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Qatar

It’s official. Malta is one of the safest places on earth (bar Qatar). Apparently the Maltese archipelago is one of the zones of the earth that is least prone to natural disasters with a 0.72% risk of such an abomination occurring. There is one country that is safer and that country is Qatar (0.2% risk). While I was reading this fact sometime yesterday it struck me that this was the second time that I thought of Qatar and Malta at the same time.

Qatar, a Gulf state that has hitherto lived in the shadow of its giant neighbour Saudi Arabia is living a gold age. Success story follows success story with social improvements and business stories being the daily staple diet of the Qatari people. Sure, they have been well treated by mother nature since they do not only sit on the safest real estate on the planet but it also happens to be a source of black gold. It’s not just that though. It’s what the Qataris are doing with it that is fantastic. They have large scale projects, a modern society that has attracted major sporting events (FIFA World Cup anyone?) and smart investments. Qatar was given a heads up by mother nature and capitalised on the consequences.

Hearing a report on France Culture about Qatar’s success story I couldn’t help but wonder how important it is for a nation to realise its assets and capitalise on them quickly and efficiently. It also means investing wisely and pushing for the right marketing….

Just think about this. The Malta Tourism Authority decided to sponsor a team in the UK in order to raise Malta’s profile among the Brit tourist crowd. Who did we choose? For some obscure reason it was Sheffield United. Now much as I might think that the blades have a wonderful footballing pedigree steeped in history I cannot but question whether this partnership was well thought out.

Back to Qatar. Next time you see Barcelona skip onto the field in their Champion’s League outfit take a look at the sponsor on their shirts. Let me just add that Barcelona were famous for being one of the largest teams that obstinately refused to accept a shirt sponsorship for a very long time before finally accepting to carry “UNICEF” in the place of advertising. Well UNICEF is there no more. Do you know which country’s name sits proudly on the chest of Xavi, Iniesta and Messi while they weave their magic infront of a global audience?

Yep. You guessed it. Qatar. In the form of the Qatar Foundation. Here’s the vision statement from their website:

an independent, private, non-profit, chartered organization founded in 1995 by decree of His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Amir of the State of Qatar, to support centers of excellence which develop people’s abilities through investments in human capital, innovative technology, state of the art facilities and partnerships with elite organizations, thus raising the competency of people and the quality of life.

And here is their mission statement:

Qatar Foundation’s mission is to prepare the people of Qatar and the region to meet the challenges of an ever-changing world, and to make Qatar a leader in innovative education and research. To achieve that mission, QF  supports a network of centers and partnerships with elite institutions, all committed to the principle that a nation’s greatest natural resource is its people. Education City, Qatar Foundation’s flagship project is envisioned as a Center of Excellence in education and research that will help transform Qatar into a knowledge-based society.

Now that’s what I would call smart.

 

An Apology to Manuel Cuschieri

Dear Manuel,

I don’t really know you. I’ve never met you and I cannot even claim to have heard any of your radio programmes that shot you to notoriety and turned you into a household name synonymous with political mud-slinging in the days of Alfred Sant. I might have criticised your brother for his lack of political sense and his hopeless career as the 6th seat that never was and I will probably do so again since such criticism falls well within the  rules of the game.

The fact that I do not really know you does not mean that I am  not obliged to deal with you in the manner that any respectable citizen deserves to be treated by a columnist and blogger. However, I believe that I still owe you an apology.

I owe you an apology for having compared you to Daphne Caruana Galizia. True, Daphne is no foreigner to mud-slinging and engages daily in the “guilt by association” tactic that has been perfected to a tee by our wonderful political class. But you see, Manuel, you were not half as sophisticated in your tirades in your time. You might have tried to repeat lies to no end in the hope that the gushing followers of your rants would take your word as the gospel truth.

In fact, forgive me if I say that the similarity she bears with your style in this case is uncanny. The thing is that in your case you might have sold lies. You were just an evangelist, a propaganda peddler, eager to drum your gospel into your unquestioning flock’s psyche. Daphne goes one better. She denigrates by implication, and moves on to unhesitatingly savage even people who are remotely affiliated or connected to any of her pet hates.  You might have seen your enemy as one big anonymous blue blob. But your rallying cry is nothing compared to her Facebook forays and ISP indictments. It’s all about taking a half- truth, a sweeping assumption,  another desperate pigeonhole, and creatively moulding a hundred links by spurious association.

There comes a time when there need be no factual lien between her targets. Take the manner in which time and again Daphne has peddled the idea that J’accuse is somehow involved in some pro-Labour or pro-AD conspiracy. Our name is dropped in the middle of a rant against a fellow columnist simply based on the hopeless claim that J’accuse is somehow fixated on being anti-PN. I’m sorry, Manuel, but your “the enemy of my enemy” line has been worn out of all recognition. Daphne is desperate to slam the Labour/AD label on this blog without once engaging on the matters which this blog has raised time and time again. Take the “Why now?” issue…. it’s too complicated to answer, is it? Better apply some of the good old mud-slinging tactic and throw in some non-sensical statements like “remote controlled blog” (What is a remote controlled blog anyway, Manuel? Can you tell me?)

By the way, Manuel, in case you mistakenly believe that there might be more for me to apologise about : I’m not the one who  compared you to Lou Bondì.  You must admit that if it is style and method that we are talking about, the description fits like a tailor-made glove. However, Manuel, I did not come up with that comparison myself and  I always give credit where credit is due. Lou’s another one who seems to have been perfecting  your style for some time. Don’t worry, he rarely takes criticism head on so he’s bound to claim never to have read anything about this comparison. He doesn’t need to anyway, there’s always Daphne to do the business for him. You know… a sneaky message and a call here… a mud-slinging blog post there…. There must be lots of back scratching going on.

So there Manuel. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to have compared you to the masters of modern day mud-slinging and grudge-bearing slurs. You were just the primitive precursor of this new politics. Your legacy however seems to be guaranteed a dark and slimy future whether or not you return to grace the radio-waves (please don’t).

So, Manuel, if you did find my comparing you to Daphne Caruana Galizia to be in any way jarring or insulting, then I take it back. In any case… she’s much better than you in doing what you used to do…  but I guess you knew that already.

Saħħiet.

Crisiswatch

Controversial historian Niall Ferguson sees no solution for the current European Debt Crisis which he describes as a “European Lehman Brothers“. Are we really in for a shocker? Is the biggest strike still to be dealt on the European economy? Will the euro suffer the consequences? Worse still, is it – as Joseph Muscat would have it – the fault of GonziPN?

The Bad Game

(Il-logħba ħażina). So Gaddafi is not in Niger after all. He has called a Syrian TV-channel (yes, those channels currently denying the existence of mass killings in Syria by pro-Syria leader forces) and told them that “Nah, nah, nah, it’s not true. I am not in Niger. I am in Libya and will fight till the end. My bijbil dej luv me.” Or something like that.

It’s back to hide and seek tactics again. We saw it with Hussein and we saw it with Bin Laden. Now it’s Gaddafi’s turn to find a hole to hide and wait for the various forces to uncover him. And whenever the call is made that he has been found, he has every right to claim that “The game is wrong” – a bad translation of our hide and seek days of youth. It meant that some foul had been committed and that the game had to start again…

So here we go. Face against the wall and counting the dead until the Crazy Colonel is found.

Plategate revisited

The Plategate saga is in the news again thanks to the testimony given in court by the accused. Here’s some J’accuse pointers that could have very well been gathered over the various posts in which we chronicled the event and questioned its motives through the past 18 months. If you are interested (really?) in previous posts then just search “Plategate” in the J’accuse search box. You risk being pleasantly entertained.

WARNING TO RUNS ENTHUSIASTS – the material in this and related posts risks damaging your brain. Proceed only under adult supervision. Yes, we have a well-groomed high horse this morning.

So here are the questions we have been asking and which we would like you to ask yourselves.

1. The court case is a defamation case. Not so surprisingly, all the grand discoveries relating to improper behaviour by a public persona were not brought to the attention of the appropriate forum. Does the Maltese legal, political and administrative system have an appropriate forum? Where does one go to with an allegation or proof of improper behaviour by a public person?

(difficulty level : Breeze)

2. The accused in the defamation case used a blog – a public means of communication – to transmit information relating to a particular person’s behaviour implying that this behaviour was unbecoming and inappropriate. This action is commendable and wins full support of J’accuse insofar as it fulfils the fourth estate’s duty of monitoring and revealing the behaviour of the other estates in order to render their operation transparent and in order to give full effect to the fourth estate’s role as a check and balance. This is a strong power of the fourth estate and should be wielded with responsibility if it is to be effective.

Do you think that in this case the Runs acted responsibly in order to fulfil the duty of the fourth estate?

3. The Crucial “Why Now?” issue. There’s no prizes guessing why a defamation case ended up being the best route of defence for the alleged victim. Defamation focuses the attention on the derogatory, cheap and sleazy language that was opted for by the blog when exposing the improper behaviour. A factual allegation such as “drugs were available at parties” differs greatly from the statement “your backside is the size of a bus”. Worse still for the accused, the motivation for bringing out the information is brought further into question by the manner in which such information was presented as well as by the timing. Here is the  statement by the accused giving testimony giving reasons for her timing:

Mrs Caruana Galizia said she started writing about Magistrate Scerri Herrera because the situation had become ‘completely out of hand’. She had not written anything before because she had had pending cases before the Magistrate.

From an objective point of view journalists would do well to follow up on Caruana Galizia’s steps and monitor the behaviour of public persons – bringing them to light as soon as they have sufficient evidence. And ASKING PERTINENT QUESTIONS…

The ethics of journalism require that the wielding of this power is exercised with due diligence. That diligence includes not sitting on information for as long as convenient – only to unleash it as a weapon of hatred or spite.

Beyond Plategate the measure that could be learnt from this case is that keeping information for its (un)timely use i.e. when it hurts most is just as ethically irresponsible and dangerous as having a magistrate publicly act below the standards expected of her office.

Doing so – using information as a blackmail or bargain in some twisted ill-conceived power struggle – could deal a lethal blow to the waning confidence that the public has on journalistic integrity in this country.