“The opportunism beggars belief.”
Simon Busuttil, MEP commenting on the MEP election campaign on the Times of Malta. How’s that for an eye-opener?
della serie J’accuse does a onenetmaltarightnowstar style “lift”
P.S. That’s not what he meant
According to reports from the island, the whole of Malta (and Gozo) is currently sans electrique. Smart Island does it again I guess. Which means that the number of readers of J’accuse is probably now down to one.
Meanwhile elsewhere on the blogosphere J’accuse has been accused of bitching for pointing out to the owner of Malta’s most popular blog the nuances of netiquette and attribution.
What the hell. We aren’t about to contradict Malta’s foremost expert in the field as to what constitutes bitching are we?
So instead we would like to use this (little read) blog to wholeheartedly thank Daphne Caruana Galizia for “bringing your blog to a much, much wider audience than it would otherwise have had”.
Taste. It’s such a personal thing.
This article and accompanying Bertoon appeared in The Malta Independent on Sunday.
Dense and denser
Turnout was low. Incredibly low. Notwithstanding heavy investment in a campaign that urged voters to use their prerogative to determine who will best represent them in Brussels, most voters preferred to cock a snook at all things Bruxellois and deserted the polling booths in their masses. At the end of the day, all heads counted and all desertions considered, we ended up with the ignominous figure of 43%. That is the number that counted. Whatever Lawrence, Joseph and Arnold had to say should have been paled into relative insignificance considering the huge disappointment that the 43% would end up representing.
Of course that is not really the case. While the European Union project was busy coming to terms with the fact that the turnout for elections to what is supposed to be its most democratically representative institution had once again fallen to a record low (43%), we were busy drawing our own interpretations of the various figures churned out by the voting population of this isolated island. Oh island in the sun (willed to me by my father’s hand)… so detached from the mainland realities. Or is it?
In actual fact the interpretations and readings of last week’s election results are as colourfully variegated as a kaleidoscope. It is the kind of result that spinmeisters can dream about – one that allows for a multiplicity of conclusions all of which contain a relative amount of truth. In fact, Maltese Relativism delivered its little baby and the banners of mediocrity could be seen flying from Hamrun to Pietà in equal measure. Inevitably J’accuse was busy drawing its own conclusions – sophistry mingled with oriental poetry allowed us to shoot pills of j’accuse wisdom at whoever cared to listen beyond the partisan cacophony.
Lest I be accused of ignorance by pedants of the musical persuasion allow me a little clarification before we proceed. Today’s grand title is an intentional perversion of the lyrics of a song by “The Killers”. In their song they ask “are we human, or are we dancer?” – don’t ask, just enjoy the song. I’ve chosen to play on the misheard lyric purposely by asking the question that is a corollary of Norman Lowell’s assertion d-day after… when we state that our population is the densest in Europe are we unconsciously formulating a not-so-elaborate pun?
a post by guest blogger Justin BB
What Joseph Did
Joseph Muscat won a huge majority. Well done to him. The choice of a number of candidates who are palatable to the middle class helped, but that was not the clincher. No, Muscat won so handily because he ticked all the boxes of discontent. One of those boxes was the immigration issue…he pandered to the far right and stoked the fires of ignorance and hate.
What Joseph Did Next
As a graduate of the school of lies and sound bites, Joseph led a campaign that lied about lots. They lied about government’s healthcare plans. They twisted Vince Farrugia’s declared confidence in PN candidates and a PN government. I was interviewed by Super 1 back in the day when Joseph worked there – what made it to the screens and TV spots had very little to do with what I actually said. Can I trust Joseph to be honest behind his smile? Not a jot.
What Joseph Almost Did
The Labour-loving crowd and the lovers of all things new and kind of shiny think that JM apologised for Labour’s past. Almost, but not quite. Joseph actually said something to the effect of ‘we’re sorry, but PN should be sorry too/sorry for provoking us’. It’s redolent of a wife-beater’s apology – ‘sorry, but she provoked me’. He did the same thing again after Labour supporters beat up elderly PN zealots in Zejtun. By putting ‘provocation’ (whatever that might be) and violence on the same level, you are condoning violence because petty provocations will be there forever.
Moviment Graffitti are organising a “Walk against racism” tomorrow evening. Here is an extract from the invitation I received:
Paceville has long been a place where racism is the order of the day. The majority of clubs do not let black persons in and when these persons try to protest this decision they often risk violent aggression.
This is NOT acceptable! We will NOT accept an Apartheid in Malta!
We are not in any way accusing the Maltese people of being racist, however we cannot ignore that realities of racism are also taking root in our country.
Let’s show that there is a part of Malta which rejects racism. On Saturday 13th June Moviment Graffitti is inviting the public to a peaceful walk in the streets of Paceville, starting at 7:30pm from Baystreet.
Bring candles with you
Much as I find this personification of “Paceville” as some kind of being with a will of its own unproductive, I agree with the idea of a peaceful demonstration to make a point about intolerance.
It might be time to revive the dormant project of “The Lamppost Movement” that was, at the time, a reaction of the Maltese blogosphere to rabid, racist comments by some members of Maltese society. The Lamppost had been adopted as a symbol of light in the darkness of intolerance also in reaction to the nazi idea of hanging reactonaries from lampposts. Every blogger had chosen his lamppost (as collected on flickr) and adhered to the campaign.
I am willing to hand over the idea and organisation of the Campaign to someone who is in Malta. It’s a campaign that is needed and once again I insist.. it should not be “against” something but in favour of values such as tolerance and diversity.
Slideshow of blogger’s lampposts here.
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6. The Knaves with Knives
Tribal dualism is what this EP election has reaffirmed in many ways. Never was it more strikingly obvious than when the breeding ground of nationalist gossipry decried “Staunch Nationalists don’t campaign for Labour“. And to think we bothered to even try to argue with these people some time back.
Until a year ago the favourite subject of nationalist mental bashing was the “floater” who dared “waste” his vote. Worse than that. The floater would be told that he, and anyone else backing him was “setting himself up as an object of hate”. The selling point this year switched to “Taste” and while the third parties got a huge drubbing and the electorate reaffirmed the ever so helpful duopoly the 35,000 vote gap between PL and PN set off a Witch Hunt at the online Nationalist pink blog where hardliners aggregate for a dose of Manoel Cuschieri PN style.
Lino Spiteri’s article in the Times about a ‘nationalist’ lawyer who felt at home at a meeting supporting Labour MEP Louis Grech set the tongues wagging and keyboards ticking. Unacceptable isn’t it? A nationalist feeling at home at a labour meeting? What is the world coming to? No. He must be one of two things: ungrateful or an opportunist.
The two are not mutually exclusive and I am still to discover whether there is an ounce of truth in many of the allegations regarding government contracts allocated to a law firm that are being bandied about (you know dirty linen and its bad habit) all over DCG’s site. What is really, really interesting is the logic behind all the mud slinging….
Apparently it is OK (or OK-ish) for a hypothetical law firm to get contracts from government SO LONG AS his vote and support remains firmly entrenched in the PN side. How does J’accuse conclude this?
Well. Easy. Everyone on DCG’s blog seems intent on claiming that Michael Grech, the lawyer in question, enjoyed some nice patronage from government contracts. Now we cannot definitely know if it is true, at least not for now, BUT in their minds it is a fact. Which begs the first question: Did they only just discover this or have they known for ages?
Which leads us to the second point. So Michael Grech ALLEGEDLY supported Louis Grech at a meeting. If he did, and I am not saying he did, he had every right to do so. What irks me is this: Do the angry and sour nationalists led by the Gossip Queen only bring out their knives and accusations of “off with his head” now that the lawyer has (supposedly) switched sides? If they really believed that a law firm was obtaining undue favours from government why speak now? No prizes for guessing the answer to that one.
You reap what you sow.
Boy, are we in for one hell of a harvest (a taste of the very best medicine)
The Haiku
orwell reprised
red vote is bad blue vote good
same but different
sophism
2. any false argument or fallacy. — sophister, n. — sophistic, adj.
AND HERE IS DAPHNE ON TODAY’S INDY:
As for using your sacred vote to teach somebody else a lesson, what can I say about the sort of person who does that? A real man, a real woman, a person of honour, somebody who is not a coward, expresses himself or herself personally, face to face, or publicly, as I and others do.
That is what real, sophisticated democracy is all about. Using your vote as a threat or a bribe is the democracy of the most backward villages in southern Italy in the 1950s, and if you don’t believe me I have a couple of anthropological studies I can send you.
