Category: Constitutional Development

Categories
Constitutional Development

This State of Independence

independence_akkuzaThe festivities have begun in full earnest and Malta is soon to be proclaimed a 50 year old independent state. With the 50th anniversary we also get the reopening of the silly season. There’s a “let’s all love each other” approach by the two main parties – each proclaiming some kind of goodwill about what had hitherto been considered “the other’s” feast day. Yes, we have heard it all – over and over – Independence vs Republic vs Freedom day. Sometimes they throw in the 7th June 1919 for good measure but the heated debate had focused mainly on what are now being dubbed as the “three steps” that were necessary for Malta to become what it is.

To me someone like Muscat finally growing up and clamoring that “Independence day is a feast for all Maltese” is nothing that warms the cockles of the heart. Just because the red tribe of the Maltese jungle suddenly sees the light and begins to faintly understand the meaning behind an achievement as important as independence in the birth of a nation does not mean that we have to stand up and applaud. At most we could sigh in relief as one does when a toddler finally grasps the idea that one plus one does equal two and gives up on the horrible insistence that one plus one can equal carrot. We would sigh in relief were we not also convinced that this sudden show of magnanimous understanding and one-ness is not another show of the Taghna Lkoll style: tanto fumo niente arrosto.

How they applauded Muscat at the unveiling of the Guido De Marco memorial. “Did you hear him? He actually praised Guido. Oh Such a great Prime Minister have we.” Really? What was the alternative? Are we to clap because Muscat had the temerity to call a spade a spade? What kind of rubbish is that?

Now we have the clips being propagated by the National Festivities Commission. Independence is described and couched within terms of a series of steps that unite us. Insultingly it is put on the same pedestal as that humungous farce that is Freedom Day or Jum il-Helsien. This insistence on celebrating that non-event is incredibly naive and ridiculous. It is as though a future government were to begin to celebrate the end of the Beach Concession that the Powers of Brangelina have over Mgarr ix-Xini. Freedom from Brangelina Day could have its own kitsch monument on the beach complete with mini-Hollywood memorial.

In the legal and political growth of a nation there is no greater achievement than the assertion of self-government and sovereignty. That is what the 21st of September 1964 is all about. If you still harbour any doubts about how important a step this is then ask a Scot who will be voting tomorrow on the very issue of independence. Nobody is asking the Scots who they want as formal head of state (it will probably be Bess as Queen of Scots), nobody is getting het up about whether it will be a Scottish Republic. It will be an independent Scotland that can negotiate (or maintain) its status as a member state of the EU – the independence step is more than enough for that.

In all probability an independent Scotland will have to negotiate the rental of one of its estuaries to the English army for the latter to keep its nuclear submarines in. Eventually, at a later date that rental agreement might end but I am sure no Scot will go clowning about yelling “Freedom” like some latter day cross between William Wallace and Dom Mintoff.

No. What around 50% of the Scots are aspiring for is Independence. There is a reason for that. Independence defines the birth of a nation. It puts it on the map as a nation among nations. Inter pares – among equals.

Sure, you can feel proud that at a later stage in the growth of the nation you felt it necessary to remove the house of the Windsors from the position of head of state of the nation and opted for a president that would represent the people instead. Constitutionally though, the big change had long happened. Ridding ourselves of Bess Queen of Malta and opting for Marie Louise President of the People is a cosmetic change that alters little on the world stage. It’s not about party pique but about education and historical relevance. let’s face it, the switch from Constitutional Monarchy to Republic in 1974 was not exactly your storming of the Bastille business in 1789… to deny that would be to ignore historic truths: and that only serves ha’penny historians and the sweet sweet luvvy duvvy propaganda of this current lot.

Education, not fables and fantasies is what would make this nation stronger. Otherwise its all a load of balderdash.

 

Le Roi est mort! Vive le Roi!

Check out the Malta Independent’s vox pop among Cottonera residents.

Post by Ġensna.
Categories
Citizenship Constitutional Development Politics

Ugly Heads

ugly_akkuzaRacism. It’s a dirty word. In the past seven days there seems to have been some form of virus in the air spreading dirty thoughts across the globe. The latest manifestation came in sporting events. First there was the Diego Alves incident. Barcelona’s colourful (an unfortunate word in these circumstances but I mean spirited) winger was getting ready to hit a corner in their match against Villareal when a banana was thrown from the stands. It is a not too intelligent and unironic insult that is common among the less evolved quarters of football “supporters”. Along with the monkey calls, the banana is the unfunny provocation (are you provocating me?) that yells “You are black therefore you are monkey”.

To Alves’ credit he did not only brush the manifestation of crass stupidity aside, he proceeded to pick up the banana and eat it before contributing to Barcelona’s turnaround victory against a banana coloured Villareal team. Unfortunately the beautiful game is often tainted with this kind of racist inspired taunts (remember Boateng last summer?). Surprisingly this week we also had news of similar dirty thoughts coming from – of all places – the black dominated NBA. The sport of LeBron and Jordan  hit the headlines for the wrong reasons when a phone call by the owner of the LA Clippers was leaked by his girlfriend to the press. It turns out that he did not want her to come to games in the company of African-Americans.

Donald Sterling (for such is the intelligent beings’ name) provoked a huge backlash to the point of getting a comment straight from President Obama that is destined to become a classic: “When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don’t really have to do anything, you just let them talk. That’s what happened here.”  Barack, you’re so right.

It is ignorance that is at the root of intolerance. It is intolerance that is at the root of racism. In these times when democracy and democratic rights are being savagely banalised by the onslaught of relativism and populism the ugly heads of racism and intolerance are easily raised. We read in Malta about immigrants having to ask Maltese to “hail buses” because otherwise the driver would not stop for them. Ignorance. At its ugliest and worst. Rosa Parks would have a hard time in Malta, trust me. She’d probably still be stuck in some village police station on her 200th hour of “police questioning”. “What do you mean you refused to sit in the black section? There is a law you know.”

There are warning signs everywhere. Intolerance does not stop at racism on the basis of colour. In the Russian-majority areas of the Ukraine we had calls for a register of Jews. Even if we ignored the maladroit comments by Berlusconi about the Germans and concentration camp we would still have to admit that the current European Parliament campaign is unfortunately infused with not so subtle reasoning based on mistrust of the foreigner – a revived intolerance that the Europe of the universal declaration of rights was supposed to have buried long ago. (see also the recent outrage in the UK following a UKIP candidate’s comments).

Recently I learnt that the story that Adolf Hitler snubbed Jesse Owens during the Berlin Olympics was a myth. Owens himself explained that Hitler had actually taken an “official” decision not to congratulate any of the medal winners after he was told on the first day that he could not simply congratulate German medal winners. Hitler did not snub Owens. It turns out that he actually shook hands with Owens on the day before leaving the stadium.

Owens said he was treated better in Germany than in America where blacks faced segregation. Sometimes, the sources of intolerance and racism are to be found where we least expect it.

Categories
Constitutional Development

United Civics

From the moment you step off the plane and go through the average two and a half hours of immigrant screening attrition at whatever “port of call” you have reached you begin to realise that the United States of America is a rather peculiar entity that will be hard to emulate for any newborn federation in the future. Admittedly the chances of a similar structure finding its roots in the Old Continent are currently wallowing at their lowest and the surge of nationalism and mistrust of supranational entities goes no small way to creating such an infertile ground.

Looking at the US from the inside though you begin to notice that there is a clear distinction between what would be described as nationalist sentiment and culture in Europe on the one hand, and the allegiance to the national democratic system and structure on the other. You see it on a daily basis. There was no better way to experience this than an early evening stroll through (the safer part of) Williamsburg in Brooklyn. Passing by a pharmacy with a distinctly Italian name I overheard a conversation between a couple of young brats which was more of a verbal sparring match as to the veracity of their Italianite ethnicity.

“You’re not a Caprese, you’re married into the Capreses” sounded like a minor stain on the curriculum vitae of the recipient of this tirade. “I’m as Italian as you guys, no doubt” was the feeble reply. A few blocks down the local parish had an Easter ceremony in full swing. I recognised the rite from my days as an altar boy, only there now seemed to be quite a few altar girls too all dressed up for the occasion. “Ca existe encore? Les enfants de choeur?” quizzed my Belgian travel mates. Apparently these traditions and cultural stamps survived longer in Brooklyn than in Liege and Bruxelles.

Whenever you interact in New York you inevitably end up talking ethnicity and origin. A bona fide New Yorker will sell you the tickets to Woodbury Common but he’ll proudly tell you that he is Ghanaian “et c’est pour ca qu’il parle francais“. Equally bona fide (read that bonafied if you want to sound American) is the security guy posted at Times Square. Equally proud of being of West african descent. How many times did I hear “sei Italiano?” on my trip – in an attempt to find a common cultural ground from which to embark on social niceties.

Walk through Chinatown and you get to understand how you can live in the US as a fully grafted export of any world culture. You live, eat, enjoy and speak your own nationality, food, traditions and language. Don’t even get me started on the Latino. It’s all over the place.

And yet there is a beautiful symbiotic conviviality going on. You cannot miss the multiple expressions of allegiance – to the civic structure that surrounds. The Americans have turned the law into a fine art to the point of being finicky. Everything is calculated by entitlement in this nation that was founded on a Bill of Rights. The formula is weird but works fantastically. So when you do stand up at the Yankee Stadium (Ladies and Gentlemen please rise and take off your hats for the national anthem) you understand how the glue that keeps together so many differences is all in the patriotic pride enshrined in a democratic system of rule of law.

It’s how the slightly irritating habits of the multiple ethnicities become a reality. It’s how they can forget about still being Italian, Puerto Rican, German, Ghanaian, Kenyan, Spanish the moment the first notes are played. It’s how they forged an error-riddled system that works.

It’s how this becomes the land of the free and the home of the brave.

 

Categories
Constitutional Development Values

The Justice Dispensers

justice_akkuza

The Supreme Court building in New York sports a quote spread along its facade. Attributed to George Washington it states “The true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government”. There are many other quips in similar vein that can be formed into a digest of civic education necessary to form a Havel-inspired backbone of society. “We are servants of the law so we may be free”, “everybody is equal in the eyes of the law” and “justice must not only be done but also seen to be done” are but a tiny sampler of a hypothetical dispenser of sayings related to the role of justice in forming a strong backbone of society.

The onset of relativism in Malta, poisoned as it was with strong doses of populism and twisting of truths in order to benefit whatever half of the population was being courted, has had a devastating effect on our concept of administration of justice and its dispensation. The institutional (constitutional) set up intended to be a fine machinery with which laws would be discussed, promulgated and implemented has been the main victim of the spread of the malaise of relativism and once the mother of all populist and relativist movements plonked itself in the seat of “power” the inevitable happened.

It began slowly. The “fairness” of justice was (rightly) made a subject of debate. Nothing wrong there, especially since society has a way of revising its concept of justice and mores on a regular basis. The problem begins when the proper channels for the revision of laws and finally the dispensation of justice are bypassed in the name of some relativist concept of fairness that operates plainly outside the codebook. There is no legal certainty, no legitimate expectation – simply an unpredictable machine churning out populist edicts as becomes the popular call of the moment. The erosion happens quick and fast by eradicating any concept of merit, of just deserts and introducing a volatile idea of “fairness” (at least perceived).

This is a society that will now reward failures (repeaters at University will still receive their stipend). This is a government that, without any legal foundation, decides to create a blanket amnesty to 1,500 persons who are blatantly accomplices in the crime of theft of public property. The example this sets is an abomination to any aspirations of a just society. The transparent reasoning behind it all – notwithstanding all the faffle from the respective Ministers and PM – is that most of these people would form part of the disgruntled who complained about the price of electricity. Those disgruntled had thrown their weight behind the current government – no wonder they suddenly find a reprieve whisked out of thin air.

Under this government though we have been told that if you consider a tax or a cost to be unfair then you are perfectly within your rights to try and avoid paying it. Committing a crime to do so is perfectly kosher – this is thegovernment that supposedly rewards Robin Hoods. There is no sense in all this other than the distortion of justice for political mileage.

“We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws.” – Hunter S. Thompson.

Categories
Constitutional Development

Crossing the threshold of faith

believe_akkuzaCriticising the workings of a government or an opposition is what this blog has done with consistent regularity. No matter who was in “power” the line taken from these pages has always been consistent. Also, very consistently, this blog has always managed to ruffle some feathers in some quarters. More often than not it would be the partisans of a faction that is being criticised who would vociferously disapproved of the contents of J’accuse’s latest missive. More often than not it would be the messenger and not the message that would be shot at.

In these halcyon Tagħna Lkoll days I often find myself in a quandary as to how often I could put finger to keyboard and criticise yet another mind-boggling move by the people who purport to manage this country. The fear (or self-censorship) is really unjustified. The worry is that repetitive ‘assaults’ on the same tribe gets you quickly labelled as a member of the “other”. Having said that what really gets at me is the way Joe Public is prepared to gloss over the inconsistencies of the PL brigade much quicker than when the Gonzi team was in government.

No matter how shallow, how inconsistent and how potentially corrupt the Labour programme is seeming to turn out, Joe Public is still thinking in terms of the perceived evil that was. I particularly liked a comment on facebook by the man who goes by the moniker “Ze Heckler” – not for reasons that he would appreciate. Here’s his status update:

Min bi Snowden, min bil-Pussy Riot, min b’Grillo, min b’Wikileaks u ahna b’Daphne. You get the rebel you deserve, too.

Admittedly the class of “rebels” is not exactly your average Che Guevara, nor is it your Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi. Heckler’s list is a list of non-conformists (Grillo might be verging on the breakdown though) but I am not here to create a scale of “rebelliousness”. I just found it weird that Daphne would fall in the rebel category. Is it the anti-government streak? The brazen nature of her posts that openly target the above-mentioned inconsistencies? Does that a “rebel” make?

The way I see it, to be a “rebel” in Malta you cannot operate within the system’s parameters. Daphne, like anybody else operating in the system is guilty of accepting the general wider parameters and rules by which our system is run. Throughout the Gonzi years the “rebelliousness” was nowhere to be found. On the contrary, much like the prominent “journalists” of the time (now either retired, MEP candidates or playing to the Labour fiddle) Caruana Galizia would selectively pick out the “interesting news” in order to help preserve the status quo. That kind of blogs must have been grateful for the fact that Malta was kept in election mode for long periods thanks to the antics of that other fake rebel – Franco Debono.

The (quite predictable and understandable) position of Caruana Galizia’s blog is not among rebels but among anti-Labour blogs whose aim is to simply get Labour back out of the driving seat. Nothing wrong there. What is missing is the realisation that the framework within which the alternation takes place is only destined to produce the same. Or worse. “Rebels” are those who are pushing for a paradigm shift that moves the whole framework into a new dimension. A real second republic if you like (not the marketing one that Muscat smartly nabbed).

A failure to acknowledge that the system (the framework if you like) is faulty and will produce more and more of the same means that you are a willing participant in the system. That’s not rebelling. That is opposition. Thankfully, there are signs of early realisation, even in the quarters such as Caruana Galizia’s blog, that much more must be done than simply playing along. Whether such elements would be willing participants in a discussion about (let alone action) the possibilities of a paradigm shift is another question. Old habits die hard – and more messengers will be shot.

As things stand we are moving further and further into a system built of two parallel worlds in which the value scales are very very different. Which is why all Labour’s moves will continue to be accepted by a large chunk of the Maltese population. Their value scale is different from that of those who might have shared a value scale with the PN in the near past. The same applies vice-versa. The dynamics of democratic representation should have allowances for such possibilities. In our case though, the inertia caused by the PLPN system is gradually moving the very tenets of representative democracy towards a breaking point. This too is what is meant by the race to the bottom.

Our parties have created two faith systems within which it will become less obvious why and how people will cross the threshold to the other side. A re-calibration of the value scales of one party might serve to trigger the beginning of a change.

* One final note. This blog post is not meant as some kind of competition in comparing the size of “light sabers”. Consider it an observation – as we always have done – of the current situation on the ground. The interesting thing of inhabiting a system with multiple value scales is that suddenly there is not one “right or wrong” but a multiplicity. Take the following simple example: “Selling citizenship without residency requirements rakes in millions”. Value scale one cannot agree more – Malta gains. Value scale two is appalled – Malta is sold cheap. Value scale three examines a European dimension. On each of their scales they are “right”. Not the “it’s my opinion so it is true” kind of right (which is irritating) but right in the sense that in each case the policy position is feasible – the consequences are different.

 

 

Categories
Constitutional Development Politics

Europeanism: the birth of an ideology

Comical-European-geopolitical-map

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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