J'accuse: Empowerment

The latest fare from today’s J’accuse column in The Malta Independent on Sunday. In which we discuss Dalli, Debono, Camilleri and Avatar.

I must say that formerly Honourable John Dalli really exceeded all J’accuse’s expectations during his performance before the assembled members of the European Parliament. Unlike his Bulgarian quasi-colleague the day before, the man known to many as Johnny Cash probably managed to woo much more than the inevitable automatic applauses of the Popular Party reverends and whatever part of the PN still values his political nous.

In fact the frankness and conviction with which soon-to-be Commissioner Dalli engaged with his interlocutors before the world audience could have won over even the most skeptic of observers – and as a mother of all unintended spin-offs even the Gonzi clan will be rushing to claim parenthood of the smart move of sending such an able envoy to Barroso’s court. This column has criticised the use of the wrong priorities when it came to deciding who to send to Brussels as Commissioner and still remains convinced that the wrong criteria won the day. This notwithstanding, Mr Dalli – the choice based on the aforementioned wrong priorities – turned out to be much more than an adequate choice on the first day of asking.

Whether smiling candidly at the Frenchie asking him about GMO’s or whether discussing patient rights or pharma industry with the Dutch and Irish Dalli had an answer up his sleeve for every issue. It was the political equivalent of watching a brontosaurus come back to life during an archaeology convention complete with bellowing growl and movements. Not that I mean any disrespect towards Mr Dalli or his age, it’s just that it has been aeons since we saw a Maltese politician speaking with what sounded like a clear vision and an idea of service towards his demos.

Vision
Now that’s a word we had forgotten due to it’s having been lost under piles spin-infected gibberish. It’s an aim, an underlying statement of political intent that delineates an intention to achieve progress through action. Excuse the logorrhea but the vibe was definitely contagious. Dalli had a basic tune – the informed, empowered citizen who is able to make intelligent choices about his health and safety. Once this grundnorm in our neo-commissioner’s policy was clear then everything became (relatively) plain-sailing.

He could emphasised his loyalty to the consumer – even when he asserted in a Judge Dredd sort of way that “I am the Commissioner” or “I will be strong”. You believed the man. The accountant from Qormi had the stirring qualities of a people’s Commissioner – at least in the testing ground of the MEP interrogation room. You cannot even say that the interrogation is a farce. Every Commissioner elect went in there fully aware of the power that is now wielded by the representatives of the demos and Bulgarian Mme. Jeleva could tell you something about how rattling an experience the scrutiny can be.

Mme Jeleva might still survive the ordeal given that at the time of writing Barroso seems determined to back her. Still, Dalli’s performance was light years apart from Jeleva’s and if he even achieves half of what he has set out to achieve then his will have been a very good advert for the kind of politicians Malta used to produce. Dalli’s aides claimed that he had been hard at work preparing for this moment throughout Christmas and the New Year and we have no reason to doubt it. No amount of preparation other than decades at the heart of the political arena could have prepared him for the kind of calm reassured answers that he gave on the day. That is why I refer to the brontosaurus – not out of irreverence but as a metaphor of a dying breed of politician.

Prosit Mr Dalli (or Dali as it seems to be pronounced on the continent). Now it’s time to roll up the sleeves and get the Luxembourgish government to finally abide fully with the smoking regulations.

Guts
There’s another politician who has been putting up quite a show of late. I said a few weeks ago that I would never vote for Franco Debono but that was before I watched his performance on Xarabank.Let me say first and foremost that I still stand by my conviction that the whole Sleeping Franco farce was a clear demonstration of the weakness of the current style of politics as well as the final nail in the coffin of the PN spinning and marketing machine.

Franco on the other hand still had a lot of explaining to do after his early simulation of a mute mummy followed by the sick boy visited at home by the Prime Minister. It turns out that Franco’s reasons for abstaining from voting on a minor issue that was not the doing or undoing of any government (as he was keen to point out) could actually be enumerated. Franco, it seems, wanted to give the PN clan a bit of a shake up and did the equivalent of shooting a criminal in the foot – enough to incapacitate him but not enough to cause any fatal wounds that could be lethal.

Justice and the citizen seem to be top on Franco’s mind. More importantly than that was his “rant” about respecting parliament as an institution. We did not need to read between the lines to see where Dr Debono was heading at. After all we have been complaining about the twisted nature of our representative system long before the Honourable Member did a purposeful runner to attract attention. When the rules of the game are bent in such a manner to ensure that a party “governs” with relative safety for five years and in such a way that such party can afford to go deaf, dumb and mute to the whole concept of consultative democracy then you can expect discontent.

The relative majority is the feeble basis on which Gonzi’s house was built. It is that very relative majority that can come back to haunt him whenever a backbencher feels he has been neglected. This being Malta we will immediately fall for the “greedy politician” conclusion – imputing egoistic and power-grabbing aims to the next MP that rocks the boat. No doubt we will be assisted by the PN Personality Destruction machine and their rent-a-pundit crowd whenever this happens, yet, if Franco Debono is to be believed there may be some politicians who will take advantage of the system’s weakness in order to attempt change from inside.

And it takes guts for someone to do that. As others have said before me you have either got to be bloody stupid on a political suicide mission or you have to have a vision that will get you somewhere. Hearing Franco Debono speak to this-is-not-chewing-gum-in-my-mouth Azzopardi I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. The truth is that I do not think that Franco is stupid enough to have signed his political death sentence simply to get some paltry cabinet job to shut up. Is it wrong to think that maybe, just maybe, a politician in the midst of it all opened his eyes and thought of empowering his electorate with a bold action?

I don’t know the answer to that one yet but as I said, I am prepared to give Franco the benefit of the doubt for now while I wait to see if he will pursue his causes and issue to the end. The day he manages to get transparency of party funding will be the day I seriously consider backing the guy head-on for the next election. Who would have said it? A nationalist maverick becoming the champion of the liberal democrat disillusioned? We just have to wait and see.

Speech
It had to be an interview on BBC’s radio 5 show “Up All Night” to put the whole Realtà issue in perspective. Mark Camilleri was interviewed by Rhod Sharp in the 4.50 a.m. slot on Radio 5. Whoever was up at that early hour (or whoever listened to almost three hours of podcast) would have heard Mark defend a story “written in the way many people speak here in Malta”. Mark’s irritating pronunciation of the term “authorities” was a bit distracting but it was an interesting story just the same.

As MP Owen Bonnici has pointed out in another paper, Mark Camilleri is not being censored but arraigned under Malta’s obscenity laws. Neither Mark nor his colleagues expected the “uproar” that followed the publication of the Alex Vella Gera’s piece. Funnily enough the “intellectuals” of the island are now up in arms (or rather waving their fists menacingly) because of all this “censorship”. As I said strictly speaking it’s not censorship but obscenity laws that they should be fighting this time round.

It gets worse though. The artists and authors and all those who are suddenly sprouting petitions and reproducing (sans permis) the offensive piece online are rather late in their complaints. They are missing the wider picture. As I said on the blog:

“The intellectuals and liberals, if any are left, should have been protesting in the street and yelling cultural murder ever since legislators, law enforcers and saintly predicators were falsely implying that such things as strip clubs, topless sunbathing and dressing up as the apostles for carnival go against the collective mores of this catholic society. Yet they were silent. It gets worse. Every time they voted in the political system that is a comfortable bedfellow with those who still sell the lie of the catholic nation to those who dare not contradict, they continued to acquiesce to the very status quo that they now criticise and yell against in disbelief.” (Freedom of Expression, 12th January 2010)

And that, in a nutshell, is what they are missing. It may be trendy and hip to back the young editor threatened with a prison sentence (hell, why not make his story into a play? Imagine how cool if IT was banned) but what it really shows is the tunnel vision of the protesting crowd. If my advice was worth anything I’d say that they should follow the young MP I mentioned earlier. Owen Bonnici is suggesting an intelligent piece of draft law that would abolish censorship and insist on ratings. Like Dalli, Bonnici believes in the informed, intelligent citizen – although he might legitimately wonder if there are enough of those around to justify pursuing that sort of legislation.

Titbits
To conclude, a word on the ebook reader. I promised news on this latest of devilish gadgetry and I can now say that the thing is a marvel to behold and use. Reading remains just as pleasant an experience as when we held dead recycled trees in our hands. The archiving, bookmarking and highlighting extras not to mention the instant dictionary while you read turn this ultra-portable groundbreaking gadget into a must buy. Wait a bit more for prices to become reasonable but you can bet your last penny that ebooks and their readers are the way forward.

I am off to pray to San Siro (if he really exists). I had only just bought flight tickets and accommodation to watch the Italy Cup quarter final leg between nine times winner Juventus and papertrophy Inter in Milan. I barely had time to receive confirmation of accomodation before Inter rudely asked for the Federcalcio to change the date of the match because of some new whingey excuse only they can come up with.

Now I’ll have a nightmare ahead of me as I have to deal with the most un-customer friendly of airlines as I try to change my tickets. They’ll probably charge me for simply thinking of changing my travel dates. I could try to get Massimoan Moanatti to foot the bill but I don’t think I’d stand a chance. No prizes for guessing who the friendly airline is but I’ll give you a clue… first syllable rhymes with Brian and the second rhymes with hair.

Avatar

Finally from the world of cinema: The Vatican’s apparently not impressed by the story of a guy who takes the shape of a race on a planet and is prepared to give up his life in order to save them from destruction and eternal damnation. Go figure.

Jacques is crossing his fingers while still improving the looks of www.jacquesrenezammit.com/jaccuse/. Feedback has been quite positive but we’re still waiting to see what you think.