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Untrustworthy. Unfit for purpose.

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Matthew Vella did a good job grilling Konrad Mizzi about his “financial structure” based in New Zealand and Panama. ‘It’s a free world. Everyone can choose whatever they wish and should seek advice on what is best for them’ – that is the clip that Matthew Vella chose to put in the headline (at least on the online version of the article) and he does have a point highlighting this braggadocio premise that underlies Mizzi’s attitude with regard to the whole business.

It’s a free world indeed and Mizzi’s financial arrangements are under scrutiny because somebody somewhere leaked some crucial information about the financial set up to a journalist who packs a pair of the metaphorical and who went on and published the information. In another case also involving Konrad Mizzi, Daphne Caruana Galizia (the journalist with the metaphorical pair) was under attack in court, being pressured to uncover the sources (informants/spies/leakers) who brought her some alleged information. The importance of standing by Caruana Galizia on that particular point is brought to bear now with much more factual and pertinent information coming into play.

It’s a free world where our Prime Minister and his entourage still find it within their power to sell the lie that there is nothing wrong with a minister of the state having a financial structure that is ordinarily used for money laundering and hiding illicitly obtained funds. They think that they can get away with it because they still operate with the propaganda method that has served labour for long – it’s not what you see that counts, it’s what we tell you that there is. This blog has dubbed it the Magritte method. Also, Joseph Muscat speaks to the ignorant masses when he compares unlike with unlike – deeming the forgotten undeclared Swiss investment by Austin Gatt to be on the same lines as the Panama/New Zealand Structure set up by Konrad Mizzi. And by Keith Schembri.

It’s a free world where the aforementioned ignorant masses still do not understand the immense importance of the revelations regarding financial structures. Those who are not blinded by the ridiculous assertion that once it has been declared it is even better than the Austin Gatt situation will still defend Mizzi’s right to do whatever he wants and aspires to do because – in fact – it IS a free world and he is rich so stuff your jealousy. It will take much much explanation for the man in the street to shed his partisan blindfold and understand that in no way does Konrad Mizzi’s declared income justify the tax structure used by criminal millionaires. Such explanations tend to be boring, tedious and technical – easily shut down by  the Labour style non-sequiturs.

It’s a free world and some journalists and pundits will still insist on giving Konrad Mizzi the benefit of the doubt. In criminal parlance they are not satisfied with finding the blood and the weapon, in the absence of a body there is no murder. Unless they see a corpse then no murder has been committed. These are the ones who believe the spiel by Mizzi and Schembri that some Commissioner of Taxes or self-appointed investigation will actually manage to do what international anti-crime organisations have never done : find out what really lies in the black hole of Panama.

The thing is that we need none of all this. We do not really need proof of any real corrupt transaction taking place. The mere fact that this kind of structure exists for the benefit of a government Minister and for the benefit of the aide to the Prime Minister should be enough to get the whole castle tumbling down. The additional fact that the Prime Minister seems to be intent on protecting this set-up and giving it his blessing should mean that the Prime Minister should be falling down like Humpty Dumpty along with all his horses and all his men.

It is not just about Caesar’s wife either. Let’s get back to the Vella-Mizzi interview. Konrad Mizzi has given us another reason why he should go and why he does not deserve to stay on as a servant of the Republic. Thankfully this has nothing to do with the technicalities of offshore funds and deposits. For the second time within a week Mizzi inadvertently gave us a very good reason why he should be kicked out of government (and parliament I would add) with immediate effect… and the reason was political and emotional:

Rewind back to the first interviews when the whole Panama/New Zealand business came out. One of Mizzi’s first statements/justifications were regarding New Zealand’s status as an open democracy, stable, lacking corruption and ideal for holding a trust. Forget the suspicions of using the trust for corrupt reasons for a second. This was still a Minister of a government that sells itself ot the world as “l-aqwa fl-Ewropa” and pushes the nation as one hell of a financial centre, competing with countries like Luxembourg to attract the kind of financial investments such as trust funds. Here was a Minister of that same government that is supposed to be attracting such investments choosing to set up a trust in New Zealand. Not Malta. New Zealand. Because it’s democratic, stable, and lacks corruption. The question begged to be asked: Why not Malta then?

And now we come to the Vella – Mizzi interview. Hidden among all the faffle about his assets and properties and how he cannot trust Maltese fund managers (!) and how he is dedicated to family planning and looking at the long-term views and bla and bla and bla, Mizzi comes up with a gem of a statement: “I don’t know where I will live in the future.”

Take a deep breath.

This man had just been elected as Deputy Leader of the Malta Labour Party. During his goggle-eyed speech of acceptance he expressed his commitment to working for a better Malta. That is the same Malta that he has contributed to tying down with contractual commitments with Azeris, Saudis and Chinese. Contracts that he would like us to believe would make for a better country – a better future. You’d expect this Minister who is so determined and convinced that he is improving the state of a nation to be committed to this future. So bloody committed to commit himself to living in this paradise in the future.

Alas no. The second reason Konrad Mizzi set up a structure in which his funds will be untraceable overseas is basically that he does not know whether he will still be in Malta in the future. I don’t know about you but this smacks like a betrayal of Malta and the Maltese of the highest order. First Minister Mizzi practically tells us that he would not trust Malta for his “financial investments” – it’s probably not as democratic, stable and non-corrupt as New Zealand. Now he tells us that once he is done with Malta he will probably not live here in the future. I can’t wait for his inevitable third foray in denying his own country. In biblical terms we’d need one hell of a mega-cock to crow three times following his denials… lord knows we’re full of those.

So you see, even before we go in the technical part of Panamagate (that would lead to an even more damning condemnation), we have enough elements to show that at least insofar as Konrad Mizzi is concerned he is not only untrustworthy, he is, as he has been known to repeat many a time…  not fit for purpose.

 

Ignorance of the Law

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Muscat and his Panama collective are not getting on too well with the press right now. Unless you ask the right questions you will be faced with a barrage of childish word play and incosequential “answers” that are anything but. When none of the stonewalling and feigned misunderstandings works, Muscat shifts to aggressive gear and, as in the case of the Frendo journalist who would not stop asking questions, threatens with legal action. “Be careful, you might expose yourself to libel” is the latest trick of this most liberal of government leaders who has civil rights to heart.

Well we have news for Joseph Muscat. Libel requires publication or broadcast of an assertion. A question that remains unanswered can hardly constitute libel material. This bullying must stop and if it does not stop it must be ignored by those putting the question for the threat is ineffective.

Stifling Debate

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‘The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum….’ Noam Chomsky, The Common Good

Marelene Farrugia posted this quote on Facebook last week and I find it very apt to describe what is going on in Malta right now. Take the “conversion therapy” situation. I can finally comment on the issue without having to hear yet another pseudo-liberal claim that the only problem in that case is that the PN, and more particularly Simon Busuttil, has not taken a position on the matter. Well now it has, having gathered together its parliamentary group and decided in favour of the criminalisation of conversion therapy.

Labour sympathiser and appointee Cyrus Engerer claimed on twitter that the PN exercise was simply an exercise of counting the votes and seeing on which side of the fence it is best to sit on. He may not have been far off the mark, particularly given how his chosen party’s government had long worked out that part of the equation and was foursquare behind whatever the LGBTQ lobby would propose as a law – even if it had no clue what it would be all about.

Which is where the problem lies. Much was made about what was supposed to be Busuttil’s dragging of feet once the Church Report came out. The “Min mhux maghna kontra taghna” (either with us or against us) brigade was out and this worked fantastically for Joseph Muscat’s “civil rights” credentials. Busuttil taking the necessary time to form a position within his parliamentary group meant some sort of “lack of  leadership” or “victory of conservatism” to the vociferous pseudo-liberal lobby. By necessary time to form a position I mean forming a position amply before any debate and vote begins in parliament on the Bill. Amply before a vote is taken on the Bill.

What about that vote then? Well this is where Chomsky hits you with brute force. Acceptable opinion in this national debate was one: you have to be in favour of the bill. Any other nuance on the spectrum of opinions would be anathema and the LGBTQ inquisition and a bit would be out in force to bash your head in with a club. They did not want to hear anything other than Busuttil’s party say that it is in favour of the Bill. Hell, I was actually one step short of being accused of holocaust denial because I dared point out that the Bill is flawed in its drafting and definition. It turns out that if you don’t “get” the Bill then you don’t get centuries of suffering and persecution.

Which is a load of bollocks. In a sane democracy it is normal to be able to discuss different positions on a given topic. In my case I believe that “conversion therapy”, when properly defined as the direct attempt to alter a persons gender, orientation &c (a necessary addendum) is anathema to the world. I don’t believe it on the basis of instinct but I believe it because a convoy of scientists have proven that any such attempt at “conversion” is harmful to the subject of the “therapy”. So I could willingly sit at a table and begin the discussion on the necessity that society protects its citizens from any form of therapy that is intended for conversion.

A bit of research – thanks also to the #bornperfect campaign for the criminalisation of conversion therapy in the US (4 out of 50 states have enacted bills in this sense) – will show you that one important aspect of legislation being discussed is the involvement of professional entities representing psychologists, psychiatrists and counsellors. It is best left in the hands of these entities to regulate and prohibit certain kinds of therapy that are harmful. That includes defining what exactly constitutes conversion therapy and when what is considered “non-conversion” therapy suddenly becomes “conversion therapy”.

Unless it is protecting the weak, the vulnerable and the easily exploited (which is never in doubt), the state has no place in the consultation room – science should be doing its job perfectly well without its help.  This proposed Bill should have been polishing the current regulation of such professionals and their representative entities if they are still not sufficiently empowered to control their members as happens elsewhere such as in the UK. Instead it goes for the typical blanket criminalisation of an scientific process based on an attempted definition at law – a criminal definition whose first port of call for application will be the policemen who arrest youth for skinny dipping.

Will we have this kind of debate? Highly unlikely. Not when any voice criticising the current draft is immediately flagged as a conservative opponent that must be shut up. It is the way our democracy tends to work when a government meets a powerful lobby and together they decide that a law will pass come what may. The Church up to the 90s and early 2000’s has been replaced by the LGBTQ lobby. The power of parliament to debate laws is neutered both by our system of majoritarian voting that reduces vote-switching in parliament to extreme and final zero-sum situations as well as by the social bullying that will occur in the run up to any law purporting to introduce or amend social rights.

A person who had a part in drafting the conversion therapy bill actually told me that “having struggled against the current for so long he was not going to complain now that the wind is in his favour”. I do not doubt that the sudden rush of being able to legislate whatever you fancy would blind anyone from the fact that he is turning into his greatest nemesis.

The bullying power of lobbies has been exacerbated under Muscat’s populist labour. The Developer’s Lobby is a notorious case in point. The behaviour of the LGBTQ lobby and the pseudo-liberals in the case of the conversion therapy bill does not bode well for the future.

There is no place for moderates or objective debate – even if you agree that “conversion therapy” should never be practiced, unless you agree with THE BILL or THEIR BILL you will be labelled as an opponent of the ideas behind the bill. Which is ridiculous, non-liberal and non-democratic. But then, who cares, so long as the bill goes through?

We are losing sight of civility in government and politics. Debate and dialogue is taking a back seat to the politics of destruction and anger and control. Dogma has replaced thoughtful discussion between people of differing views. – James McGreevey

The Conversion Conversation

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This weekend’s controversy is all about “conversion”. It must have been the proximity of the feast of Saint Paul.

Just to put you in the bigger picture the government published on the 15th of  December a draft law that aims “to prohibit conversion therapy as a deceptive act or practice against a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and, or gender expression”.  The publication through the Ministry of Social Dialogue was intended to allow public consultation on the matter. Feedback from interested parties was possible until the deadline of the 15th of January this year.

Towards the end of last week, the Church in Malta published its position paper on the matter. I shall refer to this as the Church Report. The report was drafted by a group of professionals who specialise in law and psychology and was underwritten by the Church to the extent that it is a “position paper” – as in the position that the church was taking with regards to the proposed Bill.

I mentioned controversy. There’s a barrow-load of it. It comes in the form of the reactions to the church’s legitimate position. When I say legitimate I mean that the church has every right to state its position on an issue just like any other social actor and NGO. Of course in a world that has inherited all the paranoias of anticlericalism the temptation to switch to church-bashing statements over and above the levels of normal discourse is high. It gets even higher when said church-bashing is still huge vote-drawing potential. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had a field day on Sunday turning the church into a huge conservative monster purely on a very superficial reading of the report.

In actual fact, beyond the rhetoric and facile tribal campanilism to which we tend to resort in this country whenever anything needs to be “debated” the first thing that should be noted is that were it not for the Church Report we would not be having any form of debate on this issue. As I said earlier the church has as much of a legitimate social role as a “value-former” and “value-lobby” as any other sum of parts representing a particular interest. Notwithstanding all the liberal upturning of noses at anything the curia might say the matter of fact is that the church and what it represents is still very much part of our social fabric.

All of that does not make the church right about everything it says. One would expect dialogue to involve a heavy dose of analysis, information and application of logic. Sadly the participants in our consultative mechanisms rarely play ball – and we are not alone in this matter… just take a look at what is going on across the sea in Italy on certain other social legislation.

One could, with a huge amount of goodwill and patience, try to analyse what is going on with a modicum of objectivity far from the need of vote-winning and journalistic sensationalism. Here goes.

A Bill to prohibit conversion therapy

As laws go this is a very very specific law. The proposed bill has a clear aim – to prohibit conversion therapy as a deceptive act or practice against a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and, or gender expression. That is the reason why we are here talking about all this. Before looking into this particular act we have to look at a related act – Chapter 540 of the laws of Malta, the Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics Act.

That law, that I shall call Cap 540 in short, was enacted in April last year. It is already a law. It is the law that defines the terms “gender expression” and  “gender identity”. Unlike the draft Bill it did not include a definition of “sexual orientation”. For the purposes of this discussion, Cap 540 includes three very important articles:

  1. Article 13 makes sure that equality is promoted and that no norm, regulation or procedure violates the right to gender identity.
  2. Article 14 guarantees the right to bodily integrity and physical autonomy – particular in the context of sex assignment treatment (which is NOT, for the record, “conversion therapy”).
  3. Article 15 is very important in terms of the new bill. It ensures that “All persons seeking psychosocial counselling, support and medical interventions relating to sex or gender should be given expert sensitive and individually tailored support by psychologists and medical practitioners or peer counselling. Such support should extend from the date of diagnosis or self-referral for as long as necessary.

That last article seems to have been completely overlooked by the drafters of the Church position paper since on repeated occasions they seem to imply that the very counselling and support that is protected by Cap 540, article 15 would be rendered illegal by the draft bill (as interpreted by them).

Back to the laws for now though. Let us see what the bill does. In order, the bill (1) defines “conversion therapy”, (2) renders the practice of conversion therapy illegal (3) makes anyone guilty of the practice/advertisement of conversion therapy criminally liable.

Definitions

The important definition here is that of “conversion therapy”:

“conversion therapy” means treatment that aims to change, repress and, or eliminate a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and, or gender expression. Provided that any counselling related to the exploration of one’s identity with regard to any of the characteristics being affirmed by this Act is excluded from this definition.

The biggest problem that is faced by the legislator here is the definition of what will be illegal. From a legal point of view it is the crux of the matter. On a policy point of view it is clear that what was set out to be achieved is the practice of “converting” someone from one sexual orientation (&c) to another. Such a practice is abominable in any modern society but alas still practiced as we have seen in the activities of Pastor Manche’. When strictly defined, that practice assumes that the orientation from which conversion is required is an abomination in itself – a sickness, a sin (whatever tickles their fancy and creed).

You will note that the mere fact of having reached the point of requiring “conversion therapy” in the Manche’ sense of the term is already a violation of article 3 under Cap 540 although at that stage there is no criminal consequence (which is why the need for the Bill).

The difficulty faced by the legislator is evidenced in the proviso to the definition. It is also the constant bee buzzing in the head of the drafters of the church report though they fail to put their finger on it since they embark on a series of pre-judged non-sequiturs.

In my opinion, the main problem here is that the definition that is really required is a technical one. This is less a matter of lawyers and more a matter of psychologists and counsellors. In actual fact the debate should be taking place among the community of psychosocial therapists and counsellors who surely already have structures in place that allow them to distinguish between accepted therapies and snake-oil vendors.

Therapies

Bear with me. What I am saying is that if, for the sake of argument, we were to look at a different stigmatised social group – the infamous left-handers. Granted it is not psychologists but teachers who might have been using unorthodox therapies for a very very long time in our history. Tying their left devil’s hand behind the back of an offending left hander was an accepted “therapy” for a long long time. Beatings might ensue (very acceptably in the early 19th century if not later) should the offender persist in his evil left-handed ways. I am quite sure that a teacher applying these “therapies” in this day and age would fast lose his or her license to practise (as for the beatings they bear more criminal consequences for obvious reasons). Strangely enough we do not have a bill on “the prohibition of therapies to convert left-handers to the right and righteous way”. Which is weird because the law would lend itself to much clearer lines of definition.

Back to our bill. The biggest shortcoming of this bill is, as I said, the difficulty it faces in defining what is and what is not conversion therapy. This is not to say that the bill is not necessary – particularly given that we have had instances of the practice that one is attempting to prohibit in our country and recently too. The problem might lie in making sure that the prohibition does not end up catching other areas that have nothing to do with “conversion therapy” but that might be caught in the same net.

This is what happened to the church report. It set off to explore all the alternative possibilities that, in the opinion of the drafters of the report (NOT MINE), might be caught up in the net of prohibition.

Church Report

I’ll begin by saying that apart from ignoring the guarantees of Article 15 Cap 540 when it comes to counselling and assistance, the church report does have a tendency to build arguments based on a false or untrue premise. A clear example of this is the assertion in point one that states “An analysis of the provisions of the bill, however, shows that everyone in practice will be hindered from having free access to professional guidance, advice and any other therapeutic help that may be appropriate with respect to one’s sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression”.

The drafters tried to hinge on the difficulty of drawing a line of when counselling becomes therapy to convert and run with this nuance to reach two very wobbly conclusions:

  1. (point 5 para 3) In practice, nobody will be in a position to exercise freely the right to treat one’s sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. In other words, everyone would be incapable to receive the treatment one may want to have after consultation with a professional person.
  2. (point 7 para 3) The State should respect the legitimate boundaries of individual freedom. It should only seek to ensure that the practices in matters relating to gender identity are undergone freely and that, as in any other therapy, they are not harmful to the person undergoing them.

There seems to be a manifest confusion between counselling and support that is protected by law and that should be offered to persons respect to their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression on the one hand and the outright practise of conversion therapy and what it ultimately means.

This is a recurring confusion and is partially based on the problem that the report nowhere condemns outright the practice of “conversion therapy”. The closest we get to a consideration of what “conversion therapy” could mean to the drafters is the point where they criticise what type of counselling would be allowed.

“(point 3 of the report) … counselling will be allowed in so far as it can help exploring one’s sexual identity but it can proceed no further, even if it can actually assist in affirming one’s sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression through appropriate forms of therapy”.

Now this is very very interesting. The trojan horse in this sentence is the “appropriate forms of therapy”. What would a psychologist do when faced with a person having qualms about his sexual orientation or gender expression? Remember my point about accepted practice? I assume (with no scientific knowledge whatsoever) that a regular psychologist would inform the client that his qualms are normal and that there is no question of his being “diseased etc”. Beyond that? Is the church redefining conversion therapy by saying that one can be brought to “affirm” one’s orientation etc through “appropriate forms of therapy”? Appropriate according to who?

Fine Tuning

As you can see it all risks turning into a vicious circle of nonsense. The critical discourse of the bill should focus on what exactly is being prohibited, how to define it and how to define the consequences of the prohibition. As far as I can see the major problem lies in the definition itself. Personally I would be for the soft-law approach involving the psychologists’ register, accepted practices and criminal consequences for professional malpractice.

There are other issues in the Bill I could discuss such as the automatic assumption that 18 is the threshold for “vulnerability”. Why not 16 as seems to be the trend nowadays?

A badly framed law is only fodder for literal minded bigots, witch-hunting liberals and ill-informed voters. I’d apologise for the heavy wording but I’ve frankly had it up to here with political correctness.

As for the church report, I strongly commend the church and its leaders for their continuous involvement in social discourse. I do not find the report they commissioned  to be very fair when it comes to input – to be honest I found parts of it to be willingly deceitful in order to make a point that does not really exist. The absence of an outright condemnation of the concept of conversion therapy sticks out like a sore thumb in the whole report.

In a way it is the same kind of straw man arguments that were later fabricated by the likes of Joseph Muscat, Saviour Balzan (and yes, others) in order to deviate from the real issue. Thankfully for them the drafters of the report slipped up big time by throwing in non-sequiturs about paedophilia – which is what happens when you pussy foot on faulty premises in order to make a case where there is none.

Muscat has a double-whammy bonus on this one. Firstly he will once again seem to be the paladin of social rights especially among the LGBTQ community  who are really only another vote-farm as far as he is concerned. Secondly, he has managed to jump onto yet another opportunity to do some prime church-bashing and denigrate Archbishop Scicluna who was shaping up to be another difficult intellectual adversary on other political themes including the environment.

Hopefully with a bit of fine-tuning the bill on conversion therapy will go ahead. What we do not need is these side-shows that add nothing to the value of social and political discussion.

Addendum: Mark-Anthony Falzon told me he had written about this subject some time ao. He sent me the link. I love his reasoning (for a change) and I think you should read it too… Curious Case of Gay Conversion Therapy.

Unmeritocracy, Undemocracy

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So it turns out that Mario Philip Azzopardi is not the most congenial person to work with. And that, it seems, is putting it mildly. It is ironic that of all the “meritocratic” appointments under the present government it is Azzopardi who joins the magisterial nominees in the eye of the storm(s) currently being whipped up. Azzopardi proudly boasts of being the man behind the infamous “I’m not sorry pa, I’m voting Labour” campaign that epitomises the drivel that was sold by Muscat’s campaign team before the election.  Muscat’s Labour was sold as an all-encompassing movement that would radicalise politics in Malta and take the heavy burden of nationalist arrogance and mismanagement off the Maltese people. The (man who thinks he is) Obama from Bahrija managed to pull off the biggest trick with a sufficient amount of people having swallowed his well packaged drivel hook, line and sinker.

Almost three years of Taghna Lkoll government later the masks have completely washed off (might have been the ice bucket challenge) and any pretence that this government harbours any values that relate to anything remotely resembling meritocracy (one of the trumpet calls of the campaign) have been dispelled. The crisis of this government is in fact first and foremost based around its abject failure to hold up the one principle that shone above all during the campaign : meritocracy.

The arts community is now up in arms because the man appointed as V18 artistic director has reached the limit of yellow cards. In an article in the Times today we find the very dangerous allegation that Azzopardi flaunted his political links in order to pressure artists into collaborating with him. Does it stop with Azzopardi? Of course not. He cannot be made the scapegoat of a virus that has been injected into the whole fabric of our institutional make-up. Take the issue of “persons of trust” for example. Only a couple of days ago our PM was happy-tweeting the fact that the employment rate in Malta was such that 18 persons a day have found employment under this government – of which 80% are in the private sector. Which might sound good but it also carries the interesting fact that under Muscat 4 people a day have been appointed to the public service.

Every week. While Michelle Muscat burns an inordinately ridiculous amount of diesel, and while Joseph Muscat cashes in 144 euros for renting his valueless Alfa to himself, 28 new employees join our government’s wage bill. Most of those, it goes without saying, are employed as “persons of trust” – a twisted interpretation of constitutional principles that is only there to justify one simple point: You Have to Be Labour to Be Trusted. I’m sorry pa.

Does it stop there? Hell not it doesn’t. This week the leader of the Opposition tweeted that the ball is now in the President’s court with regards to the nomination of Farrugia Frendo as a magistrate. New doubts have been raised (and echoed) from different quarters – retired judges, the dean of the law faculty and the Chamber of Advocates as to the eligibility of Farrugia Frendo for the post. Since Justice Minister Owen Bonnici insists on going ahead with the nomination anyway without consulting the Commission for Administration of Justice Busuttil has reasoned that the only guarantor of the consitution that is left is the President. All this is happening when we were supposed to be facing a monumental and uplifting reform in the justice sector – pivotal among which was an improved method of judicial appointment.

Instead of the promised reform we risk a patchwork re-evaluation based on knee-jerk reactions that are in their turn fruit of the current set of circumstances. The judicial reform cannot be the result of such a knee-jerk reaction. Especially not the reform of judicial appointments. A well-thought out reform has to fit in to the general fabric of constitutional discourse – that very discourse that has long been tainted by partisan rivalry and hijacked by hapless interventions that deprive it of all form of objectivity.

The lack of meritocracy is in fact the virus that has terminally poisoned this government and with it the it has gone on and poisoned the very institutional and constitutional fabric of the state. Democracy is in danger. I say these words not with the lightness of the kind that is normally around when campaign slogans are coined. Democracy is really in danger when what is unfolding before us is a general legal and political remake of the institutional fabric but one that is in the hand of power-serving, power-loving and power-hungry incompetents. This kind of reform that has gone by monikers such as Second Republic or Constitutional Change and that was supposedly heralded with the arrival of the Taghna Lkoll Politics is one that is only dedicated to as much self-preservation as possible for as long as possible by a select  circle of individuals who found themselves at the centre of society through a series of coincidental events.

It is dangerous. It is the triumph of ignorance and greed. It is happening right here, right now.

 

Hyenas among the jackals

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It might be old news by now – I know, blogging has not been regular to put it mildly – but the visit by Le Iene to Malta still merits some attention and this for a number of reasons. I am an irregular follower of the program  because the Mediaset channels are not so easily available in Luxembourg but I do find the idea behind the show (for it is a show) interesting and worthy of encouragement. Inspired by Tarantino’s heroes in Reservoir Dogs Le Iene go about town doing some dirty investigative works on projects that they choose to follow. These are supposedly bits of news and scoops that the mainstream media has either shied away from naturally or it deals with them with a self-imposed omerta’. It helps to bear in mind that the manner in which a matter or issue is presented by Le Iene is the result of heavy editing – the kind of editing in which the findings that they set out to ascertain play a heavy part.

It’s all A.O.K when the troupe sets out on a mission to uncover waste of public funds in Italy – I remember a particularly cutting service about a fully equipped hospital built in Puglia that simply never opened its doors. It even had operating theatres complete with machinery. The problem is that Le Iene’s stories can be heavily one-sided… and the Malta piece was definitely one of those cases. Having been told by an Italian entrepreneur that “il governo maltese” is refusing to pay some hard-earned cash and that as a result of this a number of “lavoratori” risk being put on the dole, Le Iene saw your typical plot unfold. Here was the opptorunity to play big balls with the big balls in a neighbouring country. The anti-capitalist, anti-big government poor poor unpaid workers story was their type of fodder – better still if some nationalistic element could be thrown into the fold free of charge.

When you’re dealing with a store like this, they’re insured up the ass. They’re not supposed to give you any resistance whatsoever. If you get a customer, or an employee, who thinks he’s Charles Bronson, take the butt of your gun and smash their nose in. Everybody jumps. He falls down screaming, blood squirts out of his nose, nobody says fucking shit after that. You might get some bitch talk shit to you, but give her a look like you’re gonna smash her face next, watch her shut the fuck up. Now if it’s a manager, that’s a different story. Managers know better than to fuck around, so if you get one that’s giving you static, he probably thinks he’s a real cowboy, so you gotta break that son of a bitch in two. If you wanna know something and he won’t tell you, cut off one of his fingers. The little one. Then tell him his thumb’s next. After that he’ll tell you if he wears ladies underwear. … I’m hungry. Let’s get a taco. (Harvey Keitel as Mr. White in Reservoir Dogs).

They don’t cut off anybody’s fingers on the Italian show. They do a lot of sticking in the middle with you though. As in they turn up unannounced, they shove a microphone (not a gun) into your face, feed you the very loaded question and then sit back and watch you squirm. It’s normally a done deal. Faced with the high percentage of corrupt politicians and criminal involvement in Italy the grass is never missing from their usual pastures. It sounded like it would be more of the same when we heard Filiberti plead his case before Piano’s ostentatiously magnificent supertecture. 3 million euro of debts and no payments since the change of government. Hold up. “Since the change of government”? Why would an Italian businessman desperate to get his money back risk rubbing the current government the wrong way by adding the partisan element? Let’s face it he had no reason at all to do so. But he did.

Let me be clear. I now speak with the benefit of hindsight and having seen the video released by (I believe) Zrinzo Azzopardi that shows fuller parts of the interview that were left out by Le Iene. It turned out that the lack of payments was the result of something much more complicated and that Filiberti had not told the full story of the extent of the problems and who was not paying what. We did not even need to wait for Zrinzo’s video though. The Iene clip left one huge question hanging over the whole issue. Where were the courts in all this? Why had Filiberti not pursued anyone for lack of payment? Le Iene was not the right place to get his pound of flesh if he felt so deserving of it. There are the courts of law for that.

So yes, to put it short, the Iene line in this particular program was rather tenuous. We did get to see however a very embarrassing performance by the prime minister of a sovereign nation. Stopped on his way to some black tie event in St Julian’s, our Prime Minister’s performance went through various stages. We first had the glow of recognition – the sad man faced with a paparazzo style moment prepared to bask in the limelight like the four year old called on stage in panto. It segued into a moment of excess familiarity while still lulled into a sense of false security – years of experience as a heckling irritating journalist seem to have vanished from Joseph Muscat’s repertoire. He was caught unawares much like a consummate amateur betraying the fact that his love of the limelight will trump common sense anytime.

I will gloss over the embarrassing exchange that is not fit for any statesman since much has been said about that already. Muscat ended his interview by dumping the troupe onto the next sacrificial lamb – in this case Zrinzo Azzopardi, who was made to bear the brunt of Le Iene’s biased line as well as he could. The rest became an exercise of patriotic spamming all over the internet as the nation split between defenders of the faith (don’t touch my country) and those who would rather applaud a faulty interview so long as tomatoes are thrown at the current government’s face.

Once the charade was over and the hyenas had long forgotten the carcass they had attempted to chew on, we were left with the usual jackals. Those who have now been hovering around whatever is left of the kill. It doesn’t matter though, so long as we get to wear the black tie and pay a quarter of a million euros for tasteless art in Castille Square I guess we are doing fine.

 

“clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you.”