Tag: Lawrence Gonzi

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J'accuse : Hermes' New Clothes

Hermes the classical Greek God − and not the modern sartorial homonym − had “messenger of the Gods” as his main job description. Clad in nowt but his birthday suit, and often depicted with wingèd limbs, his main business was supposed to be that of the transmission of information among the deities busy playing with the dice of fate and generally fornicating with the more pleasurable parts of the populace. With that in mind, and probably for reasons of expedience, the classics also made Hermes patron of such things as orators and wit, weights and measures, literature and sport and invention, as well as business in general. Think Austin Gatt but sexy when naked.

It would seem that the Olympic deities would share portfolios much like a latter-day Gonzi Cabinet − surely it was less of an attempt at saving the citizens millions of obols and more of a ploy by the priests and sibyls to garner a larger part of the worshipping business. Plus ça change. But back to Hermes, that god of communication and boundaries (and the travellers crossing them). Were we to revive the pagan practice of worshiping patron gods for every nuance in our lives, a rejuvenated Hermes would find that he has a much more challenging job cut out for him.

Proximity

The relationship between geographical distance and information has, over the past few years, been sufficiently twisted as to defy the previously simple laws of physics. Take your average battle in, say, 490 BC. Marathon − the place not the race − and the Persians have just been soundly beaten (or if you believe Herodotus and not Fantozzi then the Persians are about to be engaged) so someone needs to carry some information to someone else (again either “We Won” or “Help”). Enter Pheidippides who volunteers for the run. He goes on foot. It takes him some time and he runs naked.

Take your modern day pitched battle. Say an FA Cup match between deadly rivals Man U and Liverpool. We watch it live in HD in our sitting room. Meanwhile, a pretty miffed multimillionaire player (fully clothed) tweets at the end of the match about how referee Webb might as well have worn a Man U outfit. Thousands read Babel’s (oh so apt) missive and the player is duly fined the next day for having stepped beyond the line of the “player – referee” respectful relationship. All in a matter of minutes.

It’s weird and difficult for our generation to get accustomed to. We who grew up with geography lessons about wheat in Saskatchewan, coffee in Brazil and tea in Ceylon can barely keep up with the information overload at the tips of our fingers. The twisted physics (and geography) is such that the story of floods in Brisbane creates more affinity (what I choose to call a feeling of involvement) than that of the tumult in Tunisia. Sure, the press are to blame (or to shoulder some form of responsibility) − for if they filter the news accordingly then those of us who still depend on local mouthpieces (and by local I mean national) will never hear of General Lebled’s plight in the prisons of Sfax.

Relevance

So are we more deeply moved by the story of Christina Taylor Green, born on 11/9/01 and died in Arizona than by the deaths of civilians in the Tunisian riots? Why does the English speaking press give the Brisbane floods more coverage than those in Rio? Here’s a fact: 537 people are reported dead in Rio de Janeiro and 12,000 made homeless. Australia’s floods killed 16 people. In the weird domino of affinity and relevance you might notice that English-speaking media (and this includes new media) covered the Australian floods much more extensively than the Rio disaster.

Should we be surprised that the Maltese press found more to say about families of “Gozo extraction” (is that like a mine or something?) leaving Brisbane than about the hundreds of Cariocas losing their lives? What does surprise me is the lack of information about the Maltese caught up in the crossfire at Tunisia. Malta made it to the international news thanks to speculation that the defecting President Ben Ali might choose our shores (he preferred Dubai in the end), otherwise our proximity to the land of Carthage counted for nowt insofar as we were concerned. What to make of that?

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Content

There are benefits to this whole business of the new era of information. Gradually, society will develop new filters in which relevance is determined in different ways. It might be anybody’s guess whether the manipulators of information get their hands on those filters first. In any case the openness of the Internet that had hitherto been spreading can only be a boon. I say hitherto because challenges to this form of freedom of expression are evident in all quarters. Whether you like or hate Assange, the latest attacks on his site and supporters are signs of a new pitched battle between the former forces of media control (in the name of the general good) and the new media’s seemingly uncontainable spread.

We are faced with a challenge of working hard on our own personal filters. Armed with i-gadgets bringing us first hand tweets, links and news, we can choose to be passive or active. Hermes’ New Clothes are shiny and can be deceptive. Politicians are still learning to communicate beyond their normal reach (and to deal with the unexpected consequences). Sarah Palin’s double-whammy, thanks to her ill-advised crosshair gaffe, should be a lesson to anybody attempting to abuse the power of communication by stirring up hatred instead of informed dissent.

We can sit back and compare the truths behind Tunisian unrest and protest and Joseph Muscat’s Friday parade in Valletta. On the one hand we had a people against an oppressive regime that went beyond arrogance and lack of respect for rights. On the other hand we are witnessing the fabrication of an opportunistic Opposition that is playing with the toy of public displeasure at current economic downsides without stopping to concretely propose a new way ahead.

Fashions

What will we fashion out of the information available? Muscat mentioned investing in competitiveness. Behind the empty campaigning lies an awful truth: competitiveness is the key to Malta’s future. However, competitiveness can only be sown in a field of merit, accountability and open information. It is not Joseph’s half-baked litany of buzzwords that is needed to give some hope to this country. It is a new generation of non-PLPN politicians who can see beyond the old style propaganda and crowd stirring rhetoric.

Maybe it’s not just Hermes who needs new clothes.

www.akkuza.com invites you to see the video of Tunisia’s freedom rapper General Lebled… Et In Cartago Ego.

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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?

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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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Gonzi Condemns Plategate (and its babies)

Prime Minister Gonzi’s letter to the Times is a rarity by local political terms. It takes quite a provocation for a PM to put pen to paper and express his thoughts in a letters page on one of the local rags. Foreign leaders are wont to this kind of behaviour although more often than not it is a representative from the government leader’s office (the cursèd spokesperson) who will perform the necessary duties or clarifications. On several occasions, foreign leaders have been known to take up column space in reputable papers with their wisdom or in their own defence. From Sarkozy to Blair to most Italian leaders it is quite a normal act to follow.

What was strangely interesting about Prime Minister Gonzi’s letter was not simply the form (a letter not an article) which could simply explained by the concept of answering like with like but the reason for this foray into the letters pages while wearing the hat of prime minister. PM Gonzi had been disturbed by a badly constructed accusation in a previous letter, or so it seemed if your attention was alerted to the issue by the PM’s letter.

If like me, you worked backwards – checking out what caused our PM’s foray – you discovered firstly that there were actually two letters using the title referred to by the PM (Upholder of Values or Downright Bigots). The first was by a JBB (Joseph Bonnett Balzan – and not the regular j’accuse reader) and the other by the erstwhile scourge of nationalist writings Mr Eddie Privitera. You needed further clues as to who exactly PM Gonzi was referring to since he had omitted to distinguish between letter (1) and letter (2).

Which led you to the quote lifted from the letter. Dr Gonzi had taken umbrage in particular to this phrase: ““… taken of the law into his hands with fatal consequences…”. Which is more of an unfinished phrase and a misquote to be honest. The full quote, not to take things out of context should have been:

The rebel boy must thank his lucky stars that we are living in a somewhat more enlightened time than two decades ago, though occasionally the news reaches us that an estranged husband has taken the law into his hands with fatal consequence for the adulterer

Now Bonnett Balzan’s letter is an illustration of anything but the “enlightened times” that he refers to and the author is a perfect example of conservative, ignorant bigotry (how’s that for heavy language). Had I been the PM I would have found many more phrases to object to than the one I just quoted – particularly the veiled references to Islam at the end of the letter. Apart from that Bonnett Balzan’s lingo is astonishingly similar to much of the crap that passes for intelligent discussion on blog comment boards nowadays.

The curious incident of the partial quotation waters down the import of Gonzi’s reaction. At the end of the day what the PM actually quotes can mean a myriad other things and is not really a jibe at “means justifies the end for politicians” as Dr Gonzi would have us believe. Bonnett Balzan, speaking from his stylite pulpit, is simply reminding us of the not too infrequent recourse to violent means taken by husbands who have discovered an adulterer in their midst. Stoning anyone?

Bonnett Balzan’s condescending bullshit is just that. All the “rebel boy”, “adulterer”, “honorable” lingo makes Bonnett stand out as a miserable version of Malta’s conservativism without the need of a Prime Minister going out of his way to point that out. So what was Gonzi’s point I hear you ask?

Well. It is baffling. Why react?  More importantly why misquote?  After all Bonnett B is a fervent (never a more appropriate word) admirer of the “job-creating Prime Minister” and not your average Eddie Privitera. The title of the letter should give us a clue: “In favour of mature debate”. Really? Where has the PM and his office been the last few years? Something must be on his mind now. He was quoted by Maltatoday as having said that “political discourse is degenerating” to which the J’accuse facebook reply was “about time someone noticed”.

Then there is the business of the misquote. It is deliberate. It is deliberate because the PM then leads on to the catholic lesson of the day: “Whatever the circumstances, I will never endorse an approach where “the end justifies the means”, even when the end is a noble cause.” Presumably he would never backstab political allies on the eve of an election after a pro-EU campaign conducted hand in hand. Or presumably Dr Gonzi is reminding people like Bonnett Balzan that he will not participate in pontificating bigotry.

Then PM Gonzi went on to issue a blanket condemnation. A sort of veiled fatwa from the state’s head:

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.

Which should really get some blogs thinking. Mature? Now where have I heard that word before.

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J’accuse : ‘Les sanscouilles’

At the time of the French revolution, part of the French population took to calling another part of the population “les sansculottes”. According to one theory, the name is derived from the fact that the partisans of this particular revolutionary faction wore pantaloons (full-length trousers) instead of the fashionable knee-length culotte. (Wikipedia’s summary). I’ve always wondered why rather than being called ‘Les Pantaloons’, they were defined by what they did not wear, but that must be down to the fact that the point where sartorial affairs and politics converge more often than not involves criticism rather than praise.

Anyway, together with the Jacobins, the sansculottes were among the violent elements of the revolution. Unlike the Jacobins, they came from the working class and have bequeathed us the term “sans-culottism” meaning extreme egalitarian republican principles. The sansculottes disappeared shortly after the fall of Robespierre’s reign of terror and they left us the image of the carmagnole, the red cap of liberty and the sabots (clogs).

In today’s exciting times we have witnessed revolutions linked to colours, such as the red, purple and orange revolutions. We have also, in moments of great social upheaval, witnessed the blooming of “styles” and “fashions” that are a result of or reaction to the current political mood. In that sense, the sansculottes were the precursors to the mods, the punks, the rebels and the twittervolutionaries of today’s world but never, ever in his life would Jacques (René, if you please) Hébert, the revolutionary mentor of the sansculottes, have imagined the possibility of the movement of “les sanscouilles”.

Balls

Yet, all through this past week you couldn’t help but wonder whether just such a movement is forming in our collective sub-conscious and whether or not it manifested itself in the guise of our more prominent politicians and so-called investigative journalists when the divorce issue was once again discussed. Maltese, being the flowery expressive language that it is, lends itself perfectly to explaining what les sanscouilles is all about – and unless the linguistic fascists are hiding in ambush behind some corner, the best way to spell the Maltese version of sanscouilles is bla bajd.

Yep. The sanscouilles movement is made up of a combination of political Farinellis combined with the journalistic eunuchs who tend to fan their divas during performances. Lest I be accused of gender bias, I invite you to consider this whole ballsy business as an extended metaphor that applies to male and female alike. The defining trait of the sanscouilles is their inability to shoulder a modicum of responsibility and provide an inkling of inspirational politics; instead of responsibly taking a stand one way or another, they will wait to see which way the wind is blowing and find innumerable ways to postpone putting their neck on the line.

Contrary to public perception, the notion of the sanscouilles has less to do with ideas of virility and more with the ideal of responsible leadership. A quick run through the week’s events on divorce should really lead this country’s last remaining conscientious voters to despair. The sanscouilles movement is gaining ground… it is out there. It is everywhere.

The Emperor’s Clothes

I was told that Joseph Muscat pulled of quite a performance on Tuesday’s self-referential show of investigative journalism. I was told that by friends of mine who don’t usually bother turning up at the ballot box on Malta’s five-year anniversary equivalent of Doomsday. It was when the press started to report Joseph’s refreshed position on divorce that I wondered how my friends could buy this kind of pitch from a politician who, in the words of a commentator on J’accuse, “appears to have acquired his political education from the back of a Belgian beer mat”.

Then it clicked. Surely the prancing and sashaying of Malta’s prime example of castrato journalism could only have unwittingly (absence of wit is taken as read in most programmes) aided and abetted Muscat’s unprincipled approach to the divorce debate. Of course, if, unlike me, you are more than willing to watch the Emperor march around naked without giving him so much as a word of warning as to his glaring state of nudity, then you too will be equally appeased with his idea of “responsible divorce” combined with a “free vote for his party”.

The presenter’s position is compromised from the start. Comforted by the fact that his bias no longer needs to be declared (it’s to himself, lest you were wondering), his programmes are beyond “boring and dull”, having transformed into a self-referential sequence exposing the very best of selective journalistic incompetence. At any other time, on any other channel, Lou could be playing whatever tune he likes but prime time investigative journalism on national TV deserves much more than the image of castrated journalists playing second fiddle to whatever member of Parliament is on stage at the moment. Given that WE’s other programme has now completely taken leave of all senses and started to discuss close encounters of the third kind, the urgent need of a non-castrated style of journalism is all the more glaring.

But back to Muscat. His particular brand of sanscouillism is of the incredibly non-committal kind while sounding the exact opposite. Unless you manage to cut beyond the words and look into what is really being said, you might as well be listening to Ahmed the Dead Terrorist. Which is why Bondi’s castrato style journalism could not work. If he challenges Muscat he gets reminded that he is biased. If he goes along with him he ends up promising to endorse his “responsible divorce” campaign.

Muscat’s tergiversation stems from an inability to place the divorce issue in real constitutional terms and fails to appreciate his responsibilities both as Leader of the Opposition and aspirant leader of a nation. Divorce is not the kind of “right” that results from some majority-voting stint but is a legal possibility that is enacted in the interests (more often than not) of the few. What Muscat fails to understand is that you can be in favour of divorce legislation without necessarily being in favour of divorce.

Muscat tries to get away with this new-fangled notion of “responsible” divorce as though there is such a thing as irresponsible divorce. Sure we do not want a situation where the mere repetition of the cursèd word thrice would result in divorce like some Red Slippers gone all matrimonial. On the other hand, this shuffling of feet and hiding behind terms is not progressive at all. A progressive leader should have taken the bull by the horns and by this time presented what his idea of divorce should be – caveats and all – and be pushing to get it enacted in parliament for the benefit of those citizens who fulfil the conditions and desire to move on to a different, married life. Instead we get enigmatic “responsible divorce”. Well, so long as it’s responsible. Then again. What if I said “responsible mercy killing”? What say you about “responsible heroin consumption”? “Responsible castration”?

The high kind of pitch

And while Muscat was busy dancing with Lou to whatever music was being played at the never-ending end credits, Malta’s own Don Quixote was busy meeting our Prime Minister on the matter of his draft law on divorce. Now, I have already once more lauded JPO for the single-handed way he has pushed the sanscouilliste movement into some form of action on the divorce matter. On the other hand it was particularly jarring to see the push and pull of the JPO-Gonzi saga shortly after the meeting took place. First JPO met some members of the free press and declared that next year would be a great time for the harvest of both parliamentary discussions and referendum.

What-ho? Yep. The erstwhile backbencher had apparently been given the nihil obstat from up high to announce to the men of the realm that divorce would definitely be on the agenda in 2011, as would be an eventual referendum. Referendum? Did anyone say referendum? Is our hero tilting at windmills, suddenly drained of all mental faculties? Has he too succumbed to sanscouillism? Who on earth mentioned referenda? Do these folks even know how things are meant to work in this constitutional republic of ours?

Better still out came the OPM claiming that, yes, there was an agreement to proceed with the discussion but there was no mention of a referendum and that it would be best left to the electorate to decide. The electorate? It was like being knocked out twice within an hour. No referendum plus the electorate can only mean one thing in my book: that we will wait for the next general election for the divorce issue to be placed in the party’s manifesto and that a vote on the matter could only be taken after such a national vote.

Marchons! Marchons! A la Castille! You could hear the hordes of sanscouilles marching in line. They would storm Castille once again and spread the revolutionary fervour of the ball-less to the four corners of the islands. The divorce question had become a question of pass the parcel all over again and from Muscat to JPO to Gonzi the movement of the sanscouilles could only offer the electorate a castrato version of realpolitik. Wash your hands and let them decide. Pontius Pilate would be proud.

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The seven brothers

Then it came. When you least expected it and from the last place you would expect it. The voice of reason. Seven Church brothers sat down around a table and fleshed out a declaration “on conscience and divorce”. In the land of sanscouillism, seven men of the cloth came up with an eye-opener of a declaration that made you want to stand up on the nearest pulpit or stage and shout “Hallelujah”. Here was a ballsy statement divorced from the fire and brimstone rhetoric of brother Said Pullicino and divorced from the foot shuffling opportunism of the sanscouilliste community. The seven brothers called a spade a spade. And they reminded the whole bloody lot of the sanscouilliste community of the political role of one’s conscience – and one’s responsibility towards both society and one’s conscience.

For yes, there was much more to be read into the seven brothers’ invitation than a simple reminder that a real Catholic votes with an informed conscience. They went beyond that. They had no qualms reminding the devout that “for Catholics divorce is wrong whether permitted by civil law or not”. However, they did also emphasise the importance of evaluating one’s options by acting with an informed conscience bearing in mind one’s own morals and values – in this case God’s teaching.

The seven brothers introduced a new, important angle to the argument. They have not only repaired the damage to the Church’s image caused by Said Pullicino’s media-eval stance, but have provided an important example for the wider society. I dare go so far as stating that theirs is the real Christian democrat position that is miles apart from the tergiversation within the soul of the supposed Christian democrat party of Malta.

This is the how the role of a social actor is fulfilled. With a clear indication and an appraisal of every individual’s role in society and how he should go about fulfilling it. Instead of fire and brimstone, the brothers gave us the duty to inform our conscience and decide in good faith based on those considerations. After all, it is not just votes on the introduction of divorce that require greater reflection and an informed conscience. Someone, somewhere, still has faith in intelligent voters who will get us out of this mess.

www.akkuza.com is still sick of laryngitis. We’re sicker still of the sanscouillistes but still can’t find the right prescription.

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J'accuse : Abre los Ojos

Labour (Inhobbkom’s Labour not Ed’s New New One) is busy conferencing this weekend. They’re huddled cosily in the university’s Aula Magna for a full day of talks in a conference entitled “Revisting Labour’s History” and I still cannot get over the fact that I was unable to make it there. Yes, you read that right, I would have loved to witness at first hand this conference of sorts that is part of the wider Labour strategy of “Re-”s. They’re re-visiting their history, re-inventing their logo, re-gurgitating old economic principles, re-moving their facial hair and (once again) re-cycling an image that has been a work in progress since is-Salvatur ta’ Malta went into re-tirement (never a minute too late).

There’s something manifestly wrong in the way Labour went about this whole “re-” business though, and this weekend’s conference contains some clear pointers to what that could be. Someone, somewhere is guilty of a gross miscalculation when choosing the title first of all: “Revisiting Labour’s History”. It’s the political equivalent of a Freudian slip combined with all the evident trappings of a modern day “Pimp my Party” in the making. The term “revisit” is a few letters away from becoming “revise” and I have a hunch that this is not a small coincidence.

In legal terms, when a court revisits an earlier decision it normally does so because of the necessity of reinterpreting the earlier position – there would be not other reason to revisit and reopen the case. In historical terms there is another “re-” word that is of relevance here. It’s the idea of revisionism. Revisionism need not always be extreme as in holocaust denial. Reading through the agenda of this weekend’s conference, I couldn’t help but think that Labour is sorely tempted to rewrite some chapters of history of its own. They’ve been at it for a while now and we have all become used to the polyphonic history of our islands – whether it is sung by Mary Spiteri to the tunes of Gensna or whether it is yelled from the pedestals of il-Fosos by the latest crowd-stirring nationalist orator – the messages are always excitingly dissonant and cacophonous: the result of two virtual realities and perceptions colliding.

Rapid eye movement

The political audience is already, as it is, doomed to the regular resurrection of revisited myths and legends in our political discourse. The narratives woven by opposing parties are now firmly ingrained in our collective minds and it is hard to reasonably detach from them completely. It is extremely significant that, bang in the middle of the process of change and reinvention, Labour chose to “revisit” its history and discuss, among other things: “The Worker Student Scheme: 1978-1987”. As I type (11.30am, Saturday, 2 October), Peter Mayo is about to launch into an explanation of how Great Leader Mintoff (May God Give Him Long Life and Order a Hail of Stones on All His Evil Wishers) sowed the seeds of the stipend system and how we must be eternally grateful for his insights that allowed us to progress to a university accepting 3,000+ freshers this year.

The irony will be lost on the listeners sitting in that cosy hall of the Aula Magna on the 2nd of October 2010 that 33 years and one day before this the atmosphere in that very same place would best have been described as tensely electric. I wonder whether Peter Mayo will stop for a moment to explain to the young listeners (I’d imagine a Nikita Alamango fawning in the audience – one who according to her latest Times “blog” post cannot stand the PN reminders of the past) that on the 3rd October 1977 the opening ceremony at university featured heavy protests by the medical students who had just been shut out of the course (and always risked brutal cancellation if the thugs decided that it was open day at Tal-Qroqq).

Sure, it was not yet 1978 so it might (just) be beyond Peter Mayo’s remit. He will be forgiven therefore for not reminding those present that only two days later, on 5 October 1977, the man dubbed as is-Salvatur tal-Maltin would walk past a group of students chained to the railings in Castille oblivious to the fact that his government’s decisions in the educational sector (the much lauded Worker Student Scheme) were about to deny thousands of young people the path to tertiary education and send them abroad in droves.

Remember, remember the 5th of October

To be fair to Peter Mayo he probably couldn’t dare criticise the workings of the Great Leader. Not after a wonderful morning discussing his battles with the church in the sixties and his “electrifying” speeches to the proletariat. The electric effect Mintoff and his handymen had on some parts of the population would best be described as “shocking” actually. Whatever you may think of Labour’s dim-witted purposive ignorance of the past and bulldozering of historic relevance, don’t you for one moment run away with the idea that it is only the party of Joseph, Evarist (Bartolo – of removed stipends fame) and Alfred (Sant – of interview boards at university) who is in the business of revising historical facts.

You see, I sympathise with such Young Turks as Nikita Alamango who are frustrated at having to carry the burden of Labour’s past every time they squeak a new idea or criticise the current regime (sorry – did I say regime? – it’s the “Re” word fixation). Hell, this week even the German Republic paid the final instalment in World War I Reparations (started paying in 1919 and was suspended as long as Germany was split). Ninety-two years on and the German conscience is slightly freer – so why not Labour? Most times they are right. PN lackeys all too often emerge from the primordial slew of infertile political ground and rely on historical mudslinging for want of a better argument.

The problem I have with Labour is twofold – disputing the relevance of past actions is one thing. Revising (sorry, revisiting) them is another. Revisiting them on the anniversary of events that marked the watershed of Old Labour’s hopeless politics of the late 70s is insulting – insulting not just to the PN hardliners but also to neutral observers like myself who can see through the charade. Labour cannot expect this to go unnoticed. It is strategically stupid and politically insensitive. It does not stop at conferences: Recently, someone from Labour’s “think-tank” (IDEAT) was busy on Facebook quoting a party press release which stated that the current government’s agreements with China are a confirmation of the Labour vision of the seventies. Sit down and weep.

Virtually real

Mine is not simply an angry case of indignation though. Labour’s Revisionist Conference is part of a wider mentality that is the inner workings and thinking of the two major parties in this country. In this day and age of multimedia and mass communication, the modes of communication might be evolving at such a rapid pace that we will soon be tweeting in our sleep, but there is one basic constant whether it’s TV, radio, newspaper or Internet and that constant is the word. In principio stat verbum (in the beginning was the word) and it’s going to be with us for a long time yet.

Words and their meaning are at the basis of whatever construction of reality we choose to live in. Einstein once stated that reality is an illusion but a very good illusion at that. The PLPN (un)wittingly engage in a constant battleground of establishing the reality in which we live (and that is why they NEED the media influence). Whether we are considering the “cost of living”, the “minimum wage” or the “living wage”, we sometimes fail to notice that a large number of constants that we take for granted in these arguments are the fruit of elaborate definitions of perception suited to whatever party is making its claim. We are not that dopey really – there is a general acceptance that “parties colour the world as best they see it”, and although as a nation we struggle to come to terms with irony and sarcasm we still manage to joke about the PL-PN chiaroscuro worlds.

I am not sure however about how much the electorate is in control of the button that switches us between perception and reality. How capable are we of switching off the virtual reality and putting our foot down when we believe that things have been taken too far? Can we decide when we want to open our eyes? Are we, like the character in Almodovar’s Abre Los Ojos (open your eyes – spoiler warning) still able to opt out of the programme that creates a “lucid and lifelike virtual reality of dreams” and yell that enough is enough? Worse still – have the very parties that are responsible for the manufactured realities that we inhabit become so embroiled and enmeshed in them that they are unable to find the switch themselves?

Denial

Take the Nationalist Party. They are an incredible subject for this sort of test. This week they engaged in a mind-boggling collective exercise of denial of truths. We had Minister Tonio Fenech and his cataclysmic Tax-Free Maid slip. Watching The Times interview that gave Tonio a chance to right his previous wrongs was like watching an exercise in verbal prestidigitation featuring a ministerial equivalent of the Mad Hatter. Quizzed on VAT he replied on Stamp Duty and vice-versa, and then went on a trip about not having to answer about private affairs that he himself had brought up as a public example. You could only squirm in your seat as you watched Tonio attempt to make his statements vanish into thin air. Apologists tried other tactics – the cream of the crop coming from the Runs claiming that since the law is inadequate then Tonio and his maid are right in not following it to the letter. Perception? Forget the doors… they’ve swallowed the key.

Meanwhile El Supremo del Govermento was busy wearing the party hat, having been asked to pass summary judgement on the PBO-VAT saga. Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi found absolutely nothing incongruous with the fact that his very exacting sec-gen failed to apply his own standards of political propriety when faced with a legal crisis of his own. Same same but different – just like in the alleyways in Thailand when they sell fake brands. Fake – it’s just an illusion of reality but not exactly so.

As if PBO and Tonio were not enough, we also had the DimechGate spin-off in the form of the uncomfortable presence of Robert Arrigo – the last of the disgruntled backbenchers. PN councillor Yves Cali was the latest to slip in a frank interview with The Times in which he more than just alleged that Arrigo was in the business of throwing his weight around the council to get what he wants. Yves (or Bobby) tried to retract his statement so an irritated Times published a transcript of the interview in which the allegations were made. A transcript – that’s a word for word proof that the statements were made. Quizzed about this, Paul Borg Olivier (fresh from his own reality check) came up with the quote of the week by insisting that the transcript published by The Times was “not faithful to the statement of clarification made by Yves Cali”.

Open your eyes

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Take your time and read that short, Orwellian PBO phrase. If ever there was an example of the convoluted logic somersaults performed by parties to twist your perception of reality, here it was.

The transcript (a text bearing witness to reality at its crudest) was not faithful to the statement of clarification (an attempt at revising/reinterpreting that reality). And which reality does PBO want you to believe? No prizes for guessing.

We need to open your eyes. This is a political generation that one week expresses its love for the environment on car free day while parading in front of journalists using alternative modes of transportation and then, in the following week, the collective parliamentary group (PLPN) self-allocates a huge chunk of (previously pedestrian) Merchants Street for reserved MP parking in connivance with the Valletta Local Council (remember Cali? “We serve our MPs and Labour serve theirs”). The excuse? It will free up more parking for residents and visitors. Park and Ride anyone?

It’s time we opened our eyes – and remember, sometimes actions speak louder than words.

www.akkuza.com would like to congratulate Toni Sant (and friends) for the www.m3p.com.mt project. Happy Student’s Day to you all!

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