Category: Mediawatch

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Mediawatch

Brexit Diplomacy Explained

Sir Humphrey: Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last five hundred years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now, when it’s worked so well?
Hacker: That’s all ancient history, surely?
Sir Humphrey: Yes, and current policy. We ‘had’ to break the whole thing [the EEC] up, so we had to get inside. We tried to break it up from the outside, but that wouldn’t work. Now that we’re inside we can make a complete pig’s breakfast of the whole thing: set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch… The Foreign Office is terribly pleased; it’s just like old times.
Hacker: But surely we’re all committed to the European ideal?
Sir Humphrey: [chuckles] Really, Minister.
Hacker: If not, why are we pushing for an increase in the membership?
Sir Humphrey: Well, for the same reason. It’s just like the United Nations, in fact; the more members it has, the more arguments it can stir up, the more futile and impotent it becomes.
Hacker: What appalling cynicism.
Sir Humphrey: Yes… We call it diplomacy, Minister.
Categories
Mediawatch Terrorism

Killing in the name of (Labelling Hate)

killing in the name of _ akkuza

In the wake of the Orlando massacre in which a gun toting madman entered a nightclub and coldly killed 49 other persons much debate has centred around “intent” and “motive”. One particular morning show on Sky UK featured a walk out by an angry guest columnist who was frustrated by the hosts’ obstinate refusal to acknowledge that the attack was “homophobic”. “Had this been a synagogue we would be talking about an attack on Jews and solidarity with the worldwide Jewish community”, he stated moments before storming off (I paraphrase), “Why don’t you call this what it is… an attack on LGBT community?”.

In Paris, a few days later a lone man armed with a knife brutally killed two employees of the police force stabbing the man to death on the street before holding the man’s partner hostage in her own apartment and ending her life shortly before the RAID police intervened killing him in the process. A three year old daughter survives the couple. The French government speaks of “indoctrination” and following of the “principles” of ISIS.

Both the Paris and Orlando attacks have been “claimed” by ISIS. Some sick mind sitting in the Middle East sees yet another tragedy unfold and rushes to own it as his own – as that of an ideology, part of some twisted form of religious goal. They are now not only armed with fear but also by ownership of the thousands of twisted and unhappy minds that exist around the world. Any dysfunctional misfit with a grudge against society is now a potential weapon in the hands of ISIS. That is what it boils down to.

And what do we focus on? We focus on labels. We are busy jostling over “victim rights” – this time it’s the LGBT community, last time it was the Free Satirical Press, there’s a threat that it could be the Sporting Comunity too. We’re doing it all wrong. I am in no way saying that there should be some form of diminution of empathy and solidarity with whatever part of society is struck, far from that. The LGBT and Policing Communities have been hit in the last week. Solidarity with the communities is normal in a caring society. It is however imperative that such attacks are put in context using a strong dose of rationality and reason.

Focusing on the the nature of the victims does not help at all. It only leads to a loss of focus. The truth is that it is all of society that is threatened – as it always has been – by the existence of misfits and grudge-bearers who would do more than write a letter to the editor complaining about how society’s mores have gone to the dumps. Intent and motive is beside the point if not only to understand how much pent up anger exists or needs to exist in an individual before he resorts to violence. The Orlando and Paris killers may have pinned their banner to ISIS and some contorted view of a religion but the fact remains that their twisted acts are the result of violent social misfits.

It is not even their creed or origin that should be under focus but the reasons why they failed to fit so badly in the societies in which they were brought up. Badly enough to pick up a gun or dagger and kill fellow human beings. Badly enough to not care.

If we fail to understand this and continue to squabble about labels and ideas we will remain far from avoiding such massacres in the future.

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Mediawatch

A call for Union

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It’s been a long break. I had planned to post earlier but the events in Brussels have been at the back of my mind for some time now and had sapped at the will to write and make whatever little difference another opinion could make – especially in this world that gives the impression of getting more cynicial by the minute.

Last week saw confessors of the world’s largest religion prepare for the most intense period of meditation and contemplation. Believer or unbeliever you could still listen to the words of Yeshua from Nazareth – a simple maxim – thta could have been revolutionary for mankind. Sat at a table of equals he would reportedly tell us that all humans had to do was to love others as they do themselves and do to others what they would do themselves. Simple really.

In Palmyra the Syrian forces advanced and freed the ancient city forcing ISIS forces back to stronger holds like Raqqa and Homs. They left behind them a trail of destruction – around these supposed “religious fanatics” hangs a stench of death, misery and desolation. Reports in the media informed the gawking world that a kidnapped priest had been crucified by ISIS over Easter. Humanity? Not much. Religion and faith? Another excuse to justify psychopathic actions, nothing more. Not in my name shouted millions of muslims worldwide.

As I am sure there are muslims in Pakistan who condemned the atrocious attacks in Lahore where over 60 christians died in an attack. Same goes for Iraq where an innocuous soccer event was cut short with an explosion causing over 30 deaths. Not in their name.

Which brings me to Brussels and Zaventem. ISIS have claimed authorship of the vile attack that took place at the airport and metro. For many Maltese this is even more familiar territory than Paris and New York were after previous criminal attacks. Around 36 hours before the blasts ripped through the departure lounges I was travelling home exceptionally via Brussels. Our check in row was row 8 – apparently only two rows away from the site of the main explosion. As the news pored out familiar marks of the airport were mentioned – the Starbucks in the main gallery where I had sat with my dad for a long, long coffee a couple of months ago stuck out.

It’s more personal for us now but it does not change the way we are all handling the matter. We still speak of “terrorism” and we are quick to link the issue to the wave of immigrants that has become a constant in Europe. The failure of integration is proclaimed. The EU’s nations retrench to their nationalistic stances and the biggest menace now is to one of the fundamental and most obvious pillars and advantages of EU membership – Schengen and free movement.

There are a few reflections to be made:

1. Terrorism as a label

It is worth noting that the way the media report the issue is facilitating ISIS’ business. A brilliant article in the Guardian noted that the media are acting as a lunga manu PR for the IS by attributing a larger sense of organisation where there is none. We are quick to rush to the label of “Terrorism” combined with “Islamic Fanatics”. In reality, and viewed with a cooler mind, these are cells of instability in our own society that are the result of multiple causes – and not just a religious orientation gone awry.

Europe has a long, recent history of terrorist cells of political, religious or sectarian and independentist inspiration. “Terrorism” is a label we use for a sophisticated type of crime against the general public – car bombs, explosions, gun attacks and now even a belt full explosives for a kamikaze ending. These perpetrators need to be treated as criminals first and terrorists later. By exalting their actions as being the result of some kind of intricate organised network and hidden army we are falling in the hands of ISIS and its supporters.

Finally these are mostly home-grown citizens who have a bone to pick with society in general. ISIS offers them a great means of escape and an excuse to unleash their anger with such devastating consequences. They must be treated as criminals – home-grown criminals – and the punishment must be exemplary of a society that deals strongly with these problems. Deportation to some trumped up “country of origin is an escapist solution. It is a solution adopted by nations that are in denial that social and economic problems within their borders lie at the real base of what is going on.

2. Crime exists and it is Europe-wide

Having said that the “terrorist” label is not helping the cause does not mean a denial of the existence of criminal elements that use the religious angle as an excuse for their psychopathic actions. What Brussels (and even Paris) taught us is that there is a systemic problem of lack of coordination in the EU. Too many hands, too many seperate limbs of enforcement that fail to communicate with each other and too much ambiguity about our common border.

The calls are out to suspend Schengen and for a retrenching to nationalist lines of control. The calls are wrong. The problems with which the member states of the European Union are faced today are in need of exactly the opposite remedy. The Union was built on the pooling of sovereignty in areas where the whole is better than the parts. We’ve all heard how the Common Market became the driving force of an Economic Community that strengthened its connections.

Now, more than ever the areas of Security and Justice require a stringer pooling – not a breaking down. A Union Police that acts across borders and on all borders is required. It cannot have the face and interest of the few states that are facing the problem of the moment – in other words it cannot be a Frontex that begs for the attention of states that are far from the action. This Union Police should have Union-wide powers of monitoring entry, exit, and also internal activity within the Union. Intelligence would be pooled and enabled by all parties, a budget would ensure it has the resources possible to combat crime and a clear delineation of its competences would enure it can work within its own range as well as collaborate with national forces.

Schengen is the target of the bomb touting criminals. Suspending Schengen, restricting the fundamental freedom that European Union citizens have so proudly achieved is not a solution. It is a dangerous step towards submission.

3. Integration

Finally, one last point about integration. As I said earlier the existence of such criminals cannot be linked to problems of integration. The religious angle is an excuse to unleash destructive wills – an excuse that could very well have been found elsewhere. Having said that a Union that is teetering on establishing its own ideals needs to take up this challenge and face up to it. Rather than speaking of integration we should be looking at the common values that the European Union member states hold dear and ensuring that anybody who is born or enters into their territories understands that these are the rules by which civil society lives.

Once again in the name of humanity the Union should be working to strengthen the commitment to the universal values of human rights and anybody wanting to live within its confines should be prepared to live along and not against such precepts.

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Mediawatch

Ignorance of the Law

ignorance_akkuza

Muscat and his Panama collective are not getting on too well with the press right now. Unless you ask the right questions you will be faced with a barrage of childish word play and incosequential “answers” that are anything but. When none of the stonewalling and feigned misunderstandings works, Muscat shifts to aggressive gear and, as in the case of the Frendo journalist who would not stop asking questions, threatens with legal action. “Be careful, you might expose yourself to libel” is the latest trick of this most liberal of government leaders who has civil rights to heart.

Well we have news for Joseph Muscat. Libel requires publication or broadcast of an assertion. A question that remains unanswered can hardly constitute libel material. This bullying must stop and if it does not stop it must be ignored by those putting the question for the threat is ineffective.

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Mediawatch

Hyenas among the jackals

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Categories
Immigration Mediawatch Politics Values

The Arab Mosque of Msida

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Somehow it does not have the same appeal as the “American University of Malta” does it? It’s Arab, not American, it’s a Mosque, not a University, and its Msida… as in, since when does Msida have more appeal other than being a huge roundabout adorned by a garish monument and kiosks?  There still seems to be a more tangible and realistic demand for the Arab Mosque of Msida than for the ultra-fictitious American University of Malta. It may be because the latter is neither American nor a University and is only sited in Malta because the great salesman of Castille was conned into prostituting virgin land to a construction specialist from the Emirates. The former is required because there are quite a number of practicing muslims who have no place to gather for prayer.

When Germany started to feel the weight of the large influx of refugees from Syria and around, questions started to be asked of the neighbouring Gulf states and whether they too would be prepared to take some of the millions of displaced people. Saudi Arabia’s reply was curious. They would not take the refugees themselves but offered to help Germany integrate the muslims. By building mosques. In Germany.

Of course this was before the nightmare situation of the New Years’ Eve groping sessions from Cologne to Bielfeld to Hamburg. Even so, the Saudi proposal was met with disdain as it brought to life themonstrous menace  of a cultural invasion. Mosques are not exactly the top priority for building projects in Europe right now. Which is probably why France’s mosques held an open day on Saturday in order to allow non-muslims to see how they were really places meant for prayer and peace. Islam, the religion of submission  to the will of God (inshallah) is all about peace (salaam), they said.

Back to Malta. Some nutter with no idea of PR decided that the best thing for the muslim community to do in these times of high sensistivity and sensibility where cliches are shot as rapidly as a kalashnikov in the wrong hands was to organise an open air prayer meeting – of the kind Angelik does – in full view. The idea was to show how the muslims in Malta did not have enough places of prayer – the Paola mosque was not enough and using a garage to congregate is considered illegal.

Some questions do need to be asked though. The muslim community has grown considerably and there is probably a justified demand for a new place of prayer. Our constitution safeguards and respects the right of other religions and the freedom to worship is one of the fundamental rights that are recognised. The question of whether a new mosque is needed should be examined in this light – outside of the panic and fear-mongering linked with recent international events. It is not about us and them either. We are either a nation that is selling passports by the hundreds (and it has been made abundantly clear what creed and nationality are the major targets for this campaign) or we are not. These are Maltese citizens who happen to be muslim that need catering for.

Much fuss was made when it was suggested that the new Sadeen Not-So American and not so University of ODZonqor might require a mosque of its own given its target of 3,500 students. It’s not so funny now is it? The Slovaks have questionably closed their borders to anybody who is muslim – no muslim refugees. This questionable decision is not an option here. We are dutibound to look hard into our constitution and our core values and understand that a new mosque is necessary in order to guarantee worshiping rights to some of our citizens.

What is funny, or interesting, is that neither the developers of this land nor some new shady business partner from the Gulf have made contact with this government of plentiful opportunity in order to market a new deal. As I said in the beginning the Arab Mosque of Msida (or wherever the government might decide to sell land) is never going to be an attractive option. Which is a pity really, because at the end of the day the building of a mosque as a place for congregation for the muslim citizens of the land would actually be a clear sign that Malta’s constitutional values are strong and alive – that in this country you are free to worship so long as you respect others and respect the core values of the community.