Someone at the Juventus marketing division (or at a marketing firm contracted by Juventus) should be getting his knuckles rapped by now. It so happens that Juventus’ latest drive for memberships featured a picture of a woman’s face painted in the world famous black and white stripes with the wording “Pure Enjoyment”. A huge poster featuring this face was also displayed at Rome’s Stazione Termini much to the chagrin of the capitolini who probably regard the station as “home territory”. It was clear that Juventus wanted to follow up their successes last season with an aggressive membership drive, only to be spoilt by the lax laziness of some designer in an office who couldn’t be bothered with getting creative.
No. Said designer opted to plagiarise an idea from a fourth tier Spanish football team (Badajoz) who had featured the same black and white face in their own (more modest campaign). Even if the photo is sourced from some stock photo database the fact remains that the designer guy/lass copied the gist of Badajoz campaign without so much as an if you please.
It’s about standards really. Juventus FC’s image will not suffer much beyond the spoofs of rival supporters such as those of Inter FC (a team who until now has copied its logo (off Real) and plagiarised its tune (an injuction was issued by Celentano I believe to stop them playing it)).
It is the lack of professionalism that jars – and a lack of pride in one’s own work. Forgive me if I go back to Alfred E. Baldacchino’s intervention in the parliamentary Permanent Committee on Environment and Planning but it really was an example of how things should be done. Call it old style if you wish, or proper civil servant but it is there for all to see. (See Baldacchino’s post on the matter in his blog).
Pride in your own work is also important because each and every one of us is a cog in a greater wheel. This greater wheel and system is intended to function when every part of it works accordingly. If you look at MEPA as an institution that is currently under the lens we begin to understand the convoluted contradictions both in legal development as well as in planning practice that have grown over time. When architects and planners stay mum when faced with evident distortions of the law and deviations from proper policy, when the autonomy of an institution is put into serious jeopardy in order to satisfy a web of interests that have nothing to do with the aims of the institution itself then things go awry and they do so fast.
At the base of all this is an unprofessional approach to work, to ethics and to policy. This danger is all pervasive and does not stop at MEPA. Professionalism is strongly linked to dignity of the person. Dignity, in its turn is linked to happiness and enjoyment of life. Unprofessional, undignified behaviour may bring short term bursts of satisfaction to the weak minded and short-visioned but in the long term it promises misery for them and those around them.
I’ll be renewing my International Premium Membership with Juventus FC but I cannot say I am not concerned by the slip in the marketing department. It is this kind of sign of weakness that must be catered for immediately before you start a ride on the slippery slope to mediocrity. On and off the field.
We’ve been there before. This will be a useless post – a hopeless one really. In this post I’ll be pointing out that yet another aspiring politician has put his signature to an article that is full of excerpts that are not his own. You might read it if it tickles your fancy, or you might not. Most probably it will draw a few guffaws and some would go through the motions of tut-tutting for a while. The newspaper in question will probably not bother with the fact that its political contributor is a plagiarist. So why bother?
Well, notwithstanding the miasma of indifference that seems to have become the norm and standard for your average citizen I’ve decided to soldier on – go on the record so to speak. These are the men and women that your political parties will be suggesting that you send to Brussels and Strasbourg to represent you. When these men and women sign their articles in the paper and end it with “is an MEP election candidate on the PL ticket” they are basically looking for the Maltese reaction of: “bravu dan”, “ara kemm kiteb dwar l-Ewropa”, “nahseb jifhem”.
The Malta Independent has quite a history in particular of entertaining this kind of “articles” roughly shod together from bits and pieces over the internet. You can spot them a mile away. They normally carry the kind of title that would have been taken straight from an EU poster for some project and then segue into a series of very tenuously related paragraphs. It’s what you get when your “research” is any old Eu-related document that provides you with chunky “technical-sounding” phrases.
So here is il-Perit Clint Camilleri or rather – an article collated together from a document entitled “Dilemmas in Globalization – Exploring Global Trends and Progressive Solutions”. To be fair it’s a collection of essays for the Socialist Group in the European Parliament and Camilleri lifts extensively from Martin Schultz’s intervention. But he does not tell you does he? He just makes the material his own and that is fraudulent. Why is it fraudulent? Because it makes Camilleri appear to be someone who he is not – someone capable of writing an article about Social Europe in a technical manner.
Should that be important to you? Hell, I’ve given up – you decide. It would not surprise me one bit that this kind of “passing off as one’s own” is accepted as normal and ok behaviour. We’ve been rushing headlong down this path of indifference for quite some time now. Our parties have gotten us used to candidates that amount to nothing much more than hot air and pompous parading hiding behind some University degree or other. All the more fools are we when we persist in voting for them.
Today we are not only living a financial crisis but a crisis in globalization. The crises started in the financial system but have spread to every aspect of the economy, creating socio-economic disequilibrium. In order to save the financial system governments have invested millions of Euros but the problem is not to save only the financial system by restoring credit, but to sort out the huge structural economic problems which are at the origin of the problem. [J’accuse note – Lifted from introduction to document]
The growing inequality worldwide is at the heart of the problem. This is the most important dilemma we must face. We must decide whether we should restore a system that recompenses those that created the financial crises in the first place or transforming the system which will eventually address those at the bottom of the pyramid. [J’accuse note – also lifted from Introduction]
Some statistics of shame: According to the Eurostat, 59,000 Maltese were at risk of poverty – 14.6 % of the population, according to 2008 figures. ‘At risk of poverty’ is defined as meaning those living in a household with a disposable income that is below the risk-of-poverty threshold, which is set at 60% of the national median disposable income.
Eurostat said that in Malta, 16,000 were ‘severely materially deprived’. Such people could not pay rent/mortgage or utility bills, keep their home adequately warm or face unexpected expenses. They also could not afford to eat meat, fish or protein equivalent every second day an cannot afford a car, washing machine, colour TV or telephone.
If national income had been distributed more equal, with lower profits and higher salaries the overall European economy would have been more stable. If the wealth that was speculated had been fairly distributed in the form of lower prices and higher salaries we would have been able to minimise the effects from the crises.
The crises we are suffering is to a great extent the crises of a model based on the growth of inequality. Salaries which are too low and poverty amongst the middle class has driven credit consumption to the exploding point of debt. Thus credit is no longer a socially and extended and economically solvent request used for investment into new fields of real production. [J’accuse note – slightly paraphrased from intro on page 1]
Increased competitive pressures on the social systems threaten to damage the social cohesion of European societies. In face of the highly mobile global economy nation states have lost their capacity to act alone and to adequately protect social rights. While capital has swept away borders through the single market mechanism, the welfare state has remained trapped with national boundaries. For decades the EU success model was the combination of economic progress with social progress. Then the governing conservative majority in Europe decided to focus on the removal of trade barriers while sometimes neglecting the social dimension. [J’accuse note – page 16 of document]
Thinking in a global dimension has become a pre-requisite for finding solutions. Re-thinking governance and including new levels of governance expands the room for manoeuvre. Growing interdependence between societies and nation states does not only create new categories of problems, it offers the solution too. Nation states alone might not be the best vehicle for mitigating huge changes. The EU is much better equipped for finding solutions and implementing concrete measures in cooperation with other major players. [J’accuse note – page 14 of document]
Now is the time to correct this imbalance. It is time for a new social Europe that places people not the market at the centre of economic activity. Social progress clauses need to be included in every piece of EU legislation and social and environmental impact assessments needs to be taken into account. If Europe again shows its social face it will surely regain the trust and the support of its citizens. [J’accuse note – page 16 of document].
Perit Clint Camilleri is an MEP election candidate on the PL ticket
It’s been a long time since I went for the “round-up” style post but here is one for all kinds of tastes. Straight from the heart of eurodoubt we take a quick look at what’s going on in the world around us – and obviously pepper a few of our own comments. (and videos from the euronews youtube feed)
1. Plagiarism on the Independent
Well it’s not Malta’s Independent but the UK’s. Journalist and columnist Johann Hari made a public apology and promised to return the “George Orwell Prize” that he had been awarded after he admitted to having committed what he called “two wrong and stupid things”. The first “stupid thing” might not even sound like plagiarism to some but gives us a good example of the rigors of professional journalism. Hari was accused of replacing interviewees words with similar clips taken from books or articles elsewhere. The words used were by the same interviewees but they were not the ones they used in the interview.
The second “stupid thing” turns out to be really stupid. Hari adopted a user-name in order to edit Wikipedia entries. Here is his admission of his faults in this second error:
I factually corrected some other entries about other people. But in a few instances, I edited the entries of people I had clashed with in ways that were juvenile or malicious: I called one of them anti-Semitic and homophobic, and the other a drunk. I am mortified to have done this, because it breaches the most basic ethical rule: don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you. I apologise to the latter group unreservedly and totally.
Hari admitted plagiarism and publicly apologised for his actions. In addition to that ” (Hari) is to take four months’ unpaid leave to undertake a programme of journalism training at his own expense. He will also return the Orwell Prize which was awarded to him in 2008. ” (see Independent columnist apologises for plagiarism).
2. Governments Abroad
If you take a break from the PLPN hyperreality where Muscat sells mystery policies and Caruana Galizia and Bondi still peddle Mintoff as current affairs you will find a whole new world beyond the borders of good old Melita. In that world the German Constitutional Court has just delivered an important judgement that clears the way for Merkel’s plans to help the euro by helping the Greeks. Meanwhile, the markets remain nervous and shaky with different messages not helping to stabilise the environment.
Italy‘s “manovra” was pushed through as bombe carta exploded outside the Senate house but the “austerity” bill that was announced includes measures that are prone to bring the unions to the streets and the country to an unhelpful standstill. Berlusconi failed to tax the rich and seems to still believe that the less successful can help carry the burden of the crisis.
French banks were left wondering what hit them when Moody decided to downgrade the ratings for giants Société Générale and Credit Agricole among others. The downgrade was put down to the lack of confidence in the French banks due to “the increasing vulnerabilities of the market“. Meanwhile the bid to become Presidential candidate for the PS begins in earnest as the six candidates vowed to oppose each other but not to argue/fight.
UK banks seem to have survived the current tests but are also subject to warnings that the new rules could stretch their finances. (Telegraph) In his article on the Telegraph economist Andrew Lilico explains why the death of the euro could also mean the death of the EU. Analysis and reaction to recent events by major politicians have prompted calls for a rewriting of the treaty and even a call for a Federal Europe.
Maastricht, Amsterdam and Lisbon seem to have been the wrong antidote to the deepening vs widening argument that plagued Europe in the nineties and noughties. It should come as no surprise that once again economic realties push the reluctant continent into some long-awaited decision making about its future form.
Papillon is the name of a 1969 novel written by Frenchman Henri Charrière. The (allegedly) autobiographical novel tells of Charrière’s extraordinary saga at the hands of the French criminal justice system between 1931 and 1945 after he had been condemned to a period of hard labour on Devil’s Island as a punishment for murder. Charrière’s character in the book is called “Papillon” − the French for butterfly − because of the butterfly tattoo he had on his chest. The papillon is also a symbol of the freedom that this prisoner constantly craved.
Cinema buffs will have surely watched the 1973 movie starring Steve McQueen as Papillon. The book itself was an international sensation and caused a furore in France since Charrière’s story exposed the harsh brutality of the French justice system and the inhumanity of pre-war incarceration policies. Attempts were made to discredit the veracity of Charrière’s adventures, and articles and books were written to kill the more colourful of Charrière’s stories. Papillon, if one were to take his word for it, had suffered the ignominy of inhuman conditions and isolation. His different attempts to escape and obtain the freedom that he believed he deserved involved audacious contraptions and life-threatening situations but his book served at least to unmask the hideous conditions in the French penal system.
This could be heaven, this could be hell
Freedom. It was not the auburn Scot with face daubed in blue that spoke the word but a dark skinned Ivorian speaking to a Times of Malta journalist who was trying to discover the reason for the Safi riots. Freedom. It’s a strong word with a very strong meaning. The Hollywood speech reserved for Mel Gibson in Braveheart is simply about humankind’s love of freedom and its willingness to lay down everything else in order to obtain it. The anonymous Ivorian did not speak from a high horse (metaphorically and physically) when he explained the reasons behind what have been dubbed the “riots” in Safi.
The men and women condemned by our 18-month detention policy are reduced to becoming inhuman wrecks pacing up and down the dirty corridors of Malta’s own Gulag probably wondering what other cruel fate can be thrown at them. It is one thing being a criminal, like Papillon, and still succumbing to the very natural urge to escape and spread your wings. It is another to have escaped the miseries and trials and tribulations of a war-torn country and to find yourself in a Mediterranean concentration camp under the August sun. Freedom. Not 5-star food, not 5-star accomodation, just freedom − and the right to be treated as a human being. Yet, what most people saw was not a genuine cry for freedom. They saw guests misbehaving.
Bring your alibis
Fellow blogger Andrew Azzopardi has taken the cause of the Safi inmates (for inmates they are) to heart. His blog has been constantly updated with photos from inside the camp documenting the hideous conditions. Other recent members of the blogosphere like Norman Vella picked on the ugly response of the dark side of this nation. I blogged about this in the post “What paradise?” in which I wondered whether this nation of ours has so much to be feel indignant about. It had been a truly disgusting week of reactions in the comment boxes.
I picked on a Facebook comment by divorce guru Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando in the What paradise? post. “Illegal immigrants among us have to understand that they are guests in our country and they should behave accordingly,” quoth Mr Divorce. My first reaction was to comment right under his post and wonder whether the immigrants aren’t doing just that − behaving accordingly. You know, when in Rome…
JPO was voicing an ugly popular sentiment that keeps resurfacing. It gets worse when there are calls to “send them back home” or when the comments incite actual violence against the “guests”. The pink corner of the blogosphere also picked up (should I say “filched” because we stumbled on the same post? The law of petty schoolgirl thinking would seem to imply so − hey I saw it first!) on the JPO comment and condemned the crassness of it all.
Pink champagne on ice
I don’t just mention the other blogs to point out the varied nature of the blogosphere’s reaction to the goings on. The blogs, the blogosphere and the mainstream media comment boards are one way of gauging our reactions to the main events in our lives. They also provide another testing ground. They are a microcosmic reflection of the manner in which our society operates: with its little battlegrounds for prima donnas, with the pushing and shoving for cornering tiny markets and perceived centres of power, and with the constant battle in which the loudest, noisiest and most lewdly entertaining tends to win the public’s baying approval. Welcome to the 21st century Colosseum.
It is the world where a refined pen and mastery of English can be used to churn out filth and fabricate character assassinations day in day out. It is a world where − posing through the guise of bluff and plagiarism − budding politicians and faux intellectuals win their fawning corner of the crowd by selling their repackaged gospel to the malleable masses. It is a world that has spawned the quick judgement, the guillotine jury and the fast-track condemnation based on taste. This world has fed on Malta’s particular adaptation of the global ideological vacuum as nurtured by the PLPN mentality. It is not a world of discussion but of antagonism where, in the words of the philosopher Slavoj Zizek “(the people) express an authentic rage which is not able to transform itself into a positive programme of socio-political change”.
We are programmed to receive
The riots in London, the indignados in Spain and the Jasmine Revolution in North Africa. We tried, maybe wrongly, to find a common element (do check out www.re-vu.org for a couple of good articles analysing the riots). Zizek, the philosopher I mentioned earlier, has penned a brilliant article himself called “Shoplifters of the World Unite” in which he notes the ideological political predicament we live in: “A society which celebrates choice but in which the only available alternative to enforced democratic consensus is a blind acting out.” “What is the point of our celebrated freedom of choice,” asks Zizek, “when the only choice is between playing by the rules and (self-) destructive violence?”
In our tiny microcosm we might be looking at the Safi “riots” from the wrong angle. JPO’s concept of “guests” implies that we are somehow better off than the Ivorian who is craving freedom and who can only vent his anger and frustration by lighting a fire in the compound. What that image fails to consider and factor into the context is the fact that the post-ideological vacuum is the predicament of a whole island of cynics. Liberals and conservatives alike seem to be unable to face the fact that there is a value vacuum that is slowly transforming into our cage. Relativism and poverty of values is leading to our becoming prisoners in our own home.
We are all just prisoners here, of our own device
Which is why I asked the question “What paradise?” this week. The rioter in Safi wants freedom from his prison. But is the world beyond the confines of Safi’s walls a free world? Papillon, the prisoner of an outdated penal system ended up wandering from one prison island to another before finally obtaining his freedom in Venezuela. In this day and age it is not just four walls that can constitute a prison but also mental barriers built on a vacuum devoid of reference points and an absence of clear socio-political goals.
The Ivorian and his fellows at Safi might still be in time to realise that beyond their four walls lies a larger prison populated by hypocrites and false moralists. This news might come as slim consolation for the Safi inmates but the least we can do is notice that guests and hosts alike might be in desperate need of a plan to work towards a better life. Otherwise we will end up living the song… where we can check out anytime we like, but we can never leave.
The Duchy beckons
It’s been a hectic two weeks of rushing around (and a bit of idyllic epicurean delight). The heat is really stifling and it’s a wonder that anything gets done. I have a note of sympathy for fellow lawyers who are obliged by the ridiculous rules of convention to trudge to Valletta wearing suits in 35 degrees of heat. How long before we notice that this weather requires its own dress code?
Food-wise, I’ve enjoyed terrific meals from the succulent rib eye served consistently at Sliema’s weather toss’d pitch to the delicious seafood on offer at il-Pulena in Marsalforn (three thumbs up again Godwin). It would be a shame not to mention Qbajjar Restaurant’s great BBQ Wednesday night while a big thank you to the blokes at Badass Burgers for remembering the gluten-challenged among us. I’ve tried Arriva, I’ve caught the ferries and I have only one thing to say: “move bloody back”. What is it with idiots who plonk themselves half way up the bus aisle thus giving the impression of a bus that is full? I leave the island with mixed impressions: it’s definitely a cleaner Malta (the effort on the beaches merits a standing ovation) but there’s an angry, cynical interior that is letting itself be harnessed by the most harmful of forces. It’s that interior that can be jarring and render life unpleasant.
All you need is a thick skin, plenty of sun block and a daily dose of J’accuse. Which is what you will get in the post-vacation weeks to come.
www.akkuza.com has quoted from Slavoj Zizek’s “Shoplifters of the world unite” (google it for the free version). Papillon (the movie) released in 1973 features Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffmann. Blogs mentioned in this article can be accessed freely on the Internet. Don’t believe all that you read. Remember: Just ask. Subs courtesy of the Eagles’ Hotel California.
Fausto wonders why I am fascinated by the internal workings of a party I (presumably) don’t vote for and of which I am not a member. Pedants like Majistral have a habit of acting extremely naive in such circumstances and ignoring the basic fact that a political party and its mechanisms are fair game for political punditry whether or not one favours them – which is why J’accuse took as much of an interest in the Labour leadership developments as it does in the paradoxical convolutions of PN Executive Committee conclaves. Even worse than the naiveté on the matter of scrutiny of party works is the apparent surprise with which Fausto greeted the link between a budget document and social policies of a government. Of course a budget is not a do or die element in whether or not we get our divorce law but we all know how the strings of the treasury are often used in order to incentivise the strengthening of social units such as for example the family. Compartmentalising budget talk (ideas, vision, discussion) from other principled talk would mean accepting a party of ambivalences. A party has to be able to stand up and be judged for the totality of its actions – including statements thrown in to pep up its budget act.
Which is where Marthese Portelli comes in. This is yet another “politician” caught in the trawler net of “anything goes” by the party proletariat at the time of elections and which tends to hang on afterwards having mistaken the opportunistic gambit made by the schemers at Dar Centrali as some sort of faith in her political nous. Sadly multiplying votes in the Gozo district (or any other district for that matter) does not automatically transfrom a “mother and lawyer” (as Marthese reminds us in her leaflets and PR) into a politician. Having enjoyed the electoral limelight and reaped some reward for running on the ticket of one of the two parties that tend to get votes (most PLPN candidates would fare hopelessly were they to run on an AD ticket – it’s not the person, it’s the party that gets the vote and up yours Mr Constitution) Portelli starts to think like many others of her ilk – she believes that whatever she pens down counts – whether it makes sense or not.
For some reason I cannot fathom, the Indy seems to have a new love affair with Portelli. Last week Stephen Calleja gave us an example of investigative journalism at its Lou Bondi best (smell the irony). A one page interview that told us absolutely nothing about Portelli apart from the fact that even though she has moved to Saint Helen’s parish she is still in love with the people who voted for her and has come up with an idea – Jobs for the Boys and Girls in Gozo. Gee that’s new. How come nobody came up with that one before. Eager to carry on the spin Portelli has an article of her own this week. 569 words about the new Belgian Presidencyof the EU. Which would have been spiffing. Had there been one inkling of original thought in it that is. Instead it turns out that a one liner link to this document called the “Programme of the Belgian Presidency of the EU Council” would have saved Marthese lots of cutting and pasting and the Indy some valuable column space.
Marthese Portelli is currently President of the PN Executive and chairs the meetings of the conclave discussing divorce.
Image via Wikipedia
***
Last Saturday, the day before MaltaToday splashed his holiday on Nazzareno Vassallo’s superyacht all over its front page I happened to meet Paul Borg Olivier at Ghadira Bay. In our short conversation Paul could not resist a jibe at my ever growing waistline by putting it down to my incessant blogging at the computer. I wish I could have snapped a shot of the look of disgust as he mimed me typing away at the computer. It only stands to reason. Nationalists must not have such a big love affair with computers. It all started with the infamous story of Austin Gatt destroying a PC as the results of the 1996 elections came out and went on all the way to PBO’s gaffes of pressing the wrong buttons and David Casa and Marthese Portelli still not realising that cut and paste is not such a sly move in today’s computing world.
The men and women condemned by our 18-month detention policy are reduced to becoming inhuman wrecks pacing up and down the dirty corridors of Malta’s own Gulag probably wondering what other cruel fate can be thrown at them. It is one thing being a criminal, like Papillon, and still succumbing to the very natural urge to escape and spread your wings. It is another to have escaped the miseries and trials and tribulations of a war-torn country and to find yourself in a Mediterranean concentration camp under the August sun. Freedom. Not 5-star food, not 5-star accomodation, just freedom − and the right to be treated as a human being. Yet, what most people saw was not a genuine cry for freedom. They saw guests misbehaving.
