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Politics Values

Flashback: Cliques & Politics

I was going to post something different to this but it can wait. While researching my intended post I came across this post on J’accuse back in May 2008. My concern here remains the sucking out of values from within our main political parties – due mainly to their attempt to be everything for everyone. The result is Liquorice Allsort parties – the Mix and Match without much substance when it comes to accountability and representation. The dangers of having BOTH parties in parliament with this kind of mentality can never be sufficiently stressed.

The post below was written at the time of Labour’s reflective period just before the New Messiah was anointed Mexxej. I had tried to analyse the role of cliques and factions in the formation of a party – and why our concept of cliques and factions is all based on power and has little to do with ideology, values and substance. Because at the end of the day what counts for the PLPN politician is getting the power… not what they do with it.

 

Of Cliques and Factions

First appeared on J’accuse on the 28th May 2008

Cliques: Loud and Damaging

A salient point in the Labour Party report on the reasons for the defeat in the last elections is the existence of “klikkek” within the party. The word “kilikkek” translates to English, quite literally, as “cliques”. A “clique” is described as “a small, exclusive, group of people” – the operative word being “exclusive”. The Online Etymology Dictionary gives the following result for the word “clique“: “1711, from Fr. clique, from O.Fr. cliquer “to make a noise,” echoic. Apparently this word was at one time treated as the equivalent of claque.”

Today’s Times editorial dwells on the fragmentation and self-destructing party dynamic of the different party cliques. The editorial points out:

“Hardly any party or organisation is immune to internal trouble or the inbreeding of cliques but, when the pull of such trouble or cliques strengthens itself to a proportion that affects the central unifying force, it often leads to derailment.”

The sentence is a veiled defence to any argument that states that cliques cannot possibly be the only problem because everybody under the sun knows that the Nationalist Party has been equally afflicted by “cliques” – in their case power bases intended to consolidate the position of certain groups of individuals with the party. No doubt, the Times is once again performing its duty as unofficial apologist of the boys in blue but there is another implied truth in this statement that goes beyond apologist editorials – one that Labour sympathisers and reformers would do good to notice.

Cliques within a political party are not a local phenomenon and exist elsewhere. What is interesting is the way they have evolved within the Labour party, gnawing away at the very foundations and backbone of what is necessary for a party to function. To exist even. The problem with a clique is the reason for its formation. An exclusive group of persons intent on extending its power base for its own benefit does not have the interests of the party as its main priority. It exists to ensure the survival of the individuals – more than that it strives for a successful placing as high up in the hierarchy as possible.

The basic principle behind a clique is “help yourself and the others in the clique” – almost akin to a Masonic Agreement. In the political world a clique is not identifiable by a common political cause – let us say for example those in favour of making the introduction of more social rights like divorce. It is solely restricted to a power-hungry movement or sometimes to a movement formed to oust another one (think Gordon Brown though not exactly).

The MLPN are most prone to have cliques during election campaigns. The competition in districts is restricted between candidates of the same party insofar as certain “guaranteed” votes are concerned. That cliques occur in such circumstances are inevitable. It is also possible that clique-forming could occur within the dynamics of the party – normally compensated with the formation of shared power-centres one for each large or dominating clique allowing for a certain balance.

Factions: Purpose and Substance

What we have not heard about in the Labour Report is “factions”. A political faction is no new discovery. Political factions are omnipresent, especially in large parties. Some apologists would have us believe that the Nationalist party is an umbrella party that has different factions including what must be a very silent “liberal” one. There is no doubt in my mind that something of the sort does exist within the PN though the way the party functions does not allow for much transparency in that field (of ideological factions – call them nuances if you like) – given the one-way traffic at the PN general councils they seem to be very far from having an open and honest debate about the ideological differences that exist.

A faction is not a defection or a whistleblower on alleged corrupt practices. It is a healthy (though sometimes problematic) existence within a party that has a set of priorities based on different political ideas. Different from what? It may be different from the mainstream or more probably there may be different factions with different ideologies competing to push them at the head of the party agenda. A faction does not work to split the party (that is only a last resort when agreement seems to be so far from being reached that the only solution is the creation of another party). Factions debate (and yes, in this macchiavellian world of points of order, right of speakers to vote and party organisations sometimes use “underhand” tactics) in order to get their agenda as part of the party agenda.

Here is Wikipedia’s description of a political faction (my underlining):

“A political faction is a grouping of individuals, especially within a political organisation, such as a political party, a trade union, or other group with a political purpose. It may also be referred to as a power bloc, or a voting bloc. The individuals within a faction are united in a common goal or set of common goals for the organisation they are a part of, not necessarily shared by all of that organisation’s members. They band together as a way of achieving these goals and advancing their agenda and position within the organisation.”

As I said, even the work of factions can turn out to be deleterious to a party’s health. Long power-struggles between internal factions can still diminish the party’s appeal to the electorate. Factions also require individuals playing the role of the “leader” or as wikipedia calls them “magnets” around whom the faction forms. Factions have one substantial advantage over clique. Their substance is based around a set of goals, an agenda, that is more often than not political in nature. They bring to the party a level of debate about principles, ideas and policies that are absent from cliques.

Some parties prefer their factions to act internally. That is an organisational choice depending on the effects any struggle between factions may have on the public perception of the unity within the party. Let us not get waylaid by the debate of “going public” or not although it has its own merits. At this point my reflection centres on the problems of the Labour party as highlighted by the report.

Coupled with the call by the report drafters for the Labour party to be less scared of “intellectuals” (as they call them) and of engaging in debate, this issue of the cliques must be of primary concern to whoever wants to reform the party into a working viable alternative. The temptation is to iron out all differences and create a uniform party where individuals must get, if you excuse the vulgar Maltese expression, permission for every fart. The practices of the Labour organisational structures seem to point in that direction – permission to speak, permission to think and permission to exist as a Labourite.

This is a reaction to trouble caused by cliques and the ugly image they portray. Power for power’s sake is an ugly trait of Maltese politics, from the smallest movement within a party to the hegemony of MLPN on national politics. The risk is that in reacting to this report, the wheat is thrown away with the chaff and what is left is a factionless but spineless Labour party that might as well be a management organisation of sorts – managing fifty percent of the disillusioned electorate and expert only at producing reports explaining failures. That is not what the average Labourite wants, that is not what this country needs.

*****

* Picture: Jean de la Lune (fanfare)

  • Dans les armées, une clique désigne également une fanfare ou une musique militaire. Dans un régiment, elle correspond à un groupe d’instruments : tambours, clairons, caisses claires, trompettes, etc. Par extension, une clique est aussi un ensemble de musiciens civils, jouant ces mêmes instruments et interprétant des musiques militaires ou des musiques rythmées entrainantes.
  • Une clique est aussi un terme péjoratif pour caractériser un groupe restreint qui a pris le pouvoir dans une région, ainsi
  • la Clique du Château était un groupe de riches familles au Bas-Canada au début du XIXe siècle,
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Divorce

Understanding Eddie

Former President and Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami has chipped in to the post-referendum debate with an article on the Sunday Times (MP’s credibility on moral issues being put to the test). The article is bound to attract its own corner of controversy – particularly because on the face of it, it is firmly grounded on theological interpretations and principles that have come to be closely associated with pronouncements made by the retired politician.

Part I – Understanding Eddie

It would be unfair not to try to understand the constitutional underpinnings of Eddie’s (forgive the familiarity but it was Eddie for too long to be easy to drop) reasonings simply because the moral values that Eddie subscribes to are so deeply intertwined with those of a particular church. As a small aside in these days when nostalgia for “Salvaturi ta’ Malta” seems to be a new trend it would be good to remember that the moral foundation of the wave of Solidarity, Work, Justice and Liberty was inextricably linked to the christian-democrat interpretation of the Catholic Church’s social doctrine.

Back to Eddie and MP’s credibility though. The former PM is no longer in the driving seat and he can afford to assess the situation from a more principled approach without the quasi-macchiavellian calculations that tarnished his later years in power. To put it bluntly the saving or crumbling of a government is no longer a part of Eddie’s calculations so he can afford to be morally honest with regard to his guiding principles.

The former PM first distinguishes between the moral issue behind the Independence and EU referenda and the moral issue that underlies a referendum on an issue such as divorce. Those among the media (and politicians) inclined to sensationalise will point to Eddie’s reference to Pope John Paul II’s list: divorce, free love (whatever that means), abortion, contraception, the fight against life in its initial and final phases, the manipulation of ‘life’. They will rush to compare it to KMB’s meanderings pre-EU accession about AIDS and Sicilian workers etc. At J’accuse we don’t think that Eddie is in the business of cheap scaremongering this time round. His question goes deep to the constitutional mechanism this country will choose in the future for determining issues that fall heavily on the “moral” side as against the “pragmatically political”.

Part II – Parliament’s Dilemma

This is where we begin to understand Eddie. Better still. Once the noise of controversy and rash anti-clericalism subsides we can even agree with him. Not with his position on divorce legislation but on his outlook towards constitutional frameworks that we form to enact such legislation. You see, the huge problem that this parliament has is that it is unable to come to terms with the fact that no matter how many times it twists and turns this Rubik Cube of Divorce the final decision will ultimately lie in its hands.

Our parliament is  designed around – and bends to – the will of a duopolistic anachronism. Once the divorce issue hit the fan it exposed the fundamental weakness of both parties: contemporaneously. No matter how much a “wobbly coalition of economic, social, religious and cultural forces” you can cobble together, no matter how far you can go with the oxymoronic faux progressives it is blatabtly impossible to retain a semblance of coherence when faced with a clearcut decision on a “moral issue”. The only party that would have been comfortable at the outset is still lying outside the closed club of our parliament.

J’accuse wrote at the outset: this is an issue for parliament to decide, not for the people to be lumped with. For parliament to decide this issue it needs to have at least one party that is committed (as a party, as a leader as MPs) to introduce divorce. This commitment must be clear at election time and the electors will have implicitly accepted divorce legislation as part of the party’s manifesto. Neither the conservative nationalists nor the pussyfooting progressives could get themselves to do that. We do get the sophistry of flags of convenience (cue PN with its token gay, liberal and ultra-cool section) or of the logistical sumersaults (cue PL with its private member bills, free votes) but no party wants to assume the responsibility of being the pro-divorce party on election day.

Part III – Why Eddie may be right (and wrong)

Here’s what our former PM did in 2003 – when Labour’s Sant insisted that the referendum result is neither here nor there:

The last two referendums held in Malta dealt with two major political developments. The people were asked to approve the proposed Constitution for Independence and Malta’s accession to the European Union. In both referendums there was a clear majority for the two proposals. Yet the Labour Party MPs continued to oppose both proposals notwithstanding the positive referendum results on those two eminently political issues.

It is worth recalling that as Prime Minister in 2003, faced with that stand by the Labour Party, I opted to advise the President to dissolve Parliament forthwith and call a fresh election in which accession to the European Union was the main issue. I have always maintained that moral issues should not be decided on the principle of democratic majorities but, rather, on the principle of what is morally right.

On the one hand Eddie distinguishes between political and moral decisions. For political issues it is simple. If one party insists on not recognising the will of the people then the solution is to dissolve parliament and call an election. The people can then either choose between two parties and their options (yes, sadly the dualism will prevail).

Eddie does however create a vacuum – legally that is. Here is his reasoning on taking decisions on what he terms “moral issues”:

I have always maintained that moral issues should not be decided on the principle of democratic majorities but, rather, on the principle of what is morally right. As a Christian I believe, on the authority of none other than Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that divorce is morally wrong and therefore wrong for society. Should one change this view because a democratic majority decides otherwise? Definitely not.

Which leaves us with a political and constitutional vacuum. Who will decide on divorce legislation for the people? The conscience of 69 parliamentarians? Elected on what basis? Eddie is being economic with the truth here because the convenient classification of a vote on civil divorce legislation as a “moral issue” effectively creates a vacuum of representation. It sabotages the very heart of representative democracy which is based on the principle that someone somewhere takes decisions “for the people”. You know the mantra: “a government for the people by the people”.

How do we therefore solve the impasse? The answer is written on the walls. Our political parties should be obliged to shed their convenient status of “wobbly coalitions”. On issues such as divorce there should be a clear position: not a free vote. I expect a party presenting candidates as future representatives in parliament to be clear about what they believe on such issues. By voting for a party I would then also be exercising my choice of or against a particular issue – and expecting it to shoulder the responsibilities in parliament.

Part IV – A parliament of representatives (with a clean conscience)

A parliament that would have been made up of representatives elected on a clean bill of ideas – and not on a mix and match of ideals in order to throw the widest net – would not have wasted the infamous €4 milllion euros finding out what was already a known fact before the debate. Such a parliament would have had a clear mandate to legislate beyond the individual member’s conscience.

Our current parliament will in all probability patch together a law of sorts that is passed with (what now seem to be) 37 ayes but it remains a parliament that is unable to come to terms with the requirements of a huge chunk of its demos. The battle for the emancipation of the Maltese citizen is far from being won.

Former Prime Minister and President Eddie Fenech Adami is right in one thing. The best solution in this kind of situation is probably the dissolution of parliament. This would allow the formation of a new parliament based on new parties hopefully committed to particular principles and policies. Hopefully too, parties will be clear with potential candidates about what the party represents and will ask them to leave their individual conscience at the front door, in the confessional or in any case outside parliament.

The greatest hope I reserve for the eventual voter : that he or she may learn a lesson from this hobbled parliament and choose to discern between false menus and the real deal the next time he or she has to make a choice.

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J’accuse : Sophistry, Protagoras & San Ċipress

The return of summer has meant the return of the time-slot dedicated to listening to podcasts at a leisurely pace while lapping up the sun on a beach. This week I caught up on the “History of Philosophy without Gaps” series delivered by Peter Adamson of King’s College (available gratis on iTunes). As luck (and universal karma) would have it, I had stumbled on the episode called “Making the Weaker argument the Stronger: the Sophists” (ep. 14 if you care to look it up) and it couldn’t have been a better time to discover the sophists and their school of thought.

Thanks mainly to Plato (see “Protagoras”), the school of the Sophists has had quite a bit of philosophical bad mouthing through the ages and this is mainly because they were seen as a professional class of thinkers who dabbled in the art of “spurious learning that would lead to political success”. From the sophist school (or rather from their detractors) we get the word “sophistry”, which is invariably defined as “an argument that seems plausible but is fallacious or misleading, especially one that is deliberately devised to be so”, or as “the art of using deceptive speech and writing”.

The early sophists invested much in the concept of “virtue” but would soon inject it with a huge dose of relativism − as Protagoras himself would tell us: “Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not”. The problem with sophists however was that via this relativism they were more concerned with persuasion than with the value of truth. In teaching the early politicians the art of persuasion they also thought them that truth could only stand in the way of a successful politician. Truth was not a priority − they would boast that a good sophist could persuade someone that the worse was the better reason… they could make black appear to be white.

The Sophist school lives

The Divorce Debate Hot Potato has left the hands of the people who spoke decisively on the matter and is back in the hands of the bungling lot who are still at odds trying to understand why the rest of the world calls them “representatives”. This is the short-term after-shock when the rocked establishment does what it does best and pulls out the shots for its own survival. Let me put it bluntly: We have two anachronistic parties that had been stripped bare of any semblance of principle beyond the one and only grail of vote-grabbing. Both parties are at this point busily attempting to show the people that they represent their will (Hell Yeah) while contemporaneously attempting to have officially nothing to do with it in the process (Heavens No).

A few weeks back I wrote about Pontius Pilate. His ruse of “release Barabbas” never worked. The people threw the Messiah back into his hands and all he could do was wash them. Not with our modern day Sophists though − far be it from them to wash their hands publicly. Instead they do the impossible and find themselves ditching truth in order to sell the implausible and fallacious packaged as political dogma. To me, the prize of the day, nay the millennium, must go to Inhobbkom Joseph. Sophist to a tee, il-Mexxej has wriggled his way out of Labour’s non-position to the extent that a huge amount of his supporters actually believe that the Labour party is in favour of the introduction of divorce legislation.

Muscat’s post-result speech fell just short of letting people assume that it was thanks to Joseph and his party that Yes carried the day. Nothing new there… I still meet Nationalist Party card carriers who believe the spin that the Yes movement seven years ago was a purely in-house affair. Muscat then performed logical acrobatics of an impressive kind in which he managed to imply that the Nationalist Party is obliged to vote Yes (or resign) while conveniently ignoring the fact that this paladin of progressive politics has not got the balls to tell his own party to stuff the free vote where the sun does not shine. The fallacy (Labour is a pro-divorce party) had been sold − hook, line and sinker to the electorate − while Muscat abetted anti-divorce MPs in his own party. Epic representative fail but huge sophist success.

The powers of an MP

At the other end of our poor political spectrum, the only man with a pair of considerable male attributes remains unsurprisingly Austin Gatt. Much as I disagree with his position (completely and utterly) on divorce itself, there is no doubt that Austin Gatt was clear from day one and his position is an interesting standard in the sea of wavering compromises that are the official party positions. Austin said he could never fit in a party that would be in favour of divorce and that he would resign if his party would pronounce itself in favour. His position is that his conscience trumps the voice of the people in this matter and that he is willing to face the consequences with the electorate (luckily for him he will not be contesting the next election so not much facing to be done there).

I have consistently argued that a referendum was not the right way to introduce a civil right such as divorce. One reason was that in the real world we would have clear direction from parties who could legislate responsibly and professionally with the balance between common good and minority rights in mind. The mess this referendum has put us in is not a result of the YES/NO answer (it has been pointed out that the 53/47 per cent ratio was the same as when the “debate” was officially launched) but a result of our representatives abdicating their responsibility at the start of it all. We cannot have spineless parties without a position (two sets of free votes − 69 consciences − and a collective bandwagon of shameless sophistry) suddenly being trusted with the enacting of such a delicate piece of legislation − and all the signs show that they cannot seem to understand how to do it either.

Kollox suġġettiv (everything’s subjective)

It’s now all about fine-tuning for the parties and the electorate would do well to take note. Muscat’s PL and Gonzi’s PN are about to pull one of those wool-before-your eyes tricks in which they excel. Our tendency to be card-carrying voters before being free-thinking emancipated citizens risks nullifying all the awareness that has been gained over the last four weeks. Both PL and PN want to be seen as fulfilling the will of the people while also being non-committal as parties on such an important aspect as a minority right.

Through the divorce debate we saw the gradual rise of a kernel of a Civil Rights Movement. It was one that “Stood Up” and called a spade a spade beyond the useless rhetoric and empty sophistry of the parties. It was promising − and we recognised the momentum. What seems to have been heavily underestimated though was the pulling power of the parties in their attempt to hegemonise (and in the process mollify) the political decision making in our country. Sure, eventually the Ayes will have it − and Austin will do his little tantrum − but will we revert to the spineless politics and the slow pace of opiated Maltese dualism?

The answer to this question seems to be a resounding “of course”. Deborah Schembri has done us the honours. She was a more than promising leader for the kernel Civil Rights Movement and proved her ability to argue above the noise. She surprised everyone by announcing on the people’s forum − (very aptly) Xarabank − that she would choose a career in politics over a vocation as people’s representative (my choice of words). Another one bites the dust (forgive us for being sceptical about the chances of Debbie changing Labour rather than vice-versa).

San Ċipress

And if you were wondering whether Debbie’s absorption will be a one-off distraction factor then look at the new spin from the PN camp involving another budding star − Cyrus Engerer. No sooner had Deborah announced her “career path choice” did the spin begin to portray the liberal side of PN as the new stars. Much as you might like Cyrus and Deborah as politicians who showed their mettle in the divorce debate, you might be heading towards grave disappointment as they are transformed into the latest tools for survival by the PL-PN opiates.

The boredom threshold of a tired electorate is lower than that of a prime time “journalist”. Having taken great pains to cast his decision, the voter just cannot wait for his representatives to just get a move on beyond the fuss and enact the damn law. The voters’ impatience is the political party’s boon − they will reason their way out of this mess and both will try to sell the idea that they are the people’s party. Meanwhile, the short-lived Civil Rights Movement risks being the greatest loser: can you imagine the PLPN handling other important issues beyond divorce? Of course not. And yet Cyrus and Deborah chose to obstinately operate from within the rudderless ships and allow themselves to be paraded like the latest “vara” (statue) at some village festa.

In the words of one of Malta’s foremost philosophers of the 21st century… “jekk intom ghandkom vara, ahna ghandna vara isbah minnkom, jekk intom qieghdin hara, ahna qieghdin hara iktar minnkom,… u jekk intom ghandkom lil Debbie… ahna ghandna ‘l Cyrus (ahjar minnkom)”….

Will we ever learn? If you’re still not convinced by all this sophistry then you might want to try to take a peek on Alternattiva’s quest to remind our representatives why they should stop dilly-dallying. They’re meeting (aptly again) on 7 June at Hastings Garden at 9.30am. If you’re taking an iPod along then do buy the single “I’d rather dance with you”… by the Kings of Convenience − a pleasant tune to listen to before the latest round of philosophy – hopefully there will be less sophistry involved.

www.akkuza.com − thinking different because you don’t seem to want to.

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Divorce Mediawatch Politics

Silence of the Nats

There’s an eerie, deafening silence coming from the PN HQ in Pietà. Yesterday night Joyce Cassar of the No to Divorce people did her flipping utmost to try to divorce her movement (tee-hee) from any association with the priests, the nuns, or the church (as she put it not so mildly). And she also did her damndest to underline the fact that she is not working in cognito for any political party. Damn right she isn’t. On the other hand the PN silence of the matter is as politically absurd as Joseph Muscat’s attempt to get his testicle-less Labour linked in some way to any possible achievement of the YES vote without doing anything.

JPO has introduced one of the greatest minefields that Gonzi’s PN ever had to face. The feeble, abstract party line opposing the introduction of divorce pales in comparison with the numerous activists and natural blue-voters who are all out in favour of the introduction of Liz Taylor’s second favourite right (up there with inheritance). Speculation is rife about whether a YES or a NO vote can benefit one or another party. Only in Malta. The PN has taken the best tactical position – it is slowly vanishing into nothingness. Notice. Vociferous party flag wavers and even party sympathisers have gone AWOL. The usual suspects have supposedly “had enough” of the divorce debate. Others, who are all noisy and cantankerously irritating when it comes to womens’ lib and the like have suddenly taken a sabbatical (apart from the random swipe at the levels of nothingness the NO camp can reach).

The PN cannot cope with the fact that the intelligent voter – in a civic sense – would have no qualms with voting YES any day. Not being in control of the critical swinger (who might be scared away from voting AD but is less easily bullied into voting on some misinterpreted principle that only the current batch of neo-catholicmullahs would understand) is very very scary for the PN crowd. They just don’t want to alienate him or her. Thankfully the intelligent voter will also not fall for Joseph Muscat’s false bravado and his empty no-progress brigade. Which means that the less the PN gets associated with any decision the better the chances to keep the status quo.

Hence the silence.

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Arts Politics

The Political Class

One of my current “thinking post” books (i.e. books read while spending time in the restroom) is “The Triumph of the Political Class” by Peter Oborne. The book is a damning exposure of the mechanics of the political system in 21st century Britain. As I read through Oborne’s thesis I cannot help replacing the term “Political Class” with PLPN and apply the reasoning to analogous circumstances in Malta – and I am surprised with the results. It’s a perfect fit.

Oborne uses the term “Political Class” constantly with capitalised P and C with reference to the new class of cross-party political careerists and examines their impact on the magical democracy that is Britain.

Here is an excerpt from the chapter entitled “The Ideology of the Political Class”:

For most of the twentieth century governing elites brought with them to Westminster a set of principles, tightly aligned to general party political thought and beliefs, which they sought to apply in government. When they felt the temptation to strike cross-party deals or renege on commitments, they were liable to be met with accusations of betrayal by the party membership. Today, political ideas no longer emerge from within the party structures and belief systems. They are manufactured. Rather than referring inward to the party membership, politicians look outward to the general public. Instead of engaging with voters directly, however, marketing experts and political ‘consultants’ are employed to discern popular will. Policies are constructed and later marketed in exactly the same way as consumer products and very often by the same set of experts. The evolution of ideas becomes an essentially private form of activity, associated with a specialist elite whose primary purpose is not putting into practice any system of ideologies or beliefs but rather the shaping of policy for the mass market.

Ideas in the era of the Political class are therefore converted into weapons or tools to be deployed or used for tactical convenience. The key function is the denial of territory to opponents, the strategy of ‘triangulation’ first associated with the Democrat presidency of Bill Clinton and identified in particular with his consultant Dick Morris. This technique was first used, and with especially gratifying effect, in the presidential election of 1992, and involved a series of forays into Republican issues, above all law and order.

The over-riding purpose was the conquest of the central ground of politics, forcing political opponents to take up territory which could then be labelled extremist. The overwhelming aim of this form of tactical positioning was emphatically not to win the the battle of ideas. Rather it lay in the ability to lay claim to a positional victory at the end of the day.

Oborne leads on to an analysis of the cult of “modernisation” – devised by the Political Class as “a strategic device to distance the Political Class from what it saw as out-of-date or antiquated ideologies. It was meant to appear sensible, managerial, pragmatic, in touch. But in due course it became a powerful ideology on its own. It presented the British ruling elite with a conceptual structure which was based on a dislike of the past, a contempt for traditional institutions, a unique insight into the future, and a guide to ethics”.

Oborne’s thesis has not ceased to surprise me. Above all it is evident that the path trodden by our Political Class (the class of PLPN) is the very same that has been trodden twenty years back in the US/UK. It is all there… like some latter-day Nostradamus prediction. You will find all you need to know (and foresee) about the predictable activities of our Political Class – and sadly, you will become aware that the writing is on the wall as to our future development in line with very European trends of neutering of political values, aims and ideologies: in the name of a Polticial Elite.

Foyles Synopsis:
Both an extension of and a companion to his acclaimed expose of political mendacity, THE RISE OF POLITICAL LYING, Peter Oborne’s new book reveals in devastating fashion just how far we have left behind us the idea of people going into politics for that quaint reason, to serve the public. Notions of the greater good and “putting something back” now seem absurdly idealistic, such is the pervasiveness of cynicism in our politics and politicians. Of course, self-interest has always played a part, and Oborne will show how our current climate owes much to the venality of the eighteenth century. But in these allegedly enlightened times should we not know better? Do we not deserve better from those who seek our electoral approval? Full of revealing and insightful stories and anecdotes to support his case, and with a passionate call for reform, THE TRIUMPH OF THE POLITICAL CLASS is destined to be the defining political book of 2007.

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J'accuse : Pontius Pilate

In this time of pageants, processions and crucifixions one character of the paschal narrative tends to get less attention than all the rest and yet I believe that this country owes him much more attention. This man happened to be prefect of Judea at the time when one of humankind’s most important stories was unfolding and much has been written about him. I believe that one matter about the equestrian Pontius of the Pilati family has been overlooked by scholars: he HAD to have been a Maltese citizen who had been transferred for some work in the Middle East.

It is quite a pity that only the Ethiopian Orthodox Church has recognised Pontius Pilate (and his wife) as a saint for I believe that statues of the prefect would be very apt in many places around the islands − chief among which would be our House of Representatives. A Saint Pontius picture would be a mandatory part of the civil servants’ uniform in this country that has huge difficulties separating the religious from the civic and social. It’s all about the washing of hands after all…

The Divine Comedy

Depending on which gospel you follow, Pontius Pilate has different levels of responsibility for the condemnation and crucifixion of Christ. Christian lore through the ages − from the early Councils to Mel Gibson has shifted between the responsibility of the Roman masters and that of the Jewish participants in the passion. No matter who you follow, the personality of Pontius sticks out as one who wants to put a huge distance between himself and the destiny of the man who appears before him under the spurious accusation of having claimed to be King of the Jews.

Pontius is the kind of man who performs logistical somersaults and carries a bag with a multiplicity of excuses so long as he can wash his hands of the decision to inculpate the man from Nazareth. He will forever be tied with the symbolic idea of washing his hands in order that he may hopefully sleep with a clean conscience. Blame, if any, for a mistake, is to be laid at the feet of someone other than this prefect. John reports the torment faced by Pontius: the man bold enough to ask of Ieshua of Nazareth: “What is the truth?” Having interrogated Jesus at length, Pontius famously proclaims “I find no fault in him”(John 18:38). And yet…

Master and the Margarita

And yet… Finding no fault is not enough for the man who holds the highest seat of temporal power in Judea at the time. He is after all a bureaucrat who has to feel the pulse of the people he rules. He senses that the political powers that be are not very much in Ieshua’s favour and that he needs a way out. It is only then, and after having offered a feeble alternative (release the criminal?), that he chooses to wash his hands. As he washes his hands of the fate of one individual − “I am innocent of this man’s blood − you will see” − it’s clear that Pontius has his own conscience at the top of his agenda.

And that, you see is the crux. Saint Pontius is every civil servant who allows the political masters to oblige him to twist the application of the law to fit their needs and statistics. It is those civil servants who turn their administrative jobs into a little fiefdom of bureaucratic pen-pushing, toying with the rights of individuals in order to get the thrill of “power”.

There are Pontius Pilates all over the place − those who either apply the “work to rule” on a day-to-day basis. Then there are the 69 special Pontius Pilates who sit in Parliament and who will wash their hands of the responsibility to decide for or against divorce legislation in a responsible manner. They will seek refuge behind their “conscience” − like Pilate, it is their conscience that trumps the right of the individual.

Claudia Procula

In today’s world, the search for the truth that so tormented Pilate has become more convoluted. Those whose responsibility it is to serve the needs of social justice are becoming more and more used to economising with the truth. Whenever necessary, they have become used to the ritual of washing their hands. In their personal balance of truths, the main reconciling element is the idea that their conscience remains clean whenever they wash their hands.

“M’ghandix x’naqsam” (I’ve got nothing to do with it). “Dak mhux xoghli” (That’s not my job). “Hekk qalulna naghmlu” (That’s what they told us to do). A legal immigrant in possession of a long term residence permit who is trying to get his family to join him in Malta might find the stone wall of civil service Pontius Pilates too hard to overcome. A person in need of proper treatment in radiology might find that there have been too many Pontius Pilate politicians since the last equipment was purchased. And so it goes…

Il Uomo Vivo

It might be very distasteful of cynical J’accuse to raise this matter of Pilates on the day when most of Malta celebrates the return of the king. But not as distasteful as the GRTU’s sudden newfound holiness when faced with the possibility of a supermarket chain opening its doors on Good Friday. This had nothing to do with social or religious conscience − it is the way of things in this country. A businessman threatened with competition will suddenly become holier than Annas and Caiaphas put together and will seek out the local version of a Pontius Pilate who will easily appease the baying hounds so long as he thinks that his conscience is clear.

The problem in this country is not that it seems to be full of hypocritical bible bashers but that the very bible bashers rarely take some time to sit down and learn the lessons that may be found within their weapon of choice. Happy Easter from the island where time stood still.

www.akkuza.com listening to Il Uomo Vivo this Easter Sunday.