Author: Jacques René Zammit

Categories
Zolabytes

On Lack of Politics at the UOM

J’accuse was shocked by a headline in the Times on the 5th of October claiming that a “Students’ body wants student’s council to be free of politics” so we decided to ask somebody from that movement – Mark Camilleri (known to most extra-uni people as the Realtà editor) to explain whether this impression of wanting to neuter the KSU was right. It turns out that Mark was just as apalled and had a few ideas of his own to express. Which is why his ideas are now here on this Zolabyte platform – for an open, mature discussion. As in every other Zolabyte J’accuse does not endorse the ideas in this article but encourages an open discussion about them – the floor is now open (Uni students are particularly encouraged to contribute).

Many students of the University of Malta and Junior College do not feel they are being represented by their University Students Council and the outstanding majority is completely alienated to politics let alone to the Students University Council. Some are not even aware it even exists. This is why I was pissed off at the headline which the TOM put on an article about the press conference, organised by Moviment Graffitti and Independent Movement which said ” Students’ body wants students’ council to be free of politics”. I can’t understand how a journalist or an editor can make such a bad mistake when they cover a press conference by a left-leaning political group which has contested the Council’s elections last year!

So, back to basics! The Council is first of all a political institution because it manages people, the students and a space, Students House. So the groups which contest its elections are by default political groups which carry ideological baggage. If we do not want politics to be part of the Council then we would be demanding its dismantlement which isn’t a bad idea farer all, considering that it has become a trojan horse to University, students and education. However our aim is to have a council which is lead by students who would work for a progressive and secular education, to help students and defend their rights. In other words we want a left-wing Council.

The Council has been reduced into an entity which has mainly two aims: to conserve the party-line of the PN with the limits of its powers, which mainly consists of an old style, Catholic type of right-wing politics, and to accumulate capital. It has became a powerful and reactionary force which resembles more a Centre of American Republicanism rather than a University Students Council.

The Council is run by the Christian Democrat Students and yes we did indeed protest against their way of doing politics, we did indeed protest against the Christian Democrats who are more interested in towing the party line, and even pushing it further to the right rather than defending student rights but we do not want students to be free from politics and if anything should be full of it.

Our press conference was a protest against how Freshers’ Week is being organised which is a fine example where the political ideology of the Student Democrats manifests in its extreme forms. During Freshers’ Week The Campus, and its surrounding areas, is filled with companies one of which is the company (Gasan Group of Companies) of the family of Stephanie Soler, a Culture and Entertainment Coordinator of the Council. Every year, the space allocated to financial companies increases at the expense of the space which students organisations can occupy. (J’accuse: This allegation has been countered by the current KSU president in this article on theTimes – “Call for more transparency in KSU finances“) So financial companies are not only being privileged because they afford paying, but the Council is dealing with the relatives of its members. But if this seems to be a conflict of interest it doesn’t compare to the favouritism and nepotism which take place through the Student Fund Scheme as I have indicated in this article: Bummers of University Unite! You have nothing to lose but your reputation.

We also reiterated the demand for full transparency of the Council’s finances. It is extremely silly how the Council can boast of its transparency just because they have an annual financial report signed by an auditor. The fact that the auditor introduced the report by claiming that the books which were presented to him had several inconsistencies, is not something of considerable importance to them. Their answer to the problematic question of transparency is, that he had signed his own audit report. How pathetic! An auditor will audit any kind of books, even if they are not detailed or lack information because he is being paid to compile a report. The report is a result of the accounts which are presented. So if you present bad accounts, you will end up with a bad financial report and it wouldn’t be the auditor’s fault. Silly isn’t it, that I have to explain basic accounting procedures to a university students council? Yes, unfortunately University politics does not only include disputes about politics but also about how to get your stuff right. If you have any doubts don’t bury these facts with the typical PN accusations of ”mud-slinging” but go and ask for a copy of the financial report from their office. Look for revenue and expenditure break-downs, especially break-downs of revenue for advertisement and rent. They aren’t there and the Council does not seem to be the least interested in publishing them. Hurray for full transparency!

However being a leftist I am not only involved in student politics to bring radical change but also for the sake of political survival. During the last year the Council evacuated Moviment Graffitti out of their office and members of the Council reported issue 8 of Ir-Realta’ to the University Authorities, the reason being that they were offended by a fictional story. They twisted the regulations of the Council’s Statute so as to avoid PULSE’s proposal of Proportional Representation from gaining ground in the Council’s Annual General Meeting of 2010. They started a strong campaign against the lecturers, acting more like strike-breakers than students who were critical of a bad situation when the lecturers had a dispute with the government and as a result started a work to rule strike. Carl Grech, the Council’s president had the cheek to say that the dispute was resolved by the Council during a debate held prior to the 2010 elections, on Campus. They even had the nerve to make a pro-Catholic campaign against a condom machine at University as if such a proposal was something worth opposing. So when such a Council is clearly bent to pursue a hardcore right-wing ideology, small and unconnected left-wing groups will get choked. Being on a continuous political offensive while uniting with different groups to form a movement will have our political opponents removed from the Council.

I will end my article with a plea. I greatly respect other organisations such as MOVE, PULSE and IDEAT but I still believe that they aren’t doing their best to unite in a bigger movement. The main problem is that PULSE has been demoralised by consecutive election defeats and their determination is slowing down. As usual the ego is sometimes also a problem as in a movement compromises have to be made. But this neither means that the left should compromise its ideals to defeat the Christian-Democrats. The left can be consistent and united only if those who feel to be part of it are ready to overcome difficult challenges.

J’accuse endquote: Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber. (SDM Participation Campaign Slogan 1996/7 – from Plato).

*****
Zolabytes is a rubrique on J’accuse – the name is a nod to the original J’accuser (Emile Zola) and a building block of the digital age (byte). Zolabytes is intended to be a collection of guest contributions in the spirit of discussion that has been promoted by J’accuse on the online Maltese political scene for 5 years.
Opinions expressed in zolabyte contributions are those of the author in question. Opinions appearing on zolabytes do not necessarily reflect the editorial line of J’accuse the blog.
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Categories
Mediawatch

Bondi+ on VAT

The season’s begun. TVM is orphaned of Dissett and we have Bondi’s program to follow the hot topics. We’ve kicked off with MaidGate and an analysis of Tonio Fenech‘s slip regarding his home help. Rachel’s running around interviewing the MPs as per usual – why not a direct line with the MP’s every week asking them the question of choice? While the balance of the story was straightforward and simple – the tradition of non-tax paying maids vs the strict letter of the law we could not help but noticing one glaring flaw in the program.

The guest list:

  • Joe Friggieri – philosophy teacher (ghalliem tal-filosofija)
  • Toni Abela – lawyer /labour Vici-Kap
  • Francis Zammit Dimech – lawyer/ PN MP
  • Chris Cutajar – opinjonistà

Now. This was a case that kept bringing into question the issue of taxes and tax payments. Would it have been too much to bring a tax lawyer/ tax advisor to clarify certain issues on the programme? Do we really have to hear the “minghalija” (if I am not mistaken) and politically biased legal assessments of the guests?

And finally will Toni Abela spare us the “xamma ta’ korruzzjoni” business for the future? He is unable to stand bz his own allegations. What next? Xummiemu the investigator?

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Arts Politics

The Ethics of IVF

In his latest installation on J’accuse, late night commentator David Borg tells us that “There are many serious ethical issues regarding in vitro fertilization which you conveniently failed to mention such as the freezing and destruction of human embryos. Besides there are studies showing that IVF births have a higher rate of birth defects.” Never missing a beat when it comes to marching in step with the latest Vatican diktat Borg is keen to tell us what J’accuse “conveniently failed to mention” while referring shadily to mysterious, unquoted “studies” showing higher rates of birth defects.

What this champion of vatican contradictions fails to point out is that this is another of the blind alleys up which the Vatican has walked in the same vein as the infamous “condoms are bad for thee” saga in Africa – I’m sure that there are studies that point that the Vatican is indirectly responsible for millions of deaths with this indoctrination. In any case the scientific miracle (oh the provocative oxymoron) of IVF might be guilty of being too close to nature. It is in fact not just man with his IVF dabbling that risks losing a fertilized egg or two in order to increase the chances of an unhappy, barren couple to become pregnant with child. Mother nature also has the “unnatural” habit of creating and fertilizing more eggs than become babies. Funny how the Vatican hath not declared mother nature an anathema – or God himself for having allowed such an abomination to happen.

Abraham, Sarai and Hagar the IVF Handmaiden

The insipid ease with which such men as David rush to judgement over a system such as conception by IVF is what I found most unnatural and revolting. Since the god in which they seem to believe is not as interventionist as in days past – when he toyed with the couple Abraham and Sarah endlessly (not to mention all the wombs in Abimelech’s household – Genesis 20:18), today’s couples do not resort to Hagar the handmaiden for the joy of procreation but have Professor Edwards (Nobel Prize Winner for Medicine, 2010) to thank for the greater possibility of having their own offspring.

Here’s the Times (UK) editorial on the same point:

Professor Edwards’s work has its critics. The Roman Catholic Church opposes some IVF, on the ground that it can involve the destruction of embryos. And it is beyond argument that this is what happens: fertility clinics generally fertilise many eggs, and often implant two, to maximise the chance that one will survive. The remaining tiny embryos are then frozen or discarded.

But there is nothing anti-life in IVF: the embryos are created to produce babies and allow the chance of parenthood to couples who want a child of their own. Nature itself creates and fertilises many more eggs than become babies.

The embryonic cell can also be taken apart, at an early stage, to yield stem cells. Research using stem cells offers the promise of finding a cure for debilitating conditions such as Parkinson’s disease.

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Categories
Mediawatch Politics

Blurred Nations and Blonde Bombshells

As the US and Japan issue a terror warning for tourists visiting “Europe” – more specifically the UK, France and Germany an evident shift in the lines of nationality is surfacing in the news. Malta (the nation) woke up for breakfast with Tiffany (the person) – the next top model born in Wolverhampton but claimed by the Maltese nation. The UK born and Maltese bred Tiff has already begun to receive comments from well wishers and one of MT’s regulars (signed Tarcisio Mifsud) urged her:

“to remain a lady with a strong Maltese character and with strong Maltese values. Enjoy it.”

Whether there is much to enjoy is another question. Then again – what are the strong Maltese values? Are they embodied in the Kalkara ’94 video? Or should she be making use of her new found place in the spotlight to echo the latest Vatican ramblings against 2010 nobel prize winner Edwards – father of the test tube babies (the idea – not all of them)? There are now an estimated over 4 million persons who were test tube babies – and the Vatican still wonders whether this miracle is right.

But back to nations and nationalism. Does nationality automatically impart a set of values? Are both nationality and values part of our DNA set up? We get contradictory messages. Germany’s president told the nation that :

“Christianity is, of course, part of Germany. Judaism is, of course, part of Germany. This is our Judeo-Christian history. But, now, Islam is also part of Germany. “When German Muslims write to me to tell me ‘You are our president’ – then I answer wholeheartedly: Yes, of course I am your president! And with the same dedication and conviction of which I am the president of all the people who live in Germany”

Which makes sense really because you cannot suddenly put up mental borders and block out anything new – a new form of religion – simply because it does not form part of your past. Well you could try – but that involves the kind of eradication that goes contrary to the core values which our liberal society holds dear. The problem is that we are still at pains to come to terms with the new realities and identities. Here is the BBC reporting the latest US activity against Al Qaeda in Pakistan:

At least eight al-Qaeda militants – some of whom were German nationals – have been killed in a drone attack in Pakistan, officials have told the BBC. The suspected US drone fired two missiles at a house owned by a local tribesman in the Pakistani region of North Waziristan, the officials said. At least three of the dead were said to be German – of Arab or Turkish origin.

The language of the reporting is interesting. Incidentally the title was ‘German militants’ killed in Pakistan drone attack. “German militants” had to be decorated with inverted commas and further down in the article we get the second clarification: “German – of Arab or Turkish origin”. You can sympathise with the reporter coming to grips with the “Us vs Them” nature of the “War on Terrorism”. He or she could never come to terms with the notion of a German Al Qaeda Militant. The Arab Al Qaeda is a stereotype we are comfortable with (at ease with the label not with the menace of course). Even the curious laxity with which the word Turkish is slapped on, almost as an afterthought, betrays a general compartmentalisation that goes beyond the national.

The ‘Turk’ is to Germany as the ‘Pole’ was to the EU before membership – a mass of people (Turks/Arabs, Poles/East Europeans) in search of work who would bring their own culture along to their new hosts. It is the Turk, mainly, who brings Islam to Christian Wulff’s Germany. It is the Turk who Wulff has to thank for the infusion of cultural and religious diversity and from those letters from “German Muslims”.

The War on Terrorism forced a radical revolution in terminology – most evidenced in the press. It obliged us to create the “Us and Them” mentality and oftentimes we struggle to understand that this is not really a battle of cultures/civilisations but an underpinning new battle of ideologies and that both the redneck yankee and the arab terrorist are just overblown stereotypes that serve to confuse us further in this “war”.

If the Tour Eiffel were under threat there is more of a chance it would be the French equivalent of the UK’s Tiffany. Someone with a French passport bearing an Arab surname – born and bred in Marseilles but with very very strong ties with the people back home (in the Maghreb?) urging her:

“to remain a lady with a strong Arab character and with strong Arab values. Enjoy it.”

Sure. It’ll be a blast!

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Categories
Mediawatch

Kalkara '94

Picked off youtube (seen on facebook … so it must be getting viral). From the little I get it seems to be a very public bust up on a public Maltese bus. Again, if I understood part of the argument well it was all triggered off by an accusation of “pogguta ” “ghandha t-tifla pogguta” but I cannot really be sure. What is impressive is the attitude of all those not involved in the argument – passive observers with grins. I could not believe my eyes when I noticed that the bus is actually moving and picking up more customers as though a haranguing match between two commuters is the most normal thing under the sun. Baffling and mind-boggling. The title of this post is simply the number of the video (not a year) plus the name of the presumed destination (Kalkara) – again from the conversation. The battle is between two alpha females while the very omega male sits back in submission on the side. This too is Malta today. Xarabank… oh eeeh oh!

Categories
Articles

J'accuse : Abre los Ojos

Labour (Inhobbkom’s Labour not Ed’s New New One) is busy conferencing this weekend. They’re huddled cosily in the university’s Aula Magna for a full day of talks in a conference entitled “Revisting Labour’s History” and I still cannot get over the fact that I was unable to make it there. Yes, you read that right, I would have loved to witness at first hand this conference of sorts that is part of the wider Labour strategy of “Re-”s. They’re re-visiting their history, re-inventing their logo, re-gurgitating old economic principles, re-moving their facial hair and (once again) re-cycling an image that has been a work in progress since is-Salvatur ta’ Malta went into re-tirement (never a minute too late).

There’s something manifestly wrong in the way Labour went about this whole “re-” business though, and this weekend’s conference contains some clear pointers to what that could be. Someone, somewhere is guilty of a gross miscalculation when choosing the title first of all: “Revisiting Labour’s History”. It’s the political equivalent of a Freudian slip combined with all the evident trappings of a modern day “Pimp my Party” in the making. The term “revisit” is a few letters away from becoming “revise” and I have a hunch that this is not a small coincidence.

In legal terms, when a court revisits an earlier decision it normally does so because of the necessity of reinterpreting the earlier position – there would be not other reason to revisit and reopen the case. In historical terms there is another “re-” word that is of relevance here. It’s the idea of revisionism. Revisionism need not always be extreme as in holocaust denial. Reading through the agenda of this weekend’s conference, I couldn’t help but think that Labour is sorely tempted to rewrite some chapters of history of its own. They’ve been at it for a while now and we have all become used to the polyphonic history of our islands – whether it is sung by Mary Spiteri to the tunes of Gensna or whether it is yelled from the pedestals of il-Fosos by the latest crowd-stirring nationalist orator – the messages are always excitingly dissonant and cacophonous: the result of two virtual realities and perceptions colliding.

Rapid eye movement

The political audience is already, as it is, doomed to the regular resurrection of revisited myths and legends in our political discourse. The narratives woven by opposing parties are now firmly ingrained in our collective minds and it is hard to reasonably detach from them completely. It is extremely significant that, bang in the middle of the process of change and reinvention, Labour chose to “revisit” its history and discuss, among other things: “The Worker Student Scheme: 1978-1987”. As I type (11.30am, Saturday, 2 October), Peter Mayo is about to launch into an explanation of how Great Leader Mintoff (May God Give Him Long Life and Order a Hail of Stones on All His Evil Wishers) sowed the seeds of the stipend system and how we must be eternally grateful for his insights that allowed us to progress to a university accepting 3,000+ freshers this year.

The irony will be lost on the listeners sitting in that cosy hall of the Aula Magna on the 2nd of October 2010 that 33 years and one day before this the atmosphere in that very same place would best have been described as tensely electric. I wonder whether Peter Mayo will stop for a moment to explain to the young listeners (I’d imagine a Nikita Alamango fawning in the audience – one who according to her latest Times “blog” post cannot stand the PN reminders of the past) that on the 3rd October 1977 the opening ceremony at university featured heavy protests by the medical students who had just been shut out of the course (and always risked brutal cancellation if the thugs decided that it was open day at Tal-Qroqq).

Sure, it was not yet 1978 so it might (just) be beyond Peter Mayo’s remit. He will be forgiven therefore for not reminding those present that only two days later, on 5 October 1977, the man dubbed as is-Salvatur tal-Maltin would walk past a group of students chained to the railings in Castille oblivious to the fact that his government’s decisions in the educational sector (the much lauded Worker Student Scheme) were about to deny thousands of young people the path to tertiary education and send them abroad in droves.

Remember, remember the 5th of October

To be fair to Peter Mayo he probably couldn’t dare criticise the workings of the Great Leader. Not after a wonderful morning discussing his battles with the church in the sixties and his “electrifying” speeches to the proletariat. The electric effect Mintoff and his handymen had on some parts of the population would best be described as “shocking” actually. Whatever you may think of Labour’s dim-witted purposive ignorance of the past and bulldozering of historic relevance, don’t you for one moment run away with the idea that it is only the party of Joseph, Evarist (Bartolo – of removed stipends fame) and Alfred (Sant – of interview boards at university) who is in the business of revising historical facts.

You see, I sympathise with such Young Turks as Nikita Alamango who are frustrated at having to carry the burden of Labour’s past every time they squeak a new idea or criticise the current regime (sorry – did I say regime? – it’s the “Re” word fixation). Hell, this week even the German Republic paid the final instalment in World War I Reparations (started paying in 1919 and was suspended as long as Germany was split). Ninety-two years on and the German conscience is slightly freer – so why not Labour? Most times they are right. PN lackeys all too often emerge from the primordial slew of infertile political ground and rely on historical mudslinging for want of a better argument.

The problem I have with Labour is twofold – disputing the relevance of past actions is one thing. Revising (sorry, revisiting) them is another. Revisiting them on the anniversary of events that marked the watershed of Old Labour’s hopeless politics of the late 70s is insulting – insulting not just to the PN hardliners but also to neutral observers like myself who can see through the charade. Labour cannot expect this to go unnoticed. It is strategically stupid and politically insensitive. It does not stop at conferences: Recently, someone from Labour’s “think-tank” (IDEAT) was busy on Facebook quoting a party press release which stated that the current government’s agreements with China are a confirmation of the Labour vision of the seventies. Sit down and weep.

Virtually real

Mine is not simply an angry case of indignation though. Labour’s Revisionist Conference is part of a wider mentality that is the inner workings and thinking of the two major parties in this country. In this day and age of multimedia and mass communication, the modes of communication might be evolving at such a rapid pace that we will soon be tweeting in our sleep, but there is one basic constant whether it’s TV, radio, newspaper or Internet and that constant is the word. In principio stat verbum (in the beginning was the word) and it’s going to be with us for a long time yet.

Words and their meaning are at the basis of whatever construction of reality we choose to live in. Einstein once stated that reality is an illusion but a very good illusion at that. The PLPN (un)wittingly engage in a constant battleground of establishing the reality in which we live (and that is why they NEED the media influence). Whether we are considering the “cost of living”, the “minimum wage” or the “living wage”, we sometimes fail to notice that a large number of constants that we take for granted in these arguments are the fruit of elaborate definitions of perception suited to whatever party is making its claim. We are not that dopey really – there is a general acceptance that “parties colour the world as best they see it”, and although as a nation we struggle to come to terms with irony and sarcasm we still manage to joke about the PL-PN chiaroscuro worlds.

I am not sure however about how much the electorate is in control of the button that switches us between perception and reality. How capable are we of switching off the virtual reality and putting our foot down when we believe that things have been taken too far? Can we decide when we want to open our eyes? Are we, like the character in Almodovar’s Abre Los Ojos (open your eyes – spoiler warning) still able to opt out of the programme that creates a “lucid and lifelike virtual reality of dreams” and yell that enough is enough? Worse still – have the very parties that are responsible for the manufactured realities that we inhabit become so embroiled and enmeshed in them that they are unable to find the switch themselves?

Denial

Take the Nationalist Party. They are an incredible subject for this sort of test. This week they engaged in a mind-boggling collective exercise of denial of truths. We had Minister Tonio Fenech and his cataclysmic Tax-Free Maid slip. Watching The Times interview that gave Tonio a chance to right his previous wrongs was like watching an exercise in verbal prestidigitation featuring a ministerial equivalent of the Mad Hatter. Quizzed on VAT he replied on Stamp Duty and vice-versa, and then went on a trip about not having to answer about private affairs that he himself had brought up as a public example. You could only squirm in your seat as you watched Tonio attempt to make his statements vanish into thin air. Apologists tried other tactics – the cream of the crop coming from the Runs claiming that since the law is inadequate then Tonio and his maid are right in not following it to the letter. Perception? Forget the doors… they’ve swallowed the key.

Meanwhile El Supremo del Govermento was busy wearing the party hat, having been asked to pass summary judgement on the PBO-VAT saga. Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi found absolutely nothing incongruous with the fact that his very exacting sec-gen failed to apply his own standards of political propriety when faced with a legal crisis of his own. Same same but different – just like in the alleyways in Thailand when they sell fake brands. Fake – it’s just an illusion of reality but not exactly so.

As if PBO and Tonio were not enough, we also had the DimechGate spin-off in the form of the uncomfortable presence of Robert Arrigo – the last of the disgruntled backbenchers. PN councillor Yves Cali was the latest to slip in a frank interview with The Times in which he more than just alleged that Arrigo was in the business of throwing his weight around the council to get what he wants. Yves (or Bobby) tried to retract his statement so an irritated Times published a transcript of the interview in which the allegations were made. A transcript – that’s a word for word proof that the statements were made. Quizzed about this, Paul Borg Olivier (fresh from his own reality check) came up with the quote of the week by insisting that the transcript published by The Times was “not faithful to the statement of clarification made by Yves Cali”.

Open your eyes

bert4j_101003

Take your time and read that short, Orwellian PBO phrase. If ever there was an example of the convoluted logic somersaults performed by parties to twist your perception of reality, here it was.

The transcript (a text bearing witness to reality at its crudest) was not faithful to the statement of clarification (an attempt at revising/reinterpreting that reality). And which reality does PBO want you to believe? No prizes for guessing.

We need to open your eyes. This is a political generation that one week expresses its love for the environment on car free day while parading in front of journalists using alternative modes of transportation and then, in the following week, the collective parliamentary group (PLPN) self-allocates a huge chunk of (previously pedestrian) Merchants Street for reserved MP parking in connivance with the Valletta Local Council (remember Cali? “We serve our MPs and Labour serve theirs”). The excuse? It will free up more parking for residents and visitors. Park and Ride anyone?

It’s time we opened our eyes – and remember, sometimes actions speak louder than words.

www.akkuza.com would like to congratulate Toni Sant (and friends) for the www.m3p.com.mt project. Happy Student’s Day to you all!

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