Austin Bencini has been busy spinning the “hurt” every single anti-divorce lobbyist must surely have felt when their position on the Common Good was equated to that of the Nazis. How bloody typical. “Twegga‘” (it hurts) is a common adjective in our Don Camillo and Peppone political parlance. It is a technique favoured by the politician who was dying for an excuse to avoid the subject matter and discovers that the opponent might just have thrown him a lifeline with some vague and spurious accusation. Twegga‘ is the political discussion equivalent of the footballer faking an injury and squirming on the ground in the hope of conning the referee into an undeserved send-off.

So there you have Bencini and the anti-divorce parade taking a break from the God Will’s It theories to switch to the sympathy approach. “We have been unjustly accused of being Nazis”. Not. From the little I have read of the yawn-inducing exchanges between the army for marriage and the battalion of the second marriage nothing could be further from the truth. It’s no as though the fact that equating the Nazi arguments for the common good to those of Austin Bencini will change anything from the actual substance of the debate. But Austin does not care about that does he? He cares about labelling his opponents as liars while squirming on the ground faking a career-threatening injury.

Now where’s the referee?

There are unconfirmed reports of a Libyan naval vessel in Maltese territorial waters. The reports that appeared on Al Jazeera are doing the press rounds as we speak. This follows reports earlier today that the AFM are on “stop leave” as well as separate reports that there has been an official demand from Libya that Malta return the two fighter jets.

Our bellicose neighbour might have found time for some sabre rattling while our neighbour to the north confirmed yesterday that it had dispatched vessel “Elettra” to the international forces off Libya. It is time for some important decisions for the Maltese government. This is not the time for a government that relies on flimsy press statements condemning “violence” but for one that takes a stand.

Our parties have become used to the idea that “doing something” about an issue means issuing a press release – take their ridiculous habit of congratulating Eurovision contest winners. Well this is definitely not Eurovision though there is no doubt that all eyes are on Malta.

I’ve been active on Facebook today trying to spread the J’accuse list of indictments on the divorce debate in Malta. At one point I was trying to post links to the note on the wall of any politician who ventured onto Facebook to discuss divorce. One of my posts was on Evarist Bartolo’s wall as the labour MP had added another “parable” about a married man who has seen the light and will not be an obstacle to divorce for other people. Varist is one of the Labour MP’s who tries hard to give the impression that the PL actually has a position on divorce – so I asked him. I asked a simple question: What is Labour’s position on divorce? No answer from Bartolo of course, although I did get accused by some guy that I was some kind of mouthpiece for Lou Bondi (!).

In any case, at one point I got to have an interesting discussion with Marlene Mizzi who pointed out that the PL’s stand on divorce is actually the free vote fin case of a vote in parliament. I’m reproducing the rest of the exchange (till now) here in the hope that this kind of discussion can provoke more comments on this issue.

Marlene Mizzi:

‎@JRZanmmit: this insistence for some to keep asking the PL to ‘take a stand’ reminds me of those who who are deaf not because they cannot hear, but because they do not want to listen.

The PL HAS taken a stand in the divorce issue and that is to give their MPs a FREE VOTE. It would be very contradictory for this statemnet to be credible with the PL simultaneously stating it’s position for/ against divorce.
The PN on the other hand has taken this incredible stand where declaring itsefl agaisnt divorce but also giving its MPs a free vote .Ara kif jistgha jkin it-tnejn!! Now we will wait and see how many of the NP MPs will vote ‘ freely’ and not tow the party’s line- as should be expected from them once the PN took an official stand.

I am all for political parties to take stands . It is what is expected of them. But I make an exception in this case and agree entirely with the PL . Infact i know for certain that a number of PN MPs privaelty opine that the PN should have never taken an official political stand and the insistence for the PL to do likewise is to neutralise this strategic mistake. I do not think that Josph Muscat will be falling for this one!

Jacques René Zammit:
The PL stand on a free vote is NOT a position on the divorce issue. FREE VOTE is an ABDICATION of political responsibility and an opportunist move that reads: as a party (a progressive party to boot) I refuse to take a stand because I am unable to refer to set of basic values that I represent.

There is nothing for JM to “fall for” here. It is actually a move for leadership. I am for divorce legislation because I believe divorce legislation brings into force a civil right that can be availed of by a minority. As a party that claims to be on a progressive high this “position” on divorce is a double abdication of responsibility. The pro-divorce movement should have found a natural home in a progressive party – instead it is an orphan of a party too busy trying to please everything under the sun.

Read the comments of labour supporters Marlene. They are very obviously labouring under the impression that labour means divorce and that Joseph’s party automatically means a transition away from conservative Gonzi’s policy. How wrong they are. How unable to see spinelessness of this position of Joseph’s. Does he not realise that the free vote is a usurpation of a parliamentary seat and vote?

I’ve made my position clear here:

http://www.facebook.com/notes/jacques-rene-zammit/i-accuse-an-indictm…ent-related-to-the-divorce-debate-in-malta/10150139555532744

I stand by what I said. For those who will answer me by comparing PL to PN I will simply say that they miss my point. I am angry at both PL, PN as well as other social groups involved in this referendum debacle. I am angry because they have ALL abdicated from their social responsibility – all this in the name of short term gain.

Both Joseph’s faux progressives and Gonzi’s procrastinating conservatives are doing a disservice to a relevant minority in this country who would love to have the opportunity to exercise a choice – a right to remarry.

That is a fact. Free vote is a false vote. A usurpation of parliamentary democracy, an abdication from representative duties and the biggest heist of democratic liberties yet.

Marlene Mizzi:

JRZ: you have made some valid points and some I do not agree with. If I were adn MP I would rather have a leader give me a free vote on this ‘sui generis’ issue ,than a leader who tries to take the mickey by declaring the party’s official stand AND tell me I can vote freely. Perhaps that is why the PM was having meetings one to one today at Castille– to tell them to vote as they see fit. U hallina!

I can just about imagine the converstion this morning at Castille” I called you in just to remind you that you can vote freely in the divorce issue , ta…. as long as it is a NO. Ok ?Understood? Trid li Gordon jibghatlek email ha jfakkrek?”

Jacques René Zammit:

Interesting Marlene. But that’s not the point is it? Predictably, you are lost comparing PL and PN – it’s good fodder for the circus audience used to comparing their champions but is it really what is needed for a debate on the introduction of divorce legislation? Not really is it?

Your reasoning is as an “MP” and his preferences vis-a-vis his leader’s instructions. Fine it’s a preference. But it has nothing to do with the duties of representation towards the electorate. What do we elect parties for? What do we elect MPs for? What does an MP represent? His conscience? That’s bullshit and you know it. He represents his constituency and more directly his voters. That is how our electoral system defines representation.

Political parties are our only way of identifying the values and principles of those elected on their ticket. The free vote not only cuts off the umbilical chord from the party but it also renders them unanswerable to the electorate that put MPs in parliament in the first place. You will note that this applies to BOTH PN and PL. Frankly I don’t care which is the worst position of the two – in my mind they are both hopelessly out of order.

What does a free vote tell the electorate? It tells the electorate I don’t care what you think, I don’t have a position as a party ON DIVORCE, so I’ll just leave each MP to vote as he wishes. I emphasise the as he wishes. Did you vote for Silvio Parnis, Evarist Bartolo Karl Gouder or David Agius so they can sit in our house of representatives and vote as they wish on issues related to specific civil rights?

You’re right we may disagree. But please be clear about the fact that the position you prefer is one that renders parliamentary representation redundant. Might as well have dukes and barons voting as they will…. as for the people… who cares no?

Both the pro- and anti-divorce movements are in favour of marriage. The pro-divorce movement has announced its logo. It’s negatively atrocious – and sends out all forms of wrong signals. The only positive was the emphasis that even a pro-divorce movement is in favour of strong marriages. We’re all set for the Grand Debate of 2011 in Malta: Divorce pro or con?

All that is left is to understand whether it will be a referendum, a law, none or both that will represent the culmination point of this latest chance to take sides. Don’t know why but with the announcement of the logo for the pro-divorce movement I could only think of this song as interpreted by Johnny Cash.

Addendum: I remembered why. It’s the Maltese phrase “Kullhadd ghandu alla tieghu” (Everyone’s got his own god). Très Depeche Mode. Let’s all reach out touch faith.

Come to think of it even this version is very apt:

and once we’re at it why not link the original:

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• Don’t Try This at Home: Adultery in the Marital Bed (nytimes.com)
• What Will People Think When They Find Out I’m Divorcing? (psychologytoday.com)
• Heading for a Divorce? Determine Your Post-Split Expenses (dailyfinance.com)

Thank you to everybody for the birthday wishes. 35 years old. Still going strong.

This photo has been making the rounds on Facebook and email. It is a snapshot of a particular corner of Paceville circa 1982. It’s an incredible photo that threw me back to my childhood. I was a seven year old Pacevillian there and Paul’s Punch Bowl was the place that served great pizza’s (if I remember well it was the calzone that rocked). The restaurant grew and grew – as did the rest of Paceville – and would soon incorporate one of the first nightclubs and gamesroom in that road: the Ace of Clubs.

At this time Paceville was not so much the hedonist den of sin that we know today. Opposite the Punch Bowl you can see a the house with the green door. I remember the people who lived in that house. I remember the fruit and veg man who would sell his wares right beside that wall. This was a Paceville that had lost its residents from the forces (Mintoff, remember?) and had gradually surrendered large parts of its terrain to a Libyan community of sorts that used to terrorise the likes of myself and my brother on our errands to the Queen’s and London stores (Ball and Paceville Streets respectively).

You could still stroll through the back parts of the Hilton and enjoy public land all the way to the sea. Saint George’s Bay was a rough gap between the new buildings on the Dragonara promontory and the Sunday football paradise that was the area just below Pembroke. You could count the shops on Saint George’s Road between Wembley and Paul’s Punch Bowl on one hand. There was Bonello Store (grocer – now a kitsch jewellery shop next to Maxims) and there was the Scotsman. I’m not sure whether Peppermint Bar existed as yet. My memory fails me on that account.

Back to the photo. The snapshot is taken from a position that would place the photographer close to the steps of what is now Burger King (corner of Saint George’s and Wilga) – to be more exact it is probably taken from just outside what used to be the Gelateria Lungomare. Paul’s Punch Bowl is now mainly Stiletto’s (until some time ago Rock Cafe). The white wall is now Plush and I am not sure what the vegetable vendor would make of all the shishas though I am sure the Libyans of Ball Street would not have minded.

Paceville 1982

Photo Probably taken from far right of this image

rockCafe - before the gentlemen came

I cannot remember which article I was reading. It must have been the one about the new California Governor who will succeed Schwarzenegger. Apparently he was already governor 36 years ago. That’s a long time ago isn’t it? By my calculation it is one year over my whole lifespan. But that is not the first calculation that comes to mind. It’s just that – the calculation we automatically make when we read the phrase “years ago”. Somehow in my mind there is an automatic conversion system that still plants the phrase “30 years ago” firmly between the 50s and 60s.

I noticed this phenomenon when I actually tried to calculate the last time when Brown (Arnie‘s replacement) was actually Governor. It turns out that 36 years ago is 1974 (obviously – since I was born in 1975 – vide supra). What jarred was that my original “calculation” as I skimmed through the article placed Brown firmly in the Kennedy era. The minds’ automatic association for the phrase “35 years ago” is circa 1960. Ditto for “25 years ago” circa 1970) and a little less for closer approximations.

I wonder whether this happens to anyone else. Do you associate specific phrases with specific dates or is it just my brain being lazy?

P.S. Turns out that the article I read might have actually been wrong about how long ago Brown was governor. But that is not really the point here is it.

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A great report on MaltaToday about the work of CABS monitors in the Maltese countryside merits as much attention as possible. Private individuals attempt to fill the administrative lacunae and shortcomings by providing valuable assistance to the ALE officers. “Raphael Vassallo spends an afternoon with BirdLife and CABS monitors in the Maltese countryside looking for that very elusive of species: poachers.” (MaltaToday)

Fausto wonders why I am fascinated by the internal workings of a party I (presumably) don’t vote for and of which I am not a member. Pedants like Majistral have a habit of acting extremely naive in such circumstances and ignoring the basic fact that a political party and its mechanisms are fair game for political punditry whether or not one favours them – which is why J’accuse took as much of an interest in the Labour leadership developments as it does in the paradoxical convolutions of PN Executive Committee conclaves. Even worse than the naiveté on the matter of scrutiny of party works is the apparent surprise with which Fausto greeted the link between a budget document and social policies of a government. Of course a budget is not a do or die element in whether or not we get our divorce law but we all know how the strings of the treasury are often used in order to incentivise the strengthening of social units such as for example the family. Compartmentalising budget talk (ideas, vision, discussion) from other principled talk would mean accepting a party of ambivalences. A party has to be able to stand up and be judged for the totality of its actions – including statements thrown in to pep up its budget act.

Which is where Marthese Portelli comes in. This is yet another “politician” caught in the trawler net of “anything goes” by the party proletariat at the time of elections and which tends to hang on afterwards having mistaken the opportunistic gambit made by the schemers at Dar Centrali as some sort of faith in her political nous. Sadly multiplying votes in the Gozo district (or any other district for that matter) does not automatically transfrom a “mother and lawyer” (as Marthese reminds us in her leaflets and PR) into a politician. Having enjoyed the electoral limelight and reaped some reward for running on the ticket of one of the two parties that tend to get votes (most PLPN candidates would fare hopelessly were they to run on an AD ticket – it’s not the person, it’s the party that gets the vote and up yours Mr Constitution) Portelli starts to think like many others of her ilk – she believes that whatever she pens down counts – whether it makes sense or not.

For some reason I cannot fathom, the Indy seems to have a new love affair with Portelli. Last week Stephen Calleja gave us an example of investigative journalism at its Lou Bondi best (smell the irony). A one page interview that told us absolutely nothing about Portelli apart from the fact that even though she has moved to Saint Helen’s parish she is still in love with the people who voted for her and has come up with an idea – Jobs for the Boys and Girls in Gozo. Gee that’s new.  How come nobody came up with that one before. Eager to carry on the spin Portelli has an article of her own this week. 569 words about the new Belgian Presidencyof the EU. Which would have been spiffing. Had there been one inkling of original thought in it that is. Instead it turns out that a one liner link to this document called the “Programme of the Belgian Presidency of the EU Council” would have saved Marthese lots of cutting and pasting and the Indy some valuable column space.

Marthese Portelli is currently President of the PN Executive and chairs the meetings of the conclave discussing divorce.

Image via Wikipedia

***

Last Saturday, the day before MaltaToday splashed his holiday on Nazzareno Vassallo’s superyacht all over its front page I happened to meet Paul Borg Olivier at Ghadira Bay. In our short conversation Paul could not resist a jibe at my ever growing waistline by putting it down to my incessant blogging at the computer. I wish I could have snapped a shot of the look of disgust as he mimed me typing away at the computer. It only stands to reason. Nationalists must not have such a big love affair with computers. It all started with the infamous story of Austin Gatt destroying a PC as the results of the 1996 elections came out and went on all the way to PBO’s gaffes of pressing the wrong buttons and David Casa and Marthese Portelli still not realising that cut and paste is not such a sly move in today’s computing world.

The Bikini gets its name from the Bikini atoll which was the area targeted for a nuclear test at the same time as the fashion symbol and style hit the catwalks in Europe. Western Europeans got over the initial fuss when the seaside attire was popularised by the great Hollywood divas and anyone outside the world of Talibans and Mujaheddins no longer is impressed by the appearance of a bikini in littoral towns nowadays. Not so in Balluta Bay Malta:

An indecent attitude
Dunstan Crockford, St Julians
The other day I witnessed a modern form of “lynching”. A young foreign student was wearing a bikini in Balluta Square. At first nobody said or did anything but as she decided to leave and was walking down the few steps to the pavement, a mature woman loudly screamed and ran towards her.
This attitude sparked off a crowd of around 10 persons all howling names at the bewildered girl: “dirty”, “go home”, “shame”, “get dressed”. One even threatened to throw her in the sea! At this point the foreign girl was joined by her friends and plucked up some courage. She crossed the road and took photos of the hostile crowd. Naturally this provoked more insults.
In no way am I condoning the girl’s attire but surely there are decent ways to approach situations like these!

That’s from the Times’ letter section. Which is obviously a good time to point out why it makes so much sense to have a referendum on such things as divorce. Are you still so sure about that Lawrence?

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