It’s Student’s Day and the University of Malta is abuzz as it is wont to be on such an occasion. I haven’t seen anything online about the KSU or University commemorating this moment in history but that might be for fear of Deborah Schembri or Cyrus Engerer lashing back and reminding us that bringing up the past is for pussies. Or something like that.
Student’s Day. A protesting student did make the headlines by exposing Malta’s sleepy minister to a barrage of expletives. The reason? Numerus clausus? Censorship? No. Arriva. The bus commute from Naxxar to Valletta is too long so fuck you Austin. Unlike Michael Frendo back in ’77 (go ahead correct me) this particular student did not get a taste of the Lorry Sant or Wistin Abela thug fraternity. Don’t get me wrong I’m all for hurling expletives at Ministers if that is your particular cup of tea… I only wish we had a video of the event for posterity’s sake. Did she also reserve an insult or two for the vanishing act that is Manuel Delia? Attagirl.
Illustration #1: A student makes the headlines
And while we are on the subject of thugs. Here’s how the youth of today, the progressive youth, spend their time on Student’s Day. Here’s Alex Saliba celebrating god knows what anniversary from the death of that paladin of tertiary education and buildings for the people Lorry Sant. Thank (expletive removed) that I had LIKED a comment in reply to Alex’s blurb before it was picked up by the Runs otherwise lord knows what new fantasies and phantsies of plagiarism or idea-theft would have been found in that corner of the blogoverse.
Illustration #2: Lorry's Anniversary
And speaking of young progressives I cannot fail but mention Aaron Farrugia – the spokesperson of Fondazzjoni Ideat whose idea of a retort in an argument is accusing his interlocutor of being an armchair critic. Aaron picked on one of Dear Leader’s rumblings at Tal-Qroqq and decided it was quotable enough as marketing material – proof of Labour’s sound vision for the future. Apparently Joseph Muscat tells us that the UOM should be a centre for learning and creativity. A university for learning did you say? There we were thinking University was only for Realtà controversies, campus fests and rag days (do they still do that one?).
I gave Aaron a taste of his own medicine (oops… can I use that phrase or is it now copyright) and suggested more catchy phrases like: “Fishermen should catch and sell fresh fish. Grocers should sell vegetables. Farmers should reap what they sow.” How does the chairman of Labour’s think tank react to my obvious allegation that this is not a proposal but a useless populist tautology? Well after toying with the usual “armchair critic” piffle… he does what seems to be done best by most Maltese when challenged to discuss: he blocks me from his facebook account. Luckily I had picture evidence of the exchange:
Armchair Escapism
One last thing about university. The barrier is already quite low as it is. Labour’s new championing of students’ right to enter courses could of course be commendable. What is truly worrying is the trend that seems to be moving confusingly towards declaring “graduation” as a right. The right is to access education. There is absolutely no right to successfully read a course. If you are hopeless at a course, if you are unqualified to read a course, then the only place for you is in the failure cabinet. I get this feeling that very little failures are forthcoming at University – resits are just a reminder “to do better next time”. This is just as worrying as having a numerus clausus. Surely someone, somewhere should be pointing this out. Otherwise might as well hand out random diplomas in combination with birth certificates. Then everybody would be equal… we’d be a nation of graduates… and who will need education then?
Surely not Lorry Sant.
ASIDE: Josanne Cassar has belatedly joined the blogging comunity by opening her own portal at www.josannecassar.com. It’s a bit more than a blog – more like a collection of articles and interviews but we’d like to wish her all the luck with this venture of hers.
George Vella, Malta’s possible future Foreign Minister has drawn his own conclusion about the best possible outcome that could result from the toppling of Gaddhafi. The Times online title says it all: “Libya can boom and ‘absorb’ immigrants“. Nothing wrong there really is there? I mean surely we cannot criticize George for hoping that Libya gets on its own two feet economically and thus act as a magnet to all potential North African emigrants. Let’s see how George put it (our highlights).
Libya could become an investment hub, “the Dubai of the Mediterranean”, and it could also capitalise on its white sandy beaches and crystal-clear waters to become a front-runner in the tourism industry, he said. Throwing into the mix its oil riches and small population density, if Libya opened to free trade it was bound to begin “absorbing” immigrants rather than remain a stepping stone into Europe, Dr Vella argued.
Right. I guess in the world of Realpolitik this is definitely much nicer and presentable than a plan to round up immigrants and send them back into the welcoming arms of deranged Colonel Gaddhafi (Gieh ir-Repubblika et al). When we remember Labour’s last pronouncement with regards to the Arab Spring though, it tends to bring out an unpleasant truth about the party that is suddenly become (at least according to some ) the bastion of Civil Liberties. Do we not remember Joseph Muscat’s gaffe that the troubles in North Africa might bring about an economic boost to Malta’s ailing tourism industry?
Joseph was busy holding an “Iftar” with the Muslim community so he might have missed George’s latest solution to Malta’s immigration woes. Pity. It would be good to know whether this reflects general Labour thinking or whether it is just a frijvowt issue – where opinions are like genitals… to each his own. Here is what Joseph said at the Iftar…
Dr Muscat said he expected that the PL would be criticised for its initiative to hold this ceremony, but this strengthened the party as an organisation which wanted to bring down barriers and believed in a society which respected everyone.
Respected everyone? Sure. So long as the dregs of the earth and the hapless immigrants find some other economy to drain. Who knows.. if Libya booms and absorbs well enough there might be no one to attend PL’s Iftarcome a few years time… I wonder… would that be a bonus or a minus? Don’t ask me.
Ask George.
Or Joseph.
***
Addendum: other interesting George Vella observations:
not too in favour of NATO (old habits die hard)
Western countries had always been motivated by their own interests, including personal political interests and the economic interests of their countries. Malta, throughout history, also had to look after its interests, he said (Malta. L-ewwel u qabel kollox)
“Malta did not choose its neighbour. Love or hate Gaddafi, we had to do business with him. No one ever agreed with his politics. We are democrats not dictators,” he said. All administrations had to remain close to the Gaddafi regime. (realpolitik revisited)
It’s not the interdiction is it? The PLis currently spinning the idea that the party is pro-divorce. I have no time for people who will vote NO to divorce just to spite Joseph Muscat’s spin. That’s stupid. However there is much to be said about this excessive opportunism by Labour and its leader – particularly after the insulting assertion that he is taking Malta into Europe.
J’accuse said it time and time again. Labour has abdicated from its responsibility as a progressive, modernist party. It has failed on all counts the moment it decided that any vote on divorce is not one for it to contemplate as a party. The “frijvowt” granted by Joseph to his parliamentarians is the proof of this abdication.
Labour has no position on divorce. Insofar as the vote on divorce is concerned Labour is as close to the Catholic Church’s position as it can get : it’s a question of conscience. This makes claims of a “new interdiction” as revived on the social media doubly ridiculous.
It is being argued that MPs are in duty bound “to respect the will of the people who elected them”, and that “they were elected by the majority and, therefore, they should respect the will of the same majority”.
In the specific case of the divorce issue, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando et al had no mandate to propose divorce legislation. Much less is he (or the Iva movement for that matter) qualified to pontificate on the moral obligation of MPs when they come to vote on an issue of conscience.
As far as I am concerned, I made it amply clear that I am determined to navigate by my own star in matters of conscience.
I have no hesitation in publicly affirming my intention to be loyal to my conscience and steadfast to my principles.
I am comforted by the added knowledge that, ever since I was elected to Parliament, I have had no mandate to tamper with the Maltese social structure by means of divorce legislation. Moreover, all Labour MPs have a “free vote” on this sensitive issue.
There you have it. It’s a sensitive issue so Labour has skirted it. It has given MPs like Adrian Vassallo the comfort to vote with their conscience and in doing so has abdicated on its duty as the only party in Malta that claims to be progressive. Just think of it: if PL was capable of carrying the vote on the simple issue of the referendum question then it basically has the key to a majority vote on the bill: all it needs to do is find a pair of balls big enough to take a position as a party.
Nous as in the platonian idea of intellect. Watching the first part of Toni Abela’s performance on TV I still cannot believe that this is what new PL is about. How can he equate a meeting of heads of state (PM Gonzi with Ben Ali) with the invitation of a disgraced Bulgarian socialist to a PL Conference? How stupid do they think we are? So long as he can quote “Candide” (which I doubt he read) then he can sit on a TV programme and claim that Labour’s invitee who was obviously intervening to prop Joseph’s policies (and not on a courtesy state visit) .
Well the more you hear the latest antics of Joseph’s Labour the more convincing is the argument that Alternattiva should be pitching their tent on Joseph’s former electoral base. Then I came across this Labour party production. Rewriting history is not a strong enough statement to describe this promo… it’s almost strong enough to make you reach for a PN membership application form.
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
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.
Helena Dalli MP penned an article in today’s Times (Politicking in Lilliput) in which she attacked PN’s councillor Cyrus Engerer for daring to insinuate that Labour’s councillors had it in for him because he is gay. Tut tut. Here at J’accuse we can see where the Labour MP is coming from and we do not need much convincing to realise that Cyrus’ is a ploy to distract from the troubles of the ill-fated Sliema Council and PN’s participation therein. What we did not appreciate were two shots by Ms Dalli MP that had absolutely nowt to do with the issue.
Firstly, in a manner most unbecoming to a member of the house of representatives (and more becoming of certain sections of the pink blogging media), Helena of Labour takes a dig at Cyrus’ name. What has Cyrus’ name got to do with the price of fish? Unless you were to detect ancient Greek vs. Persian vs Trojan undertones the dig at Cyrus’ name is completely gratuitous. Helena then moves on for the kill. Proudly parading Labour’s credentials in the pro-gay camp Helena raps Cyrus for not realising that ’twas a Labour government that decriminalised sodomy “in the 1970s, when being gay was considered a matter of shame by many and the word pufta was used liberally and meant as an insult to homosexuals and others.” Now that’s one hell of a history lesson. The angry MP goes on:
But, then, they wouldn’t teach these things in the one-year Masters degree course in political science at the College of Europe in Bruges, would they? Although they do teach students the necessary skills to research a “fact” before making claims, as opposed to relying on gut feeling.
Say what? Now I had no idea that Cyrus Engerer also attended the college I consider to be my second Alma Mater but forgive me for feeling a tad bit involved there. Since when are the achievements (?) of a Malta Labour government of the seventies in the field of sodomy an important part of the syllabus in a Masters degree course in political science? Should we really be tut-tutting all the way to the Belfroi that the lecturers in the “one-year” (sic – as against a five year Masters I guess) course failed to examine the intricate details of Labour’s massive movement for homosexual emancipation in the seventies?
Forgive me Helena but much as I may agree with you on the whole Cyrus charade and deviating tactics you really have shot yourself in the foot on this one. Labour might have come up with decriminalising sodomy in much the same manner and habit as PLPN have of legislating the obvious 50 or so years too late but Labour is also the same party whose secretary general was overheard describing a (I have to say this) “talk show host” as “Pufta” over the mic during a public meeting. That was early in the twenty first century not late in the twentieth. I doubt whether rights of homosexual persons have really been so well championed by the nouveau PL – and I sincerely doubt that any of the truck riding, violence distributing, hell raising bastards let lose in Mintoff’s era were in touch with their feminine side by the way.
As for Bruges. It really tickles me that an exponent of the progressive moderates’ agglomeration still believes in the kind of classist bullshit which il-Perit (Rhodes Scholar by the way) had gotten us used to. I am very aware that the Bruges scholarship is currently underfire in certain quarters for other reasons that are absolutely unrelated to the academic standards. I can proudly say, for one, that I got the scholarship on my own wind without any parrini or recommendations in the background. I can also proudly claim that the Bruges experience was very much like a Saint Aloysius’ sixth form abroad – once you make it in you are left to your own devices. Simple really – by handpicking a bright bunch from the start (no modesty intended – and when there are no saints pushing idiots into the system – something I cannot deny could be happening nowadays) the College of Europe needs input little else to guarantee an elevated standard. Voilà.
By misleadingly drawing the Bruges degree into your article you only succeeded in alienating your readers (at least the un-modest intelligent ones) from the main thrust of the argument. Bravo.
