Flights Can Vote

I received an unsolicited email from the Malta Labour Party. Since I’m not sure whether I had subscribed to some form of Labour mailing list in order to keep up to date with the latest missives from that corner of the world I am not sure whether this is a typical PLPN invasion of privacy.

On the other hand the message does not carry a justification as to why I am receiving it: you know the type that goes “You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to [insert name here] mailing list. To unsubscribe please click here” – so whether I am sure or not isn’t really the issue.

Of course the PLPN have no real reason to bother with these courtesies, particularly when it comes to contact details of potential voters – another reason why the flight home business pays them is in order to stay in control. Then when they don’t get their way you get Alfred Sant waving lists of private details in Parliament. So. I will not know how Mr Louis Gatt of the “Ufficju Elettorali, Partit Laburista” got hold of my work email and sent me an unsolicited mail. What I do know is that if it was meant to inform me of anything it sure did a poor job.

Here’s the text in Maltese:

Ninfurmak li l-Airmalta issa qed toffri flights bil-Eur35 minn Luxemburg sabiex ikunu jistghu jivvotaw fir-Referendum tat 28 ta’ Mejju 2011, u anke fl-Advance Voting tas-Sibt 21 ta Mejju 2011.
Sabiex tibbukkja ghandek iccempel dirett lil Airmalta fuq linja apposta 00356 2364 5321
Grazzi
Louis Gatt
Ufficcju Elettorali
Partit Laburista

Interestingly, Louis Gatt is using his own private email to send this information in the name of the PL. But now down to basics. The email informs me that Airmalta is offering €35 flights from Luxembourg. The badly constructed Maltese implies that it is the flight that will vote (toffri flights bil-Eur35 minn Luxemburg sabiex ikunu jistghu jivvotaw)and not the person but hey… it’s the thought that counts.

Then there’s the additional bit of misinformation: “even the Advanced Voting on Saturday 21st May“. Oh No we can’t. There is only one return flight from Luxembourg (and that is one too many) and that leaves on Thursday 26th and returns on Saturday 28th. So no, Louis, there are no flights available for the advanced voting on Saturday 21 May. All we have is flights available for a backward/retrograde/neanderthal/antique system of voting that costs the State money, wastes the voters’ time and gives the PLPN a control mechanism of knowing who does and does not regularly exercise his vote from abroad.

There you have it — Labour & Nationalists….  holding you back from 21st century politics.

VOTES IN EMBASSIES NOW!

 

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Silence of the Nats

There’s an eerie, deafening silence coming from the PN HQ in Pietà. Yesterday night Joyce Cassar of the No to Divorce people did her flipping utmost to try to divorce her movement (tee-hee) from any association with the priests, the nuns, or the church (as she put it not so mildly). And she also did her damndest to underline the fact that she is not working in cognito for any political party. Damn right she isn’t. On the other hand the PN silence of the matter is as politically absurd as Joseph Muscat’s attempt to get his testicle-less Labour linked in some way to any possible achievement of the YES vote without doing anything.

JPO has introduced one of the greatest minefields that Gonzi’s PN ever had to face. The feeble, abstract party line opposing the introduction of divorce pales in comparison with the numerous activists and natural blue-voters who are all out in favour of the introduction of Liz Taylor’s second favourite right (up there with inheritance). Speculation is rife about whether a YES or a NO vote can benefit one or another party. Only in Malta. The PN has taken the best tactical position – it is slowly vanishing into nothingness. Notice. Vociferous party flag wavers and even party sympathisers have gone AWOL. The usual suspects have supposedly “had enough” of the divorce debate. Others, who are all noisy and cantankerously irritating when it comes to womens’ lib and the like have suddenly taken a sabbatical (apart from the random swipe at the levels of nothingness the NO camp can reach).

The PN cannot cope with the fact that the intelligent voter – in a civic sense – would have no qualms with voting YES any day. Not being in control of the critical swinger (who might be scared away from voting AD but is less easily bullied into voting on some misinterpreted principle that only the current batch of neo-catholicmullahs would understand) is very very scary for the PN crowd. They just don’t want to alienate him or her. Thankfully the intelligent voter will also not fall for Joseph Muscat’s false bravado and his empty no-progress brigade. Which means that the less the PN gets associated with any decision the better the chances to keep the status quo.

Hence the silence.

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Warning: Divorce can harm your religion

I am a non-smoker. I have been a non-smoker since November 2008 and it has been a long time since I last craved a cigarette (I almost wrote “craved a fag on my lips” we’d never have heard the end of it…).  Nowadays I find the strong stench of cigarettes repulsive and given the choice between a smoke-free environment and a room full of tobacco enthusiasts I will choose the latter.

My evening habits have changed since I very rarely venture into bars or clubs that oblige me to smoke passively as though my life depended on it. One of the things that has crept into the Top Ten Things I Hate List is using a lift after a bunch of smokers have just exited. Stomach-wrenching stuff. I will still happily puff on the end of a Fiorentino cigar any day though.

It’s all about choice really. Smoking is bad for your health. I was brought up in the eighties and nineties when the crusade on smoking was in full swing and am now living in the aftermath of the politically correct naughties were the final nails in the coffin are being hammered into the cigarette industry. Growing up in Malta I’d expect an institution such as the Department of Health to warn me about the dangers of smoking. I’d acknowledge the use of fiscal measures to disincentivise smokers from indulging in their habit. What I would never condone is the government banning cigarettes outright. It would just not make sense would it?

I mean health-wise it would be a bonus for our society in general and I do know that I am toeing a fine line when I say that the there is a line to be drawn when it comes to government interference in what is essentially a pleasant addiction for many (why not drugs? why not less rules on hunting?). The “harm” issue is also fluid here since the question of harm to the self can be counterbalanced by the harm to others issue when it comes to indulging in a puff or two outdoors or in public places.

Yet we accept the state of affairs. The DH warnings get more and more critical (this year the ugly photos of the effects of tobacco on humans will appear on your pack of 20). The government will tax and tax. But you still have the choice as to whether or not to smoke. It’s a matter of your will – and until the balance is definitively tilted about the social burden and harm of tobacco we will never see a ban on tobacco. The tilt is towards choice.

There. Now think in terms of divorce. Think of the Church as the Department of Health – issuing warnings to the health conscious about the recommended way of life for a longer and healthier living. Is it that hard to understand the difference between a fully informed citizen having the option and choice and one who has been totally deprived of choice by the nanny state that thinks it knows better?

Call me presumptuous but I think that someone who willingly quit smoking after realizing the dangers involved is in a much better position than someone who had the last cigarette pulled out of his mouth. From a purely Christian perspective the No to Divorce activists who kick start their reasoning from the “Alla U Gesu ma jridux id-divorzju” perspective should be asking themselves whether not choosing the option of  divorce is the same as not being able to divorce.

I have long gone on record that a christian-democrat politic can comfortably accept divorce legislation as a right in society. Which is why the new Catholic Pro-Divorce movement does not surprise me at all. What does surprise me is how the Nationalist Party has rejected this strand of christian-democracy in the most unqualified of manners.

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Let me tell you about Amina

In these days of “the Great Divorce Debate” it is easy to forget what history has taught us about the struggle for basic rights in society. When we read about Rosa Parks refusing to give up a seat to a white man in 1955 we tend to assume that every other man in the USA would have been on her side automatically. Rights however are not always held to be “self-evident” as the constitutional dictum goes and in 2011 we still witness the struggle in different societies for different kind of rights.

I stumbled on the story of Amina on Time Magazine. The story is of the right here, right now kind. It unfolds in Syria – a hardline Middle-Eastern state where the Jasmine revolution has been raging for some time now – not without brutal consequences on the protesting population.

Amina is a Syrian girl.
She is also a blogger.
And she is gay
…. in Syria.

If your preoccupation with the divorce debate has muffled you from the events in the outside world let me just give you some other facts. Syrian law outlaws homosexuality. While you were busy “liking” the petition against Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Law on Facebook you might not have been aware that laws in states such as Syria make being gay illegal.

Amina’s blog looked at the current wave of protests in Syria from the LGBT perspective. In her first post she wondered what could be expected from the potential wave of change sweeping across the quasi-totalitarian state. Involvement in change can be – has to be – egoistic. We all ask ourselves what good can come out of this for us. Few however have the guts to speak out when the forces resisting change use the heavy handed methods. Amina’s father reacted to special forces who had come to their house to arrest Amina on the basis of “conspiring against the state, urging armed uprising, working with foreign elements.” after her blog had drawn international attention to the Syrian protester’s cause. His words are a lesson to many:

“She is not the one you should fear; you should be heaping praises on her and on people like her. They are the ones saying alawi, sunni, arabi, kurdi, duruzi, christian, everyone is the same and will be equal in the new Syria; they are the ones who, if the revolution comes, will be saving your mother and your sisters. They are the ones fighting the wahhabi most seriously. You idiots are, though, serving them by saying ‘every sunni is salafi, every protester is salafi, every one of them is an enemy’ because when you do that you make it so.”

Amina’s father was later obliged to go underground for his own safety but Amina blogs on. Yesterday she posted a new insight about recent events:

So, when I started this blog, I assumed that I had two groups to worry about:
Syrian government authorities and Islamic extremists.

Well, the first has made it abundantly clear that they are most displeased with me in person. I’ve even seen a few comments posted on this blog that I am 99.9% certain originate with regime loyalists (and a few emailed threats as well … which leave me shrugging: ‘uh guys – just because you like Bashar a lot … you do nothing this way …)

I’ve also seen the usual anti-Islamic and the usual pro- and anti-Israel comments posted …

BUT the one thing I haven’t seen, the one group from which no one has made threats or sent deranged emails nor sought to harass anyone is the ‘Islamic extremists’,

One thing in common between different struggles for different levels of rights is the struggle for understanding and being understood. The fight for being able to get a divorce might not be as fundamental as the right to be gay but both depend on the fundamental recognition of modern society that acknowledges the importance of “live and let live”.

Let it be. And unless you are harmed or threatened in any way by my way of life then don’t interfere. Or as the silent movement put it so poetically.

Tindahalx.

Amina Abdullah blogs daily at A Gay Girl in Damascus

 

When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree,
there will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is still a chance that they will see,
there will be an answer. let it be.

Let it be, let it be, …..

And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light, that shines on me,
shine until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Let it be, let it be, …..

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Mother's Way

Many moons have waxed and waned since our days in the schoolyard under the watchful supervision of adults. In those days of Lemonora and Desserta canteen treats, life was relatively simple and at the smallest sign of trouble the “adult” would step in and solve the problem with an imperial edict carrying all the weight and respect of “he who knows best for everyone”. Playground rules came in the same package as the various snitches (“Miss, he’s standing on the monkey bars”), bullies (“Your lunch or a punch”) and disciplinarians (“Stand by the yellow door you naughty boy”). Far from the comforting nest of motherly love, scholastic authority gave a semblance of order to our miniscule world. Mother’s Way was imposed vicariously by proxy.

Then (supposedly) we grew up. Writing a guest post about the “Pogguti” poster on J’accuse, Mark Vella used an interesting phrase “jekk tghallimna nkunu nies, mhux bilfors li ahna” (if we learnt what it means to be adult (well behaved) it does not mean that we are). It struck directly at what I had been thinking over this last week: our “nanny state” mentality is finally out in full force. Since independence we have seen the process of “educating Malta” − we toyed with socialism and then switched to a supposed liberal-democrat framework infused with identifiable values. One thing seems to be stuck in time though − our collective understanding of our society’s rules, rights and how to use them. Many of us want our State to be the Playground all over again − and yearn for the adult voice of authority and protection based on the arbitrary rule of “he knows best for us”.

Prefects of Discipline

The divorce debate has entered the phase of the “dirty tricks” and one of the most common complaints on both sides refers to “fairness”. You could picture them queueing up to a fictitious teacher and bawling their complaints… A dribbling JPO cries foul on the fact that the PN media won’t print his adverts. A No to Divorce campaigner yells his frustration at being called a bully for having whipped out his Nan’s holy picture as proof of his authority. Meanwhile, as No to Divorce is incessantly associated with intolerance we shift to anything goes, so a nutty Evangelical preacher suddenly becomes a threat to society: “Shut him up Miss, I don’t like what he is saying”.

The language of exchanges is in the same vein as school diatribes − and we should seriously ask ourselves whether this is because for long we have been content with this kind of schoolyard rhetoric. Much of it results from our lack of understanding of the basic functions of the institutions and rules. It’s glaringly obvious that the mixture between the sacred and the profane, the lay and the religious is beyond repair at this point. One of the uglier portraits of Jesus of Nazareth has become an iconic symbol of messages supposedly aimed at the faithful… and the reaction has been massive.

Stepping in One’s Shoes

We could not have expected any other form of debate around the divorce issue. Yes, we are 43 years late (I’m using ’68 as my benchmark). What is worrying is that we have slipped comfortably into Don Camillo and Peppone rhetoric as though emancipated liberal society happened to other people. Laymen want to interfere with the Church’s way of things (and you can’t blame them entirely when the Church has slept comfortably with the State for so long). Churchmen want to save the soul of even the most reluctant atheist. And what is the solution? A blanket prohibition? One that prevents the option of divorce for EVERYONE.

I have a problem with every single argument being made (what’s new). The Church with its massive prophylactic concept − shield everyone from the possibility of divorce otherwise its weak-willed sons and daughters would sin at the first opportunity − is the first to be J’accused. The message is clear: “it’s wrong, because I said so (and I am quite sure that so did Jesus/Paul etc).” Then there is the illogical leap − if it’s wrong and dangerous for me then it is wrong for everyone else. Punto e basta. What bollocks.

What about our progressive forces of the earth? Joseph Muscat had a note on Facebook this week and this is how it ends “l-Partit Laburista kien, ghadu u se jibqa’ jhalli lil kulhadd jiehu decizjoni skont il-kuxjenza. Sostna li l-pozizzjoni tal-Partit Laburista hija ta’ tolleranza u ta’ kuxjenza.” The Labour Party position is one of “tolerance and conscience”. Do you want to know what this means? It means that if Muscat’s Labour were around in the times of abolition of slavery, in the times of the removal of racial intolerance, or in the times of the battle for equal pay, then it would be there with all the fence-sitting non-affiliated persons who watched history being made from the sidelines. Sure, our leader is against slavery but he’ll let his party members vote as their conscience wills. Sure we want women to get the same pay as men … but hey, we all have our conscience to see to. Sic transit gloria…

Mother’s Law

Much has already been written about the two Mrs’ (Gonzi and Muscat) and their incredible pre-Mother’s Day stint. Their efforts to conform to the narrative that best suits their husbands’ role reinforced the pathetic picture of our failure to understand what growing up is about. On Mother’s Day, of all days, you’d hope that many understand that when the social fabric of society is woven with the thread of broken families that are obliged to stay so till death do them part then it’s a poor fabric indeed.

There may be some good news in all this. The extremities to which we are being exposed in this divorce debate might finally have led to pushing a very reluctant movement out of the closet. Malta’s budding “liberal community” has always fallen victim at the last hurdle − being quickly absorbed by one of the two parties at the moment of truth. This time round the invasion of privacy and the nanny state mentality might actually prove to be the gel that gets the liberals moving. That’s why I “liked” the setting up of the “Moviment Tindahalx” on Facebook. I sincerely hope that its message will be a more lasting one than the frivolous pages of the ether and that something positive might result from the otherwise relatively inconsequential exercise on 28 May

The Flowers of May

I’d like to gather all the blooming flowers of the world and offer them to every caring and doting mother on the island. That goes for you too mum… and a happy belated birthday too!

www.akkuza.com “ the 21 days of blogging the divorce debate kicked off on Saturday 7 May (yesterday). Check out the full blogroll at themaltachronicle.wordpress.com

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Un Blasfemo (no comment)

Mai più mi chinai e nemmeno su un fiore,
più non arrossii nel rubare l’amore
dal momento che Inverno mi convinse che Dio
non sarebbe arrossito rubandomi il mio.

Mi arrestarono un giorno per le donne ed il vino,
non avevano leggi per punire un blasfemo,
non mi uccise la morte, ma due guardie bigotte,
mi cercarono l’anima a forza di botte.

Perché dissi che Dio imbrogliò il primo uomo,
lo costrinse a viaggiare una vita da scemo,
nel giardino incantato lo costrinse a sognare,
a ignorare che al mondo c’e’ il bene e c’è il male.

Quando vide che l’uomo allungava le dita
a rubargli il mistero di una mela proibita
per paura che ormai non avesse padroni
lo fermò con la morte, inventò le stagioni.

… mi cercarono l’anima a forza di botte…

E se furon due guardie a fermarmi la vita,
è proprio qui sulla terra la mela proibita,
e non Dio, ma qualcuno che per noi l’ha inventato,
ci costringe a sognare in un giardino incantato,
ci costringe a sognare in un giardino incantato
ci costringe a sognare in un giardino incantato.

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