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J'accuse : The Summer Plank

I find the latest Facebook fad in Malta to be quite a happy coincidence. I’m talking about ‘planking’ of course – the ‘sport’ that has taken the Maltese corners of Facebook by storm with adults and kids alike ‘doing the plank’. The phenomenon shows many of the symptoms of any Maltese trend: it is a year or so late by international standards (rather early, that) and it has immediately divided public opinion between the pro and con crowds. And of course there are still those among us who lag behind, completely oblivious to the very existence of ‘planking’ and what it is all about.

Allow J’accuse to come to the rescue. The International Planking rules may be summarised as follows: To perform a plank one must lie horizontally, face down in a rigid stance with no expression whatsoever on one’s face. Legs must remain straight with toes pointed. The idea is to get yourself photographed in that position and then to tag that photo on Facebook with a phrase that indicates your planking intention. The international rules also add that potential plankers must plank safely and not expose themselves to undue risk.

I am told that the planking craze kicked off by chance in Malta when a clumsy attempt to plank over public furniture ended in a disastrous ‘fail’ (another web craze term). Be that as it may, planking has given us a very creative page on Facebook that has quietly slipped to the top of the popularity rankings in the place of the divorce-related pages. The divorce pages are suffering from the fickle attention span of the average ‘internet enthusiast’ and the sudden drought on the web as the summer sun gets people away from the internet and closer to the beach.

Plankuza

The intriguing part of the planking phenomenon is the manner in which it has instigated what I generally think to be a passive-reactive public to become very, very creative. While J’accuse urges respect for public furniture and above all respect for safety we cannot but bow to the genius of the man who ‘planked’ atop a bank ATM canopy on Spinola Hill up to Paceville. It remains one of our favourites. I tried the ‘sport’ myself in the pristine waters of Gћadira Bay (note: I was not the planker but the support that was necessary to elevate the aforementioned planker out of the water). Within seconds of the snapshot there were people around us nodding in enthusiastic acknowledgement and one particular dad set about explaining to his offspring what this ‘sport’ was all about.

Gћadira, by the way, is fast becoming a gem of a beach – at least as long as school is still in session and the boats have not yet started to choke the shores. Cleanliness, organisation and safety are witness to the efforts that have been taken to return our beaches to their natural beauty. I was joined in Gћadira by a friend who travelled there by bus. Actually it was a bus and a hitched ride because the original bus could not make it all the way up the hill to Mellieћa and broke down. Passengers were dumped in the summer sun and my friend who is a veteran visitor to the islands knew better than to wait for a Transport Malta alternative.

It’s sad really that the charming old buses will be leaving the streets. I made it a point to catch at least two rides (and a ferry crossing to Valletta) this time around, and snapped enough photos and collected enough tickets for my little personal scrapbook. On the whole, though, I do not think that the smoke-belching, unreliable monsters will be missed on the streets. If anything, the decision to switch to a new operator with new buses can only be greeted with gladness. I dare the Nationalist government to trumpet this achievement and to expect to reap some rewards of gratitude on this one. It is 2011 after all, isn’t it Emmanuel Delia? The absolute cock-up that was the saga of pedestrian Bisazza Street vs Arriva rescheduling has shown us that even when ushering in the obvious (a working bus system) there seems to be more than an inability to plan ahead.

The Planked

Who will pay for the ‘compensation’ that is due to Arriva for the rescheduling around a major route? Minister Austin Gatt told the press he had no clue what this bill would amount to. The man who seems to be trying to milk all the credit for the occasion, the aforementioned Emmanuel Delia – an unelected civil servant who will be contesting the next election on a nationalist ticket – fluffed with a million excuses and tried to finger the blame onto another Ministry’s late planning. What Delia failed to underline is that whether the bumbling is due to his hopeless planning skills or that of others, the bill is still to be footed by the citizen and nobody else.

The rescheduling has some other citizens up in arms. On my visits to Sliema I noticed many photocopied signs urging Sliema citizens to unite in protest at what is being done to their town. Tigné residents, it seems, are at the heart of this latest NIMBY uprising. Worse still they seem to have been marginalised by the rest of Sliema who are not impressed by the Tigné residents suddenly growing a civil conscience the moment they finally got to be on the receiving end of controversial decisions. But that’s us, isn’t it? The ‘I’m all right and sod you Jack’ mentality pervades across the voting spectrum which is why civil right activists like the tiny, undermanned Alternattiva Demokratika will be allowed into the home throughout a particular NIMBY campaign but will be ditched the moment the big issue of which networker to put in government comes around.

Cultured Planks

I have long bored readers with my idea that our current political set-up is an opiate of the people. The relativist race to zero-value perfection coupled with the nepotist networking that puts planning decisions in the hands of party-favoured goofs serves to neutralise healthy competition, to kill new ideas and to turn us into a nation of unreactive planks. Every now and then you do get some sparks of hope – as I did when attending the conference on Valletta 18 that was a prelude to Valletta’s bid to become European Culture Capital in seven year’s time. There is more about this in the blog but I’d like to say that it would be great if the effort to bridge the gap between the ‘culturati’ and those who currently live the culture unconsciously is actually made. The danger of the liberal arts closing themselves up in an elite group remains dangerously alive.

Speaking of liberals it seems to be the fashion these days for everyone and his mother to display liberal traits. This week I asked Bertu to fashion a cartoon that shows our society’s key players and their attitude towards fashionable liberalism. Just look at the papers over the past week and you will see both major parties falling over themselves trying to expose the liberal side of their ‘umbrella’ (or in Gonzi’s case – ‘rainbow’) movements. Judging by the reactions I have been listening to in social circles, the Maltese voter must be daydreaming his days away or planking to his heart’s content. The ‘we are liberal’ line is being swallowed – hook, line and sinker.

The Unexplained Planks

This week I was ‘accused’ of being too nationalist (particularly in an article in l-orizzont) and of being too anti-nationalist. It made me wonder whether people tend to remember only the parts of the article that they dislike. It does make sense really. Our basic instinct is to have our little electoral Jiminy Cricket conscience always at the back of our mind. He is there to yell out warnings whenever what we are reading challenges our ‘traditional’ voting trend and inclination. So as a nationalist voter you may skim through an article that criticises Joseph Muscat’s opportunist fashioning of his policies (and maybe nod in agreement) but your attention will only peak if (for the sake of example) I call your beloved leader Lawrence Gonzi a plonker (sic).

So as our parties refashion what they represent into two huge blocks of nothing, the voting population will dig its heels in the ground and still think in terms of black or white, red or blue. Their voting conscience remains as immovable and rigid as a planker in pose position. Unfortunately the tsunami of change promised post-referendum has only served to consolidate the ill-advised “umbrella movements” and their knee-jerk reactions.

To the Duchy

My week-long, wedding-related, visit comes to an end. There are a couple of people who I’d like to congratulate. There’s Pierre Mejlak and Chris at Merlin for the wonderful book and launch at Mdina. Dak li l-lejl iћallik tgћid is available online at Sierra Distributors and I would strongly recommend that you get a copy. Then there is the chef at Adira Lido in Gћadira Bay. I really have to thank him for a mixed seafood platter that was an out-of-this-world explosion of Mediterranean taste that would have been enough to make this latest visit home worthwhile. Thanks a million and see you again in August.

 

www.akkuza.com has reviewed Pierre’s latest masterpiece, sat through Valletta 18 and is now gearing for the latest collection of stories for www.re-vu.org. Happy birthday, Kika!

 

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