Category: Mediawatch

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Mediawatch Politics

By Appointment

appointment_akkuzaI was asked recently to give my two cents’ worth for an article being prepared by a MaltaToday journalist. He was looking into the recent history of KSU and more particularly the trend of ex-KSU council members becoming politicians (even more particularly Nationalist politicians). Was the university student council simply a machine geared to churn out potential nationalist MPs? Why only nationalist? Was (is) the university a nationalist party enclave? Is there a reason SDM still win a majority of votes at the elections? And of course… what is wrong with the “first past the post” system?

I will not delve into the answers that I gave here but what intrigues me is the perspective that is taken on the question of what we can call political careerism. Let me just say (I admit rather idealistically) that the whole KSU structure as conceived in the mid-90s only becomes counterproductive when allegiance to representing political party interests takes precedence over the aim of student representation. Back to careerism. The question is, is it only the nationalist side of our great divide that operates a school of aspiring careerists? A place in SDM, eventually a seat on the KSU council, a bit of coverage, maybe a spot of Local Council sparring and then a place in the party mechanism only to be nominated on a board or two once your party is in government. Who knows?

Would it take an anthropologist to really uncover the liens that intertwine in our very local and islandish form of networking that uses certain DNA traits such as “better the devil you know”? Take one step back. Look at the Aaron Farrugia’s of the Labour constellation. Sure they may not have made it to the coveted KSU executive post (though, had they done their representation homework properly they would have discovered that they had quite a role to play in the Social Policy Commission through Pulse). Still, you will find that the current administration is peppered with young, green, inexperienced hopefuls that are projected (many would add undeservedly) onto various committees, boards, and whatnot. All By TaghnaLkoll Appointment you would say. And you would be right.

It’s two sides of the same coin though. 25 years of nationalist administration, plus a petri dish of cliches as is the university population might have meant that SDM had the upper hand and were more prone to scrutiny when it came to careerism in the public eye (particularly after the idealist non-affiliated SDM petered out following its three year stint battling the impossible). This does not mean that what was true for the nationalist greasy pole is not true of the labourite one. People are so obsessed with this idea that there is some kind of nationalist infiltration of the university that they tend to forget that the two “schools” of partisan interference have sown (and reaped) their seeds in the university campus.Whether it is intentional or just an adaptation of the campus to the realities of political careerism is anyone’s guess.

It’s not just university you know. The ivory tower is only one field of recruitment. The networking system upon which our political parties have relied means that in every sector – from business to health to entertainment – there are massive interests that very often verge on the economic. We have seen how in the last few months the Labour government has scarcely been able to hide the web of interests that lie behind every supposed “policy” move. The brazen approach of discovery taken by Caruana Galizia’s Running Commentary is expediting the discovery of a web of interests that is being accommodated. From advertising brochures to insurance contracts to appointments on public boards. As Benigni would say “Qui è un mangia mangia generale”.

Surprised? Surely not. Also today former PN activist Frank Psaila “blogs” on MaltaToday about “The untouchables“. His is a particular slant about “people of trust” being necessarily appointed in particular strategic posts. Strategic to the government of course. Psaila can say a thing or two about what happened during the time of the PN administration because he was part of it. Caruana Galizia will have multiple willing “leakers” eager to disclose the secret entanglings of labour.

The real question is whether had there been an equally popular system of discovery during the previous administrations – one that lends itself to subtle contributions by “international networks” – whether it would have also uncovered a similar web of intertwined interests and favours. We had a former PN secretary general refer to a system of barter to explain how the party works. Combined with the aforementioned “better the devil you know” approach, you get the nagging feeling that just as a series of not too serendipitous connections would link the PM to a newly formed advertising agency or insurance company nowadays,  you could have done very much the same exercise a while back.

True. The Labour system is much more outrageous and ostentatious with its careerist appointments. Competence and relevance (of qualification) are thrown out of the window. Within 21 months we have been able to witness arrogant dog-headedness and a multitude of forms of brazen nepotism. A dark shadow looms on most government tenders and nowadays when you hear the prime minister say that “he respects the court decision” (as in the case of the prohibitory injunction on the transport issue) you get the feeling that the tone is more “I will tolerate for now” than “I will humbly prostrate myself before the decision of the courts of law”.

In essence Labour are much more expert at exposing the ugly warts of the way our democratic system functions. What is sure is that 25 years of nationalist administration failed to strengthen the appropriate watchdogs that would be barking madly at this point. “Authorities” of all sorts are feebler and weaker. Labour fast-forwarded this weakness in the system by exploiting it further and further. The decline and fall of the police and army system under the able (not for good reasons) hands of Minister who has long lost the plot is the most obvious example. Weakened institutions – the ombudsman, the attorney general’s office, MEPA come to mind – abound. Elsewhere ministers disband independent committees with a simple phone call, MPs are suspected of toying around with tender documents… need I go on?

So the tune has not changed. The need for new politics remains greater than ever. The tragedy is that the system is ever so desperately ingrained in its methods that it becomes harder to see a way out. In such a small democracy as ours it it difficult (or impossible) to imagine the ultimate watchdog turning out to be the catalyst for such a change. Who is the ultimate watchdog? Oh that would be “the average voter”. But he might be too busy trying to expectantly get his foot into the gravy train (by appointment) to bother with the complicated nuances of the absolute reform that is ever so urgent and necessary for this country.

That is the sad truth of it all. A truth that Joseph Muscat turned into the secret underpinning of his strategy: That within the vast majority of the electorate lies an illusion of a legitimate expectation to get a piece of the pie by appointment and for free. So long as that illusion lasts the nation will continue to resemble a suicide of lemmings running towards a cliff’s edge*.

 

* Actually this is an urban myth. Lemmings do not really commit suicide** by collectively jumping off cliffs (see here for example). Voters on the other hand….

 

** The collective term for lemmings, though, is actually a “suicide” of lemmings. As we say in Maltese … Ħu il-fama…

Categories
Mediawatch Politics

The Merry Wives of Caesar

wives_caesar_akkuza

Con Artistry

Just before I graduated from the law course and set off to the College of Europe to harden my bones and extend my experience in the arcane arts of European Law I finally managed to get linked to a law firm. Such link included a promise of employment, particularly a promise of employment in the very arcane art that was still not guaranteed a future in the Maltese law environment. It so happened that the university lecturer who had spotted my ‘talent’ (or let’s say potential) was a certain Dr Patrick Spiteri – at the time Malta’s number one reference point for tax law.

Back from Bruges (the odd fourteen years ago) I settled down for what would turn out to be a rather short period of employment. I had barely had the time to settle when storm clouds began to surround Spiteri’s practices and the man who had seemed to be a visionary turned out to be unable to keep his hands off his client’s money – and this not by way of bills. Luckily for me I managed to change firm and kick off my career properly and Patrick Spiteri quickly became a sad and unfortunate episode in the past.

Over the years I would hear stories of a more and more “deranged” Spiteri hanging around the halls and corridors of our hallowed courts. Fraud, misappropriation and more where the order of the day as reports had it that the man became a sad shadow of his former self. The word on anybody’s mouth who would mention him would be “Spicca Patrick” (Patrick’s finished). I was surprised therefore that the Sunday Times of Malta’s latest self-patting on the back exercise involved a sprightly Spiteri still up to his shenanigans. A bit of journalistic sleuthery had uncovered Spiteri in some mansion in the UK – the Times having taken it upon itself to verify whether his excuses of infirmity that were keeping him away from the court contained any ounce of truth.

Bravo le Times. Our citizens are best served by this journalistic fervor. I wonder though how do the people at The Times get to pick which fakery and effrontery to uncover? As the poetess once said: “What kind of fuckery is this?” We all remember the story of a former EU Commissioner who stayed away from the lights of investigation and examination in Malta by producing certificate after certificate of invalidity that kept him “imprisoned” in Brussels. Where was Mark Micallef and the Times at the time? Did they hound aforesaid ex-Commissioner to verify whether there was any truth in the claims? If not, why not?

Seven Brides for Seven Lovers

Which brings me to another section of the press that seems to assume a self-appointed role of gatekeeper to the truth. MaltaToday’s Balzan is having trouble digesting the sudden wave of information regarding alleged extra-marital trysts that are engaged into by persons holding a public position of power. Two Ministers to boot are currently in the eye of a press storm having had their alleged escapades and infidelities paraded before all.

Ho da far un dramma buffo,
E non trovo l’argomento!
Questo ha troppo sentimento,
Quello insipido mi par.

(Prosdocimo – Il Turco in Italia)

What may seem to be material for an opera libretto (or your average issue of HELLO! magazine) has an important constitutional slant that cannot be ignored. Notwithstanding the eagerness of people like Balzan (or the Times) to be the sole gatekeepers of information in this day and age, it must be said that the “relationship status” of two ministers of government (to put it in facebook style that is best understood) ceases quickly to be a personal and private matter. In the first place even a “simple” liaison that outside the marital circle can be problematic constitutionally for reasons that should be obvious to all. The potential for blackmail (which blackmail would effect the use of his ministerial powers) is already great at that point.

When the allegations then move on to include the possibility of public monies being used to assuage an uncomfortable domestic situation (vide employing wives, ex-wives or lovers) then the constitutional problem is not simply event but unavoidable. This is not about social judgement on the marital status of individuals : a malaise that is strong in persons of all classes in Malta who are quick to judge the unmarried, the separated, the remarried for all kinds of reasons. That kind of ridiculous calculation is hors question.

The real issue is the peril that is brought upon a public position to the extent that such public position becomes untenable. That a minister resorts to the use of the Department of Information to emit imperial decrees proclaiming the happy status of his marriage is clear evidence that the government machinery has lost its plot as to the separation of powers and issues. Ministers have been expected to resign for issues involving mere suspicion until their name is cleared. It is not just Caesar’s wife who has to be above suspicion but also – and above all – Caesar himself.

This is not about speculation and gossip for the sake of speculation and gossip. It is about serious allegations that the performance of a minister in his public role has been placed in serious jeopardy by his behaviour. No amount of faffing and pointing fingers elsewhere should diminish the gravity of the situation. It is also not, strictly speaking, about moral judgement. Mired as we are in a cesspit of moral iniquity it would have not been a problem adding another wart to the already heavily prejudiced situation. As it is though, this is about the lay rules of the land that require of the ministers of government the kind of commitment that is not such as to potentially jeopardise their performance. They also require that the money from the public purse is not used to in any way entertain domestic problems (or their add-ons).

There are larges swathes of the press who are clueless about the goings on. Their twisted set of priorities coupled with the illusion that the private affairs of a public person would remain private no matter what the public consequences will not permit a clear approach to the current issue. Sure a person is free in our society to marry, not to marry, to be faithful, to be unfaithful, to be openly gay, to be a closet gay … the list goes on. These freedoms though are not a carte blanche particularly for persons who are in positions of power and who might prejudice their performance within that position of power by those very freedoms.

As for Balzan’s hilarious disquisitions about who should be the gatekeeper of the news there is an age old system that allows you to publish and be damned, leaving it to the courts to right any wrong if somebody oversteps the line. That really is what libel, slander and defamation laws are all about. But aside from his little libel fund and persecution mania I doubt whether Balzan, once again, has a clue.

 

 

Categories
Mediawatch

The Twits

twits_akkuzaSomewhat grandly they’re calling it “guerilla tweeting”. It was yet another inevitable corollary of the immediacy of social media. We had observed the clumsy manner with which the political parties adopted “the internet” and had witnessed how hard they tried to retain the one-way traffic approach: We Preach, You Listen. What was that hopeless PN site again? With all the wiggly ribbons and plastic aloofness? Labour just loved youtube and gave us those lovely little clips of stereotypical niche market voters telling us why they will vote for Joseph (Ghax nemmen fih ) without really informing us of all the iced buns that all participants would get once the party was in government.

Twitter was not so strong back then and has only surfaced since the general hemorrhage from Facebook began. Politician’s Facebook pages where an easy target – who can ever forget Luciano “Likey” Busuttil with his unending pleas for “Aghfas Like”? Nobody really got to grips as to how Facebook really worked and what was the demarcation line between public and private – also Mark Zuckerberg became a right royal pain in the arse trying to determine what we want to see and what we could not see. Facebook walls dried up and twitter burgeoned.

It’s great, twitter is, because it obliges you to be brief. For the politician trained to think in binary packets it was a godsend. Suddenly everyone from the PM to the pope was tweeting away happily. Publicly. The addiction was worse than Facebook. Which is where the “guerilla” boys and gals came in. They discovered that with their own twitter account they could have a direct line to the politician in question and actually contradict him or uncover their untruths. A nightmare for the politician used to one-way traffic really.

Saviour “Hogan” Balzan and Ariadne Massa are two journalists who come to mind and who have taken to disliking the quasi-anonymous “bullies” on twitter. Balzan and Massa from part of that fourth estate that is generally as lacking as political parties in its approach to two-way communication. You only have to look at the evolution of their respective papers’ websites to see the desperate attempt at controlling information and how it is dissipated. The editorial choices as to what is and is not relevant news can be as surprising as the sun making an appearance in Luxembourg in November. Never mind the bollocks though, now there are the “guerilla twitters” to set things right.

They are there yapping and twitting away incessantly until, tired of the aggro, the target decides to block them out of his or her vision. Which only means that a new account will be created with an even more aggressive and persistent stance. Balzan scraped the bottom of the barrel by calling for the blocking and reporting of what he called “fake twitter accounts”. As usual he hasn’t the faintest. There is no such thing as a “fake twitter account”. Or rather, the only time an account is fake is when it claims to be someone’s account when it is not really his. For example if I were to open an account called @PaulPogba I would be faking to be the world’s greatest midfielder when I am very evidently not.

@baxxterswar is not a fake twitter account. Baxxter is very irritatingly real. Irritatingly for many people it seems. Neither are all the myriad accounts popping up every day in order to harass ministers and kow-towing journalists alike. All we need now is for that has-been JPO and side-kick Deborah Schembri to include this kind of “guerilla warfare” in their Cyber Bullying Campaign. You know, all this while our beloved government is striking deals with China and its Great Internet Wall.

Twitter is a cutting edge weapon for the alert citizen. Politicians can either reply or block. The other day Minister Cardona tweeted the fabulous increase in retail sales recorded in Malta. I tweeted back “Does it include the sales from Leisure Clothing?”. “Tajba” he replied dryly while “favoriting” my tweet. I guess I am a few yellow cards away from being blocked.

Use the weapon at your own peril. Anonymity is no excuse for bad taste and offensive behaviour. Otherwise tweet and be damned. Active citizens are much much better than the passive bull we have gotten used to. I only would like to think that had this twitter wave existed a while back there would have been twitter guerilla tactics with just as much enthusiastic participation. It is so much better than “tistghu tghiduli x’qed jigri hawnhekk?”

L’amour est comme l’oiseau de twitter , on est bleu de lui seulement pour 48h.
D’abord on s’affilie ensuite on se follow.
On en deviens fêler et on fini solo.

Prend garde à toi.
Et à tous ceux qui vous like.
Et les sourires qui remplacent souvent des coup d’hashtag.
Prend garde à toi.
Haa les amis , les potes ou les followers.
Vous faites erreur , vous avez juste la cote.

[…]

L’amour est enfant de la consommation.
Il voudras toujours toujours toujours plus de choix.
Mais que vous voulez-vous.
De sentiments tombé du camion.
L’offre et la demande pour unique et seul loi.
Prend garde à toi.
Les gens connaissent déjà les dangers.
Moi j’ai gardé mon ticket et si il faut je vais l’échanger moi.
Prend garde à toi.
Il si il le faut j’irai me venger moi.
Cette oiseau de malheur je le met en cage , je le fais chanter moi.

Categories
Mediawatch Politics

Sino-Maltese

sino_maltese_akkuzaSino- is a prefix that we get from Latin, Arabic and Sanskrit. In all three of these classical languages it refers to the land of the rising sun. In Latin they were referred to as Sinae, the Arabs call them Al-Sin and for the Sanskrit it is Cina. The prefix was quite the vogue in the cold war years when we would often read of Sino-Soviet, Sino-Cuban or Sino-Korean (DR) relations. It’s funny how we do not come across it that much now – nowadays we are more prone to read something like “Chinafication” which is the title of a new facebook group arguing against the growing influence of China in Maltese matters.

Cargolux is an important Luxembourg company that deals with air freight and traffic in Luxembourg. Back in 1982 (The Dark Ages when the Wall was still in place) China Airlines became one of the first strategic partners of CargoLux. In 2014 Henan Civil Aviation Development and Investment, a Chinese company, acquired a 35% stake in Cargolux. A strategically important company for Luxembourg was now 1/3 China owned (read all about Cargolux here).

Chinese investment is not limited to the Grand Duchy. Sino-funds are being invested all across the globe. It’s all about business and money. It should be. It’s not about “Chinafication”. Prior to the Chinese there were petro-dollars that were an easy investment. The US and Russia too were previously the source of much foreign investment. So when is Chinafication wrong?

Well the problem with Sino-Maltese relations is the lack of transparency. Complete, absolute, total lack of transparency. The Labour government very evidently struck some strange deals with Chinese counterparts before it got elected. Now, the nation that has its Cultural Centre bang behind Castille and that has just purchased a huge chunk of land at a very cheap price seems to have its finger in almost every pie (or iced bun) that the Labour party got its hands onto when it got into government.

The Leisure Clothing scandal as chronicled elsewhere in the nationalist party media is a clear example of the wrong kind of “investment” turning foul. It’s less sino- and much more sinful. While other nations are striking smart deals with China taking advantage of the liquidity that is on offer, Malta’s government turned the nation into one giant souk (that’s suq) in Maltese selling off such vital necessities as our main source of power without as much as a system of checks. Meanwhile our dealings with the Chinese look shadier than ever. Minister Mizzi’s wife is being paid the same salary as an ambassador with the same conditions and yet we are still in the dark as to her operations.

Labour decided to turn into a pimp that is whoring the nation away to the darker side of China’s dealings. China is a behemoth, an enormous giant, and it would take little or nothing for Labour and its band of inept “diplomats” to have touched on a wrong, corrupt, vein that is unable to bring any possible benefits to Malta under than a hypothetical quick buck. Labour’s willingness to play along with the lack of transparency is shameful (though barely unpredictable giving the tune to which they have always played).

The problem is not Chinafication. The problem is that our dealings with China are being managed by incompetent, greedy persons who are unable to fathom the consequences of their hapless arrangements. Worse still, even if they did fathom the consequences they would not care less. Which is why they probably end up dealing with the wrong kind of Chinese and probably why their “bargains” are really a ticking time bomb that will explode in all our faces.

At our expense.

 

Categories
Mediawatch Politics

Quod non fecerunt

Villa-Francia_akkuzaMaltaToday carries a story about how 1 million euros of EU funds are being allocated for the “restoration of the prime minister’s residence”. As is  done these days the press got the information from the horse’s mouth i.e. the non-constitutional role of Prime Minister’s Spouse. As is done these days, whenever a matter of national importance is being publicly announced, we had an array of ministers and members parliament of the realm each pitching in with his little explanation for this grand project. Thus Ian Borg of the “EU Fund management and spending” together with Buhagiar of the “god knows why I am also here other than to explain to Ian how to pronounce Francia” flanked Mrs Muscat and also chipped in their two cents worth as to why a million euros will be spent on the plants adorning the Lia residence.

Buhagiar told us that only one PM has acually lived in the house – Ugo Mifsud. That would probably be because it belonged to Mifsud’s family. Anyways, we had to witness another Magritte moment courtesy of this Newspeak government and its leechers. All three speakers made much ado of having found Villa Francia in a disastrous state of abandon – and they had the cheek to say this all the while that the camera was panning from well kept corner to other well kept corner. There is nothing wrong with Villa Francia or its gardens. Nothing.

I don’t know what drugs the Prime Minister’s entourage could possibly be on but surely they could spare us such displays of talking bull as this one. Fine, Mrs Muscat wants another playground where she can play princess and entertain “the public” – so be it. Ian Borg and Charles Buhagiar come up with a wonderful idea of how to spend one million of european funds set aside – grand. But to somehow try to concoct the idea of having been bequeathed a palace after the barbarians have left the scene is a little far fetched….

… even now that we are getting used to the idea of how easily a Labour representative can lie through his or her teeth.

 

Categories
Mediawatch

Harassing News

harass_akkuzaWho exactly is being served by the news that a University Lecturer has been reported for sexual harassment? What use is there for the publicity of this news other than the fomenting of speculation and haphazard finger-pointing?

Without in any way defending any form of sexual harassment – wherever it takes place, surely it is time to ask questions about the role of the media in such issues. Now the University has confirmed that it has received a complaint and that appropriate action is being taken. I do hope of course that should such sexual harassment have taken place then that real justice is done.

What I cannot ignore though is the manner in which this news has come out and its consequences on the whole lecturing profession. Until the controversy curious public are fed a name, all persons working at the University are suddenly subject to useless speculation. This can have an effect of watering down the very instrument intended to protect students (and lecturers incidentally) by exposing it to possible future abuse. At one stage we heard how the student preferred to register the complaint early “in order that it does not effect her marks”.

I have absolutely no reason to doubt the genuineness of this particular complaint. The way it is being handled though might just about switching on genius light bulbs in the minds of many a slacker student who suddenly sees a possible way out of the “suffering” in University life by concocting a harassment complaint or two. In the least you could get the attention of the media, at most you could blackmail a lecturer just until you get the necessary marks.

Sexual harassment is a serious issue and should not be taken lightly. Had the case been allowed to run its full course then the media would have been within their rights reporting the result – including the name of the person found guilty. As things stand we risk corrupting an important process that is still very slow to seep in to our social way of thinking.