If you ever stopped to read the writing on Floriana’s Porte des Bombes (Heaven forbid that you did stop, it is after all in the middle of a main road) you would have read the inscription “Ad maiorem popoli comoditatem” which is latin for “For the greater comfort of the people”. The events of the past few weeks have led me to reflect whether our national efforts at public building is in fact heavily conditioned by what the people want. Most times we are busy adorning roundabouts with random decorations from phallic symbols to kitsch statuettes and cacti and luzzi. Those who had a taste of what passes for power on the island seem hell bent in dedicating memorials to themselves which explains a proliferation of busts and statues – which would be ok if we had a sense of proportion.
Gates though. That’s a tricky one. The history of City Gate also includes anecdotes as to how the main consideration in one of its reincarnations was that Carnival Floats should be able to pass through the entrance. One of the city of gentlemen’s entrances had to bow to the needs of the burlesque community. When a supposed architect was at the helm of the nation we could do no better than boxing in the main entrance with a series of shoddy arches, an arcade of libyan-arab shops and travel agencies and of course a housing estate. Ad maiorem popoli comoditatem indeed.
This time round the people are still trying to get their heads around the presence of a major architectural installation and plans. Most of the people fail to think with their own heads and come to their own conclusions. Instead, the Piano Plans have to bear with the fact that their genesis and development coincided with the first part of the Taghna Lkoll plan that involved the creation of a general sentiment of unhappiness and discontent. Let’s call it the Tort ta’ Gonzi phase. It was a phase in which anything remotely connectable to the government of the time was somehow deemed as wrong and almost as a punishment of the people. A couple of billboard personalities (ye old two dimensional figures) lent their faces to this quest and hey presto … the “Cheese Grater” and “Roofless Theater” were born.
Add to that pre-electoral schemings and promises to the hawkers of Valletta and the stage was set for the barbarians to take over the latest version of the gate. Have we improved much from the time when the prime consideration for a new gate was whether a carnival float could get through it? Not really. Our Prime Minister is adamant that there is nothing wrong with the location for the monti. This time he has reserved the populist decision to the look of the stalls but not to the location.
The sad thing is that this should never have been a decision of the people. Not in the case of the aesthetics and urban planning it isn’t. But this is Malta where the size of statues of saints and carnival floats will determine the width of the street, the height of the lampposts and the shape of a gate.
You would be worried if the barbarians had got to the gates. The thing is you look around you and you notice that they have been everywhere all along. It will only take a bit getting used to won’t it? After all under Taghna Lkoll, everything goes. You just have to be a little more optimist and a little less negative.
The Luxembourg contingent landed this morning. I drove straight to Evans Building to pick up my voting document which, as it turns out, had already been collected by a conscientious neighbour (thanks John!). Still, it gave me time to go walkabout in a resplendent and vibrant Valletta. It was a welcome assault on the senses. The streets thronged with people – at work or for leisure – with a wonderful background from the numerous musicians at every corner.
The (I almost said cruel) sunshine beamed off the golden buildings and were it not for the incredible amount of dog droppings that peppered the Saint Elmo end of Valletta it would have been a party for all the senses.
I bumped into the (almost complete) set of nationalist MEP candidates close to the law courts. They were on a walkabout of their own drumming up last minute support. Speaking to Simon Busuttil, Jonathan Shaw, Therese Comodini Cachia and (international secretary) Trevor DeGiorgio I got the feeling of a genuine effort of reaching out. I am no fool and this is an election campaign but there is no doubting that the effort remains and the PN does have a negative perception reputation that it needs to overcome.
Further up Republic Street I came across AD’s Cassola getting a quick lunch in a main street cafe. I asked Arnold what his feeling is and his reply was one of guarded confidence. The polls are not clear he said but AD have a sense that this is 2004 all over again. By AD standards this is supposed to be good – particularly since they seem to be convinced that a chunk of Labour voters might be tempted to go green. I did not meet any Labour candidates – nor did I meet any from the unfortunate Panini Sticker Album (though I did get a wave from former course colleague Franco Debono when turning into South Street).
I am quite sure that Labour are confident in their own way – especially given that they can still count on their well oiled propaganda machine that has become their trademark. It’s a machine that has the pulse of the luoghi comuni, running mainly on half-truths and brushing aside the weak nationalist stunts that seem to backfire so unpleasantly for the time being.
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I have deliberately taken a sabbatical from this campaign. It has been tough for the past few months trying not to keep up pace with the goings on – especially since this was supposed to be a European Campaign with a European dimension. We did get Juncker and Schultz visiting this micro nation (thanks Malta Design Week – go there, it’s definitely worth a visit) but on the whole there has been little or nothing European about these elections.
Muscat seems to believe that his best bet is forcing a personality battle between himself and Simon Busuttil. The targeted campaign highlighting the supposed benefits of one year of Taghna Lkoll glossed over the glaring failures of such concepts as meritocracy and highlighted such incredible achievements as the pittance of an increase in stipends. Thank God for hurriedly assembled “social right” laws that threw a heavy dose of mascara on Labour’s mask – making them seem that they really cared (when it was immediately evident that such moves were strongly rooted in populist measures). Labour seems to have managed to hide its very un-European approach to everything under the sun – including the European Union itself. Quite frankly the Labour party is the last party that could genuinely claim to understand what representing citizens in Europe is about – mainly, and most importantly because the Labour party either does not understand or does not care about what Europe really means. Forget the rhetoric of “best in Europe” – it is clear that for most of the time (all of the time) Labour still reasons clearly in us and them terms.
The PN is struggling resource wise and the temptation to play along to Labour’s game is still strong – which explains such monumental, off-putting gaffes such as the Panini Sticker Album. Ironically Europe is where the PN should be stronger in battling it out – at least on an MEP level – it being the party with a stronger pedigree on the matter. I have already had occasion to point this out before – the PN needs to work strongly on the principled building blocks and begin to believe more in such principles and their power of attracting the voters who are more careful when selecting leaders and not bluffers.
As for AD. This could be their golden chance. The unconvinced Labour voters who are rattled by certain Labour positions such as the unconditional backing of Cyrus Engerer might add to their base. They also have consistency on their side – they have a clear European dimension that could be attractive to the discerning voter.
The discerning voter. These elections will be a severe test for the voting population. Are they still biting at the marketing hooks that are thrown at them? Does a bus parked outside a secondary school do the trick? Will the little cheques (car registration, slight dip in petrol prices, maternity cheques) being thrown at them as bait win the day? Also, hopefully a marginal point, how many will go for the rabid loonies that form the tail end of the electoral list? Will we get our own dose of intolerant Eurosceptic vote?
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To sum up these MEP elections will unfortunately be far from a definite sample of representation at a European level. In all probability there will be a set of mixed results that every party will interpret as a victory in their own right. It would be good for the electorate if it had an interpretation of its own. One that measure the success or failure of the vote on the basis of true representation within a European Union that is currently in dire need of getting in touch with its demos.
Or to misquote an apocryphal Plato: those who can’t be bothered to choose wisely who will represent them are punished by being represented by those who couldn’t really give a damn.
I only started using the Sliema – Valletta ferry after I had moved to Luxembourg for work. When I still lived in Malta the ferry was something that only tourists did. They had time. They could afford to take in the splendid views of Marsamxett. Not for me the dilly-dallying. My commute to the city was for work and time was money, so I dutifully got in line with the hundreds of other sensible car-owners (one per-car) and sucked in on the carbon emissions all the way through the Porte des Bombes and Saint Anne Street.
These days whenever I come back home I always make it a point to use the ferry. At least once. Sure it’s not the same deal as walking into the majestic city through its main gate but the arrival by boat seems to be so much more fitting for the city built for gentlemen. This was, after all, the city built by a sea-faring order that threw its weight around the middle sea. Ignoring Valletta’s littoral element is like thinking of London without the Thames or Venice without its canals.
Majestic the city may be but its majesty exists also because of the sea. At the foot of the bastions that skirt the Humble City lie the lapping waters of the Mediterranean – a constant reminder of the place of the Most Proud city in time and space. The sea wraps the gated peninsula – alternating idyllic moments of calm with sudden bouts of fury, when Poseidon and Aeolus unleash their power and besiege its walls all over again.
Gates. The city does not hide its nature. It will always remain a fortified city – no matter how modern it can get. Internationally renowned architects may do away with doors and barriers and introduce open spaces but you will always have a sense of foreboding when you approach the Proud City.
Will it welcome you once more? Will it let you walk lazily through its deserted streets on a hot August afternoon, and allow you to stop at one of the myriad eating joints that have sprung along its streets? Will it engulf you in the darkness of the night as you drunkenly attempt to quit its narrow streets and newborn drinking holes? Will the ghosts of Valletta past entrap you in a winding desolation of brothels, murders and intrigue?
Or will Valletta be itself and gracefully adorn every step that you take on its streets with memorable moments of historic ecstasy – from the smallest nook to the grandest palazzo? Will its church bells toll happily to welcome the many sons and daughters of the nation who find refuge in its proud symbolism? Will it let the sweet winds cool you as they breeze through its narrow, shaded streets? Will Valletta be the capital for everyone?
I have never left Valletta feeling unsatisfied. The sense of foreboding is quickly replaced with a renewed sense of belonging. I was not born or brought up in Valletta but it is my capital. Any street in Valletta is my street. Our street. Every cobbled step down Republic Street, every mooring place near the waterfront, every smell on Lascaris Wharf and every balcony on Saint Barbara’s Bastion. They’re all there to tell you that no matter how far from Malta you may be, the city of gentlemen is there to remind you that there is a place that you can call home.
You know you’re growing old when you remember Governor Cuomo Snr. His son, Andrew M. Cuomo is running for Governor of New York on the democrat ticket. In an all-Italian (origin) showdown, Cuomo’s republican opponent is Carl P. Paladino – conservative to the bone and very proud of his Italian and catholic origins. The gubernatorial battle is turning out to be a curious export of the tensions in the old continent as Padalino’s conservatism is pitted against Cuomo’s more liberal (a European description) approach. Padalino is proud of the winks and smiles linked half-jokingly to the implications of having Italian ancestry in this part of the world while Cuomo is wary of the image of political Sopranos.
Back on the campaign trail Padalino’s no holds barred attitude could land him in trouble and yesterday’s speech to a gathering in Brooklyn was of the incendiary kind. Curiously Padalino’s message contained the dilemma that currently has no borders in the western world – from Belgrade, to Valletta to New York, the cohabitation of religious values and liberal rights are suffering the sort of tension that can best be described as dangerous. Here’s the New York Times reporting Paladino’s speech to Orthodox Jewish leaders:
The Republican candidate for governor, Carl P. Paladino, told a gathering in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Sunday that children should not be “brainwashed” into thinking that homosexuality was acceptable, and criticized his opponent, Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, for marching in a gay pride parade earlier this year. Addressing Orthodox Jewish leaders, Mr. Paladino described his opposition to same-sex marriage.
“I just think my children and your children would be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family, and I don’t want them brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option — it isn’t,” he said, reading from a prepared address, according to a video of the event.
And then, to applause at Congregation Shaarei Chaim, he said: “I didn’t march in the gay parade this year — the gay pride parade this year. My opponent did, and that’s not the example we should be showing our children.” Newsday.com reported that Mr. Paladino’s prepared text had included the sentence: “There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual.” But Mr. Paladino omitted the sentence in his speech.
An hour after the speech, Cuomo’s team denounced the statement as being “stunningly homophobic” and that it was a glaring disregard for basic equality. Paladino’s campaign manager duly responded by denying assertions that Mr. Paladino was antigay, and noted that Paladino employed a gay man on his campaign staff. (Isn’t that charitable of him?)
“Carl Paladino is simply expressing the views that he holds in his heart as a Catholic,” Mr. Caputo said in a telephone interview. “Carl Paladino is not homophobic, and neither is the Catholic Church.”
I’m beginning to think that the problem is not the catholic church (or God) in whose name these obscenities are regularly perpetrated. It’s ignorance. How, for one minute Paladino could believe that the phrase “dysfunctional homosexual” could be seen as anything but a homophobic statement is beyond my ken. His taking refuge behind the hazy notion of “the Catholic Church” to justify his attempt at fuelling the conservative vote is pitiful and – here’s the word again – medieval. Caputo (Paladino’s campaign manager) worryingly appended the following sentence to his justifications: “the majority of New Yorkers agree with him” while adding that the campaign had done its own polling. That’s ok then is it? I mean this is not San Francisco but hey, waddayaknow?
While Andrew Cuomo polled voters to get an insight on how far the Iti-Mafia-Pizza stereotype is stuck in the New Yorker mentality (and this with the aim of getting rid of it), Paladino was busy checking whether New York really likes its poofs. It’s his Catholic duty (God bless his soul) and he told the Orthodox Jews that he is on their same wavelength (for heaven’s sake) – he’d never march in a gay pride event and he criticised Andrew Cuomo for doing so.
If that’s what a Catholic Heart can contribute to a community then bring on the infidels…..
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.
