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History Lessons

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Imre et lui déposèrent un dossier pour demander le statut de réfugiés politiques. L’hypocrite Rousseau qui dirigeait le service s’ingéniait a mettre des bâtons dans les roues des Hongrois qui affluaient. Comment prouver que vous êtes un fugitif, que votre vie est menacée quand vous avez quitte votre pays dans l’affolement?

– Il me faut des preuves, vous comprenez? C’est facile de dire que vous êtes pourchasses par la police politique. Si les Soviétiques sont intervenus, c’est a la demande du gouvernement hongrois que je sache et pour sauver ce pays de la contre-révolution des petits propriétaires. L’écrasante majorité de vos compatriotes approuve. Si ça se trouve, vous avez fui la Hongrie parce-que vous êtes délinquants ou que vous n’avez pas payez vos impôts. C’est a vous de me fournir les preuves, pas a moi. Pour l’instant, votre dossier est vide. Quand il passera en commission, vous avez intérêt a ce qu’il y ait du sérieux a l’intérieur. Sinon, ce sera refus. La France n’est pas une terre d’accueil pour les voyous étrangers! On a assez avec les nôtres.

(From Le Club des Incorrigibles Optimistes, Jean-Michel Guenassia) see translation below.

The lessons of history. We seem to have failed them. One of the biggest lessons that history teaches us is that man is constantly on the move. Whether conquering fellow man or discovering new worlds, homo sapiens sapiens has proven to be quite the globetrotter. Historic displacements have also been the misfortune of whole peoples from the biblical chosen people to the mass exodus of the sons of africa enslaved in their millions and taken to the new world. Few nations can claim to never have been part of a force or intended migration.

Orban’s Hungary is currently sticking out as a major opposer to any form of influx while building walls of discord and distaste. Only 49 years ago the people of Hungary had themselves tried to rebel against an oppressive communist inspired regime. By November 1956, the Soviet tanks had entered Budapest, purportedly upon invitation of the government of the time in order to quell the revolution. The sons of the soviets are now in Syria, supposedly on invitation of the benign Assad with the added excuse of fighting off the forces of the hated ISIS. The civil war and strife in Syria has displaced millions in a story now known to all.

It is part of those millions that are finding it hard to navigate the frontiers of Europe – particularly in places like Hungary where people with a very short memory seem to ask many questions about the real status of these migrants.

A short memory can be the downfall of us all. Much worse than a foreign invasion.

Read more about the Hungarian Revolution here.

“In the immediate aftermath, many thousands of Hungarians were arrested. Eventually, 26,000 of these were brought before the Hungarian courts, 22,000 were sentenced, 13,000 imprisoned, and several hundred executed. Hundreds were also deported to the Soviet Union, many without evidence. Approximately 200,000 fled Hungary as refugees.”

 

—

TRANSLATION OF TEXT:

Imre and him submitted a dossier requesting political refugee status. The hypocrite Rousseau who ran the service specialised in putting spokes in the wheels of the flood of Hungarians who were arriving.

– I need proof, you understand? It is easy to say that you are chased by the political police. As far as I know, the Soviets intervened because your government invited them to do so, and this to save the country from the counter-revolution of the small owners. The crushing majority of your compatriots approuve. It could very well be that you escaped Hungary because you are delinquents or you have not paid your taxes. It’s up to you to prove this, not up to me. For the moment your dossier is empty. When it ends up before the commission you should very well hope that there is something more substantial inside. If not, it will be a refusal. France is not a welcome land for foreign hooligans! We have had enough of our own.

The European Troll Collective

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It is a great mistake to suppose that the only writers who matter are those whom the educated in their saner moments can take seriously. There exists a subterranean world where pathological fantasies disguised as ideas are churned out by crooks and half-educated fanatics for the benefit of the ignorant and superstitious. There are times when this underworld emerges from the depths and suddenly fascinates, captures and dominates multitudes of usually sane and responsible people. – Warrant for Genocide, Norman Cohn.

The world can be one big lie. This has been a pet subject for many a philosopher. Maybe the world we see is just an illusion, maybe we are just parts of a dream, maybe we are an imperfect parallel universe. It all seems to hinge around the concept of perception – how we receive data and what we do it. What we see, what we sense and how we perceive it is crucial to defining the world we live in. The internet has had an immense impact not only in the immediate processing of information but also in redefining our understanding the realities (or fakeries) of the world that we inhabit.

In the nineties the term “global village” was very much the vogue. The information superhighway would cut distances drastically and you would know whenever a bomb exploded in Kandahar, whenever a weird tsumani struck the shores of Indonesia, whatever the latest military putsch was doing and you would know it instantly. Technology would be at the service of humanity giving us information at our fingertips. This urge for immediacy had existed for over a century by the 1990s. Just look at what Senator Depew had to say about the inauguration of the New York Pneumatic Postal Service in 1897:

This is the age of speed. Everything that makes for speed contributes to happiness and is a distinct gain to civilization. We are ahead of the old countries in almost every respect, but we have been behind in methods of communication within our cities. In New York this condition of communication has hitherto been barbarous. If the Greater New York is to be a success, quick communication is absolutely necessary. (see Wikipedia)

What humanity did not predict was that with the information superhighway came the empowerment of the masses. Nothing wrong with that per se but when the masses have no standard reference as to the type of information that should be disseminated we end up with a perversion of the truth. Multiple perversions actually. Information, we learnt, can be manipulated. It is not only the usual suspects popular among conspiracy theorists who are hard at work.

During the cold war the issue of propaganda was easily pinnable on the parties, the movements and the governments. In the post 9/11 world, navigating the information superhighway is not such an easy black and white matter. The sources of information are multiple and few are those who bother to verify the reliability. A whisper in a corner of the global village can gather enough momentum to be a tsunami of shrieks and yells within hours.

Which is where the trolls come in. J’accuse has often repeated the great Pratchett’s quote that “a lie can travel around the world before the truth has had time to put its boots on”. Internet trolls have found the medium perfect to spin their lies – just look at the frantic anti-immigrant spamming of the past few months. Trumped up figures, photoshopped images and reasoning that wouldn’t hold good in a kindergarten of moot courts.

The responsibility in this day and age lies among the citizens who deign themselves to be informed. The trolls can only be defeated by counter-trolling and by the positive action of more informed participants.

This blog has been committed to this kind of action for as long as it has existed and aims to continue to do so as long as it can. The truth, if we lie.

 

Those Colourful Racist Imbeciles

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It’s just idiots. Venting their anger (or vehemently opposing this or that idea) on facebook. At least they should be dismissed as such. The problem though is that they often represent a more generally held sentiment – held even among those who do not regularly frequent Zuckerberg’s fake mirror of society. A picture has been doing the rounds that features a black young lady delivering some sort of speech in Malta’s spanking new parliament. Behind the lady is MP Claudette Pace, to her right is a hijab-wearing other young lady. The picture (as you can see) is supposed to stir some form of anger : “Look at our parliament” it is captioned. We are supposed to react with disdain: “How did THEY make it in there?”.

I recognised the young black lady in the picture because by some stroke of luck and coincidence she formed part of a delegation of Mini-European Assembly winners who visited the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg (presumably as a prize for their sterling performance). I was lucky enough, privileged I would say, to be able to address the group and explain the workings of the Court. It is part of my job to regularly meet students from universities, professors or members of the judicature of EU countries who are on an educational visit to the Court. We normally take a break from our day to day task of drafting cases to share our knowledge of the workings of the court with such visitors.

This September (only two weeks ago actually) I remember walking into the room full of Mini-European Assembly visitors with a feeling of apprehension. They were a young group – younger than our usual visitors (most of them are finishing college before University) – and my recent idea of the produce of Maltese schools and university were not the most positive. My first look around the room I remember being surprised at the variety of students sat before me. Sure, I am of a generation where the “foreigner” in class was a token presence so the trigger “surprise” instinct can be forgiven if just for that. It did not take long for me to rubbish that little element of “surprise” to a corner of my brain.

Having finished the usual delivery we had a Q&A session. With university students (Sorbonne, Harvard and the like) we normally have to plead to get a question out of them and when we do we are often disappointed at the type of question being asked. This was not to be. The young first year lawyers and sixth-formers had loads of questions to ask – all pertinent, all intelligent and all interesting. That included the splendid lady in the centre of the picture now being circulated by oafs who wouldn’t know better.

They are Maltese students. Very intelligent, ambitious and interesting Maltese students. Each of them carries a dream. It’s a dream that they would like to see through living in a Maltese society. I’d very much like to think that one in every two Maltese students is like this group of fantastic ambassadors. Sadly I know that the Ernest Ferrante’s of this world vastly outnumber them.

It’s a tough task ahead for all of us and all of them. I can only wish the beautiful ladies who were exemplary on the visit and who feature in this sad racist meme all the best in their lives ahead. With courage and conviction much can be achieved.

Photosensitive

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Aylan Kurdi’s lifeless body washed up on a Turkish beach.The photo was snapped moments before the body was picked up by a Turkish rescue operator. Within hours it became the internationally recognised symbol of the unfolding Syrian tragedy. Not the thousands of persons bandied across borders, not the hundreds of thousands of unwanted finding doors slammed in their faces, not a whole people that has become a European hot potato much to its own chagrin. No.

Just a little boy in a red t-shirt, shorts and shoes. Face down. Arms along his sides. At first glance it is not so much an image of death as one of exhaustion. Before you are struck by the dark reality of the death of an innocent you are first made to think of an exhausted loss of the will to go on. Then it hits you. This is a dead little boy. And this image has struck home in millions of households. It has been described as the ultimate eye-opener, the straw that broke the camel’s back. Did we really need the image of one dead kid set in a romantic position in order to unlock the last shreds of humanity? If so why?

Memory

Last night Rai3 showed the second of a two piece instalment called “Generation War“. The series, originally called “Our Mothers and Our Fathers” in German follows the fate of a group of five young Germans throughout World War II. The German channel ZDF had commissioned the series in order to act as a dialogue between generations. The series attracted huge criticism in Germany since it seemed to portray the Nazis as “others” to the German population but also served as an eye-opener to the great deception that Nazism had been to the young pre-war generation.

Dealing with history is hard enough. Remembrance and knowledge that results from not forgetting are crucial tools in understanding the freedoms and liberties that have been achieved in the last century. Reading abut Generation War I learnt that the first real big eye-opener in Germany with regards to the horror of the holocaust “only” appeared on TV in the form of a mini-series in 1978 (featuring among others a young Meryl Streep).

The media has an important role in shaping ideas about great events. There was no media as we know it at the time of the holocaust or anti-semite pogroms. Most news was state controlled and played to the tune of the dictatorship. More recently we can see the mediatic effect of reporting of mass exodus such as that of the East Germans in  1989. In fact it should not be too hard to remember that not too long ago the pathways of Austria and Hungary were flooded with another people eager to reach the Holy Grail of German free territory. At the time a collapsing East Germany witnessed a haemhorrage of citizens eager to escape the claustrophobic atmosphere behind the iron curtain.

27 years later East Germans are replaced by Syrians. The plight of the people running away from a war torn country had been gathering momentum for over three years now. It took a symbolic snapshot to bring home the reality. Those who had hitherto been numbed by the excessive amount of daily information covering tragedy after tragedy, war after war, displacement after displacement, were suddenly shocked into action.

Aylan was buried back in his tragic hometown of Kobane. The hopes that humanity can once again stir itself out of its egoistic stupor were not buried with him though. Right or wrong, the stolen snapshot of a dead boy’s curls playing with the waves on a turkish beach might have kicked off the tide of compassion and care that had long been lacking.

I am J.

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I am the owner of a flat in Saint Julian’s – Paceville to be exact. For some time now I have known that I share the address of this flat with over fifty individuals who I have never met or contacted in any way. I have known of this Kafkesque situation for over two years.

I have been waiting for a police investigation to be concluded on the issue but due to the prominence that such situations are currently being given in the media and in order to avoid any nasty consequences that could be made by “investigative journalists” jumping to the wrong conclusions I have decided to tell the story of how this came to be on this blog. It is a story that results from the ridiculous legislation and administrative rules governing residence in Malta and (for the record) it starts under a nationalist administration and continues under a labour one. Bear with me. This might take some time….

I am J. 11 years ago, just before I got to know that I would be moving to Luxembourg for a new job I signed an agreement to purchase an apartment in Paceville. Why Paceville? Why not? I had grown up there and I liked it. I never had the chance to move in. By the time I actually bought the apartment I was already installed in Luxembourg. For a very long time it would be my holiday base and I resisted all entreaties to put it on the rental market – partly because I know that I lack the business acumen required in such circumstances (yes, I’m missing some Gozitan traits).

You should know that my visits to Malta are always short and tend to centre around Bank Holiday/Holiday periods when administrations and businesses are on shut down. Anything from installing a phone line to getting work done on the flat would be a logistical nightmare. Even in the internet age you would be surprised as to the number of transactions that require your presence (in person) “Ghax Sir, ma nistghux naqduk inkella”.

Sometime around mid 2012 I decided to bite the bullet and rent out the flat for a short trial period. I approached a decent estate agent based in Paceville and literally got a tenant within seconds. It was simply a question of opening my mouth and saying “I have a flat in Paceville to rent”. The agent told me he had a client next door who was looking for just that. I checked out the person. He seemed a decent businessman, Austrian. He told me that he wanted to start a business in Malta – a driving school aimed at foreign customers.

I assumed (as you would) that the guy needed accommodation in Malta while he would run the school elsewhere. Who runs a school from a flat? Who indeed. The rental contract was signed and Mr Hans Dieter Schwing (real name, not that he gave me any incentive to protect his identity) moved in. There I was thinking Mr Schwing would use my flat as accommodation while running the “school” in appropriate quarters he would probably rent elsewhere.

In fact I had checked out the Schwing’s website – it offered a package to German and Austrian clients (later it turned out to be also East European clients) who would obtain a Maltese driving license “within weeks of applying”. It seemed above board, website and all so I signed the rental agreement and Schwing moved in. He had told me that sometimes it would be a rep of his who would use the apartment as he was moving between Germany and Malta.

As I mentioned earlier I am rarely in Malta and between visits I corresponded with Schwing or his representative in Malta via email. As tenants go they were not very demanding bar the request for a few more fans in summer. I had the first indication of problems half way through the rent when the rep became incomunicado and payments stopped only to be resumed within a month or so. I put this down to bickering between the rep and Schwing. Within a few more months (by March 2013) however everything went awry. Rental payments stopped and Schwing & Co. literally vanished. When I came back to my apartment it was a complete mess. All of the furnishings were broken or irretrievably damaged, the walls and structures damaged (drillings) and there was evidence that the apartment had been used as a dorm including lockers and all.

Schwing was untraceable and I could neither sue for damage nor for rent lost. The damage to the apartment went far beyond the rent payment that had been settled. I resigned myself to repairing the damage and swore never to rent the apartment again. The trouble though was only about to begin.

It turns out that by the beginning of summer in 2013 the post box in the apartment was bulging with mail addressed to persons I had no idea existed. VAT department, Inland Revenue, Financial Services and ID Card office. On my occasional visit I would go through the mail and resend them in the post with “No such person at this address” written across the envelope.

In June 2013 I received a summons from the Police Fraud Unit (now Economic Crimes). The summons read “kaz ta’ falsifikazzjoni ta’ dokumenti u dikjarazzjonijiet foloz”. To be exact, the summons was posted to the address of my apartment. I only read the mail in late September when a family member had been through the mail and I immediately contacted the police officer in question. First thing I informed them is that Jacques Rene’ Zammit would be a Sinjur not a Sinjura as their letter indicated and then I informed them of my willingness to collaborate with their investigation.

On my next visit to Malta which happened to be in November 2013 I was interviewed by PS Sean Scicluna in the Office of Inspector Rennie Stivala. I gave my side of events twice that day. The reason I gave them twice was that the first time that I recounted my story there was a power cut at Police HQ as soon as I finished and I had to return in the afternoon since all the data had been lost on the PC – apparently no save was made while the deposition was in progress.

I signed the declaration and left the office hoping that I would get news from the police regarding any progress. Almost two years have gone by and I have no news from their part yet. Meanwhile I have invested considerable amounts of money in restructuring the flat (an investment that far outweighs the meagre amount I had managed to recoup from the rent period) and I stand by my resolution never again to rent it out to anyone. The mailbox is still regularly flooded with administrative documentation (as is clear from the envelope) and it was touching to see how quickly the political parties added the new “residents” to their mail lists.

From my interview with the police it turns out that it is remarkably easy for someone to get an ID on a residence that is not theirs. The owner is practically powerless and it is even more complicated to get the names OFF the register once they are there. In the words of the police officer you could have walked into the ID office and said you lived in “1, Castille Square” and probably got your ID card.

I am not a victim of the fraudsters. In my case this is no conspiracy of the Joe Sammut kind. I am a victim of shoddy administrative systems that can be so easily abused of. The worst part is that the moment the abnormal list of residents in one flat came into the hands of the police the number one suspect is the owner of the property. This is a ridiculous situation where a citizen can end up bearing the consequences of the shoddy screening by the administration. It does not stop with ID Cards. There are VAT numbers and even letters from the Employment and Training Corporation. I am also almost sure that the dossier at the Fraud Unit had been kicked off by the Electoral Commission (yes, I sneaked a peak during my two hours long interview – boohoo Kaizer Sauzee).

That the current government is so malleable when it comes to dealing in residences is no bonus for people (and I am sure there are many others) in my situation.

I had not felt it necessary to make this issue public because it is a private issue that I had hoped will one day be solved by police intervention and by the smarting up of the administrative authorities who should have better checks about who they register on their books. Since however the flat in question is now being mentioned and linked to other dealings I prefer doing a Wikileaks on myself as I said earlier rather than have the “investigative journalists” have a field day about whatever spurious links they may conjure up between myself and the free-riding residents of my Paceville apartment.

Addenda:

  • People ask how can one not notice when loads of mail arrives in one’s mailbox addressed to unknown persons? True. In my case I am abroad most of the time and when I am back it is a case of piles and piles of letters. Thankfully the police summons came relatively quickly and I was hoping that their work would put an end to the situation. I also ask however how can someone at the VAT department or ETC send out 50 or so letters to different individuals all based at the same address without batting an eyelid?
  • Schwing is still on the run as far as I know. When, after the interview, I asked the police to inform me if he is brought to Malta I was told “good luck, he has loads of creditors who are ready to pounce on him” and they also mentioned a prominent Sliema businessman.
  • My flat is NOT for rent, so please no enquiries.
  • also in today’s Times: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150903/local/i-am-victim-says-fake-lease-address-owner.582964

Labour & Flames

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On March 9th 2013 Joseph Muscat’s Labour government decided to switch off the eternal flame (from 6am to 6pm) at the War memorial in order to save money. The move was calculated to save the government €9,000 a year.

On August 27th 2015 it was announced that Joseph Muscat’s Labour government had opted not to have a statue of Dom Mintoff in Castille square. Joseph Muscat’s Labour government opted for an abstract 5 metre high flame instead. Estimates of the cost of creating this flame are around €500,000.

That half a million euro could have kept the eternal flame going for another 55 years.

L-aqwa l-fjamma astratta f’gieh is-salvatur. 

Castille square, now bereft of greenery, will sport a design that mimics the idea of Piazza Campidoglio in Rome. It will be “adorned” with a series of statues culminating in a five metre high flame designed by a ceramic artist commissioned on direct order. In a way it is a fitting symbol of all that is wrong with the ideas behind Joseph Muscat’s Labour.