J'accuse : Memor et Fidelis

Last Thursday I flew to Malta from Brussels on an Air Malta flight. Having braved the trials and tribulations of the Brussels ring and having risked being stuck in the suburb of Zaventem (GPS alternative routes are not always fortunate), I enjoyed the comfort of a flight and meal on our oft wrongfully maligned airline. There’s nothing like an Air Malta pampering at economy class level to soothe the nerves after a tumultuous drive.

This last minute visit was planned earlier the week in order to surprise my mum during the farewell celebrations that her colleagues at Stella Maris College had planned for her retirement. So there I was, armed with a newspaper and in flight magazine, trying to catch up with the news while in transit and in between warm cooked meals and sips of Kinnie. It’s impressive what a good and cheap form of in flight entertainment the paper and the magazine turned out to be.

Pornographic

Divorce and mafia-like shootings aside, it seems that the next best thing to read about in the Maltese media are two − not too unrelated − court cases. The first deals with the owner of City Lights Cinema who has been charged (again) with the screening of hard porn (is it like water? does hard mean more calcium?) in his establishment in Valletta. Now correct me if I am wrong but this cinema (and the movies it shows − referred to in common parlance only in Malta and India as “blue”) was not opened yesterday. I recall the illicit chats during break in secondary school in which some maverick senior might recount of his escapade into this den of Beelzebub sited in the midst of our capital.

And if kids knew about it then you can bet your last greasy lira that most adults did as well. So how come the police are only now suing the guy for running a cinema without a permit? Without a permit? What did they think the two signs saying “CINEMA” on the front of the City Lights Arcade represented? A prank? So yes, why pick on this milder form of release for the desperate at this point in time?

Theatrical

Which leads us straight to the case of the Romanian girl caught stripping in one of the Paceville joints. Sod the sub judice myth, I cannot hold back from commenting on this. In a very theatrical effort (that won over the court reporters), defence lawyer Arthur Azzopardi asked for a recess in order to be able to accompany the police inspector to a newsstand whence he would procure a copy of Hugh Hefner’s best (that would be Playboy). I could imagine Atticus flinch (sic). Through some logic that is only useful to the defence lawyer (and his client), we are supposed to think: if you can see nude pics on a magazine then there is nothing wrong with seeing them live.

Sure. It’s the legal equivalent of defying the laws of gravity. Imagine the same argument in a murder case in which the victim was stabbed to death in the shower. “Can I ask for a recess m’lud? I’ll just pop down to a video outlet and get a copy of Psycho. If people can see that on film then why not in the flesh?” Q.E.D. Irrespectively of whether you agree or not with the availability/legality of topless dancers, you’ve got to admit that this legality by proxy argument is really tops. So I shut the newspaper court reports for a while and switched to the in flight magazine.

Where I found not one, not two, but three adverts for “Gentlemen’s Clubs”. They do not leave much to your imagination do they these ads? One of them advertised “various services within our venue for an exciting night of entertainment”. Hmm let me see. Do they mean sanitised bathrooms? Sofas maybe? A dance floor? For heaven’s sake how naive can we pretend to be by leaving this Gentlemen’s Club and porn business in a legal vacuum? Can you blame defence lawyers for the logistical gymnastics they go through? If this society is unable to discuss the truth of broken families and couples, how much less ready is it to discuss the positives of regulating (and making available) such venues of “release” as adult cinemas and gentlemen’s clubs?

Masquerade

Can we really wonder when the platform of discussion is polluted by modern day pragmatism and relativism? Why does Austin’s Bluff even merit discussion for example? Don’t get me wrong. I applaud the politician for stating outright that he would not be comfortable in a party that actively commits in favour of divorce. I would not expect him to do otherwise. It’s the way the message was conveyed (are the press to blame again?) in a manner as to suggest that Austin is blackmailing the country with a resignation that he had already decided would happen anyway.

Even in our discussion about marriage we are still equivocal. Both the pro- and anti- movements have argued that they are in favour of marriage. Beyond that though it’s all about statistics. Have we really asked ourselves what the modern day family unit is all about? In France the discussion goes back to the 60s and the sexual revolution, the emancipation of women and the gradual loss of any semblance of childhood. We dare not expose our ugly warts and ask questions of ourselves and prefer to wave the idealistic banners of conservative utopia vs. liberal intransigence.

Our ugly warts meanwhile are free to run abroad. Malta was twice in the news in Italy this week. First the man who claims to speak to Mary caused a ruckus in the Vatican. Never did the word “fedele maltese” sound any closer to “Arabic jihadist” than it did that day. There was also the bright spark who, worried that his friends might miss the boat, called in a bomb scare for the Pozzallo ferry.

Lasallian

Forgive me an extra run on the self-imposed word limit but I must congratulate a wonderful head, teacher and mum upon her retirement after 30 years of teaching at Stella Maris College. I am happy to have flown over to share the joy of all your colleagues, students past and present, and friends in celebrating your work over three decades. I’ve only confirmed what I’ve always suspected… that I’m not the only lucky one after all and that many, many others have had the honour to have had you as a guiding light in their life.

I am proud of your achievements and on Friday I remembered what it meant to be part of a larger family that goes beyond the boundaries of the nuclear family unit. The Lasallian frères are aptly known as brothers and though they seem to be getting scarcer and scarcer, I am glad that you chose to follow your vocational calling among them and with the principles of their founder. Back in 1981 I was just a young soon to be seven-year-old when we both walked into that College for the first time − you as a teacher and me as a student − and we lived through the dark years of the “Jew b’xejn jew xejn” period with classes in garages and basements.

The thousands of students whom you have overseen might have moved on but they still retain the ties to the Lasallian spirit that created a very strong foundation for their future. Your time to rest and enjoy the fruits of your labour has come; don’t underestimate the value of this moment. Carpe diem. Meanwhile, on behalf of all of us who have crossed paths with you in your vocation, it’s definitely time to say… thank you very much Mrs Zammit.

www.akkuza.com has gone all emotional this weekend. You’ll find we are our usual cynical self on the blog.