Ħa ngħidilkom ghaliex meta smajt l-aħbar li ħalliena Ċensu Tabone ħsiebi mar fil-parapett. Kont kbirt biżżejjed biex inkun nista nitlaq ‘il bogħod minn taħt għajnejn il-ġenituri. Dak iż-żmien Marsalforn kien għadu r-renju inkontestat tat-tfal fejn kull bieba kienet miftuħa, kull parapett kien jilqgħek u l-omm ixxurtjata tal-mument kienet issib kotra tfal jiġru ħafja wara l-bieb qed iħejju għad-doveri imqarba tal-jum. Sajf jew xitwa, Milied, Għid jew Karnival konna niltaqgħu. L-Għawdxin ta’ barra, il-Maltin imnissla minn Għawdxin u l-Għawdxin D.O.K.
Il-btala kienu jfissru il-bidu tad-divertiment. Roti jiġru mas-saqajn mill-Menqa sal-breakwater u tfal ma kullimkien jiskopru d-dinja u lil xulxin mingħajr ebda biżgħa u l-uniku rażan kien il-homework li għadu ma tlestiex (jew jekk kont kemm kemm ikbar l-istudju għall-O level li għadek trid tagħmel). L-irkejjen kollha konna nafuhom – miz-zuntier tal-knisja ta’ Dun Marjan sal-buskett ta’ fuq il-parking li għalina kien bosk infinit. Kien hemm rokna speċjali għal dawk fostna li konna ninzertaw dawk il-ġimgħat kmieni tal-Għid qabel ma jaslu il-Maltin. Kien parapett enormi (kollox suġġettiv meta tkun żgħir) li kien jmiss ma’ tarf in-niżla tat-triq li mir-Rabat twassal għal Marsalforn.
Hemm, f’dik il-kantuniera bejn il-Marsalforn Hotel u l-Lantern, intlagħbu l-ikbar logħbiet tal-ballun li qatt raw dawn il-gżejjer. Kemm il-darba niżlu jilgħabu il-Liverpool ta’ Dalglish u l-Juventus ta’ Platini lanqas ma tista’ tgħoddhom. U fis-skiet għażżien ta’ tard filgħodu qabel ma tinstema’ kbira l-għajta għall-ikel kien ikun hemm elf għajta oħra ta’ “goooowl”… Ma kienx isir logħob biss meta’ l-persjani tad-dar tal-parapett kienu miftuħa għax dak kien ifisser li kienu ġew is-sidien u s-sinjura żgur ma kenitx tieħu gost bit-tambir tal-ballun jirbombja kontra l-injam (tal-ġild jekk jogħġbok mhux xi SuperTele kwalunkwe).
U l-ħafna drabi meta l-logħba tal-ballun tkun imprattikabbli minħabba l-wasla tas-sidien ma kien ikun ġara xejn. Għax il-wasla tagħhom kienet tfisser li waslet ukoll il-familja estiża ta’ tfal u neputijiet. Allura erħilna ilkoll lejn il-wied… kollha kemm aħna… Ċensu (jnr), Mikela, Francesca, Mark, Joe, Andrew, Nicky, Nicola, Paula, Joanna, John u… u … il-lista kienet infinta daqs il-familja enormi… (skużawni jekk insejt lil xi ħadd). Ta’ tfal li aħna konna insibu dejjem biex negħdew.
U meta fis-87 rajthom bit t-shirt ta’ Ċensu Tabone, dak li kien in-nannu ħa lewn ieħor. U bqajt insegwih kemm dam fil-politika minn dakinhar. Segewejtu avolja kien għażel li jibni fuq il-parapett u jestendi d-dar. Hekk jew b’hekk sa dakinhar żmien il-logħob kien għadda u Marsalforn kien sar iktar post fejn infittxu l-ewwel namrati. U mhux se tmur tinnamra fil-parapett tal-Ministru hux?
Ċensu ma baqax biss in-nannu ta’ sħabi iżda sar ukoll il-politiku li missu ikun xempju għal dawn l-iskuża ta’ politikanti li għandna illum. Sar President u wettaq dmirijietu lejn il-pajjiż. Baqa’ jitkellem b’dak l-aċċent inimitabbli Għawdxi li kien jagħmlu iktar ġenwin. Il-figura tan-nannu Ċens kienet saret dik ta’ – kif isejħulu l-Ingliżi – a statesman. Tajjeb li jibqa’ imfakkar hekk.
Imma għalija jibqa’ l-ewwel haġa li tiġini f’moħħi. Dak il-parapett….
Strieħ fil-paċi nannu Ċens.
Min hawn nixtieq nagħti l-għomor lill-familja kollha ta’ Ċensu Tabone – wieħed mill-aħħar politiċi popolari tas-seklu għoxrin.
Julian Galea is the only PN candidate in Sliema to have survived the mess from the previous council. On any other day he would have been hailed as a resilient survivor instead, like an ugly wart, he has become the latest manifestation of the obsessive symptoms of Maltese electoral practices. Galea’s infamy began when he was unlucky enough to be entrapped into a recording of vile pronouncements expounding quite succinctly his base intolerance for anything Labour (Apparently, if you believe Galea this happened two years ago in a meeting between PN candidates – bravu Cirillu). It was too late to withdraw him from the electoral lists (even death is not strong enough to nullify a candidate’s listing once the nominations are closed).
We all know where it went from there. It’s not like no one had heard about Julian Galea’s insipid pronouncements – Labour made it quite a point to have them broadcast all over the place. Armed with the knowledge of Galea’s behaviour any voter in his right mind would have desisted from even mistakenly marking the little square on the ballot beside the candidate’s disgraced name if only to spare him the ignominy of having to remaining in the public eye for an extended period of time.
Julian Galea was – how shall I put it kindly – not just not presentable but also supposedly unelectable. The only persons you’d expect would put their mark near his name in the hope of his getting elected to the Sliema council would be scheming Labourites hoping to capitalise on his glaring presence. Yet….
Julian Galea got 233 votes. Two centuries and a third. He “only” lost 60 votes from his previous tally in 2009. True he got elected on the 17th count when he had still not reached the quota of 517 having obtained 376 votes in all (inheriting 143 from other candidates). What would have been a miserable performance must be seen from another perspective though. Who were those 233 souls who still rallied for Julian and his phobias?
Forget the noise from the pundits trying to desperately fit the Local Council shoe onto the twin ugly sisters’ General Election feet. This has nothing to do with labour/nationalist swings. It has nothing to do with the supposed “changing of Malta’s political demography”. Here you had the plain and simple reality of what makes up the bulk of Maltese politics.
On the eve of the elections we tried to warn you in “The Ugly Dress Rehearsal“. J’accuse described what the voter should be looking at in the candidates:
It should be obvious to anyone who stops to think for a moment that the ultimate consideration therefore when casting one’s vote is the competence and potential of the candidate. To summarise it more succinctly: It is not WHO is behind the candidate but rather WHO HE IS and WHAT HE STANDS FOR.
Did the voters do any of that? Do the results of the Local Council Elections show us a discerning voter who is involved in large scale swings and confidence issues and is busy sending “messages” to this or that party? Not really no. You might enjoy the charade of conflicting interpretations that the PLPN circus is likely to feed you over the next coming weeks. You might love the myriad interpretations: “PN must listen. Labour has gained inroads in the North. Time for change.” Lahdidah.
In reality what happened is much simpler. Occam’s razor again. It rained. Heavily. Most people had had enough of the circus (except maybe Silvio Zammit). They just could not be bothered. Who bothered to go out to vote? The die-hards. They are the people who wouldn’t miss a trip to the ballot if they were dying. It’s ingrained. Their vote is tattooed on their brain. And then in Local Councils there are what we can assume to be the core of voters for each candidate. Families, neighbours, close friends who feel obliged to get their man in.
That is how Julian Galea, no matter what he says or does will keep getting at least around 250 votes every time he contests the Local Council elections. It is anything but an assessment of his capacity to convince voters to vote for him. If you want a litmus test for that just look at AD’s darling Mike Briguglio. In 2009 Mike got 457 votes and was not elected (Edward Cuschieri – PN – got elected on the 10th count in that election even though his first preference votes numbered 222). This time round his tally was 485 votes. Not much of a shift was there? That 28 vote increase transformed AD’s failure into success. Or at least we would like to think so.
Another way of reading the results – and by this I mean most of the results is that they are about as prophetic and indicative as tea leaves at the bottom of a teacup. Voters have neither swung nor used their votes to express any particular concern. Even less should we be worrying about those who did not bother to turn up. Protest vote my foot. At this rate the only conclusion that I am willing to draw about these absentees is that they saw nothing available to make the trip to the ballot box worth it. More than a protest vote it is a lazily calculated snub at what is on offer on the menu. I’m guessing there will be much less of these when the General Elections come along.
So there you have it. What have the LC Elections in 2012 taught us about your average voter? That he still remains that – average. The intelligent voter stayed at home this time round. He is still out there however.
They’re electing representatives of the people in a number of councils tomorrow. From Zebbug (Gozo) to Sliema (Malta) the voters who will bother to take a stroll to the polling booth will be electing a group of people who are supposedly best placed to manage the needs of their locality. That is the principle behind the process of administrative devolution that began in 1993 with the setting up of the local council system. It’s almost twenty years now and the Kunsilli are ingrained in our political system of representation – for good or for bad – and ever since Labour’s rethink about participation in local politics they have also been a microcosm of our wider political field.
Ever since the times of Cicero, electoral campaigns for the municipium were a hotly contested affair. As the wikipedia article will tell you the ultimate right for a citizen is the right to vote (civitas optimo iure) – something to be treasured above all. Ugly electoral campaigns are also not something new and notions of slander, corruption and dirty politics on the eve of elections were not exactly invented by the PLPN crowd. Nothing new under the sun there. So what to expect from tomorrow’s vote?
Well, the result per se, should technically not have a meaning beyond enabling us to understand whether our cives have become more intelligent with the use of their ultimate power. At the end of the day the municipal council that is elected in each locality will have an effect on the lives of its citizens via the decisions it takes. It should be obvious to anyone who stops to think for a moment that the ultimate consideration therefore when casting one’s vote is the competence and potential of the candidate. To summarise it more succinctly: It is not WHO is behind the candidate but rather WHO HE IS and WHAT HE STANDS FOR.
And that is where we start to get complicated. Down on the ground, where it counts, I have no reason to suspect that every candidate contesting the elections and committing his or her time for a few years of civic duty has plans and ideas for the running of his locality. Even better I am sure that in the absolute majority of cases the interest is borne by a love of the locality and a desire to improve it or bring out the best in it. That is after all what the council election is about. All this happens behind the elaborate facade that is the involvement of the major political parties and it is not helped by the fact that this set of elections is the last official public scrutiny before the next general elections.
So we get the ugly dress rehearsal. Once again signs will be read where there are none. For the umpteenth time Labour will make a song and dance about winning local elections when in opposition. It’s not like we have not already been there. It is an exercise in collective dis-education. Why? Because your criteria when voting for local representatives should be the competence of the candidates and not whether you are exercising your vote to send a message to the Prime Minister. If you are stupid enough to waste the great prerogative that you have to choose the best local representatives because you’d rather be sending some message to the PN government then your idea of how democracy works is seriously flawed.
Labour could not help itself though. Thanks to Franco Debono’s antics it was duped into campaign mode at what turns out to be a very early stage and is now desperately trying to keep the election mode going as much as possible. That is why although we are speaking about local councils and performance the national media is full of arrows and stabs aimed at the heart of “GonziPN”. And then there was the whole RecordingsGate. First Joanna Gonzi then Julian Galea then Gonzi again were caught on tape – unsurprisingly all the candidates were from Cyrus Engerer’s Sliema council. The public heard PN candidates utter the obvious – our inbred tribal hatred was suddenly there for all to see. The PN countered with a few clips of its own – giving the usual suspects pride of place in its counter-information exercise.
The relevance this had for Local Council politics was that it reinforced the idea that PLPN still do not bother to screen candidates to check their suitability for public office. Did we need the recordings to find that out? There is a paucity of political potential already as it is and the recordings only threw the truth into everybody’s face. From Mosta to Sliema the signs of an illness in our system were already evident. As for dress rehearsals for an election we saw the two behemoths unashamedly re-engage in slander and mud-slinging politics where content is relegated to the footnotes of a manifesto. There it was – a race to uncover the sleaziest candidate, long-forgotten criminal records unveiled and more. What should have been a legitimate exercise of democratic checks-and-balances became a witch-hunt.
Then came Muscat’s Iron Lady performance. As others have pointed out it was obvious were Muscat got his Assisian inspiration from. The Labour leader would have fared much better had he memorised another great line from the movie: It used to be about trying to do something, now it’s all about trying to be someone. And that really hits the nail on the head. With the politics of taste that were inaugurated early this century substance makes way for charades, for strutting and for many words that cannot be backed by thoughts and ideas. Values have been thrown out of the window and marketing and imagery is all the vogue.
With our politicians busy playing along the weary scripts and jumping from one pleasant bandwagon to the next in the hope of boosting their already bloated caricatures on this stage we have only a huge dramatic performance to look forward to come next national elections. For now we have been regaled with some very ugly scenes that made for a horrible dress rehearsal.
But let us not forget that there cannot be a play or a charade without an audience. It brings me back to the intelligent use of the vote. It’s not, as many may think, simply an appeal to vote for alternattiva demokratika. It’s a much wider appeal for the citizen to finally live up to this immense responsibility and make the right choices. Look through the candidates. Look at them beyond the colours they represent and seriously ask yourself what you can see them doing six months down the line that can improve the state of your community. Accept any other criterion beyond that and you are making a fool of yourself.
And as a fool, you might as well join the other pagliacci on stage….
Vesti la giubba,
e la faccia infarina.
La gente paga, e rider vuole qua.
E se Arlecchin t’invola Colombina,
ridi, Pagliaccio, e ognun applaudirà!
Tramuta in lazzi lo spasmo ed il pianto
in una smorfia il singhiozzo e ‘l dolor, Ah!
Ridi, Pagliaccio,
sul tuo amore infranto!
Ridi del duol, che t’avvelena il cor!
Given that it is hard to keep up with the emptiness that is offered from our political milieu two days before a set of local council elections campaign, given also that I do not have the time required to set up a proper SHTF satirical video in Blobb style, given that there are two days till the jamboree of posts celebrating the sevenversary of this blog and finally given that I have a post in draft that has been waiting to come out;
Given all that and more I though of just posting this video as a prequel to the actual post that is a summary of what we have seen in this campaign for the local councils (the actual post will be called “The Ugly Dress Rehearsal”. Don’t ask why I chose this particular one. Or at least don’t ask me. Do your research.
Anniversaries are also a time to look back at what we have done. I’ve decided to pull a series of posts from J’accuse’s past into a new rubrique called “Retro J’accuse”. This first one remains a topical issue. It deals with the way we treat immigrants in our country and was prompted by a Sunday Times of Malta editorial that, how can I put it, was not exactly brilliant. From March 27 2006 – here’s Immigrants & Refugees:
Imagine a day not very far from this one. Imagine that you have packed your suitcase with the absolutely necessary and that you are in line to get onto a plane out of the country. The country that is now called Ave Melita (yes they would probably name it something that stupid) is no longer your home. The government’s latest policy is called “Min ma joghgbux jitlaq” and you have taken one of the last places available in this scheme and you are heading to a new life into another country that you will have to call home – away from the sun, sea and Xarabank that you loved so much.
You could not stay. Your conscience did not allow you to stay silent infront of measures like “Malta tal-Maltin (suwed barra)” and the latest one called “Dissoluzzjoni tal-Ordni tal-Gizwiti”. You collected your papers from the Centru Nazzjonali tal-Purifikazzjoni, the former Jesuit College in Birkirkara, and sped with haste to the airport with tears in your eyes. Your stomach still has to be emptied on a regular basis as you adjust to the new reality and you see the same empty, desperate look in the fellow passengers of this forced abortion of nationals. You still cannot bring yourself to explain what has happened in your country and why you have to leave it so fast. But you have no time to do so. You have to begin to adjust to the new country.
The new country is not like those Mediterranean pits that were reserved for the boat people. Like them, it knew you were coming. Unlike them it did not reserve a hastily built slum for you to call as home. You live in a former army barrack but your tiny room has running water, electricity and there is even a communications and technology room for all immigrants to keep contact with the world. Morale is low – no one wanted to be here. The authorities try to be accomodating and to relieve the greatest troubles. They create a scheme for economic support. Different jobs in the local market are made available. Unlike the Mediterranean nightmares that you used to read about you are to be allowed to scrape away a little earning in order to be self-sufficient and be able to hope for brighter days.
When you venture out into the street , the locals are understanding. Although your complexion is very much like those of the terrorists who bombed and targeted their nation with violent attacks at train stations and on buses, very few make the quick and illogical assumption that you could be of the same ilk. You are offered lifts to work. You join the local carpool and although you are not working as the University Professor that you were in Malta, your life as a shoe salesman in this little town allows you to live with dignity even though your career and dreams have been put on hold.
Then one day a local radical paper falls into your hands. Your eyes cannot believe what they see. They seem to have caught up with you. Those bungling buffoons who were in power in Malta seem to have found a foothold even in this welcoming state, here is what they say:
“Surely, there are ways of keeping them busy and alleviating their boredom. For example, they should help, in their own interest, to keep toilets clean. Also, could not some scheme of putting them to work on public cleaning projects, under strict supervision, and for a small allowance, improve things? There are many jobs they could be given – God knows the island needs a massive sprucing up! The scheme could start with a few small groups, and eventually expanded. Naturally it must be ensured that at the end of their day’s work, they return to “base”.” source
In this new country you had been allowed to find a job through an Immigrant Job Assistance scheme. In Malta they wanted to turn immigrants into Chain Gangs. Desperate beings who had reached the lowest of the turningpoints in their life, who had abandoned their family and the little social sustenance they had in the hope of a new life would be used to spruce up the island under strict supervision.
You discard the paper and turn on the TV in your room – the one you just bought with the money put aside from your first two months’ salary.
They will be everywhere. The intolerant, the coocooned as well as the well-meaning bumblers. You remember that massacres in India and Africa under the colonial regime were prompted by well-meaning actions of the Evangelical communities who intended to civilise the misbelieving miscreants. And you begin to notice how some things never change. How difficult it is to achieve genuine tolerance based on brotherly love and not the tolerance that relies on looking down a snobbish nose into the eyes of the tolerated, and humiliated human being?
This just cannot be real.
****
Note: The extract in quotes is taken from the editorial of the Sunday Times of Malta – 26th March 2006. It refers to the illegal immigrants and refugees who were bundled into housing under atrocious conditions and is a partial reaction to the new uproar created by a visit of European Parliament inspectors who were among the first outsiders to be allowed by the democratic Republic of Malta to inspect the conditions. The visit had prompted escapes from detention by immigrants eager to show their plight to the visiting MEPS (and who cares how they got to know about the visit? Why should they not know about it?). Following the escapes, police in Floriana were seen stopping anyone who is black while passers by called for a all immigrants to be rounded up and burnt in a square.
It is possible that the above summary is as biased as it could get. But even the possibility that it is one tenth of the truth makes me feel ashamed that I am Maltese.
I have recently been getting a creeping feeling that I am the only person in the world that listens to certain Maltese radio stations. It’s not just that, because I also think that they only operate when I tune in and stop speaking/playing music the moment I switch station. How do I know it? Easy. Because the DJ speaks to ME. Just me. It’s either that or his or her grammar is limited to the second person singular.
How else to explain phrases like “Se indoqqlok id-diska l-ġdida ta’ Beyonce”? or “Għandna premju għalik li qed tisma bħalissa”? It’s irritating. I know, given the benefit of internet streaming radios why the hell am I torturing myself with Bay Radio’s Breakfast with Drew when I could be listening to RTL, RTBF Classic 21, or London’s Heart or even Waikiki Radio? It’s just that every now and then I do feel like listening to a morning drive show from home and possibly catch up with the news on the hour. So I have to submit to being spoken to directly by a DJ and I begin to worry whether he can see me getting dressed in my bedroom. Rather invasive isn’t it this language business?
And that’s not all. I have an aversion to the conversion of the pronunciation of placenames to English. How does Birkirkara get to be pronounced Bear-Kuhr-Kah-Rah? And Imrieħel suddenly becomes Emm-ray-hell. Is it cool? Does it make the place sound more cosmopolitan? What’s the deal? Why?
So please Mr DJ. I don’t know you. I am not on first name terms with you and do return to using the plural. If not for the sake of imagining an audience that numbers more than one then just think of me as the King – the one who deserves a royal plural. Whatever you do, the English “accent” (especially some conjured up cross-mix of brummie/eastender) was never, ever intended to be applied to the sweet arabic sounds of Maltese.
(This post is being republished to test WordPress to Facebook handling of comments.)
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