‘Saint Paul’ Articles at j’accuse

Gone fishing or the Public Accounts Committee

I caught a glimpse of the proceedings at the Public Accounts Committee sessions. Inelegant and clumsy are the first words that come to mind. It was never meant to be a fashion statement or synchronised swimming, sure, but the overall impression before getting down to the nitty gritty is that of yet another debasement of institutional tradition.

Sitting in the metaphorical witness dock former PM Lawrence Gonzi had his patience tried by repeat questioning that seemed to be going nowhere. There was a moment of dramatic irony when Gonzi accused the Committee of not following the procedure it should (that of the COCP) when the Committee was actually chaired by (and therefore under the responsibility of) Jason Azzopardi of team PN.

Still, the line of questioning taken up by Justice Minister seems to be one of spurious fabrication very much in line with the journalistic style at MaltaToday (which revels in the idea of having kicked off this fracas in the first place) rather than the quest for some truth or other (in a land of multiple truths the first to the media machine is King). What exactly is the PAC after? What is this Enemalta business proving in the end?

In all probability this business, like surely many others to come, will prove that businesses, businessmen and corrupt persons in power (and by this I mean persons appointed to manage/run/sit on parastatal entities) will constantly try to find a convergence point in the shadows and suck from the public funds so long as they are not caught.

Amnesties and amnesia

It was also very interesting to watch the Justice Minister justify the line of questioning by claiming that the amnesty (proklama really) requires constant checking since one of the conditions it contains is that it can be withdrawn if the person enjoying its benefits is found to have hidden the truth.

So we have a “businessman” who is benefiting from an amnesty in order to assist the authorities in uncovering illicit activity by other “businessmen”. The current government’s line seems to be to question this amnesty (with the concurrent risk that many other people might end up not being brought to justice).

While all this is happening we have another sector (construction and development) in which the government seems to be adamant to offer a blanket amnesty to all those who have abused of the law (broken it) and partaken in the rape of the nation (metaphorically speaking). The Taghna Lkoll government has made no effort to hide its tight links to the Malta Developer’s Association and it’s erstwhile Chairman (or is he President?) Sandro Chetcuti.

There is no whistleblowing reason for an amnesty here. The feeble excuse that Taghna Lkoll philosophy can throw up (yes, like vomit) is that those paying for the amnesty will generate lots of money for the coffers. A blanket amnesty that allows people to buy scars on the face of the nation. Brilliant. So long as Sandro tells us that everything is just fine for the developers we must all be grateful.

Kulcha and Karnival

It may seem too facile an argument but the priorities of Taghna Lkoll in the field of culture are so obviously linked to core voting interests that you cannot but argue on the lines that sound both snobbish and classist. As the effort to denigrate the City Gate project continues to gather momentum we are told of the Great Carnival and Music set of stalls that will offset the great vacuum that exists. Minister Bonnici (him again) told the gathered press that we cannot continue with this “silo mentality” – I must confess I had to look it up since I am not a FEMA graduate and find marketing catchphrases particularly undigestible.

It turns out that fighting the “silo mentality” means copying the design of garages and stalls that some Taghna Lkoll-ing carnival float enthusiast (and ONE employee) had visited on a trip abroad and spending some 6 million euros to build a sort of samba-drone that doubles up as a garage band gig place much to the chagrin of William Mangion.

Is it facile to argue that the ditched plans for the ditch/moat are crying for re-instatement and could well have done with some of those millions? Is it too easy to argue that while we appreciate that the carnival custom in Malta does deserve an investment of sorts (inclusive of a papier-mache’ museum) this should not come as an easy-fix solution that is obviously lacking in global planning?

Personally I love the idea of a regenerated part of Marsa hosting a carnival drove complete with museums and apprentice schools. It is the way these ideas suddenly pop up and are so very evidently the result of “lapazzar” planning simply to shut the mouths of another cohort of voters that is absolutely obnoxious. Stilll. It’s better than those bastard nationalists who never listened eh?

They’re drowning again

Far from the offices of wake up and smell the coffee. Far from the populistic approaches and ISIS scaremongering. There, in the deep blue tempest toss’d seas, more and more of them are dying. On the eve of the day when Malta celebrates the feast of Saint Paul’s Shipwreck, tens of immigrants who had left Tripoli in the hope of a better future lost their lives to the sea and the cold. What value those lives to the thousands who will throng the streets of the city of gentlemen adulating the Magnus who like the immigrants had been toss’d by the same sea?

Lawyers and Lawyers

Two issues. First the hunting then the constitutional case where the PN seems to have regained two seats. We had a parade of practising and retired lawyers stating the obvious (and then even complicating matters in interviews by not getting it quite right) when it came to referenda and their consequences. Did we need that charade? It reminded me of that farce re-enacted by Alfred Sant pre-1996 when he sat down with the an accommodating notary to sign a “contract with the people” – blissfully ignorant that the whole business of election, swearing-in and governing already covered the job.

As for the constitutional case. There is a glaring silence on the PN side when it comes to arguing which seats should be compensated and why. I watched a lawyer called Adrian Delia perform logical summersaults on an interview with newsbook.com.mt. He was clearly confused by the question as to whether or not Labour should have lost two seats in the process. Let us set aside the absolute hypocrisy of a PN representative talking about proportional representation in parliament – the proportionality has nothing to do with it.

The two candidates Buttigieg and Azzopardi were deprived of their seats because of an error by the Electoral Commission when the original set of parliamentary seats was being distributed. Thus Azzopardi lost out to Justyne Caruana for the fifth seat in the 13th district. If the error is admitted and the proper count repristinated then it should automatically follow that Caruana would lose her seat and Azzopardi would take it up (ths giving a 3-2 result for PN in Gozo). Same applies for the Edward Scicluna – Claudette Buttigieg situation.

The compensation of seats for proportional purposes takes place AFTER the original election of 5 candidates from each district. It has nothing to do with the error that took place BEFORE the proportional attribution. The PN request before the Civil Court should technically have included the request to have the Labour candidates erroneously elected replaced with the nationalist candidates who had been “cheated” by the error.

Happy Saint Paul’s feast to all J’accuse readers. We are one month away from our 10th anniversary of this blog. Thank you for your custom.

Art is not dead. The Front Against Censorship (FAC) may parade along Republic Street in a make-believe funeral, along with the usual suspects and hanger-on politicians, proclaiming that Art with a capital “A” is henceforth to be considered defunct and that the muses shall muse no more. They may paint the words “Art is dead” along the length of the coffin carried solemnly to the beat of the drums and the roar of the megaphone, but what they profess is a lie.

Art is not dead. It is alive and kicking in all its forms – from the amateur to the mediocre to the professionally entertaining. Whether it is to be seen prostituting itself in exchange for monetary tokens of appreciation, or whether it spontaneously erupts from the pen, the voice or the flash of one who has just been visited by the aforementioned muses, it continues in its existence quite happily and oblivious to all the fuss being made about its very own death.

Last week’s procession of the dozens (I am guilty of not attending but not for the same reasons as John Attard Montalto MEP) only contributed to the general theatrical air surrounding the whole issue of “censorship v expression” and risked becoming another caricature in the running saga. The Front has come up with a list of instances when art and expression have supposedly been on the wrong end of the long arm of the law. They range from the banning of biblical figures during carnival to various photo shoots being called off (remember the model in a cemetery?) to the infamous instances of Realtà and Stitching.

It’s now official – the Front has become a full-fledged whingeing member of this molly-cuddled pseudo-democracy. Theirs is not a reaction of artists angered by risible instances of conservative hypocrisy but the reaction of brainwashed citizens who actually believe that a coffin and a couple of megaphones is what it takes to get the dominant elements of our society to wake up and smell the coffee. In this country, where counter-culture translates into simply being a normal 21st century cosmopolitan person, our “artists” have chosen to abdicate their responsibilities.

‘Opera morta’

I shall not pretend for one moment to be able to define art. What I do believe is that in times of societal poverty and intellectual blandness, society sub-consciously depends on its reserve of artists and intellectuals for inspiration for change. Rarely has society welcomed artists and intellectuals with open arms – rather, it has more often than not kicked them down and attempted to silence them. On the other hand, those artists who have been trampled upon and shunned did not congregate in the middle of the main thoroughfares of Europe to protest “It’s not fair” but preferred to use their art to expose the hypocrisy of their very persecutors. Action. Reaction.

Not in Malta though. My suggested choice of action for the artistic fraternity would have been a self-imposed nationwide moratorium on the arts. No more plays by actors, no more songs to be sung and no more paintings to be exhibited (continue in this vein). A silent veil would be drawn over the whole works as the supposed audience is starved of such outlets of expression. For if the Civil Court – when assessing a play from the point of view of a reasonable man – is unable to grasp concepts such as suspension of reality, metaphors and the very essence of representative art, then it is not art that is dead but the very spectators that have slipped into some sort ofpermanent coma.

The FAC should not be angry at the “authorities” (even in their wide definition of the term that includes private art galleries) but should get busy urging artists to embark on a nationwide awareness campaign of what art is about and why it is an integral part of the soul of society. They should be provoking the man in the street to think himself out of the self-imposed rigidity and vacuum bubble. Rather than writing eulogies on Art’s tomb, they should be making the sorts of noises (or silences) that bring the current situation to everyone’s attention – using the very medium whose death they are supposed to be lamenting. My idea of a moratorium is only one way of making the right impact. When I bounced that idea off some friends they reacted typically: “Who would notice?” Would anyone notice that the artists have gone on strike? Is our situation that dire?

Willy-nilly

It all boils down to the “audience” or rather to the citizens that make up our Republic. They are citizens brought up on the Myth of Saint Paul, the Bedtime Story of Count Roger, the Saga of the Great Siege and the Narrative of Malta – Blitzed but Not Beaten. Our tiny nation has had its defining moments that were then cemented with the musical chair moments of Integration – Independence – Republic – Freedom – European Union Membership. We read the story line convinced that, like the Israelites, we too are the chosen people and that fate will inevitably look favourably upon us and that everyone and everything in the world will owe us a living because we are after all the islands where civilisation practically kicked off – how else would you explain the Neolithic temples?

Try to look back at the narrative again and introduce one new element – inevitability. Think of every step as having been inevitable – that it would have occurred with or without, and not thanks to, the inhabitants of the time. Saul of Tarsus or no Saul of Tarsus, we would still have had a couple of hundred years as a mostly Muslim people and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Roger was the last of many of Tancred’s sons scrambling for some territory, and although the story of the Great Siege would make for a lovely Guy Ritchie film it would not be the last of its kind.

There were similar perils to “Christendom” faced in Vienna and Buda, and the Ottomans only turned away because they got distracted elsewhere. Meanwhile “Christian” Europe – seeing another day and another Hail Mary thanks to the valiant Maltese (no doubt) – would soon be immersed in a fratricidal war that would render any effects of La Valette’s last stand hugely inconsequential (the Thirty Years War pitting Christian versus Christian).

The Malta-centric narrative is badly in need of a couple of blows to the stomach. Our political representatives have long feasted on our gullibility within this context and fed us more propagandistic drivel fit for the 20th century. I have once before drawn the opprobrium of die-hard Nationalists by stating that European membership was an inevitable obvious step for this country and we got there in spite of our political establishment and not thanks to any part of it. The PN was lucky enough to have a blind, incompetent adversary who believed (for an incredibly long time) that membership was anathema and thus could step into the shoes of supposed saviours of the nation – much like good old Dom had conned the other half of the nation into believing the Helsien joke a couple of decades before. In a normal, civilised and rational country, we would have been joining the EU without so much as a referendum. The equation was all too clear – out was not an option, it was a disaster.

Yet. Yet. Yet. Even in the most obvious of situations – a no-brainer – a large part of the population had to have the wool lifted from its eyes and had to be dragged unwillingly – nolens volens – along with the rest. Still I find the assertion of Nationalist flag-wavers that “dahhalnikom fl-Ewropa” (we put you into Europe) so pathetically absurd. Little do they know what a great part they had in almost getting us to miss this supposedly most obvious of targets. Sic transit gloria Melitae (Thus passes the glory of Malta).

Mules and asses

The latest “discussion” (should I say dialogue) on censorship and divorce has once again brought out the nolens volens element of Maltese society and of its most honourable representatives. You can imagine one great mass insisting as obstinately as possible on moving against the signs of the times: “because it has always been so”, “because those are our values and traditions”, “because God wants us to be his soldiers” and other such drivel. We are by nature a people who would have been ignored by history but who, through an incredible twist of geopolitical necessity, seem to always end up in the thick of some action or other (and manage to take the credit).

The fundamental right of expression and the civil right of divorce are a bit more complicated than the no-brainer of inevitable membership of a large economic and political union. This time, fate and destiny might not be so willing to lend a helping hand and we risk becoming the victims of our own obstinacy and our conservatism founded on myth. It is time to break the old narratives and rediscover our true likeness in order to better understand where we want to go next. It’s not going to be an easy task.

The tsk-tskers and tut-tutters in Balluta who turned on the bikini-clad lass like a mediaeval crowd of peasants minus the pitchforks exemplify the type of people who will have to be dragged nolens volens into the age of reason. Then there were those who harassed the prankster who had the audacity to pitch a deckchair on the hallowed ground of Saint George’s Square (The Times report claimed that some people hurled insults at him). There’s the huge mass of automatic voters who cancel each other out at the poll every five years, and then there’s plenty more where those came from so it will take more than a coffin ride through Republic Street to swing the balance away from their considerable (voting) clout.

‘Eppur’ si muove’ (and yet it moves)

Meanwhile, Tonio Fenech’s men have published the Pre-Budget Document and I am using it as my choice bedtime reading for the next week. I’m already horrified by the government’s idea of “creative works” – surely, given the current environment, a statement like “Government is committed to championing the creative economy” is grossly misplaced. There are other interesting insights to be had from this pre-budget document entitled “Ideas, Vision and Discussion” and I’ll have more to say about it next week.

In the meantime, a bit of news from that other intransigent, conservative institution of power. The Vatican has been getting some heat with regard to the radio masts of Radio Vaticana. In response to allegations linking their masts to tumours the Radio responded: ““Il nesso tra tumori e onde elettromagnetiche non è scientificamente dimostrato” (The link between tumours and electromagnetic waves has not been scientifically proven). Scientifically proven? The Vatican? Now if you don’t see the irony in that one, don’t ask me to help you…. I’d hate to have to explain it in (the civil) court.

www.akkuza.com is back at the home away from home. The weather here is miserable, which probably explains the time we have to spare for “Ideas, Vision and Discussion”.