This cannot be comforting news but it did ring a familiar bell. The Italian region closest to us has an unfortunate reputation among most other people – whether Italian or foreign. For a very long time the word Sicily would conjure up ideas of shopping trips and a quick and cheap escape from the socialist regime of monotonous shelving and bulk buying.
Yesterday’s Rai 1 news carried the item that the economic growth of Sicily has surpassed Lombardy. I am not surprised. Having visited Sicily and divested my brain of the unfortunate stereotypes that I still carried from my youth I could not but agree with the idea that this was a promising region that knew where to go next.
Sicily could not be further away from Malta in terms of planned development and growth. Old maladies notwithstanding , the impression you get is of an eager region ready to pounce on the next opportunity that is offered. Add on the measure of Mediterranean beauty and Italian style and you have a formula that could be a winner.
This bit of news is what remains of the little, sad comparisons we can make with the sister island up north (from Repubblica.it):
Esplode fabbrica di fuochi
due morti nel Catanese
A Santa Venerina, sul posto varie squadre di vigili del fuoco
Due persone sono morte e un’altra è rimasta ferita nell’esplosione avvenuta in una fabbrica di fuochi d’artificio di Santa Venerina, nei pressi di Catania. La deflagrazione, seguita da un incendio, è avvenuta poco dopo le 9.30. Sul posto numerose squadre dei vigili del fuoco, oltre a polizia e carabinieri.
I get the nagging feeling that the whole divorce debate is a welcome distraction for the party in government. Whichever way you look at it, even with the possibility of a watered down divorce law on the horizon in the near future, the PN government is set to gain from what is after all a delayed distraction. By some twenty years. If we could adduce some form of strategy from the single-seat government way of thinking it would be that the divorce debate that was clumsily shifted onto its plate has the main bonus of providing the occasional distraction from the pressing issue of COL (cost of living) in its various guises.
The spice that are priests like Daniel Cordina in Zebbug or politicians like the various JPOs, Bartolos and Musumeci only serves to give the affair the varied colouring of an indian spice stand. At the end of the day there is a sense of inevitability that is wired into the divorce issue itself. It is not a question of “If”, more a question of “when” and a bit of “how”. You can read that sense of urgency into Mike Briguglio’s press conference statement today. It almost sounds like an exercise in tautology: “Decision on divorce needs to be taken“.
You can almost hear the Simpsons‘ Homer yelling :”Duh”. But this is the country where Musumeci can claim to be an “opinionist” and not a “journalist” on his little platform on Smash. Where the same Musumeci can proselytise while trying to be the new “good boy” of the PN clan. Where Muscat can shoot at the government for “playing with the people” without actually offering an alternative solution to the problems at hand. Where politicians like Zammit Lewis can quote their leader on facebook and echo the worry about the poor without budging one inch about the new ideas from the new generation.
Thank God for divorce then (or maybe don’t thank Him, since He does not like it). We’d rather the distraction that exposes the pogguti, the sinful and the pagan. It’s more familiar territory for the Kinnie & Twistees generation brought up in the shadow of Mintoffianism and Eddie’s salvationism. Discuss a program for the economic relaunching of the nation? What the hell? I’d rather discuss the sinful qualities of divorce.
And the PLPN are heading towards the 10th legislature since Independence. In this country thinking different is the norm, and the norm is being divorced from reality.
In ancient Rome the Via Salaria linked the Eternal City to the port of Castrum Truentinum, now known as the Port of Ascoli. It was called Salaria because it was the road used by the Sabines to retrieve the precious salt from the mouth of the Tiber. Salt was one of the primary units of payment in ancient Rome – hence the term “salary” from “salarium”.
In modern Malta our parliamentarians do not arrogate themselves a new salary but rather opt to increase their “honorarium”. I doubt whether we have a Via Honoraria running from the new parliament square to the respective centres of the PLPN MPs. In the meantime MPs from both sides perpetuate the pathetic fallacy of “not accepting” the honorarium while insisting on distributing its proceeds according to their wills (if something is not accepted then it is not yours to distribute).
The PN government is now under siege and has resorted to the equivalent of hunting for the mice in the sewers in order to survive. The sudden hike price of commodities from fuel to gas to milk can only serve to exacerbate the unpopularity of a government that seems to have lost the feel of the people’s pulse. Joseph’s Labour might be poised to take advantage of the situation by promising the usual progressive package that protects the weak. The problem lies in the fact that the current economic conditions will not discriminate between conservative intervention or socialist laxity.
Just look at what happened in the UK yesterday. The LibDems and the Tories were both vociferously against any VAT hike while they laboured in opposition. They completed their U-turn yesterday with the announced increase of VAT to 20%. The only saving grace was the fact that essential products (the most cited were bread and nappies) are zero-rated and hence not affected.
So are we to grin and bear the hikes while our salaries plateau over the next few years or are we all to run for parliament in the hope to get a piece of the very special pie that seems to be reserved at the top?
It’s been a great day for charity. The combined powers of PLPN have raised over half a million euros to cover the expenses of their ailing and needy houses. Who needs a law on party financing when the nation can practically give €1.50 per capita to the most needy among us? Of course that is how the PLPN fund their mini-chains of shame – also known as Archaic Party Propaganda Machines for the 21st Century. The OneTV and Net enterprises would have long shut down elsewhere but still need the emergency donations in this country of ours. For crying out loud. It’s Christmas time. We’ve repeated it every year – there is nothing more that betrays the crass insensitivity of the two political parties than this facetious appeal for funds year in year out. Thank God Joseph Muscat forwent €120,000 of honoraria ara…. I read somewhere that Dr Gonzi described the PN house as everybody’s home… a donation to PN would be like helping build one’s home. How we fail to see this as a reason to sit down and weep is beyond me.
Joseph Muscat has renounced the right to a salary increase that is due to him after a decision taken in parliament in 2008. Apparently half the parliament was unaware of this decision – a side-issue that begs the question of “Where the f**k were the guardians of the opposition benches that day?” Even if we do grant the point of temporary lapse of attention to the totality of the opposition benches what we have here is an opposition leader and two of his party MPs deciding to not take the salary increase (honorarium).
***ADDENDUM***
Since we have no problem admitting where we were wrong, there is no “side-issue” to speak of. The decision for the new honoraria was apparently a Cabinet decision and not one taken in parliament – though we still harbour doubts about whether or not a law has to be changed for it to come into effect. The answer to our hypothetical question (Where the f was labour?) is therefore “not in the Cabinet”. We stand by the rest of our argument though – the scale of salaries is not a measure for assessing politicians’ performance. If it were so, 100% of the people who have moved to work with the institutions in Europe would theoretically make better parliamentarians. An AST1 (entry level grade) earns as much as a local (national for Privitelli) MP.
***
Cool. Sort of. As in while you can immediately understand how this latest gimmick fits in with New Labour’s fetish with salaries (remember the PQ about people earning more than the President) it is hard to reconcile this position of abnegation with anything beyond the making of a puerile point. They’re waiting for us to say it. Just in time for Christmas: would you dare criticise Labour’s leader for not pocketing extra MP dosh?
Well. The answer is Yes. J’accuse Can. For the argument we made back when the presidential PQ was posed still holds strong. It is not how much you are paid that is really important but the respect you gain by justifying whatever salary it is and doing your damn job. Even if Joseph Muscat were to suddenly get a bout of fantastic altruism and half his salary I don’t give a flying copulation. It is what he is doing while warming that chair in parliament as a representative of the people’s alternative to government that counts. I will judge him by his programmes and projects and NOT by his salary.
His alternative budget was ludicrous and only won some points because of Bondi’s hash of a programme – Bondi’s slip was Muscat’s gain in public perception. Which did not mean that Muscat’s grandiose faff that is an excuse for future planning will actually work. Meanwhile Muscat’s minions are busy on facebook reminding us how the Great Leader forwent so many euros increase from the mouths of his own babes in order to save 120,000€ that can now be spent on childcare or some other fantasmagorical mental masturbatory pink socialist idea.
The truth is that it won’t. -be spent on childcare, or on a new sleigh for Santa or whatever they might dream of in Mile End. Money spending and planning is called budgeting and that is up to the government of the day to do. To get to even write the budget you have to be elected to government. With a plan. A concrete one that does not involve not putting money in one’s pockets like some latter day St Nicholas but rather involves ideas on how our economy can survive the current climate and hopefully how money can be justly distributed into the pockets of the hard working and the deserving.
So. Bravo for Joseph for foregoing the salary increase voted by parliament. He seems to be of the type who revel in a warm round of applause and gasps of awe at his magnanimity. It is a pity that his performance as the generator of alternative government remains dismally hopeless for those who care to look beyond the antics of the latest trend in salary scale gimmicks.
Per Una Lira
(originale di Lucio Battisti – versione youtube di Giuliano Palma & the Bluebeaters)
Per una lira
io vendo tutti i sogni miei
per una lira
ci metto sopra pure lei
E un affare sai
basta ricordare
di non amare
di non amare
Amico caro,
se c’è qualcosa che non va
se ho chiesto troppo,
tu dammi pure la metà
A un affare sai
basta ricordare
di non amare, no
di non amare
no, no, no, nooo
Per una lira
io vendo tutto ciò che ho
Per una lira
io so che lei non dice no
Ma se penso che
Tu sei un buon amico
non te lo dico oh no
Meglio per te
Our “President Emeritus” (sic – the Times) hath spoken: “It is good we are still bound to the principle that marriage is for life and we should be proud of this” – quoth he. Dr Fenech Adami reminded the world that marriage was a contract that bound the individuals for life and this was the principle at stake in the divorce debate. More importantly he rubbished the very strong pro-divorce argument that Malta only has the Philippines as it’s divorce-less partner (should I say wife?).
If you believed men like our “President Emeritus” you’d probably believe that the pro-divorce movement is only in favour of introducing divorce in order to be like others and not for the simple reason that they consider the right to marriage to essentially mean the right to a happy marriage in the long run.
Of course every marriage has its ups and downs but the Vatican-Malta-Philippine triangle would have it that no matter how “down” is “down” in that ups and downs bit, the “till death do us part” has to trump every other consideration. Fenech Adami is right – the basic principle at stake is the whole concept of indissolubility – marriage is marriage for life. Like giving animals as presents: it’s not just for Christmas/weddings but for life.
We all know that being pro-divorce does not mean wanting to better the Philippines or the Vatican State. It means opening a door to those people whose marriage has irretrievably broken down. It means a fresh start. It may not be a civil right in the strict sense of the term but living a happy marriage is an essential building block that inspires many of the civil rights recognised universally. Hiding behind closed doors while the broken couples continue to experience hideous realities without ever seeing a breakthrough is what Fenech Adami is proud of.
In terms of civil rights you can call it sweet F.A.
I wonder what the “President Emeritus” would make of this front page story on l-Orizzont:
TEJPS JĦINU SEPARAZZJONI
Il-Qorti tal-Familja laqgħet it-talba ta’ mara għas-separazzjoni minn ma’ żewġha, wara li fost oħrajn semgħet tejps li fihom ir-raġel jinstema’ jidgħi u joffendi lil martu. It-tejps kienu rrekordjati minn oħt il-mara li toqgħod fl-istess triq t’oħtha.
Il-mara talbet għas-separazzjoni għax skont hi żewġha ma kienx jistmaha. Skont hi, wara xahrejn miżżewġin huwa faqa’ l-bieb tal-kamra tal-banju, tliet snin wara kisser il-bieb tal-kamra tas-sodda u jumejn wara t-tkissir tal-bieb beda jkisser affarijiet fil-‘wall unit’.
B’kollox qalet li bidlet il-bieb tal-kamra tal-banju tliet darbiet, is-siġġijiet tal-kċina darbtejn u l-ħġieġ tal-‘wall unit’ kemm-il darba.Hija sostniet li binhom kien iqum bil-lejl jibki tant li kellha tieħdu għand il-professur li qalilha li binha kellu biża’ kbira.
Minbarra hekk sostniet li żewġha kien jheddidha li joqtolha, jqattagħha, jitfagħha f’għalqa u ħadd ma jsibha, li kien joffendiha b’ommha mejta u li kienet tarah f’għalqa ta’ ħuh ma’ tfajla u li darba sabitlu qalziet ta’ mara li ma kienx tagħha. Hija ppreżentat ukoll ittra li r-raġel tagħha allegatament kiteb lil turista Ġermaniża fejn jgħidilha li jħobbha.
Fil-kawża xehdu wkoll xi ġirien, fosthom familjari tal-mara, li lkoll qalu li kienu jisimgħu lir-raġel jidħol lura d-dar fis-sakra u kienu jisimgħuh jidgħi, jgħajjas, isabbat u jitkellem ħażin. Fost dawn kien hemm oħtha li ippreżentat it-‘tapes’ fejn ir-raġel jinstema joffendi lil oħtha.
Xhud importanti kien it-tifel tal-koppja fejn dan qal li sa minn meta kellu sitt snin jiftakar lil missieru jirritorna d-dar fis-sakra, jidgħi, isabbat u jkisser. It-tifel qal li huwa kien jiekol fil-kamra tiegħu għax kien jibża’ jinżel isfel minħabba missieru u li missieru kien jgħajjru, joffendih u anke jgaralu l-affarijiet. (continue reading here)
Tinkwetax hanini. Ahseb kemm hemm nisa bhalek fil-Filippini. Dawk ukoll ghandhom kont il-bank biex ihallsu ghall-bibien. U meta tisma’ r-ragel jidghi ghid talba ghar-ruhu u ghal min ghandu mejjet.. fejn taf forsi ghad xi darba jilluminawhom lil tal-Vatikan?
