfed. For some reason, the first court to receive the rikors ignored the urgency pleas and set up the first sitting for three weeks later. As the lawyer of a desperate mother seeking immediate access to her offspring, Said had one option. He withdrew the first rikors and filed a second before the Magistrates’ Courts in the hope that the plea of urgency be held (an action that is incidentally not prohibited by the Code of Ethics).

In this case it worked – and the mother was entrusted with the child – not with the custody thereof which remained joint.

At one point the mother decides to institute a case for permanent custody and it is in this case that Chris Said’s testimony is required. By this time Chris Said is no longer the mother’s lawyer and has also become Parliamentary Secretary but he is called to bear witness about the historic events of the case. The father’s lawyer is Justyne Caruana. It is at this point when Chris Said states that “during an evening sitting the Court decided that the baby be returned to my client”. Interestingly, this happens during the hearing of witnesses. At this point, if Caruana had any doubts as to the veracity of the time of the sitting she was within her power to challenge Chris Said’s statement during cross-examination. Had it been relevant to the proceedings she probably would have. But she did not.

What happens next is interesting. The custody is awarded to the mother by the court and there is an appeal from that decision. In the meantime, the father requests the police to investigate a possible perjury by Chris Said. When the police refuse he opens a new application before the Court of Magistrates. In this case the application is signed by the father – not his lawyer at that point – and as I argue in the post entitled “The Leap of Faith” (see blog), it is hard to believe that this application is made on the sole initiative of the applicant without any advice from his legal counsel in the custody case. The court is not actually being asked to investigate the existence or otherwise of perjury but has been called upon to decide whether the police were right not to institute proceedings for perjury themselves (article 541 of the Criminal Code). The Court of Magistrates found that there were insufficient grounds for such proceedings and rejected the application.

Which brings us to the Criminal Court that decides upon the application challenging the Magistrates’ Court decision. That is the Criminal Court decision of the 23rd September 2010 by which time Roberto Montalto is definitely the father’s representative. This court went into the legal issue of what amount of proof is necessary in order to convince a court to order the police to institute proceedings. There is much ground for legal arguments here – and very interesting arguments at that – but at this point it is worth noting that the court chose to order the police to institute proceedings. Which means that the matter of the existence of Chris Said’s error in deposition will now become subject to a court decision of whether or not it constitutes perjury.

‘Legum servi summus’ (We are slaves of the law)

We are all servants of the law so that we may be free. I invite readers to join me on the blog for further elaboration for I have long run out of space here. Ours is not the first society in which politicians and lawyers mix their professions for the sake of their short-term advancement – just ask Cicero. We are the people being asked to judge each step for what it is. There is the distinct professional matter of Chris Said being accused of perjury (coupled with all the colourful courts dabbling in the questionable politics of guilt by association viz: Tasteyourownmedicine who are being so disgustingly true to their promise – we only have their inspiration to thank). In that we hope that the law will serve its purpose and give us a clear result.

There is also more than a hint of suspicion that the Labour Party is trying to make a meal out of the whole issue long before it reaches its legal end – and a final judgement. The reason may be that they know full well that once the court speaks its final words they might find very little fodder for their zealous machines. Now is the time of mud-slinging politics and the no-holds barred methods that are prepared to put a person’s career on the line as collateral damage for the greater cause.

Consider these facts (1) the parliamentary hullabaloo on Justyne Caruana’s vote –misheard by many – occurred on the eve of the 7th of May. (2) The original application relating to the perjury charges was filed on the 9th of May. (3) By 28th August ONE TV news was reporting the fact as though Chris Said had already been found guilty of perjury (Chris eventually threatened to sue for libel). Those are all factual statements – deal with them as best you deem fit.

It is times like these that make it abundantly clear to all that the PLPN grip on knowledge and information is detrimental to the health and sanity of this democracy of ours.

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J’accuse : Preliminary Round

My mind’s been elsewhere this week since I’ve had to deal with a horrible combination of deadlines and convoluted case-work that managed to distract me to no end from my usual “side-job” of diligent observation and general filling of the pages of the ether with bits and bytes of bloggery. If I had to be frank I also think that the distraction has a lot to do with the beginning of what is generally known as the scholastic year. Mayans and Aztecs may have perfected the calculation of calendars and the passage of time and Popes may have adjusted the number of days in the year and whatnot but there is something about the scholastic cycle that is bred into the very make-up of the people of my generation.

I actually still wake up in the morning expecting the sound of the cockerel on the radio, as we were wont to here many years back while we were getting ready for school. That would be followed by a quick rush to perform the morning ablutions, showers and more before slipping into uniform to the sound of the sports newsreader maliciously mincing the names of teams while reading the football scores. Thursday morning could be quite a treat, especially during the earlier rounds of the Champions Cup, UEFA Cup or the sadly missed Cup Winners’ Cup.

It would become a virtual geography lesson replete with the most exotic of pronunciation twists as the sports reader would battle his way around such tongue twisters as Twente d’Enschede (they’re back), Lokomotiv Leipzig and Jeunesse d’Esch. I’d have a mental countdown , cringing inwardly as he approached the names of the more famous teams with the linguistic ability of a blind butcher culminating the experience with that ever so painful “Rijal Muddrid”. Somehow the ubiquitous omnipresence of the world of football has killed the charm of such pleasant moments and we have morphed to the daily observation of errors of all kind in the world of online news.

Varteks Varazdin
It is ironic that with the proliferation of European nations and the multiplication of clubs participating in UEFA competitions the young ‘uns of today rarely have any idea of the genealogy, geography and science behind every participating team. In my day (I hate these moments that make me feel old but hell it’s over twenty-five years ago now) I’d know that Jena was the city from which Karl-Zeiss hailed and by the time I found it in the Encyclopaedia (Caxton’s) I’d also have discovered that it would be famous for lens making.

I have surprised denizens of relatively unknown towns (by continental standards, no offence intended) with my knowledge of their local teams. True, it’s a geek’s world but hey, those were the pleasures of a pre-teen child in the era before Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Now they play football on their PlayStation (great game by the way) but fail to gather the fruits of serendipitous knowledge that comes along with the fun of football.

Chernomorets Varna
So yes, this is the time of the year when the body sends signals that we have moved up one level as though I am living in some imaginary Pac Man world and we’ve moved from cherries to bananas. I’ve got no new schoolbooks to cover but I’ve still got that funny itch – 25 years on from the last time I started a primary school year. It’s not just the start of school but also exam time that gives you that funny feeling. It’s a bit like the whole world is programmed to work in bursts. I also have discovered that people from other nations have a different sort of “clock”.

Take the French for example (and most other people in the Grand Region i.e. Alsace-Lorraine, Luxembourg, and Rhineland). The school season seems to work in eight week bursts. Basically every eight weeks the kids have a substantial block of holidays and their parents get a supposed moment of respite. The effect it has on the general populace is a general feeling of lightness of being for those of us who are left behind (traffic in the morning is blissfully absent) while there is a general rush to fit in another family holiday. French kids do not have the same kind of “clock” as ours you see?

Go Ahead Eagles
Enough of the school and football talk though. This drab week will remain notable mainly for the funerals of the unfortunate victims of the explosion that is already fading away from our collective memory. Trust me, it will be business as usual before you can say “hoist by my own petard”. Incidentally the whole expression of being hoist by one’s own petard comes from the early use of gunpowder in warfare. Sometime after the Great Siege in Malta armies developed units called “pétardiers”. These men were charged with the carrying of explosive gunpowder on their person as well as other paraphernalia that allowed them to create an explosive in situ.

One of the things a petard-man had to carry (petard being the French word for bomb at the time) was a wick that was constantly to be kept alight. “Lucifers”, or as we tend to call them “matches” were not yet easily available so the poor pétardier had to carry the lit wick, the gunpowder and cetera and cetera. As wars developed into a series of elaborate sieges during the period known generally as the Thirty Years War, the job of the pétardier would be to follow the sappers who had been busy digging tunnels close to bastions and once on site to plug sufficient explosion into a hole in the wall to blast it to Kingdom Come (protestant or catholic).

There was a slight snag. The pétardier’s equipment transformed him into a walking trap. He could literally explode at any moment. Just like most machines in the early period of gunfire this was a very unfortunate circumstance. What with guns backfiring (one in four times the gun injured the user) and loosely manufactured gunpowder life on the front was not easy. So pity the poor pétardier who with a brusque movement or a sudden jerk suddenly manages to ignite the gunpowder on his person and disappears in a bang and a puff of smoke. You see? Hoist by his own petard.

Portogruaro Summaga
bert4j_100919But this week also brought us a stranded boat and a papal visit to the land of Henry VIII and Rowan Williams. That the Fernandez story was probably the most newsworthy this week accounts for much of the current dry spell in blogging. As for the Pope, poor Benedict. I couldn’t help wondering how he felt as he sat in Westminster Abbey across from Archbishop Williams reading his speech during evening prayers in his quasi-comic german accent. His papacy has been plagued by the whole issue of paedophilia and dark truths of the church. Benedict compounded his current PR position by sort of implying that such evils as Nazism were the product of atheism. He actually used the term “godlessness” which is slightly more equivocal and at least in my book implies more the kind of person who as strayed from god rather than someone who does not believe god exists.

In any case we live in the age of the touchy and false tolerance and political correctness. Benedict’s anti-godless words infuriated the atheist community and they once again presented the common fanatic front that we have gotten used to nowadays. Anyways. My biggest question in this not too reflexive a moment is simple – while I understand that popes must look like a more sober version of Santa Claus is it really necessary that they move and speak like robots? Rowan Williams may look like a wizard from the Harry Potter series but he does have the advantage of looking alive. As I type Williams has started to address the congregation while the Yoda lookalike is doing his best impression of a statue.

I apologise. This restless banter is the product of the nausea caused by the switch in season. A general lack of concentration, a doubled workload and a lapse of inspiration are to blame. I cannot really be bothered by the ailments true or imagined of the leader of opposition, the continued failure to address the needs of regulation in the firework industry and beached boats making the headlines, not to mention the lack of progres sin the regulation of party financing. Sadly even the lone columnist misfires every once in a while and this promises to be that once in a while for me.

Intercettati FC
While the recharging of mental batteries on the columnist front is taking longer than usual (also thanks to the dearth of bloggable material) we will soon be back in the thick of the political season. It is getting harder to decipher the real politics from the mediatic spin. In my five years of blogging I have witnessed the gradual creation of a virtual Maltese reality. As the papers have adapted to the scene and as more temporary bloggers appear we get a parallel Malta that is being conjured up on our computer screens.

Dom Mintoff’s hospitalisation provided us with the latest flurry of quasi-obituaries since Guido De Marco’s recent demise. Once again the noticeboards on the ether were filled with surreal proclamations and wishes as yet another window on this psychedelic island of weird customs gave transfrontaliers like myself a picture of the island we left behind. I met a Romanian person today who is a manager at a Luxembourg gym. He has been here for 27 years and we discussed the feelings of nostalgia for our respective homelands. He had an interesting observation to make – basically the nostalgia we have for our countries is for a country that no longer exists. For both Malta and Romania have continued to change in our absence. They will never be the same.

The land of Kinnie & Twistees I left five years ago when I embarked on this adventure to the forgotten duchy is no longer the same. On the other hand there is this parallel universe online that is a new, different Malta that seems to somehow occasionally cause ripple effects in the real world. So as the school bags are packed, the books covered and the lunchbox prepared J’accuse is still gearing itself for the new season. Have a good Independence Week.

www.akkuza.com is really in need of a good Kinnie (Zest). Can you match each heading in the article with a European nation? (Don’t bother with the last one, nobody does really)