Tag: xarabank

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Mediawatch Politics Rubriques

I.M. Jack : The one about the WYSINWYG

La Trahison des images (Ceci n'est pas une pipe). 1929. Oil on canvas, Overall: 25 3/8 x 37 in. (64.45 x 93.98 cm). Unframed canvas: 23 11/16 x 31 7/7 inches, 1 1/2 inches deep, 39 5/8 inches diagonal. Purchased with funds provided by the Mr. and Mrs. William Preston Harrison Collection (78.7).
La Trahison des images (Ceci n'est pas une pipe). 1929. Oil on canvas, Overall: 25 3/8 x 37 in. (64.45 x 93.98 cm). Unframed canvas: 23 11/16 x 31 7/7 inches, 1 1/2 inches deep, 39 5/8 inches diagonal. Purchased with funds provided by the Mr. and Mrs. William Preston Harrison Collection (78.7).
La Trahison des images (Ceci n’est pas une pipe). 1929. Oil on canvas,

It’s been a long time since we’ve had a quick I.M. Jack take on the major news items. The theme this week is about WYSINWYG or what seems to be the apotheosis of the governmental policy of What You See is NOT What You Get. This blog has for some time now described Muscat’s government’s actions in terms of Magritte’s “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” We are used to having this or that government representative exhort us to look for the facts beyond what our eyes can see – “what you see is not what really is” they seem to tell us. Thus the traffic clogging the sick arteries of our nation is just a question of perception, we only see lack of qualification in government appointees because we want to and the price of oil in Malta is actually cheap today if we consider that it could be cheaper in the future. Hence WYSINWYG – what you see is not what you get.

Will the real budget please stand up?

The speaker hath ruled. The real budget is not the one that was physically tabled in parliament or the one published on the government website. No the real budget is the one read by Minister Scicluna in fits and starts. The speaker’s ruling is actually an apotheosis of all that has been Taghna Lkoll until now. Do not believe the facts and figures. Only believe what we say. Anyway we have to make do with the new mantra of “genuine mistake” that seems to be as permissible with this lot as it was anathema with the previous lot.

We are genuinely mistaken

Such was the excuse when Minister Cardona once again committed a “genuine mistake” appointing a person from the bench to a government entity. The euphoria of appointments to this and that chair is such that sometimes the Ministers or their minions for whom they are directly responsible get carried away and end up signing up people who are not fit for the purpose. In this case such lack of fitness was not due to incompetence (that actually is allowed – just look at our ambassadorial appointments) but due to the fact that the person being re-nominated for a bit of the parastatal company gravy train had already been fit comfortably in the puzzle of judicial appointments – and judges and magistrates are not allowed to sit on government entities. Plus ça change.

Get him to the Greeks

Cuschieri junior is being nominated ambassador to Greece is he? And there was Tsipras thinking that he had faced his greatest challenge yet. This is the same Cuschieri whose position on the Greek debt crisis was largely influenced by very personal issues of whether or not he would be allowed to take up his seat in Strasbourg. “in the midst of the Greek bailout talks, Cuschieri called on Malta to deny the debt-afflicted state money under the EFSF lest they green-light the enlargement of the European Parliament.” (MaltaToday). Sweet isn’t it? What better man to send to Athens if not this genuine Floriana FC (and, alas, Juventus) fan?

What you did was very spiteful, but it was also very brave and very honest and I respect you for doing that. But the content of what you said has made me hate you. So there’s a layer of respect, admittedly, for your truthfulness, but it’s peppered with hate. Hateful respect. (Alduous Snow – Get Him to the Greek)

X Arab Bank

Peppi Azzopardi tried to act smart with the “patriots” of Malta. He must have reasoned that the chicken-brained reasoning that is normally spouted by intolerant bigots can be easily countered on his show. For my sins I watched the whole show on streaming. It was a disaster in many ways. It was once again a testimonial to the lack of civic education and by that I am not referring to the patriot’s lack of knowledge of the words of our national anthem. Take Peppi’s bold assertion that it is up to members of parliament to interpret the law – and that since a member of parliament has stated publicly that wearing the burqa is not illegal then so it is. Not it isn’t Peppi. Members of parliament form part of our legislative branch. They legislate. What they do not do is interpret. That is up to the courts to do. It’s part of this little game called separation of powers. You could be forgiven Peppi, with this government the whole concept of accountability and respect of the separation of powers is fast going up in smoke. We are left with a nation that is in search of its basic values and still trying hard to understand how the whole “liberal democracy” thingy works.

Labels

Labels tend to help us understand who we are and who our interlocutors are. It has become a common occurrence though to maliciously use labels for sweeping statements and assumptions. When an arab loses his mind in Paceville and goes on a stabbing rampage then it is a cue for “immigrants out” and for patriots to charge through Valletta or Birzebbugia like a bunch of oafs on a xalata. If an assembly of Croats and Serbs decide to re-enact part of the Balkan issues on St Rita Steps in Paceville the same reaction is not forthcoming. We have said it many a time: a crime is a crime is a crime – irrespective of who is committing it and irrespective of who the victim is. The confusion that results out of trying to define aggravations based on colour, race or gender (or lack thereof) of the aggressor or victim only serve to compound the melting-pot of intolerance that our country is fast changing into. We have now had news of a priest who was arrested on charges of pedophilia. Cue the hypocrite anti-frock crowd to once again come out en masse barking agains “the church”, “religion” or “priesthood”. What a load of bollocks. The crime would be a crime if the person accused were a plumber, a nurse, a footballer or whatever other profession you may think of. It is heinous, punishable and condemnable. What it is not is testimony that one particular profession is more prone towards it than others. Pointing fingers at “the church” is tantamount to accusing “arabs” after a Libyan goes on rampage in Paceville.

Traffic

It will never be solved. Not without a fascist unelected government of wise men and women. Only then could the Maltese “suffer” the imposition of a car-free island where most money is spent on an efficient common transport system. Reducing the car amount to a bare minimum can only be dreamt of so long as politicians pander to the perceived “needs” of a population that has been bred to be “hurt” (read: throw a tantrum) whenever it does not get what it wants.

Maybe that is why Taghna Lkoll fares so well among the Maltese. More often than not they are led to believe that they are getting what they always wanted – irrespectively of the fact that what they see is not actually what they had hoped for.

Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain. – Nicolo Macchiavelli

 

Categories
Mediawatch Transport

Tenderly by Xarabank

tenderly_akkuzaKelli ngħaddi siegħa ċ-Ċirkewwa waqt l-aħħar mawra tiegħi f’Malta. Kien waqt dawk is-siegħat kiefra ta’ wara nofsinhar fejn id-dell isir iktar prezzjuz miż-żejt u fejn kull taħrika ta’ ġismek tkun kawża ta’ gelgul ta’ għaraq ibelġen ma’ tul is-sinsla ta’ darek. Ipparkjajt fejn it-Terminal, kont qed nistenna’ ‘l xi ħadd biex niġbru minn fuq il-vapur. Kelli stennija. Tfajt lenti quddiem is-sigarett u qabad waħdu. Ħa naraw ftit.

Mill-parkeġġ stajt nara u nosserva ir-ritmu alternanti taċ-Ċirkewwa nhar ta’ Ġimgħa. Jinġemgħu n-nies għat-traġitt li jmiss u tiżdied magħhom it-tensjoni u l-kaos. Karozzi fuq xulxin, nies mexjin f’nofs it-triq mingħajr ħsieb għat-traffiku, u xemx. Ħafna sħana u nervi. Dak li suppost qed jidderieġi il-karozzi fir-ringieli ta’ stennija għal fuq il-vapur ilha li qabżitlu. Għalxejn il-biċċa ma għonqu biex tilqa’ il-galluni ta’ likwidu inixxu minn moħħu. Qabżitlu, u bir-raġun.

Ilħaqt rajt ukoll in-nies jinġemgħu fuq l-istand tax-xarabank biex jistennew dik li jmiss. Daż-żmien m’għadux żmien il-45. Valletta-Ċirkewwa via kull raħal li setgħu ideffsu. Le issa hemm diretti mill-Belt, mill-Ajruport, minn Tas-Sliema u iktar. Frott l-Arriva u l-ippjanar ġdid tar-rotot. Imma l-Arriva m’għadhomx hemm. Keċċewhom. Għamlulhom ħajjithom infern u ma setgħux ħlief iparpru.

In-nies jinġemgħu fuq l-istand. Parti mit-Terminal ġdid fjamant dan. X-xemx tispara diretta fuqhom. L-ebda dell ma jwennes. L-istand għandu taparsi saqaf tal-ħġieġ li ovvjament ikun inħareġ tender u rebħu xi perċimes li ipprovda naqra ta’ saqaf trasparenti babaw – trasparenti x’ċuċ hu t-tender. Insomma żgur ma hux xempju ta’ arkitettura prattika u dan jixhduħ il-mijiet ta’ passiġġieri li jispiċċaw jinqlew jistennew il-misħuta Xarabank filwaqt li jgħidu rota rużarju bit-tama li l-erkondixin jaħdem.

N-nies jistennew fuq l-istejġ "fid-dell".
In-nies jistennew fuq l-istejġ “fid-dell”.

 

Iżda laqtuni l-iktar ix-xarabankijiet. Ma kienx hemm waħda bħal l-oħra. Addio l-uniformi ta’ l-Arriva. Ismijiet taż garaxxijiet differenti u numri imwaħħlin ta’ kafkaf bil-kartun. Naħseb għoddejt seba’ kumpaniji differenti tal-kowċis li ipprovdew xarabank għas-servizz pubbliku. Kien hemm minnhom li kont tisma’ s-sħana tidgħi weħidha minn ġewwa qalb is-sedili miksija drapp oħxon u pattern tal-leopard. Basta bil-purtieri imdendla biex taparsi jilqgħu ix-xemx.

Dak il-ħin kien ovvja x’ġara iktar minn qatt qabel. Ta’ Tagħna Lkoll kienu telgħu bl-għajta tar-riforma. L-ewwel qażżu ‘l Alla u oħtu jeqirdu dwar is-servizz li suppost kien tan-nejk u kif telgħu qabdu qabda mat-tedeski sakemm parpru ‘l hemm. Imbagħad biex taparsi “salvaw” is-sistema qabbdu xeba’ karozzi privati u garaxxijiet biex jaħdmu fuq ir-rotot. Sabiħa din. Is-sussidju tal-gvern li qabel kien imur għand kumpanija li għamlet l-għalmu tagħha biex tlaħħaq mal-idjosinkraziji ta’ pajjiż miġnun issa tqassam bħaċ-ċejċa lil numru ta’ kumpaniji privati biex taparsi isoddu it-toqba.

Customer care u ngħid. Kullħadd mgħaffeġġ, vidjos ta’ xufiera li jiġi f’idejhom l-isteering, korteżija li splodiet barra t-twieqi u t-temperatura dejjem tiela. Imma l-ġaħan ferħan għax ir-rivoluzzjoni soċjalista saret għal ġieħ il-poplu. Servizz tagħna lkoll li bih paxxa erba’ prieċem tal-garaxxijiet li ħelsu mix-xarabankijiet li kellhom fuq żaqqhom u qed idawru sold bis-sussidji tal-poplu. Mela żikk. L-aqwa li meta jmurlek id-dawl jidhirlek il-Ministru jitfantas fuq xi ex gratia payment li lanqas tiswa rota ta’ karrellu tal-lidl. U meta jmurlek id-dawl għal erba’ u għoxrin siegħa ftakar li tort ta’ Gooonzi u boiler number 7.

Ara biss taħseb li qed jitnejku bik f’wiċċek u jħalluk tinqela’ fix-xemx ġewwa ċ-Ċirkewwa tistenna x-xarabank sura li donnha ma hi se tasal qatt.

Categories
Campaign 2013

That inexistent opposition

Anglu Farrugia’s smile should haunt Labour diehards for years to come. I say should because I am convinced that they are probably in the throes of jubilation and singing his praises at how his performance far outshone that of Simon Busuttil. Unfortunately it is only those blinded by the wrong kind of passion for politics who will have seen anything of value in Labour’s bumbling deputy leader. His performance was catastrophic and whoever coached him must have been tearing out his or her hair from the first minute.

It has nothing to do with Simon Busuttil and whatever performance he put on. As I said in yesterday’s post, Anglu Farrugia would be capable of losing a debate with himself. He is completely at loss in 99% of the subjects brought up and it is evident that he can only sound convincing to ‘kerchief waving constituents gathered at a coffee morning. How many more times must he be forced to face the agony of prime time television only to squirm and faffle the moment anything technical or specific is brought up.

The Living Wage? More like living hell. The moment Anglu attempts to describe the economic reality of the living wage and what it is about he makes it sound like a cross between viagra and self-raising flour. He had absolutely nothing to go on – and were it not for the PN bungle with regards to taxing the minimum wage I have a strong suspicion that Labour candidates would have absolutely no other example of taxes that would be changed to alleviate what they call the burdens on the less wealthy.

Which is where I have to speak about the man who sat on the sofa and who had approximately a quarter of an hour to have his say compared to the interminable 45 minutes in which Anglu Farrugia gave us his little bit of circus. Carmel Cacopardo’s interventions were not only incisive and clear but they were relevant. No theatrics, no faux rhetoric or time wasted on personal arguments – straight to the point. Cacopardo spoke of policy. He had questions, he had criticisms and above all he had solutions.

It is such a pity that Carmel Cacopardo and his party will once again be a victim of the winner-takes-all politics that is so useful to the PLPN. You’ll see how on the eve of the election Simon’s nationalist party will be busy unearthing the ghost of Franco and instability in order to scare votes away from electing the third party. It will be too late then to explain that this third party has concrete ideas and would stick to a coalition on terms of principle not for the sake of power. A coalition government would be the stuff that dreams are made of – with a serious AD keeping the arrogant arms of PN in check.

What would be more realistic in a world where voters vote with their minds and not with their hearts would be AD winning over the cape of opposition party from a Labour party that is devoid of ideas and that has become a veritable farce of a party – all slogans and no substance. In a real world the 62,000 persons living below the poverty line would be voting AD into parliament and making sure that they get a strong say in the opposition. In a real world that is…

but this is the world of Anglu Farrugia, the Where’s Everybody aquarium and endless spin that will do its utmost to make a very serious party as AD seem as irrelevant as Franco Debono.

In un paese pieno di coglioni ci mancano le palle.

Categories
Politics

The last boathouse standing

Is it ironic, dramatic or downright farcical that in all this hullabaloo and with the two main parties completely at sea and in full panic mode, the AD can only* come up with a challenge regarding the boathouses at Armier? Throughout last Friday’s Xarabank Arnold Cassola seemed to provide the only reconciliatory potential for all the other members of the panel. They were at each other’s throats most of the time and Edwin and Michael had their tongues so far up Debono’s behind that they had trouble speaking but the moment Cassola attempted to use the precious space on public TV to highlight the deficiencies of bipartisan thinking and logic he was drowned by a concerted chorus of denigration.

I only watched Xarabank today and you may be surprised to find that even I thought that Franco was coherent in his arguments. I said coherent not justified. I particularly like his idea of a holistic approach to institutional reform intended to sanitise the business of government and democracy from the impending rot caused by the PLPN. I cannot not like this kind of thinking. It’s what J’accuse has been on about for a long long time. The retorts from Edwin and Michael were obvious – from the denial that PLPN act in their own interests to the dismissal of the importance of a role for other parties and forces in the country.

Then again it will be back to business once the election is called. As Arnold pointed out mid-program no reforms will take place before the next election. Forget a law on party financing, on data protection of individuals and other similar safeguards. Protect you from the parties? Ma tarax. I am told that NET TV reported today that the PL has started taking action in court to deprive expats from their votes. I am still waiting for the denial from Muscat. Who knows we might constitute an additional danger to the “instability” of the country. So yes. No changes before the election. Which means no new thresholds. No nationwide district. No tweaks in favour of proportional representation. AD are still up shit creek with no paddle and with no visible candidates to attract the protest voters who cannot get it into themselves to vote PL.

Which brings me to the boathouse challenge. It’s a legitimate challenge. AD wants PL and PN to commit to remove boathouses in Armier. Here’s Cacopardo:

With a general election seemingly on the radar, the Nationalist Party and Labour Party should take up Alternattiva Demo­kratika’s challenge and openly declare their stand on these boathouses if they want to gain credibility with the local environmental lobby, which has advanced into something more than a simple lobby.

It’s an important matter. Of the kind that has often the potential of exposing PLPN’s duplicity in these matters. Remember Gonzi’s letter to boathouse owners? Remember the pandering of PLPN to hunters? Last minute promises to specific sectors such as the LGBT movement are rumoured to have swung the last election. So AD is asking for something simple. A commitment. On paper. Will the big parties take up the challenge? Will voters give the challenge any importance?

My guess? AD will be ignored as they have always been. Because they are a non-entity. Like the last standing boathouse they are too small to be noticed. And anyway we are busy voting for the next party that is to become our permanent grudge. Busy shooting ourselves in the foot.

Because we have been taught to believe the stupid lie: if we want everything to change, then everything must remain the same.

Fuck you Tommasi di Lampedusa.

 

*not really only but it’s what is in the news right now.

Categories
Articles

The Rules of Engagement

Peppi Azzopardi saw fit to celebrate the 500th episode of Xarabank with a US-style debate between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. The edifying celebration of the 500 steps towards Malta’s “Xarabanikification” would come to an end after a couple of hours of partisan attrition with Where’s Everybody’s veteran presenter asking the audience for a round of applause (capcipa) for Malta’s politicians. The X-factor was complete.

Some wisecracks on the social networks claimed that the “capcipa” they had in mind for our politicians would not be as cordial as Peppi’s invitation – a rather conventional semi-joke from the xarabankified masses adept at the schizophrenic balancing act of wanton complaint and partisan support. But then it had to be so. This Xarabankified nation had a sort of coming of age on Friday night and, as the court jester Joe Bondi(n) dutifully pointed out, much water has passed under the bridge since the early dawn of Xarabank’s quest to bring the Maltese grapevine and bar chat into everybody’s home.

Our Bishop was a young Dominican, Lawrence Gonzi was the secretary-general of the Nationalist Party, Joseph Muscat was a budding reporter with Super One TV and Malta was still far from its latest ambition of joining the European elite crowd. Then came Xarabank and the process of Xarabankification. Unlike his colleagues at Where’s Everybody, Peppi gives off a scent of benign intent to tackle the major issues of the nation from the political equivalent of the lowest common denominator.

While the Bondipluses of this world thrive on exploiting ignorance and on the feebly disguised manipulation of supposed investigative journalism, Peppi built a welcoming platform that gives a voice to the good, the bad and (very often) the embarrassing face of what we are.

Long before the Internet exposed one of Malta’s faces – warts and all – Peppi’s Xarabank was doing a brilliant job of such an exposé himself. I’ve stopped being negative about Xarabank and Xarabankification. We cannot – must not – expect Hard Talk on TVM. We will probably never see a Michael Parkinson or a Jeremy Paxman gracing our TV screens trying to squeeze from the politicians the answers for which all the “middle-class” has been waiting with eager anticipation. Still – our compliments to Peppi and crew for their 500. Like it or hate it, Xarabank is an institution in our little microcosm.

Rocks

Joseph and Lawrence battled it out before the eager rent-a-crowds who must have been torn between the love for their leaders and the free-for-all sandwich and drink routine kindly provided by (Insert Ad Here) Caterers after the show. Speaking of rhetoric would be an injustice to the orators of past and present, from classical Cicero to modern Obama. On one side of the exchange we had the petulant upstart firing allegations and figures while shape-shifting like a play dough morph. For someone with a PhD in an arcane art related somewhat to economies, Joseph has a remarkable ability to switch from percentages to whole numbers and vice-versa to make his doom-laden speeches sound everso terrifying.

Anybody outside the world of the young Turks polluting the social network with regurgitations from their dear leaders could see how Joseph loves to use the cheap trick of switching denominations whenever it suits him. Sixty-eight thousand people paying no tax becomes four out of 10 earning less than 3,000 Maltese liri. Why Maltese liri? Because the sum multiplied by two point four something would sound too big a wage, wouldn’t it? In case Joseph’s conversion to EU suitability has not been fully upgraded (Joseph Muscat 7 – what political theory do you want to espouse today?) our currency is euros and no longer Maltese liri.

Joseph refused to fall into the blatant trap laid by Lawrence who insisted on setting the standard expected from Joseph’s party as “ta’ Partit Socjalista”. Every time Lawrence mentioned the word “socjalista” you could feel Muscat rubbing his virtual photo-shopped stubble (courtesy of www.therealbudget.com – where Joseph Muscat transmogrifies into Joseph Calleja). Lawrence knows full well how much Joseph’s party is investing in revising its image. Muscat was dying to explain how his is no longer a socialist movement but a progressive moderate one – which we have learnt is a euphemism for “opportunistic bandwagon movement”. But Joseph could not let Lawrence dictate the tempo, could he?

Rings

So we got the circular discussion, in which everyone under the sun yells his point of view from his context and his perspective. And Joseph has a huge problem here. His marketing gimmick is backfiring. This whole reinvention of Labour process is jarring at every step. Let me explain. Count the number of times Joseph tried to stress “id-differenza ta’ bejnietna” (the difference between us). Do you know what that difference is? He is claiming that, unlike GonziPN, MuscatPL can shoulder the burden of past mistakes. Can it? Does it?

While pointing fingers at Gonzi for having implemented the obvious (that’s a J’accuse copyright by the way) with regard to minimum wage, Muscat went on to claim that other PN achievements are the fruit of Labour’s labour. I smelt this one coming from the 5th of October “revisiting labour” conference. Believe me Joseph when I say that that kind of talk will jar with the less volatile of floaters and have them running for safety from upstarts trying to sell the idea that tertiary education is a Mintoffian heritage. Your minions might tweet your quotes on Facebook like some Latter Day Believers, but very few people who lived through “L-Ghoxrin Punt” will believe the lie.

It gets worse. The whole budget debate is pinned, according to Joseph, on the fact that Gonzi did not feel the people’s pains. I’ve written elsewhere about the

stomach-churning absurdity that the use of the term “wegghat” (loosely translated to “pains”) causes among people used to intelligent political discourse but that’s not the biggest problem. As the Prime Minister repeated time and time again, the international approval of the Maltese government’s financial management nullified Muscat’s irritable complaints instantly. Muscat only makes matters worse when he feigns ignorance of the international context and plants his head firmly into electoral promises made before the storm. I was reminded of the “stipendji shah” ruckus I had to face 11 odd years ago with the likes of Simone Cini and Joseph Muscat repeating the phrase ad nauseam and ignoring the new developments and reforms.

bert4j_101107

Promises, promises

Joseph Muscat spoke of a fundamentally different vision of the economy between himself and Lawrence Gonzi. And we believed him. We believed him because in the battle of the metaphors between the dad postponing the vacation due to adverse economic conditions and the umbrella in case of rain, the wise daddy won hands down. Because there’s a limit to how far Joseph can shift between acknowledging the existence of an international crisis and suddenly pushing for the removal of taxes within the same half-an-hour.

We believed Joseph because he is essentially still advocating a specific international theory of economic recovery when the world around him has very obviously ditched it. I am referring here to the Keynesian model of spending your way to recovery by putting more money into people’s pockets. Our young PhD wannabe Prime Minister does not seem to have any time to notice that everywhere else this model is being ditched (has he no time for The Economist or Financial Times? – I recommend an iPad with the Zinio app for Christmas). Lawrence tried to remind him. The international reports tried to point out that the Nationalist government’s way forward is sound – especially insofar as managing deficits and employment is concerned. But no. Joseph is busy playing on the “wegghat tal-poplu” and harping on ARMS Ltd (a cock-up true enough, but miles away from being a governmental crisis).

In case Joseph tries to deny his affection for basic Keynesianism, here are his words on Xarabank: “il-flus jigu billi titfa’ iktar flus tan-nies fl-ekonomija”. (“More money comes from throwing more of the people’s money into the economy.”) The bottom line is that in one fell programme the average floater’s approval rating of Joseph Muscat should have shifted from “curious” to “alarming”. The danger is that we are heading for the next election with Muscat fast moving into the seat vacated by Sant – and an election result by default.

New Romance

Those of us who hoped for “change” two years ago are now resigned to more of the same. No matter how much you cannot stand the arrogant hypocrisy of the PN on matters social such as divorce. No matter how much you cannot stomach the haphazard policies on transport, e-development, gambling, construction, the environment and more. No matter all that. Your first priority come next election will be electing a leader in whose hands you can trust the economy. What the country needs is a PN-AD coalition. What it will get is another government by default.

There I’ve said it – the C-word that combines Nationalist economic coolness and pragmatism with Alternattiva’s progressive vision on social rights and environmental awareness. We will not of course have a PN-AD coalition because the rules of engagement are such (as I have repeated ad nauseam) that make an election a zero-sum game of either/or.

Expect another relative majority for PN if voters are wise enough to see through Muscat’s scantily assembled revisionist marketing. Expect a rudderless government as an alternative that threatens to stagnate any hope of recovery so long as the “middle-class” dream of affording air-conditioners, free electricity and tax-free cars to cruise along the coast road on Sunday. You think that’s sad? Don’t ask who is to blame? You know the J’accuse answer.

Such is the level of hypnotic blindness of the average complainer that the only way they could look at the end of the Chris Said saga was as a sort of government-law court conspiracy. No matter that there was as much proof of perjury as there is stubble on Joseph Muscat’s chin in the real world. No. To them the disgrace was that the court case was heard with urgency and that Chris Said was found not guilty. That is the sad truth about modern politics. The lie travels around the world before the truth even has time to put its boots on. With Facebookers repeating the lies and half-truths and with the absence of proper intelligent debate, we can only sit back and wonder what saint we should be thanking for having survived until now.

La Serenissima

Last weekend I was in the Venetian Republic. OK it was Italy but being the historic romantic that I am I will forever dream of the Serene Republic with her double-crossing doges and mercantile spread from the Dalmatian coasts to Accre and Jaffa. The Queen of the Adriatic Sea is a marvel to behold, though I must admit that it does have its rough ways with tourists (thank God us Maltese are polyglots). The growth of a lagoon island into a major power to be reckoned with was attributable to the Venetian ability to read the signs of the times and invest in the right partners. That a city that rarely surpassed 400,000 souls could command such control is a marvel in itself.

St Mark’s Square and basilica offer a tangible testimony of this power with riches and relics plundered from afar. From the four horses atop the basilica (originally owned by Constantinople) to the columns stolen from a fort in the Middle East, the Venetians and their Doges used economic might and an early form of maritime supremacy to fund the building of what is surely one of the most beautiful cities on earth.

I chose this city with its unforgettable scenery to propose to my better half last weekend. After a splendid evening at La Fenice with Donizetti’s Elisir D’Amour (fabulous performance with a particularly grand Nemorino) and a little romantic interlude on the canals, I got a positive response for my very traditional request on bended knee. Incredible no? Who would have said that even J’accuse has a heart!

www.akkuza.com is coming to terms with the life engaged. We can finally explain the last few weeks of distraction – we were romantically occupied preparing for the big surprise.

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J'accuse : Friends

I am happy to say that I have a lot of friends who vote Nationalist (or Labour). I am not, if I may add, particularly ashamed to be seen with them. There. I’ve said it. I’ve come out and said it. It was killing me really, having to keep this secret to myself all this time, but now that I’ve come out and relieved myself of this bit of info burdening my conscience I feel much better.

If my declaration does not sound ridiculous enough, then what would you think if I felt the need to specify that “Actually I have some friends who are black”? You’d think me to be some weirdo living in some pre-Rosa Parks world of racial segregation. Incidentally, this is the 50th anniversary of the publication of that magnificent book by Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird – published only five years after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus. I owe Harper Lee much of the inspiration for taking the legal career path, thanks to her unflinching Atticus Finch. Ironically, Harper Lee lives a very segregated life in Monroeville, Alabama (the real Maycomb from the story), conceding few interviews and having written pretty much nowt since the book that was voted into the top 10 must-reads of a lifetime (beating the Bible in the process).

It is very probable that the Mockingbird is a fictionalised autobiography of Harper Lee and that the character Scout in the book is actually Lee herself. Her best friend in the book, named Dill, is thought to be Harper Lee’s childhood friend Truman Capote. Though the friendship drifted apart in later years, neither of them was ever heard to say that they were ashamed of knowing one another.

Gays in the village

You know where I am coming from with all this “I have X friends” business – and no I do not mean Facebook. I am obviously referring to Prof. Anthony Zammit’s remark during the proceedings before the House Social Affairs Committee  (HSAC) at the temple of conservatism and bigotry. The subject was “the situation of homosexuals and transgender individuals” in Malta, and the information that we have at hand comes with the courtesy of a very “xarabankified” Times as one of my readers described it. For it is important to bear in mind that, in fulfilling its reporting duty, the Strickland House product seems to have shifted towards a more “provocative” approach in the presentation of its material – in some cases denaturing the very subject being reported.

It was thusly that The Times’ David Schembri kicked off with a very titillating title What Happens in the Bedroom is the Government’s Business only to fall foul of the timesofmalta.com inquisition and retract to a more moderate Parliament discusses gay rights (technical geeks did notice that the permalink (article’s web address) remained the same though – baby steps for The Times tech). So yes, as in Malawi, gay rights are still an issue for Malta’s democratic institutions to discuss.

What makes an individual (you’ve got to love the stressed use of the term ‘individual’ in the title on the HSAC’s agenda) gay? What is a gay couple? And what roles do they perform in the household? These are some of the crucial questions that seem to be automatically raised in this committee that feels and acts very much like some Victorian committee questioning Darwin’s preposterous assertions on apes, men and the like.

Only that here, thanks to a mixture of confused (and I may add unfair) reporting and clueless honourable gentlemen, we were not discussing the evolutionary merits of the opposable thumb but rather issues of a more personal nature of thousands of ‘individuals’ who inhabit the islands of Malta in the 21st century. We needn’t go so far as examining the red-hot issue of “gay adoption” that inevitably sparks fires and heats debates even in the most liberal of nations. We are talking of basic rights and liberties – such as the right to marry (and I speak of the civil law right for people not giving two hoots about sacraments humanly concocted in some Diet or Council in Trent).

Queer folk

The news from the HSAC was not promising though. There seemed to be much banter about whether it was the government’s business to have an eye in every bedroom. Edwin Vassallo’s assertion that “Yes it was” because we bear the consequences of such things as “teenage pregnancies and single parenthoods” looked slightly out of place in a forum discussing couples whose ability to reproduce among themselves can best be described as impossible. So unless some new religion is in the making, complete with dogma of “impossible conception”, something was definitely wrong with the perspective of the lawmakers in the House. Sure The Times correspondent peppered his “report” with anecdotes about MGRM’s ideas on “creative ways to have children” but surely this was not the original point of the agenda?

It then moved to the slightly queer (sorry) when Honourable Conservative Member Beppe Fenech Adami resorted to ballistic logic (in the sense that he approached the subject with the same level of convincing logic as a suicide terrorist strapped with explosives): What roles for gay partners? Who’s the man and who’s the woman in a relationship? Given that it is already hard to determine such “roles” in the post-nuclear family – we’ve all heard the one about the one who wears the trousers – the questions were as anachronistic as they were offensive. As BFA proceeded to prove that, since switching roles is not done in his domus, it couldn’t work anywhere else, the gods of logic threw a tantrum and collectively resigned.

At which point you can picture Prof. Anthony Zammit making his dramatic entry armed with a Damocletian sword and delivering the coup de grace to a discussion that never really stood on tenable grounds. “I have gay friends and I am not ashamed to be seen with them in public”. Ta-da indeed. I must confess that I do not know much about Prof. Zammit beyond what I read in the papers, but even had the pinker corners of the web not led to my discovery that he had more than a passing interest in the discussion, the kind of statement he came up with is flabbergastingly ridiculous. The only conclusion we could draw from the “xarabankified” report was that our current crop of representatives is far from representing a large crop of the voting population.

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Friends of friends

There’s that phrase again. Programmes on TV this week were rather amusing. Lou (of Bondiplus of Where’s Everybody?) got spanked on the backside by the BA for his Lowell programme, so Peppi (of Xarabank of Where’s Everybody?) set up a programme discussing freedom of expression and Lou’s spanking. Guests on the programme? Another ta-da moment. Lou Bondi and the ubiquitous media guru Joe Borg Father. I spotted WE’s Norman Vella on Facebook claiming that “In this programme Lou Bondi will not be the only guest. He will face people who publicly expressed themselves against his programme with Norman Lowell”. Incidentally, he was replying to a comment by Borg Cardona who had just implied that the Xarabank programme had an incestuous element in it.

The criteria used by the Xarabank crew reminds me of certain Times’ editorials (or of a conversation between Lou and Fr Joe) where they seem to assume that they are the only people to have a relevant opinion or to have actually expressed an opinion on any given subject. All three – Xarabank, Bondiplus and The Times – have become an institutionalised form of their relative medias and it is in that spirit that they are criticised. Frankly, all three could hold whatever opinion they like but their constant editorial position that obliterates any opinion they consider irrelevant (for irrelevant read uncomfortable to deal with) is worrying and stinks of a systematic effort to retain the stranglehold that they have built over a large chunk of the fourth estate.

I am not too sure that the credibility of all three is the same as they enjoyed a while back, even among the more conservative of elements. Having long abdicated one of the primary journalistic duties of proper investigation, they are now lost in a navel-gazing world of their own and they have constantly proved unable to deal with the wider democratisation of the media. While their voices might still be strong enough to be heard, and while they can still afford to ignore the disparate contradictory elements, they are noticing that their grasp is weakening and their efforts to remedy the situation is only leading them to descend into the comically absurd. So yes. We have Lou as a guest on Peppi’s show discussing how Lou and Peppi’s company should be allowed freedom of expression. Jolly good, I say.

Friendly fire

Finally, a few notes on friendly fire. Joseph Muscat was on Myriam Dalli’s TX this week. TX is a programme on Labour’s One TV (did I mention that we STILL have party-owned TVs in 21st century Malta?), so such notions as bias and doctored questions are only to be expected as annoying intervals in between shots of that Mediterranean beauty that is the programme presenter. The other person on the show glared at the camera and warned of the problems of corruption in the country while standing fast behind such weird notions as carte blanche for whistleblowers and promising the people €50 million (take from Peter give back to Peter) for the “unjust tax on vehicles”. Rather than traipsing uselessly with the kangaroos, Joe might want to polish up his knowledge of recent (very recent) ECJ jurisprudence before harping on about the latter subject. (I have friends who studied European Law and I am not ashamed to be seen with them).

Two notes on GonziPN and friends. Well done for the WiFi spots around the country. That is a bit more tangible than all the words about Vision 2015. Surely you should warn interested citizens that “free public WiFi” is not eternal. As in all similar European projects, expect a shift to paid services in the near future – whether big brother tells you or not. Also GonziPN’s little tryst with “non-politicians” at Vision2015+ felt like a very manufactured and simulated business among friends. Funny that name – Vision 2015+. A government plan gets a “+” tagged onto it and it becomes a party meet. A bit like programmes getting a “+” on their name on national TV. All they needed were Lou and Peppi at Vision 2015+ … but wait… they were there. So it’s OK, innit?

www.akkuza.com (j’accuse) has 301 friends on its Facebook page. Would you be ashamed to be seen as one of them?