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J'accuse: The (rising) values of salaries

With a title like that, you’d think I’m about to kick off a whole song and dance about the “living wage” and “cost of living” and whatever other index the latest fad is in that ever so exciting corner of the universe where popular (and populist) politics crosses with economics. Nae wurries, I ain’t. The pros and cons of whether a particular wage is sufficient to get along with one’s daily life are undeniably important building blocks of a right and proper political manifesto, but what concerns me here is the return of a very noxious notion in our political constellation: the comparative analysis of earnings intended for political vantage.

It all began a few weeks ago with a seemingly innocent question that has already been dealt with in a previous column. Some smart job from the Opposition benches queried how many people in the public sector earned more than the President of Malta. The problem I had with that question at that point was precisely with the “why”. I would have loved to ask the poser of aforementioned parliamentary question: “What’s your point?” My concern was that we were being presented with the gory Trojan horse that is the mother of all evils (if not mother then a not too distant relative) in Maltese mentality, one that summarily aborts any potential for progress.

In Maltese we have a word for it − “għira” − that somehow carries much more weight than “jealousy”, as used in the language of the student-rattled Charles and Camilla. It’s the għira that features in the car sticker literal translation urging readers to “Stuff Your Jealousy” − one that can be transformed into a full blown profession “għajjur” (one who is prone to be jealous). The għira is coupled with a very local version of socialist justice that is based on the premise of “if you have one then there is no reason in the world why I should not have one too”. I may be wrong but to me this is the socialism à-la-Mintoff: that scythe of socialist ignorance that culls all progress at birth in order to keep everyone equal. Equally ignorant. Equally thrifty. Equally redneck. (Bir-rispett kollu − With all due respect).

Raise your glass

We are currently living in the Age of Garfield. It’s the Age of the Fat Cats who have a bit of a problem with the għira definition of things. Most of the times that’s because the fingers of the għira-espousing population are pointed at them in the most unqualified of manners (when they are not showing them fingers of another sort). The Fat Cats are, economically speaking, at the other extreme of the political spectrum. They delude themselves that they are revitalising and regenerating a limping economy, only to slip heavily at certain moments during which they give the impression of baking pies for their own consumption.

Torn between the Fat Cat and the Mintoffian Scythe, the citizen and voter is constantly being handed rules and standards with which to assess who to trust with the reigns of governmental planning come next election. Which is where the latest fad comes in with the noise of a raucous Maltese crowd on a package tour in some market at Misterbianco (Sicily). First it sounded like a TV programme gone wrong: “Who Wants to Earn More than Malta’s President?” and now we have the Mintoffian reaction to the Fat Cat gaffe: “Who Wants to Renege on A Salary Raise this Christmas?”.

And it’s hard to guess who is the Grinch. Is it the Scrooges on the Fat Cat benches who back then, during the highest wave of the economic crisis tsunami, showed the sensitivity of a born again Christian on a Xarabank panel and voted themselves a raise? Is it the Leader of the Opposition who, once he was informed of the impending (backdated) raise was obliged to the extremes of utmost abnegation and in an ironic twist of quasi-Thatcherite repartee, declares “This man is not for selling”? Is it the press who pounced upon initiatives in foreign parliaments (notably Ireland and Czech Republic) and reported their respective decisions to REDUCE their salary in times of economic hardship?

BERT4J_101212

Bad Moon Risin’

Whoever the Grinch may have been, we were suddenly transported into the realm of salary comparisons and comparatives. Now there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that the Cabinet voting itself a raise during a period when − independently of the real economic climate − all political talk and newspeak is heavily concentrated on the notion of Hard Times is a huge faux pas for any government to commit. I also can understand Joseph Muscat’s argument of “I will not be bought”, for by including all MPs in their bumbling pay rise it is obvious that Cabinet hoped to convince the socialist progressives to keep mum thanks to the proffering of a chunk of the pie.

So let it not be said that J’accuse is here defending the timing of the salary rise per se. We do have a bone to pick though on the issue of “the values of salaries” in discussing merits and demerits. In a way, Joseph Muscat, the prime critic of the latest rise, seems to have considered this issue from a sensible vantage point when he seemed to be prepared to consider an option for MPs to choose between Part Time and Full Time. Much as I find this suggestion ludicrous, for reasons I shall explain later, it does show that for a fleeting moment Muscat was actually looking beyond the salary itself and thinking in terms of the work it justifies.

For the problem here, you see, is that I tend to view jobs on the basis of performance. On the scale of merit, performance is translated into salary and not vice-versa. You do not go out on the job market looking for a salary but you look for a job. In most cases you find that salaries are appended towards the end of a job announcement and are expressed in the form of minimum and maximum possible salary. Why? Because the salary depends on a multiplicity of criteria linked to “merit” such as education, experience and specialisation.

Rise to the occasion

Maybe I am not sufficiently clear (I admit that’s the case quite often). Just let me go back to the PQ about presidential earnings. When I ask “What’s the point?”, I mean how can the President’s salary become a standard measure to assess qualification for a job? What will we ask people who aspire to a salary that trumps that of San Anton’s resident? “Can you hop on one leg more times than George Abela?” “Can you run the mile in less time than George?” How exactly does this value of salarial comparison fit in?

According to the press, the salary of an MP post-raise will be €26,000 per annum. Shall we play the comparison game? An entry-level grade job at an EU institution (AST1) will earn around €2,500 per month in hand. By November of any given year, your average administrative assistant in an EU institution will have earned more than Karl Gouder (random MP) will earn from his parliament salary in a year. Your average employee in the EU translation services will earn around €4,500 a month (there’s a scale there too based on experience, length of service and specialisation) which puts them at around two Malta MPs worth on the socialist salary value scale.

There are enough Maltese translators in Luxembourg to be able to fill Parliament twice over. Shall we do that? After all, if they earn almost as much as two MPs put together they surely must be worth the while. Which brings me back to Joseph Muscat’s part-time/full-time dilemma. We have already experienced a national football team with a mix of pros, amateurs and part-timers, so why not a Parliament with part-timers then? Well the main point, and what nobody seems to be asking, is: “what kind of performance do we expect from our parliamentarians?”

Those great expectations

The value of salaries distracts us from this question. We discuss pounds, shillings and pence when we should be wondering whether we are being short-changed in the business of political representation. As I said on my blog, I find it easy not to be impressed by Joseph Muscat’s show of abnegation and self-denial. Whether he refuses a salary raise, or independently decides to half his current salary is of no consequence to me or any other citizen if he continues to fail to come up with concrete politics that show a new politics and direction.

It’s not the whinge of the eternal wait for a decent Opposition. It’s worse than that. This week Joseph Muscat showed us the full force of his new politics when he compared Labour’s harbouring of “capo dei capi” Gatt as a special delegate to some drug trafficker (Norman Bezzina) who was a member of a Nationalist minister’s private secretariat. As the poet sings “That’s all right, because I like the way you lie.” Next: Even Robin Hood was an outlaw.

Judging by Facebook and comments on the online news, it seems that this PLPN strategy works. They feed the minions the values with which they want us to judge them and we thankfully grovel in humble acceptance. I was expecting a movement for the beatification of Inhobbkom Joseph − our new saviour from those perfidious bumblers in government − any day now. We were dared to criticise his quasi-saintly move of sacrifice in these times of hardiness. He would not tell us to eat cake and would share humble pie around our poor man’s table. A saint before being a man.

Cut through the bullshit and the spin and you might remember that this is the man whose alternative budget leaked everywhere. The saving grace for Muscat’s alternative budget was Bondi’s hash of an unprofessional programme (the BA’s words not mine). In the short-sighted public calculation, the equation must have been simple. If Bondi was wrong then Muscat is right. Which is not the case. Yes, Bondi was unprofessional but that does not make Muscat’s alternative budget any better. It is still based on populist calculations that will not necessarily take us anywhere other than into more socialist-scythe style mire. Blessed are we to have such alternatives to the fat cats in government.

Uprisin’

And while PM Gonzi was carried aloft on the hands of our future consumers of governmental pie − those who have already been well bred to fill the ranks without nary a questioning mind − back in London students rattled and shook the car containing the heir to the realm and his madam. The surreal images of the (definitely unplanned) photo op outside Castille contrasted heavily to the rioting students in Parliament Square. They’d like to tell us that our students have it all good and that this government is still investing heavily in education.

Sure, but what values are we imparting to today’s unquestioning youth? Hold on. Maybe I know the answer to that one. If you’re going to lick and squirm your way into a job via the approved channels, make sure the salary is better than that of George Abela… and Bob’s your uncle.

Toasts

I’m raising a glass to Ronnie and Nathaniel this Sunday. Happy birthday to both. It’s the last Sunday before the Christmas holiday season really kicks in. Weather permitting (and that is half a prayer actually), the next missive will be typed from my second home in Paceville… Meanwhile I’m off to find out what Santa gets paid this Christmas.

www.akkuza.com is a non-profit, free blog full of punditry worth reading. It’s worth millions in intellectual property so plant your tent in a corner of the comment section any time you want.

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J'accuse : Ambivalent

The latest viral trend in the fishpond that is our corner of social networking has Peppi Azzopardi announcing to the world that “his bed is his toilet” and Ira Losco sharing her deepest thoughts about mating every so often. The viral video in black and white also features John Bundy yelling “I am the king” and has been applauded (via virtual endorsements) and derided (via virtual comments and blogs) in equal measure.

Opinions being like genitalia − to each his own − the ideas and comments about the “Anti-Circus Animal Cruelty” video streamed in like SMS’ in a party fund-raising telethon. It was enough to turn a bland, kitschy and kindergarten-y message riddled with heretical pronunciation (Peppi manages to get “collar” to rhyme with “bollard”) into an overnight sensation: complete with a hundred and one critiques.

The first level of criticism came from the most common of circles in a Maltese inferno: envy disguised as disdain. In our usual convoluted thinking we had first decided that this was a video stuffed with what counts, in our corner of the universe, as a celebrity. According to some critics of the critics (bear with me), the criticism being levelled was simply an attempt to ride on the wave of attention currently being afforded to the video thanks to its instant virality. In other words, according to some, the anti-celebs who were criticising the video were just in it for a piece of the action.

Il rumore che fa il cellophan

Amusing really. Andy Warhol must have been giggling his Technicolor arse off in his grave. Talk about 15 minutes of fame being drawn out of proportion. Beyond the jealousies and counter-jealousies of what constitutes celeb status in today’s Facebook comment world there were other dimensions of criticism. The most obvious − and one to which J’accuse wholeheartedly subscribed − was directed at the attempted massacre of English pronunciation that could be witnessed in the Anglophone version of the vid.

Bar Jamie Pace, the rest of the anti-animal cruelty testimonials were enough to inspire a potential parallel video designed for a campaign to save the English language. While the script was ok-ish − if you’re ok with the personification of animals and the not so subtle sous-entendues on sex and gestation and pelosity − the delivery was as easy on the ears as a piece of chalk grating a blackboard incessantly. Again we demonstrated an incredible dexterity in turning any minor point into a full-blown Oprah session.

In the left corner we had those defending Peppi’s Minglish stating brazenly that it is just as valid a version of English as a Jamaican’s or a Scot’s. In the other corner we had those bemoaning the death of the Queen’s English − such as that gleaned in the halls of Zurich when Prince William managed to pronounce the word “football” making it sound like the most alien of sports (could that be the reason of their failure)? And there we went again − as though a jukebox had just swallowed the latest dime and the record had clicked into place, spun to the required revs per minute and the same old tune played to the assembled regulars.

Quanta strada nei miei sandali

It was not all fishponds and buscades though. Out of the stagnant cesspit of predictable disquisition shone the ray of hope in the form of a Cedric Vella remix. The remixed version of the video took a night to make (I am told by blogger “markbiwwa”) and is worth a visit. Satire and irony has its own way of biting through the morbid morosity of our navel-gazing fraternity and when it does so it provides us with such pearls as this. Look it up on Youtube. You’ll thank me later.

We swing incredibly from moments of blissful ambivalence (described crudely in the vernacular by the acronym ABZ) to Victor Meldrew-like interference worked into a fanatical frenzy. Whether we are dissecting the content of a promo video or whether we are passing judgement on the decision to host a former PM in a corner of St Vincent de Paule, we are often allowing our buttons to be pressed for whatever purposes the button pushers may have.

Take the Dwejra incident. In my little head I was troubled by Mark Anthony Falzon’s willingness to summarily dismiss the warnings about an eco-system (however unattractive) by using a semi-sophisticated version of the ABZ argument. It is easy to pick up the virus of ambivalent nonchalance − sometimes simply in an effort to insulate oneself from the nonsensical assaults perpetrated by the media of spin. The danger lies in not recognising the good story when it is there staring at you in the face (or lying under the sand in Dwejra).

A volte si sono scontrose (oppure hanno voglia di fare pipi)

Just look at Wikileaks and all the ruckus being made about Julian Assange’s toy. It was cool at the start. Then slowly it dawned on many of us that the coolness was more about the medium than about the content. A question I asked J’accuse readers this week was “What do you make of Wikileaks?” I am not concerned with assessing whether it is “good” or “evil” but rather whether people believe it could have an effect in some way. Assange seems to think that it is one way in which we could keep the USA in check. Really?

Governments have always had dispatches from their ambassadors and spies in other countries. It is useful to know what your friends are up to as much as it is to pick the brain of your enemy. Or as Shun-Tsu once said: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. We cannot be surprised or outraged when a correspondent cables that Berlusconi is lax with women or sends similar “judgements” about other politicians. We might not like it but hey, it’s world player informing itself about the other players around the table. Expecting political correctness in the cables defies reason.

Of course the leaks have had their repercussions. EU officials claim that there might be a loss of goodwill in US relations and heightened tension in the Middle East. Given that even the publication of cartoons in Denmark can heighten tension in the Middle East and that we should never really trust the Yanks blindly, I don’t think there is much that is new there either. On a local basis, unless the cables have anything interesting about Gonzi’s phone calls (or lack of them) with Ehud Olmert then we can really get back to wondering what is the best way to pronounce “collar”.

Tra i francesi che s’incazzano

Mario Monicelli jumped out of a fifth floor window to free his mind from this earthly prison. In one of his last interviews with RAI, Monicelli complains about how the Italian nation is always sadly waiting for its big saviour who will put things right. The first big saviour screwed it all up by going to war and the last one in the queue simply just cannot get his priorities right. Mario had seen the decline of this society of ours and its principles long before he took his one-way flight ticket out of this world.

At 95 Mario might have been entitled to Exit, stage right, without spending another minute on a world that was beginning to seem all too alien for him. In a way it is easy to sympathise. We seem to be ageing at an alarmingly faster rate than people used to, say, 20 years ago. By that I do not mean that I have discovered some new quantum physics flaw that explains that time is moving faster. What I do mean is that the speed of change around us (and more particularly of the things that we are used to having around us) is increasing exponentially.

I found myself wondering where I would be in 2022 when the World Cup would be hosted in air-conditioned stadiums in Qatar. The Qatar delegation has promised stadiums that can be dismantled and 3D pictures that will be screened in stadiums around the world. I am sure that by that time they will manage to come up with other marvels of technology that will turn the whole business into an all-new experience. And who knows… if we’re talking miracles… England might win the World Cup. The Three Lion delegation was mightily miffed by FIFA’s choice and I am still baffled as to why they were so surprised.

The whole process − seen through the eyes of the Brit press (barring the cheering Scots of course) had an ambivalent attitude about it. There was Blatter (here was another one with comedic pronunciation) with his football-dollars (rhymes with collars) proudly breaking new barriers in football hosting and there were the English positively pissed off by his constant references to China as the founders of football. They just don’t get it do they? What have the English given football? Really? David Beckham? He might as well be making Anti-Animal Cruelty Videos… though come to think of it I’m not quite sure he’d have the right diction.

Bartali

The lyrics of Paolo Conte’s song Bartali have accompanied us on this article. This week I revived Blogs of Malta: a site that serves as a meeting place for Maltese bloggers old and new: http://blogmalta.ning.com. I strongly recommend two animated pictures currently at the cinema (at least in Luxembourg). Both Megamind and Despicable Me guarantee giggles and fun for all the family.

It was less of a laughing matter over at Transport Malta this week. I am deeply saddened by the unfortunate and unnecessary pain caused, among others, to Major Ripard. I had more than one occasion in the past to speak to Major Ripard and discuss our traffic and transport woes (egged on by more teasing relatives). Major Ripard is a shining example of the rare breed of old school, dedicated servants of the state. Only an ambivalent country such as ours could host the ironic situation in which a graduate from a military academy ends up losing a limb in the “line of duty” − discussing the improvement of traffic safety on our roads.

I wish Major Ripard and his colleagues a swift return to their routine of normality and hope that the perpetrator/s of such an inhuman attack be swiftly brought to justice. Most of all I do hope that justice does not hold up the mirror of ambivalence but that it metes out the right punishment.

That’s all from frozen Luxembourg.

www.akkuza.com is also registered on Blogs of Malta: blogmalta.ning.com. Don’t forget to register if you have your own blog.

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J'accuse : The Power and the Glory

I’ve just left an interesting discussion that I had over the phone with a couple of other people who were also guests on a radio show on Radio Malta. Andrew Azzopardi had invited me to phone in on his popular programme “Ghandi x’Nghid” (“I’ve got something to say”) and the subject was the Internet. Thanks to the marvels of technology (the one attributed to Alexander Graham Bell and not the one credited to Tim Berners Lee), I was able to join the Saturday morning chat show from the comfort of my living room in the company of a double-espresso and the marvellous view of snow-sprinkled Rue de Bragance.

It turns out that Andrew’s show on Radio Malta is a very popular corner of the radio listening world with an average listenership of around 12,000. I must confess that I do not often tune in to radios notwithstanding the possibilities that are available for streaming in the digital world; on the other hand I do like to look up a podcast or two that can be played back at one’s convenience without the restrictions of having to get out of bed early on a weekend. Andrew’s programme is not yet available as a podcast or as an archived stream – which is a pity because I am sure it would add to its current listener base of the early Saturday birds.

Back to the programme. We spoke about the “Internet” and, as with all programmes that tackle a behemoth of a subject such as the net, it was impossible to condense all the thoughts of the various guests into the hour or so that was available. I find it intriguing that discussions about the net will inevitably follow a trail that leads to discussions on “power” and “control”. It makes you wonder whether post-promethean homo sapiens discussed the pros and cons of the flame and fire in much the same way. Promoters of “Hey, it’s brill when applied carefully to the mammoth steak” would join “I love the way I can find my way through the forest at night” in arguing with “Did you see how Ugg went up in smoke the moment he got too close to the shiny thing?” on the benefits and drawbacks of Prometheus’s stolen gift.

Powerful thoughts

Thankfully, Tim Berners Lee was never bound to a rock and no eagle was ordered to repeatedly tear out his liver as a punishment for discovering the Internet. Nor for that matter will Mark Zuckerberg ever turn into flowers while gazing at his immense genius mirrored in a stream. The discussion on the power and control of the new medium that embraces a myriad possibilities will rage on however. There will always be those who want to police the web in order to guarantee safety and those who feel more comfortable sticking two fingers up at the boys in blue and who have more faith in society’s ability to regulate itself.

Upon reflection, if we were to ask the Pythonesque question “What has the Internet done for us?” we might attempt a sort of reply. While every development in communication has in some way “empowered” homo sapiens (from writing to the book to the radio to the TV), Internet brings three important “improvements” (not always innovations) and these are Immediacy, Accessibility and Interaction (thanks Liz Groves of Island Books for the real-time grammatical tip). It’s quick, it’s open to all and, even more than any of its predecessors as a medium, it is heavily interactive.

So where does power come into it? Well it’s all about Adam, Eve and the apple in the end (credit to mother for the inspiration). Because while all this immediate, accessible and interactive exchange is going on, the primary bit of currency being traded in this global network is the one that is at the origin of every primordial story in every culture: knowledge… “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed”. And what is knowledge, dear reader of deadwood media, if not the key to all power?

Tower of Babel

Once we view the Internet’s spread from the perspective of knowledge then the picture becomes a tad bit clearer. Bereft of the confusing masks that the new technology might wear in its different forms we begin to notice a pattern. Look at China and its gargantuan efforts to control the contents of everything. Look at collaborative Wiki projects from -pedia to -leaks and see the levels of power constantly changing. The naked truth of Zuckerberg’s toy pervading your everyday life with apps for your delectation is all the more clear. The battleground for the universal allegiance to a platform or a “graph” is exposed in all its nudity.

Taken to another level, the fear of exposure, of privacy, of vilification is understood for what it is. As I had the opportunity to mention in a Dissett episode a while back, the “internet” (or parts of it) has the effect of holding up a huge mirror to society – Adam and Eve realising their nakedness – and sometimes we do not like what we see. The battle for knowledge – what knowledge is shared and what is not – has raged from time immemorial. Luther’s reformation centred on the availability of more knowledge to more people. Reading sacred texts in one’s own vernacular had an immense emancipatory effect on the population of Europe while at the same time leading to a century of fratricide and bloodshed.

Orwellian theorists will be thrilled to expose the “Big Brother” style conspiracy of controlled and measured information. Communist/fascist extremes of control are counterbalanced by the liberties in liberal democracies advocating self-control. We tend to experience more of the middle way as we settle down to “cope” with the powerful means at our disposal. Controlling the sharing of knowledge is not simply a matter of Internet policy though. It exists with or without Internet.

Fish ponds

Until social media were available, the traditional media could get away with a fair share of spinning. Only last Thursday Daphne Caruana Galizia wondered whether “the growth of the media pool has led to the creation of a sort of alternative fish pond, with those who swim in it speaking mainly to each other and building up issues and stories that don’t really exist”. There’s no doubt that this is often the case: this fish-pondism. When you have a multiplicity of agendas and/or perspectives this is bound to be the case. Media institutions like the papers of the English Sunday press might prefer to highlight different issues. When political interests get intertwined with the communicating (the technical term is spinning), then the need to control what knowledge is available gets more interesting.

Daphne chose to point out the fish-pondism to criticise the current fetish with what we could agree to define as non-stories like the issue about the Dwejra sand. Of course what Daphne will not say is that she has often engaged in fish-pondism herself. I am probably guilty of doing so too. The truth is that with non-immediate, non-interactive media this is always possible. You can choose to cocoon yourself in your own reality and within your own parameters. The medium you use can be tailored for your needs: whether it is Daphne’s 900-word column, Bondi’s Plus, Peppi’s Xarabank or a One/Net TV news item, you pick and choose what you want the audience to read, hear, see.

Fish-pondism is not the exclusivity of self-referential press but spreads to opinion columnists and even to bloggers who exercise excessive moderation to give a false shape to the “discussion” on their blog. The unwillingness to engage beyond one’s own turf: to play “away” as football jargon would have it, is a direct result of what is probably an inability to engage with neutral rules.

Columnist David Friggieri has declared that Xarabank has won the cultural war. The statement is wrong or incomplete. Xarabank may be winning the battle by outshouting the other voices but there are voices on the other side and they have not given up. These are the voices that are confidently dismissed by those who monopolise the traditional media with some uninformed excuse that they are “boring” or “uninteresting”, but these voices have the new media to thank and are gearing up for new battles.

Beach Head

Fish-pondism is the media equivalent of putting their hands on their ears and yelling “nanananana” in the hope that your different opinion will eventually go away. If that does not work they might resort to vilification, personal attacks and threats, but it only serves to point out that you (or rather, your opinion) are dangerous and that they are no longer comfortable in their cocoon. The rules of the battle are shifting and there is only so much time before the dry formula of a Where’s Everybody programme runs out of new ways to deliver a monotone message.

The Beach Head for the change that is still happening in Malta is the world of social communication. Facebook, Twitter and blogs are still settling in the social mindset. The big challenge ahead will be the development of value networking – when the citizen learns that empowerment is not simply getting hooked to the net but using it wisely so as not to be dismissed with the general crowd of commentators and hate-mongers (trolls in jargon) that have tended to populate the dark ages of early social networking in Malta.

Which is where we lead to education. The young people of today grow up in an atmosphere of Twitter and Facebook while automatically texting. They will review their literature books using summaries available on some Wiki and will process loads of information through this filter. I believe that the educational system must show an awareness of this potential not by emulating the fish pond and controlling the agenda but by imparting solid social values that could be just as useful in the street as they are on Facebook and Twitter. Twitterers or facebookers are still homo sapiens sapiens after all!

WWW

It’s the web stupid. In Italy the student movement is making full use of the social media to protest en masse. Even the media was taken by surprise at the speed with which thousands of students converged en masse on different monuments to make their point. Knowledge. Communication. Power. There is hope yet. I get the feeling that Malta’s leaders fail to recognise the importance of having a net-savvy population. Sure we have agencies and institutes supposedly working on projects such as e-government but you get the feeling that there is a fish-pondism of political sorts going on in the IT industry that fails to encourage innovation and fails to provide opportunities based on merit – preferring to cocoon itself with in-house jobs.

Missing the bus on this huge opportunity to invest in developing the best HR money can buy would be a huge disaster for our tiny country that cannot boast of too many resources beyond the human. Remaining “stupid” on an IT level would only be a blessing for the various fish ponds that currently dominate the dissemination and exchange of knowledge in the more traditional networks – political and mediatic. It’s useless claiming that we’d love a SmartMalta when all we do seems to point to a StupidMalta in the making.

The problem with fish ponds is that they risk getting stagnant after a while. Time to change the water?

www.akkuza.com comes to you live from snow-sprinkled Luxembourg for your knowledgeable delectation.

(Article appeared on The Malta Independent on Sunday on 28th November 2010)

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J'accuse : De-humanised

The end of this week was characterised by an interesting mass activity on Facebook. The billion people who choose to interact in the virtual world set themselves an interesting task. Facebook users invited other Facebook users to “change your profile picture to one of your favourite cartoon characters from your childhood. The aim of the game? To no longer see human faces on Facebook but a true invasion of childhood memories….”

So there we were. Those of us who playfully went along with the game found ourselves submerged in this massive exercise of de-humanisation as familiar faces were switched to the Jeegs (my ex aequo choice), Lupins, Goldrakes, Occhi di Gatto’s, Roadrunners, Felixes and Pink Panthers of the world of toons. Not since “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” had the fine line between the comic and the real been so heavily transcended.

Then something happened that seemed to be one of those serendipitous moments in which life throws funny coincidences that seem to have been scripted by a deity with a wicked sense of humour. For just as the frivolous faction of the facetious Facebook community toggled with the idea of transcending human form for just one day, I decided to tune in to the online live stream of Bishop Nikol Cauchi’s funeral. The man who had presided over my confirmation (December 1986) was getting his last farewell in the church in which I was baptised (November 1975). My cousin Nathaniel was doing a fine job with the commentary (could it be otherwise?) until Bishop Mario Grech kicked off with his sermon (November 2010).

Penumbra

And what a sermon that was. It was peppered with moments of chiaroscuro worthy of the best Caravaggio. Bishop Grech warned against straying away from the light and from having Christ as the purpose in our life. He warned against the short-term aims of modern materialistic society in his characteristic slow drawl interspersed with all-too long pauses. Then came the surgical cut. In exalting the qualities of the recently deceased shepherd of the Gozitan church, he stressed that Cauchi was a man who appreciated the human qualities of his brethren. Grech could not help but use this occasion to win the term human and humanist away from the heretic “humanists” who have taken up the layman’s cudgel in the modern day intellectual debate.

There we were. On the one hand an entire Facebook posse engaged in the process of de-humanisation by posting the images of a latter-day iconography in lieu of their own, while in a wonderfully decked cathedral a servant of the Lord reminded the people that his church and its love of light would best be served by respecting the “humanity” of us all. I wonder: how many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man? And when you do, what cartoon character will best fit his profile pic?

Fl-isem tal-Missier (In the Name of the Father)

Facebook is much more than a platform for nostalgic exercises that are a sort of pop art equivalent to iconographic hagiography. One of the most precious Youtube videos doing the rounds on the social networks is an interview taken from this year’s Web 2.0 summit featuring Facebook’s eccentric founder Mark Zuckerberg. There’s an hour of hot stuff and insights into the modus operandi (or at least modus cogitandi) of one of the most powerful people on the web.

There’s something menacing about the amplitude of the spread of Facebook in the daily lives of each and every one of us. It has, in some way, been documented already in much the same way primitive man might have spent nights around the fire discussing the properties of a flame. What we are still discovering is the potential of the social network for the future. Only last week Facebook had an important announcement to make to its users. Facebook engineers had come up with a new mode of communication they insisted on calling “Messaging”. They are trying to… wait for it… make e-mailing simpler.

It would seem that such things as “subject lines” and “formal introductions” and “paragraphs” are becoming too much of an encumbrance for the latest generation of social media users. The SMS (short message service) form for messages is much more efficient according to these abusers of the opposable thumb. So they are simplifying messages. The idea is to create a seamless system between e-mail, SMS, Facebook messages and whatever other modern equivalent of the smoke signal is available. It won’t make a ‘differecet’ what you use – the message will cross barriers of form and shape but the content will get there.

Kliem ir-Rih (The words of the wind)

It is hard to summarise the importance of such tiny steps on the web. It is hard to avoid clichés about information, interaction, data processing and algorithmic sorting that are part of the package when discussing the evolution of the social media. Zuckerberg comes across as a bit of a smart arse who was at the right place (Harvard) at the right time (six years ago) with the right idea (was it his? Watch “The Social Network”) and who is now destined to eternal gloating as his personal patrimony is enough to bail Ireland out of its financial crisis.

I’d love to be able to sell the idea to Zuckerberg to try Malta out as his mini petri dish for new ideas. He could test the effectiveness of online social networks in breaking down established ones through the power of realising what people want, what people need and what actually is happening. He could move the role of social networks into places where they have not yet ventured – the real blood of political administration and governance. Not the election campaigns on Facebook. That would be the easy part. I mean the business of government.

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Il-Ktieb ta’ Barabba (Barabbas’ Book)

Yes, Ireland has gone off cap in hand to the EU’s leaders requesting help for a bail out from the ills and ailments caused by the big recession. It’s not potato famine material, yet, but as J’accuse documented a few weeks back, it is already causing a new exodus of young Irish to more fertile pastures. The discussion in some parts of the British press about the Irish conundrum has been very instructive. Some have felt the urge to gloat about the UK’s supposed intelligence at having avoided joining the eurozone and not having succumbed to the latest pressure from the “common market”.

The Joseph Muscats of the UK world trumpeted notes of triumphant ecstasy at the supposed brilliance of their scheming. Which would have been all right had they not got the whole factoring of cause and effect completely wrong. For Ireland is not in a worse position than the UK because of its membership of the euro. As an Irish economist pointed out, much of the blame lay with the management of the Celtic Tiger in the boom years. He called it “double-dipping”, a combination of a free-for-all on interest rates and excessive enthusiasm to milk the market that was sanctioned by the governmental administrators of the day.

As for the UK, all this Cameron-fuelled Thatcherite yelling of “No, No, No” fails to take into account the simple fact that the UK is not that great contributor to EU funds that the Tory press like to make believe that it is. Ever since Thatcher’s dealings with the EC, the UK has benefited from huge discounts from its EU duties, which made Cameron’s heading of the anti-bailout plan league of 11 nations a rather incongruous affair.

Juann Mamo (Grajja Maltija) (A Maltese happening)

Which brings us to matters budgetary closer to home. The Saturday papers reported a speech by Central Bank Governor Michael Bonello. Reading the summaries of Mr Bonello’s delivery was very salutary for the mental constitution of the sane. Here was someone with his feet stuck firmly on the ground and who had no trouble calling a spade a spade. More importantly (and thankfully for a Central Bank Governor), he does not seem to have any symptoms of the local virus of Malta-centricity displayed by politicians of all colours.

It is a pity then that such wise words as the following will be lost on the ears of the politically twisted and irrelevant world of the concerted practices of two parties. Much as columnists like Ranier Fsadni would like to capture the economic positions of the two parties as something reasonable in terms of neo-keynesianism, we will still be lumped with short-term “policies” based on populist knee-jerk assumptions. Here is what Michael Bonello stated:

“What I am advocating is not austerity but enlightened self-interest. It is a commonsensical appeal for a closer alignment of our priorities with the economy’s strategic objectives and for a more efficient allocation of resources.” Which is polite speak for: “Get your act together and punch some intelligent thinking into those marketing fuelled chicken heads. Be prudent and diligent with our money or you’ll end up like Ireland.”

What did “the people” and “the press” read in his speech? The first noise to be made was with regard to his proposal to rationalise stipends. Dear dear. Alfred Sant was right then no? Of course he was… 14 years ago. Judging by comment board reaction, it was finally time for the students to get their comeuppance. It’s Monty Python’s Yorkshire Policemen all over again. “In my days nobody paid me to study and I had papyrus books and had to go to university in a self-propelled pushchair with three wheels and we stood up all through the lectures that were delivered in a cupboard.”

Arlogg ta’ Darba (A one time clock)

Just like back in 1998, the stipend issue should not be about society’s imagined vendetta on spoilt brats. It should be a rationalisation of what the nation is prepared to invest in an educated workforce. What will HR recruiters of the future be faced with? Presumably, now (14 years on from Sant, remember – that’s 14 generations of graduates) is the time to invest in specific courses in order to incentivise certain career paths from which the nation will benefit as a whole.

Is it that difficult to conceive? A target-oriented stipend that combines elements of “means-testing” (difficult one that) with desirability of graduates in certain sectors (less difficult but badly in need of stronger uni-public-private sector collaboration). How else will we ensure that the gambling companies, which have become the bread and butter for an important part of good taxpayers, will continue to be attracted by the efficient workforce we so proudly claim to have? Electronics, IT, environmental planners and engineers, political studies (the real ones), spring to mind as obvious sectors for investment.

It won’t be up to just the government to foot the bill of specific courses. One could think about involving the private sector more and promote the idea of part-time students who are already getting their practical experience in the labour market. The difference between this kind of scheme and the Mintoffian parrini is the element of choice. Obviously, no course should be closed. If we still have 500 young men and women a year wanting to become lawyers then so be it. The difference would be that the stipend for such courses would be less than that for other courses.

I know that this idea is anathema to many – I have been through this very closely. It would be ignorant of us not to acknowledge the changing times and needs. It would be ignorant to fail to take note of Bonello’s stern but reasoned warning. A closer alignment of priorities is just what the doctor ordered. Better still. He ordered a strong dose of a rarity in these times: Common sense. Good luck with that.

Kotba (books)

This week’s subheadings were dedicated to some of the recently published books that featured in the Fiera tal-Ktieb. That is one event I hate to miss and I still have not had the opportunity to peruse any of the books mentioned. There are other books of course and the Maltese publishing industry seems to be traversing a happy moment. That’s a good sign. An even better sign would be for us to go out buy the books – Maltese and others – and get down to reading more and more. The narrative and the story is what makes us most human of all – whether it is the story of transcendental humanism of a deity made man or the travails of a boy-wizard in his battle against evil, the secret lies in not forgetting the magical stuff from which our mind weaves great ideas.

Cogito ergo sum. Isn’t it brilliant? Quick… change your status on Facebook.

www.akkuza.com is all set for the first snow in Luxembourg. Come tell us what cartoon character you are and share a thought or two.

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J'accuse : Ill Communication

Gareth Compton, Conservative councillor for Erdington in Birmingham (UK), was released on bail on the eve of Armistice Day after he was arrested for an offence under the Communications Act of 2003 on suspicion “of sending an offensive or indecent message”. Compton was questioned about the content of a Tweet of his which read: “Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan’t tell Amnesty if you don’t. It would be a blessing, really.”

Compton argued that this was “an ill-conceived attempt at humour in response to Alibhai-Brown saying on Radio 5 Live that no politician had the right to comment on human rights abuses – even the stoning of women in Iran”. Tories and Labourites in the West Midlands joined the chorus of disapproval aimed at Compton’s ill-judged tweet and the police moved in with the charge.

In another corner of the UK, Doncaster Crown Court rejected Paul Chambers’ appeal against a Magistrates Court decision that had found him guilty of “sending a menacing electronic communication”. Chambers’ case also involved a tweet. This time the tweet was angrily directed to nearby Robin Hood Airport. With the airport shut down because of snow and Chambers’ travel plans thus thwarted, the tweeter vented his frustration to his 600-odd followers on the micro-blogging site: “Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!”

Tough Guy (now recant)

Judge Jacqueline Davies of the Crown Court was not impressed by the defendant’s argument of “just kidding”. In her words, “We find it impossible to accept that anyone living in this country, in the current climate of terrorist threats, would not be aware of the consequences of their actions in making such a statement.” Both Compton and Chambers tried to write off the relative weight of their statement by claiming that their actions were performed in jest. There might be a substantial difference between a politician inviting people to stone a journalist on the one hand and a private individual venting his frustration in a colourful manner in another, but at the end of the day the lesson to be learnt is to be very careful when venturing into the world of mass communication. That iPhone at your fingertips can land you in deep do-do indeed.

I get the impression that Malta is still not sufficiently hooked on Twitter to provide this kind of interesting legal twist. The chronicles of court affairs are choking with the facts of intra-familial battles raging from the ballistic nose-breaking prodigies of one husband, to the wife who claimed that her husband was obsessed with an Italian late-night show over 20 years after it had gone off air. There are no tweeting offences as yet and while the Plategate saga rolls on in the background of the trendier chronicles, the battles in communication are taking place in more conventional fora – such as The Times letter pages.

When I first heard of Prime Minister Gonzi’s foray into the murky waters of The Times letter pages correspondence, I thought I’d give it a miss. Egged on by others, I finally got round to reading the prime ministerial letter – signed by the Prime Minister himself. Apparently Dr Gonzi had not liked a particular missive by a certain Bonett Balzan (BB for short) that had appeared in the pages of His Master’s Voice the previous Saturday. Dr Gonzi seemed intent on making a couple of points: firstly that he is not an “ends justifies the means” kind of guy (so no Luxol Grounds last-minute backstab on political allies from him, I guess); and secondly, he issued what I describe on the blog as a sort of fatwa from the head of our constitutionally Catholic state.

Here are his words: “I condemn all hatred expressed in all circumstances and reiterate my appeal to all concerned to keep political language within the bounds of what should be acceptable in a mature democratic society.” The question everyone (not to be confused with Everybody) was asking was: What prompted this letter?

Sure Shot

(political communication)

And you couldn’t blame “everyone” in the end. After reading Dr Gonzi’s letter, I had to look for the letter that had triggered the reaction by the head of government. Dr Gonzi had quoted from the offending letter and specified what had caused him to take offence. The Prime Minister stated that he took particular offence at the phrase “taken of the law into his own hands with fatal consequences”. Prima facie it seemed like a rather harsh phrase – one that would have any spoudaios (Gk. – average man) rushing to his desk and typing a measured response.

It all went kind of sour when I read the context from which the phrase was lifted. There was nothing remotely injurious in fact. True, BB’s letter was astonishingly similar to much of the crap that passes for intelligent discussion on blog comment boards nowadays. It was an illustration of anything but the “enlightened times” that were referred to in the letter and its author is a perfect example of conservative, ignorant bigotry that has become common fare in most discussions.

Having said that, the whole bit about the taking of judicial matters into one’s own hands with dire consequences was actually part of a description of the habitual goings on among husbands and adulterers. Bonett Balzan was simply illustrating how adulterers would have been treated a while back, before the enlightened times of this government “ably led” by “the job-creating” Dr Gonzi (BB’s words). Yes, Bonett Balzan does come out as a fervent (never a more apt term) follower of the GonziPN creed – he is, in fact, appalled at the dilution of its values by upstarts such as JPO.

Put fairly and squarely, Bonett Balzan’s letter was no less of an abuse of the freedom of expression as that exercised by the myriad liberated voices that populate Internet comment boards every day of the week. Why then had the Gonzi-radar zoomed in on this particular manifestation of not-so-illuminated literary intervention in order to vent the prime ministerial fury? There was only one explanation. Dr Gonzi might be a professed anti-divorcist, but he will not take kindly to being automatically associated with the Maltese version of redneck backwaters. It was in such a spirit that the prime ministerial letter was penned and to such a letter was appended a glorious appendix.

For the Gonzi letter ended in a blanket condemnation of hatred expressed in all circumstances, as well as an appeal to maintain a decent level of political discourse. We’d have loved to applaud this noble initiative had it not jarred with the fact that the intervention (“scendere in campo” as Berlusconi is wont to say) was too isolated and seemed to ignore other more serious and more prominent offenders who have contributed to the general debasement of political discourse. The selective lifting of dubiously offensive quotations only served to water down the import of Dr Gonzi’s letter – leading to the incredulous reaction from the nation’s cognoscenti.

Get It Together (please)

Ill communication was not monopolised by the Office of the Prime Minister. It’s getting tiring to follow the concerted practice (that’s the second anti-trust term in this paragraph) of political acolytes of the Labourite persuasion in drumming their various stories home on the basis of “fairness”. “Mhux fjer” (not fair) has been translated into a political mantra and the Labour monks are busy exposing their hurts (“wegghat”) and the levels of unfairness with every political development on the political scene.

Chief Economist Muscat led the way last week with his budget reactions. This week we had the story of the 1,000 Air Malta employees declared surplus to requirements according to a report. Tony Zarb and most PL-leaning commentators were busy preparing wailing laments for the thousand family members on whose sweat, blood and tears the success story that is Air Malta had been created, only to be given a hint of the exit (and I am not talking Safety Exits here) at this moment of economic uncertainty.

“Mhux fjer” they yelled. Who will love their children? Which is OK for a trade union leader, but not OK for a political party that should be planning our way out of whatever mess they seem to be oh so keen to highlight. If there is a mess, and I am not saying that there isn’t, the role of an opposition party is not to highlight the problem but to confidently claim and prove that it has a solution at hand.

The communication lines of the new PL seem to be built with a very short-term goal in mind. They tend to ignore the fact that once in government the exposure of the ills, pains and injustices of society will not suffice, and that people will actually expect them to deliver the goods. I quizzed some Labour supporters, asking what they would do if they found themselves at the head of a government that had just been presented with the 1,000-surplus workers report. The first reply? Ah, we would commission a report to find out who is responsible for the overstaffing of the airline. Bravo indeed. Now THAT is a great solution. Get ready for a headless government that blames its shortfalls on the 2012 version of “il-hofra”. Progressive? Bah.

Sabotage (discrimination)

And then there was the communications cock-up, which was the announcement of the new bus fares once Arriva take over. What should have been the groundwork for a much-awaited new bus system ended up in bawling and exchanges on the media about the proposal to charge tourists a higher fare. Apart from this being the most pea-brained idea since Bush decided to publish his memoirs, the clumsy handling of the aftermath and backlash was mind-boggling.

We had a ministry spokesman (one of those) declaring that charging tourists more than the Maltese does not amount to discrimination. It was a case of knowing what he intended to say but also recognising what a cock-up the actual statement was. The whole point of discrimination is of creating criteria that turns like into unlike. Here was a ministry spokesman who was claiming that charging two rates for the same trip would not be discrimination. But it is, dear spokesman. The words he was looking for was justified discrimination because under EU law there are instances where discrimination can be justified if reasonably argued.

Which is where Minister Gatt piped in with the whole notion of resident v non-resident. Residents, it seems, are eligible for a subsidised fare because they pay taxes. Non-residents (tourists) don’t. Really? What was that tax increase in the last budget? Who pays it? Residents? Or tourists? There’s no knowing when the politicians of this world will come up with the next blooper that’s the size of a BWSC contract investigation gone wrong. (Bravo Parliament incidentally).

All that the men at the Ministry of Transport had to do was look at public transport systems worldwide. Take London’s Oystercard. There is no discrimination on the basis of residence. The only discrimination is the usual justified discrimination in favour of seniors and students. Other than that you pay according to how much you use it. Most travel cards give you more benefits the longer the validity. This is based on the basic assumption that a resident (frequent user) will, more often than not, take long-term credit on his card (a one-year travel card) to benefit from the lower price that would ensue in normal offers on a normal market.

Tourists are not precluded from buying a one-year travel-card but it would not make sense economically. Instead they will probably opt for a seven- or three-day card. A resident could buy that card but it does not pay him as much as a yearly card. You see? No discrimination on the basis of residence or nationality that has to be justified on the basis of some spurious taxation excuse. Instead you have a scaled system of cards accessible to all but that actually makes sense for different categories – the only discrimination is in the consumer’s mind at the moment of purchase. Who am I kidding? I am sure the guys at Arriva know all this and will soon be showing the way on this matter.

Roots Down (travel)

Speaking of travel, I will be in Versailles this weekend – a birthday treat from my better half. In that palace lived a woman who never actually uttered the fabled words “Let them eat cake”. It’s just so unfair that sometimes it is the words that are unsaid that end up making the biggest noise.

www.akkuza.com From the Hall of Mirrors to Le Petit Trianon, all in a weekend’s work. Titles of this week’s article (barring brackets) brought to you courtesy of the great Beastie Boys album “Ill Communication” (1994).

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The Rules of Engagement

Peppi Azzopardi saw fit to celebrate the 500th episode of Xarabank with a US-style debate between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. The edifying celebration of the 500 steps towards Malta’s “Xarabanikification” would come to an end after a couple of hours of partisan attrition with Where’s Everybody’s veteran presenter asking the audience for a round of applause (capcipa) for Malta’s politicians. The X-factor was complete.

Some wisecracks on the social networks claimed that the “capcipa” they had in mind for our politicians would not be as cordial as Peppi’s invitation – a rather conventional semi-joke from the xarabankified masses adept at the schizophrenic balancing act of wanton complaint and partisan support. But then it had to be so. This Xarabankified nation had a sort of coming of age on Friday night and, as the court jester Joe Bondi(n) dutifully pointed out, much water has passed under the bridge since the early dawn of Xarabank’s quest to bring the Maltese grapevine and bar chat into everybody’s home.

Our Bishop was a young Dominican, Lawrence Gonzi was the secretary-general of the Nationalist Party, Joseph Muscat was a budding reporter with Super One TV and Malta was still far from its latest ambition of joining the European elite crowd. Then came Xarabank and the process of Xarabankification. Unlike his colleagues at Where’s Everybody, Peppi gives off a scent of benign intent to tackle the major issues of the nation from the political equivalent of the lowest common denominator.

While the Bondipluses of this world thrive on exploiting ignorance and on the feebly disguised manipulation of supposed investigative journalism, Peppi built a welcoming platform that gives a voice to the good, the bad and (very often) the embarrassing face of what we are.

Long before the Internet exposed one of Malta’s faces – warts and all – Peppi’s Xarabank was doing a brilliant job of such an exposé himself. I’ve stopped being negative about Xarabank and Xarabankification. We cannot – must not – expect Hard Talk on TVM. We will probably never see a Michael Parkinson or a Jeremy Paxman gracing our TV screens trying to squeeze from the politicians the answers for which all the “middle-class” has been waiting with eager anticipation. Still – our compliments to Peppi and crew for their 500. Like it or hate it, Xarabank is an institution in our little microcosm.

Rocks

Joseph and Lawrence battled it out before the eager rent-a-crowds who must have been torn between the love for their leaders and the free-for-all sandwich and drink routine kindly provided by (Insert Ad Here) Caterers after the show. Speaking of rhetoric would be an injustice to the orators of past and present, from classical Cicero to modern Obama. On one side of the exchange we had the petulant upstart firing allegations and figures while shape-shifting like a play dough morph. For someone with a PhD in an arcane art related somewhat to economies, Joseph has a remarkable ability to switch from percentages to whole numbers and vice-versa to make his doom-laden speeches sound everso terrifying.

Anybody outside the world of the young Turks polluting the social network with regurgitations from their dear leaders could see how Joseph loves to use the cheap trick of switching denominations whenever it suits him. Sixty-eight thousand people paying no tax becomes four out of 10 earning less than 3,000 Maltese liri. Why Maltese liri? Because the sum multiplied by two point four something would sound too big a wage, wouldn’t it? In case Joseph’s conversion to EU suitability has not been fully upgraded (Joseph Muscat 7 – what political theory do you want to espouse today?) our currency is euros and no longer Maltese liri.

Joseph refused to fall into the blatant trap laid by Lawrence who insisted on setting the standard expected from Joseph’s party as “ta’ Partit Socjalista”. Every time Lawrence mentioned the word “socjalista” you could feel Muscat rubbing his virtual photo-shopped stubble (courtesy of www.therealbudget.com – where Joseph Muscat transmogrifies into Joseph Calleja). Lawrence knows full well how much Joseph’s party is investing in revising its image. Muscat was dying to explain how his is no longer a socialist movement but a progressive moderate one – which we have learnt is a euphemism for “opportunistic bandwagon movement”. But Joseph could not let Lawrence dictate the tempo, could he?

Rings

So we got the circular discussion, in which everyone under the sun yells his point of view from his context and his perspective. And Joseph has a huge problem here. His marketing gimmick is backfiring. This whole reinvention of Labour process is jarring at every step. Let me explain. Count the number of times Joseph tried to stress “id-differenza ta’ bejnietna” (the difference between us). Do you know what that difference is? He is claiming that, unlike GonziPN, MuscatPL can shoulder the burden of past mistakes. Can it? Does it?

While pointing fingers at Gonzi for having implemented the obvious (that’s a J’accuse copyright by the way) with regard to minimum wage, Muscat went on to claim that other PN achievements are the fruit of Labour’s labour. I smelt this one coming from the 5th of October “revisiting labour” conference. Believe me Joseph when I say that that kind of talk will jar with the less volatile of floaters and have them running for safety from upstarts trying to sell the idea that tertiary education is a Mintoffian heritage. Your minions might tweet your quotes on Facebook like some Latter Day Believers, but very few people who lived through “L-Ghoxrin Punt” will believe the lie.

It gets worse. The whole budget debate is pinned, according to Joseph, on the fact that Gonzi did not feel the people’s pains. I’ve written elsewhere about the

stomach-churning absurdity that the use of the term “wegghat” (loosely translated to “pains”) causes among people used to intelligent political discourse but that’s not the biggest problem. As the Prime Minister repeated time and time again, the international approval of the Maltese government’s financial management nullified Muscat’s irritable complaints instantly. Muscat only makes matters worse when he feigns ignorance of the international context and plants his head firmly into electoral promises made before the storm. I was reminded of the “stipendji shah” ruckus I had to face 11 odd years ago with the likes of Simone Cini and Joseph Muscat repeating the phrase ad nauseam and ignoring the new developments and reforms.

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Promises, promises

Joseph Muscat spoke of a fundamentally different vision of the economy between himself and Lawrence Gonzi. And we believed him. We believed him because in the battle of the metaphors between the dad postponing the vacation due to adverse economic conditions and the umbrella in case of rain, the wise daddy won hands down. Because there’s a limit to how far Joseph can shift between acknowledging the existence of an international crisis and suddenly pushing for the removal of taxes within the same half-an-hour.

We believed Joseph because he is essentially still advocating a specific international theory of economic recovery when the world around him has very obviously ditched it. I am referring here to the Keynesian model of spending your way to recovery by putting more money into people’s pockets. Our young PhD wannabe Prime Minister does not seem to have any time to notice that everywhere else this model is being ditched (has he no time for The Economist or Financial Times? – I recommend an iPad with the Zinio app for Christmas). Lawrence tried to remind him. The international reports tried to point out that the Nationalist government’s way forward is sound – especially insofar as managing deficits and employment is concerned. But no. Joseph is busy playing on the “wegghat tal-poplu” and harping on ARMS Ltd (a cock-up true enough, but miles away from being a governmental crisis).

In case Joseph tries to deny his affection for basic Keynesianism, here are his words on Xarabank: “il-flus jigu billi titfa’ iktar flus tan-nies fl-ekonomija”. (“More money comes from throwing more of the people’s money into the economy.”) The bottom line is that in one fell programme the average floater’s approval rating of Joseph Muscat should have shifted from “curious” to “alarming”. The danger is that we are heading for the next election with Muscat fast moving into the seat vacated by Sant – and an election result by default.

New Romance

Those of us who hoped for “change” two years ago are now resigned to more of the same. No matter how much you cannot stand the arrogant hypocrisy of the PN on matters social such as divorce. No matter how much you cannot stomach the haphazard policies on transport, e-development, gambling, construction, the environment and more. No matter all that. Your first priority come next election will be electing a leader in whose hands you can trust the economy. What the country needs is a PN-AD coalition. What it will get is another government by default.

There I’ve said it – the C-word that combines Nationalist economic coolness and pragmatism with Alternattiva’s progressive vision on social rights and environmental awareness. We will not of course have a PN-AD coalition because the rules of engagement are such (as I have repeated ad nauseam) that make an election a zero-sum game of either/or.

Expect another relative majority for PN if voters are wise enough to see through Muscat’s scantily assembled revisionist marketing. Expect a rudderless government as an alternative that threatens to stagnate any hope of recovery so long as the “middle-class” dream of affording air-conditioners, free electricity and tax-free cars to cruise along the coast road on Sunday. You think that’s sad? Don’t ask who is to blame? You know the J’accuse answer.

Such is the level of hypnotic blindness of the average complainer that the only way they could look at the end of the Chris Said saga was as a sort of government-law court conspiracy. No matter that there was as much proof of perjury as there is stubble on Joseph Muscat’s chin in the real world. No. To them the disgrace was that the court case was heard with urgency and that Chris Said was found not guilty. That is the sad truth about modern politics. The lie travels around the world before the truth even has time to put its boots on. With Facebookers repeating the lies and half-truths and with the absence of proper intelligent debate, we can only sit back and wonder what saint we should be thanking for having survived until now.

La Serenissima

Last weekend I was in the Venetian Republic. OK it was Italy but being the historic romantic that I am I will forever dream of the Serene Republic with her double-crossing doges and mercantile spread from the Dalmatian coasts to Accre and Jaffa. The Queen of the Adriatic Sea is a marvel to behold, though I must admit that it does have its rough ways with tourists (thank God us Maltese are polyglots). The growth of a lagoon island into a major power to be reckoned with was attributable to the Venetian ability to read the signs of the times and invest in the right partners. That a city that rarely surpassed 400,000 souls could command such control is a marvel in itself.

St Mark’s Square and basilica offer a tangible testimony of this power with riches and relics plundered from afar. From the four horses atop the basilica (originally owned by Constantinople) to the columns stolen from a fort in the Middle East, the Venetians and their Doges used economic might and an early form of maritime supremacy to fund the building of what is surely one of the most beautiful cities on earth.

I chose this city with its unforgettable scenery to propose to my better half last weekend. After a splendid evening at La Fenice with Donizetti’s Elisir D’Amour (fabulous performance with a particularly grand Nemorino) and a little romantic interlude on the canals, I got a positive response for my very traditional request on bended knee. Incredible no? Who would have said that even J’accuse has a heart!

www.akkuza.com is coming to terms with the life engaged. We can finally explain the last few weeks of distraction – we were romantically occupied preparing for the big surprise.

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