Politics

Labour Loves Libya

George Vella, Malta’s possible future Foreign Minister has drawn his own conclusion about the best possible outcome that could result from the toppling of Gaddhafi. The Times online title says it all: “Libya can boom and ‘absorb’ immigrants“. Nothing wrong there really is there? I mean surely we cannot criticize George for hoping that Libya gets on its own two feet economically and thus act as a magnet to all potential North African emigrants. Let’s see how George put it (our highlights).

Libya could become an investment hub, “the Dubai of the Mediterranean”, and it could also capitalise on its white sandy beaches and crystal-clear waters to become a front-runner in the tourism industry, he said. Throwing into the mix its oil riches and small population density, if Libya opened to free trade it was bound to begin “absorbing” immigrants rather than remain a stepping stone into Europe, Dr Vella argued.

Right. I guess in the world of Realpolitik this is definitely much nicer and presentable than a plan to round up immigrants and send them back into the welcoming arms of deranged Colonel Gaddhafi (Gieh ir-Repubblika et al). When we remember Labour’s last pronouncement with regards to the Arab Spring  though, it tends to bring out an unpleasant truth about the party that is suddenly become (at least according to some ) the bastion of Civil Liberties. Do we not remember Joseph Muscat’s gaffe that the troubles in North Africa might bring about an economic boost to Malta’s ailing tourism industry?

Joseph was busy holding an “Iftar” with the Muslim community so he might have missed George’s latest solution to Malta’s immigration woes. Pity. It would be good to know whether this reflects general Labour thinking or whether it is just a frijvowt issue – where opinions are like genitals… to each his own.  Here is what Joseph said at the Iftar…

Dr Muscat said he expected that the PL would be criticised  for its initiative to hold this ceremony, but this strengthened the party as an organisation which wanted to bring down barriers and believed in a society which respected everyone.

Respected everyone? Sure. So long as the dregs of the earth and the hapless immigrants find some other economy to drain. Who knows.. if Libya booms and absorbs well enough there might be no one to attend PL’s Iftar come a few years time… I wonder… would that be a bonus or a minus? Don’t ask me.

Ask George.

Or Joseph.

 

***

Addendum: other interesting George Vella observations:

  • not too in favour of NATO (old habits die hard)
  • Western countries had always been motivated by their own interests, including personal political interests and the economic interests of their countries. Malta, throughout history, also had to look after its interests, he said (Malta. L-ewwel u qabel kollox)
  • “Malta did not choose its neighbour. Love or hate Gaddafi, we had to do business with him. No one ever agreed with his politics. We are democrats not dictators,” he said. All administrations had to remain close to the Gaddafi regime. (realpolitik revisited)

Smile (More)

Well. We’re here. And that’s a good thing. Being here is rock. Having a blog purged from malicious hacks is rock (and roll). Having friends who spend a whole night with you trying to figure out what the fuck went wrong is rock (and roll encore). Not being Gaddhafi is rock. Not being in a New York metro when Irene hits Manhattan is rock. Not being a Somali kid in the Al Shabbab controlled region is rock. Being on the Dukan diet to lose weight for the wedding is slow. Still being able to consume 12 chicken wings is rock-ish. Chicken for the fourth successive day is slow.

That’s a bit of Celentano style blogging for you. We’re back in action after the horrendous ordeal of almost losing everything – including akkuza.com’s cred with google (that’s Chrome & Firefox treating you like a minor unit of Al Qaeda). Although J’accuse is back, I’m afraid that most thumbnails for archived posts have been losts so you will not find much by illustration if you go further back than eight posts from this one.

While we were de-hacking Gaddhafi’s grasp on Libya and the people of Libya was loosened further. Our politicians have suddenly decided to finally back the new government to the hilt and today’s news that the government will strip Gaddhafi of his medals and honorary mentions (backed by the opposition) has been seen by all and sundry as too little too late. We were particularly amused at how some ardent defenders of the nationalist cause who were calling us immature and stupid a while back have suddenly woken up and smelt the coffee. Here’s the Runs waking up to reality a couple of years later:

When I listened to that tremendous speech which Eddie Fenech Adami gave in parliament in December 1986 (…), I suddenly realised what has gone missing from the Nationalist Party: moral courage, and the ability to distinguish between what is right and just and what is merely convenient. (Jaqaw Qabduh fl-ahhar?)

No worries. I am sure we’ll be told that no matter how immoral, cowardly or unable to distinguish between right and convenient the Nationalists are, we’ll have to either vote Nationalist or swallow the bitter pill of being immature objects of hate again come next election.

J’accuse é rock, gli apologisti sono lenti. Molto lenti.

 

What Paradise?

The immigrants are rioting. The Maltese comment boards are rife with spiteful messages of the “send them back home” kind. Forget blaming the police or the government. It’s the whole damn country that’s in a mess at the worst possible time. I’m not speaking of hysterical bloggers switching attention from the real issues to a slide show of cheap voyeurism. I am speaking of the mentality that is evident on every bus, in every queue, in every department or shop. It’s how people yell at each other. How they judge and sell relative opinions. How the primadonnas of this world panic at every moment that they seem to lose what they perceive to be control of their twisted corner of whatever market they seem to occur and how the masses enjoy their role as supporters in a dog-eat-dog world without realising that the dogs are biting at their hearts.

My errands on this holiday have taken me to the Emigrants Commission and to the Public Registry. I’ve used public transport, I’ve driven and on breaks I’ve had a chance to see the mass at work – through the multiplicity of individuals who squat on this tiny rock. We’ve lost something along the way these past few years. It’s a mixture of values, attitude and outlook to life. We’re on the defensive while thinking in cliches. We’re rashly judgemental and highly egoistic. We’re an ugly mixture of materialistic hedonism and false moralism. We’re oblivious to the world across the sea while we continue to peddle the fable of a whole universe on one small island that could live without anyone and that does not need anyone. And when the world passes to our shores we panic and yell. We shout “Move Up”, “What do you want?” “Stand Back” “Go Home” “Five euros and twenty cents” “Tini dak” “Qabzitli” “That’s mine” “X’buzz mann” in unison and speak in a tongue of anger an remote-controlled frustration without any reference point.

The immigrants may be rioting in Safi. There may be policemen injured doing their job. The rioters might be yelling “Freedom, Freedom”. But in the end you cannot help but wonder whether their riot is misguided. You cannot help but wonder whether they are safer in the confines of their detention. You cannot help but wonder that with the experiences and stories that life has harshly and unfairly thrown at them, it’s the walls of their detention centre in Safi that are keeping them away from the mass of prisoners on an island inhabited by false moralists and hypocrites.

The Safi inmates yelling for Freedom might still be in time to realise that the real prison lies beyond the confines of the Safi Centre.

What detention centre? In an island of hypocrites and false moralists we are all prisoners. This is no paradise to be banished from.

COMMENT IS FREE. STILL. THINK BEFORE YOU TYPE.

‘We are all just prisoners here, of our own device’

Thinking in 2D in the 21st Century

It’s been a week on the island and as you can see from the lack of blogging it has been a busy one. Any time I may have away from planning is dedicated to the sun and sea (or the sun and swell during the last two days). The most “politics” I get during this time is a chance to hear people out away from the comments boxes in the various blogs and online papers and so I get to compare the ethereal with the reaHave I got some (non) news for you…

There’s a lament doing the rounds out there that is worthy of Pietro Caxaro’s darned best. It is sung by each and every person who you meet and who you da provoke into talking about current affairs. There may be variants but the highlights of the lament go something like this:

1. An extreme displeasure and disgust at anything PN. Apparently the monsters of “widespread corruption”, “nepotism” and “hofor” are back with a vengeance. The general idea among nationalist card carriers is that the PN might as well vanish in a cloud of smoke – as they have become a corrupt bunch of spendthrift nincompoops who are also hell bent on installing a police state. As one ex-nationalist (yes, they are back) gently put “it: “We do not need another five years of democratic dictatorship. Conclusion: PN does not get their vote. (Inzabbu)

2. So you try to get something out of these disgruntled nationalists about o they intend to vote for. The answer is obvious. They will vote for Inhobbkom Joseph and his merry band. Fair enough I say. After all fairness is oft invoked by the intelligent (that’s sarcasm by the way) voter to justify the need of alternation in government. But do you know what kind of policies PL has? Do you know how they will be applied to, for example, shield us from the dark clouds of the economic crisis? I am not a tough client. I ask for one (that’s 1) policy that promises to improve things from the lament-inducing state of affairs. Just one. Apparently though Joseph has promised an electoral manifesto three months before the election. And anyway that is not the point it seems. It seems that the point is that the vote is not really for PL but against PN. You see? Intelligent voting is back. Apparently the new think is “better the incompetent devil you have no clue about than the thieving, host-swallowing, conniving, power-nibbling devil you’ve had enough of”. Or summat like that. Conclusion: Viva l-lejber! (Who? boqq… basta mhux PN u hi).

3. And then you plug the innocent question. So if you are telling me that the nationalists have fooled you for too long and that you do have an inkling of a suspicion that PL running on the same polluted petrol why won’t you consider for an instance using your sacrosant right to vote positively and elect a party that deserves giving its damned best shot at having its policies represented in parliament? In other words : why not vote AD? (after reading their political proposals and seeing what they have to offer). Well we know what the answer to that on is don’t we? It’s Daphne and Patrick’s Wasted Vote… the one that makes you irresponsible for risking getting one of the other devils elected. Of course if Daphne convinced you not to waste your vote last election you probably voted for the government of one-seat majority in which Ad is not a king-maker. Hold on…. but what does that make JPO? What does it make obstinate Franco Debono? An unruly Austin Gatt? Let me guess… that is the most responsible vote of the highest order. Conclusion: Vote AD? Don’t be ridiculous. (Biex jitilghu xi PN bi zball… mhux hekk)

So three and a half years after the battles of 2008 when we tried desperately on the net and in the papers to convince people that the time had come to break the stronghold of the alternating valueless devils in this country by voting in a third party nothng much has changed. This is a country that still thinks in stupid terms. Yes, stupid. Becuase if you know that voting PN again would only encourage more of the same, and if you know that voting PL would only bring about the same, same but different and you are only voting PL because you want to spite PN then you can only be damn stupid. Very damn stupid if you ask me.

a J’accuse article in The Times of Malta from February 2008:

Win or lose we go shopping after the election

So there’s this campaign going on. It pits two candidates head to head against each other. The other contestants are sort of morphed away into the background as the two personalities fight the battle in each and every quarter. They pitch the battle from their home ground where they feel most confident attacking their opponent to the shrills and cries of banner waving supporters. Occasionally they will consent to a battle of wits before a general audience. It is such battles that bring out their fortes and their weaknesses. On the one hand the man who has already surprised everyone once by getting as far as he could get and on the other the smart confident lawyer with the plan to save the nation. They battle through the stereotypical labels, they justify past records and voting trends and they are both convinced that it is with them that the nation will start its new beginning.

It’s going to be a long, drawn out campaign as early polls had already indicated. No horse is a sure bet and every little battle waged is important for the achievement of the final result. They are determined to put on a good face to the crowd. They want to be the answer to the needs of the people. “Each candidate behaved well in the hope of being judged worthy of election”. It doesn’t take Machiavelli to notice that politicians will willingly change shape in order to best suit the image that the people want to elect. A recent article in The Boston Globe asked the question whether we should really be so angry that hypocrisy is a common trait among politicians. After all does it not mean that they are trying to be more pleasing for the electorate, the author asks.

On the other hand, in this campaign, the votes against are almost as important as the votes in favour. Often the old political adage, that men and women vote chiefly against somebody rather than for somebody, is proven right. More and more campaigns are run on why not to vote for the other candidate than why to vote for your own. It is a sorry state of affairs wherever this happens and reflects a dearth of positive ideas and policies. The same applies to the mud-slinging scenarios that have become habitual. This campaign has not been spared.

One candidate accuses the other of having supported a wrong policy in the past – the immediate repartee will be on how a policy backed by the accuser had been so ineffective and hopeless. And so on it goes. Was it not once said that during a campaign the air is full of speeches … and vice versa?

The media machinery focuses as much on the glamour aspect of the politician as it will on the substance being offered. Personal background, musical preferences and how the candidate spends his spare time all form part of the wider media circus of this campaign. Meanwhile, while one side will accuse the other of being incompetent, dishonest and incapable of fulfilling its promises, the other side will retort with the same arguments. To cap it all up the independents or third parties will agree with both – giving you quite an idea of how varied and contradicting opinions can weirdly fall in the same basket.

In the middle of it all lie the voters. They are awed by the language of the demagogues, by the special effects of the presentations and by the charisma of this or that candidate. They will watch in a drunken stupor as the more arguments are piled up the more they are mollified into one or another candidates’ camp. As the song and dance goes on they are led to believe that the choice is the only one before them that counts. Everything else is yesterday and the past. Tomorrow is another story where a new beginning and a new world exists… with your candidate of choice of course. Privately the voters’ main reflection remains that democracy is being able to vote for the candidate who you dislike the least.

But Barak Obama vs Hillary Clinton will be just another chapter in the history of viciously fought campaigns. I’ve just finished reading the book Imperium by Robert Harris which chronicles the life and times of Marcus Cicero. It chronicles events close to the end of the Republican era in Rome. Elections were order of the day between circus games and foreign campaigns. Bribery, corruption, calumnious accusation and all forms of no-holds-barred campaigning seem to have been normality in that age. Thankfully it is probably no longer possible to buy more than half the representation of the senate and the tribunes as attempted by Crassus and his co-conspirators.

Bribery and politicians who sell their soul to the highest bidder are a thing of the past even though many a Michael Moore will say otherwise. Politics are made for the good of the people. Wars are waged to export democracy and not to retain control on the oil lines, building permits are given in the light of regulations and not twisted in accordance to the needs of party backers and so on and so forth. Whatever the case the US seems set to have a woman or a black man in the White House (should the Democrats make it) over 200 years after the birth of a nation. The election will be over and we will return to our daily lives. As Imelda Marcos once famously said, win or lose, we go shopping after the election.

A nation of stone-throwers

The judgement in the case of the two paedophiles Godwin Scerri and Charles Pulis has justifiably leapt to the top of the most talked about news stories on the ether. There is no doubt that any normal human (anybody who does not have a Breivik streak anyway) will have passed through a mixture of emotions when hearing about how these two beings (they do not deserve to be called men) abused of the position of trust and responsibility with which society had entrusted them. Indignation, disgust, anger, sadness (for the victims) and the strong primitive desire to punish that hides the even more primitive need for revenge and retribution surely played a part in all of this.

While there is no doubt that Godwin and Charles deserve society’s strongest of reprimands and punishments that should be meted out in proportion to their heinous crime, it is also true that society – particularly the “instant liberals” need to put a damper or two on their enthusiastic attempts  to throw everybody and everyone in the same basket. Sure Godwin and Charles operated under the guise of (and abused the name of) priests. Does that justify the sudden lynch mob directed towards priesthood in general? Is the institution so base as to suddenly equate it with “assassins” or “necrophiliacs”?

Let me state this differently. Our criminal law contains an aggravation (a factor that means that the crime committed will be punished more harshly) in the case of a policeman committing any crime. If a policeman steals something for example, his punishment is aggravated because he is committing a crime that he was duty bound to prevent. The crime is the same (theft) but the penalty is harsher (aggravated) because of the person who committed it. For a very logical and sound reason (that most people can get to without outside assistance) there is nothing written in the Criminal Code about punishing the whole police force whenever a policeman commits a crime.

Now “the Church” (and not only the MSSP) is a vast institution and I never tire of reminding people that it has an important social role to play within the fabric of many societies let alone ours where it has been a mainstay of society for at least a thousand years. We may suddenly have a lynch mob that has emitted the verdict of GUILTY on all priests and all MSSP members in particular but they conveniently tend to forget that the operation of orphanages in this country of ours (not to mention other social support structures) is entirely dependent on the Church. It is a service that goes on every day unnoticed (and mostly untrumpeted) in  much the same way as your postal service works daily away from the limelight.

There can be no doubt that Malta’s Church requires a period of reflection and introspection : it has to ask itself which parts have gone wrong and why. It is not just the rotten apples that need seeing to but much more. From a lay point of view, the Concordat with the Maltese State has done the Church (and Malta) more harm than good and would best be disposed of as soon as possible. But this is not the time to stone the Church to death. The rotten part of the Church must go. For the sake of the Church and for the sake of our society that still depends on many of its valuable services.

Unleashing the lynch mob of “anti-papists”, “anti-clericals” and “liberal extremists” who won’t rest until they have the metaphorical blood of the Church on their hands will lead us to nowhere. Believers and non-believers might find that they have the same duty and social responsibility to help the Church redirect itself and its flock to living in a more tolerant world where abuse of trust does not happen so easily.

Hopefully it will not happen at all.

Cocks, Debts & Plans

Cocks

Living in the countryside is a lifestyle choice associated with the fresh air, the greenery and the calm. When we chose to move into a converted chateau a while back (it’s converted into apartments mind you) we had the idea of rural countryside bliss in mind. What I did not count on is the cock (tee-hee – note: this bracket has been included to fit with what counts as trendy in this day and age) that is a permanent fixture in our neighbour’s menagerie.

This morning I was unable to find the snooze button on the persistent sound that seemed to have taken over my alarm clock. The crowing of the cock was surely planned by the same devious bastard who had scheduled early morning mowing of lawns and clearing of paths on Saturdays in the Parc de Merl. I am sure that this particular rooster has a magna cum louder (sic) in statistical mechanics and opts to crow at apposite intervals designed to torture the brain of even the most innocent bystander.

Trying to catch an extra half hour snooze in the morning? Epic fail. Give me urban regularity any time. I must say though that I am definitely not looking forward to the noises of Paceville waking up in the morning come (tee-hee) next week.

Debts

I am no genius in the grander economic theories of the way things work in our lives but I follow the news enough to know that what happened last night in the US of A will have huge repercussions on the order of things in the Western World (and par consequence beyond). The lawmakers of the great nation finally agreed on a manner in which to deal with impending doom of financial meltdown. They did so by voting for the only way out – increasing debt levels and increasing spending cuts.

We might have the very wrong impression that this will only affect people on the other side of the ocean but while we are immersed in navel-gazing exercises and dabbling with redefining Maltese concepts of political correctness (wrongly, I hasten to addf) the bite of the current treatment phase of the financial armageddon will definitely be felt in Malta too. I can’t wait for the next government to reopen the whole “Hofor” speak. The really cool (it’s sarcasm Jim, but you wouldn’t know it) thing is that the two options we have: Inhobbkom J or a New Faction of PN could both choose to blindly blame it on the Gonz while navigating the economy into darker waters. Spiffin.

To Do or not To Do

I currently have the attention span of a bluebottle fly in a rubbish tip. That is probably why blogging on J’accuse has become even more sporadic than is usual in the desert of the summer months when most people do not even sit at their pc’s anyway. In any case the appointed date for the joining of fates approaches at breakneck speed (1hr/hr) my mind seems to have wandered into a capsule which I timeshare with various to-do lists that are my curse.

It’s not like I have to plan Malta’s new transport system or anything but in between little chores related to nuptial preparations, moving of houses and final touches at the workplace before the long Ferragosto, I find myself swimming in a sea of shifting deadlines that defy any attempt of self-control.

There. That has to be it for the day. We hope you have enjoyed this running commentary of random ramblings from the greyish skies of Luxembourg. Have a good one till the next post. And don’t forget we are also on tumblr for the experienced browser’s perusal..