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There’s always a first time

Lady Chatterley started blogging on The Malta Chronicle. She’s got some points to set straight about marriage and blogging… not in that particular order.

I wonder whether the same rules apply here and whether I should wait till I’m married before I start blogging.  Well, that may never happen, which would be a real waste.  So here I am.  About to consummate my relationship with the blogosphere and press send.   I didn’t wait for marriage to have sex either.  If I had, I’d be a 37 year old virgin and that’s pretty sad, even Kate Gonzi would probably agree.  I mean, imagine the spots.  Imagine how angry I’d be all the time.

Instead I have a 12 year-old, and I’m only angry some of the time. Like now, because we’re doing Maltese homework and it’s that time of the year, when the horrible word ‘revision’ comes home to roost.

But I’m here to talk about divorce.  I was having a chat with a guy last night on facebook and he gave me the ‘between you and me, I’ll be voting against divorce’ spiel.  I replied with my best ‘each to his own, different strokes for different folks’ all embracing response and tried to sound like I meant it. And yet after I logged off, I couldn’t help but wonder, how someone so bright, so young, so cool and so with it I suppose, could miss the point so ferociously.

You see, what he effectively told me, was that his reservations stemmed from the fact that divorce offered people an exit, which would make people leave marriages with greater alacrity.  So then I gently pointed out that separation offered people a very real and valid exit too, which was also resorted to, with reckless abandon.  So no difference there, right.

Then he said that people would shack up with other people with greater ease, and once again, I came back with more or less the same argument –   that today people are free to leave their original spouses, shack up with new partners, have children outside of wedlock.   It happens all the time.

And if they really want to seal the deal, then they usually try and wrangle an annulment, unless they’re lucky enough to create a domicile in an estranged land.  And if and when that happens, they’re laughing.  Then they can even remarry, which until that point,  was the only thing that differentiated separation from divorce.

So all we are arguing about here is one thing – that  divorce will facilitate re-marriage. Facilitate NOT bring about. That is the only novelty it will bring about.  Divorce will not be the catalyst for marriage breakdown, for children suffering, for depression, mental breakdown. It will not be the cause of anything we don’t already know.  It will just facilitate a remedy which to-date is also available, admittedly from the back, not the front door.

That is basically it.  We’re essentially arguing about exit via a back or a front door, about semantics.  Annulment is divorce by any other name (oh not legally I know that, God forbid!); separation is as heart wrenching and traumatic as it’s twin brother divorce or twin sister annulment; annulment permits remarriage; re marriage is available to the people who want it badly enough via annulment or overseas divorce.  And on and on it goes.  And we’re still talking about it.

And I’m actually blogging about it.  Yes, there’s always a first time.

*****
Zolabytes is a rubrique on J’accuse – the name is a nod to the original J’accuser (Emile Zola) and a building block of the digital age (byte). Zolabytes is intended to be a collection of guest contributions in the spirit of discussion that has been promoted by J’accuse on the online Maltese political scene for 5 years.
Opinions expressed in zolabyte contributions are those of the author in question. Opinions appearing on zolabytes do not necessarily reflect the editorial line of J’accuse the blog.
***

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J'accuse: Far from the madding crowd

For my sins I tuned into One TV’s Affari Taghna on Friday night. Bundy’s programme is going through its own apotheosis and will soon be sitting at the Olympian table of Maltese television alongside the other opiates of Maltese thinking. On Friday, Deborah Schembri (likes divorce) and Joyce Cassar (doesn’t like divorce) crossed swords before a scientifically inexact but sufficiently random cross-section of Maltese society. I chose to persevere and ignore the initial twitches in my brain caused by Joyce’s ability to swing from one non sequitur to the next like a metaphorical Tarzan in a jungle of illogical misconceptions.

The Great Divorce Debate has served as the Great Eye Opener in many ways. It may seem offensive to speak in terms of “medieval thinking”, “moving time backwards” or “brains where time stood still”, but the absence of the clear PLPN divide this time round allows us to dissect our national way of thinking as we have not been able to for a very long time. I must confess to finding myself overwhelmed by the sudden overdose of “opinions” on the matter when only a while ago a blog post or article supposedly made as much sound (or was just as conveniently ignored) as the tree falling in the empty forest.

Genesis

Far from the baying hounds and loud noises, you catch glimpses of moments of lucidity in the debate. I have recently come to the conclusion that the reason for the prolonged discussions and misunderstandings on what should be after all the straightforward legislation of a basic right is our inability to distinguish between the secular and the spiritual. In the history of our young nation, two great events compounded the confusion among even the supposedly more intelligent and emotionally detached of our members.

The first event was the period of the Mintoff-Gonzi wars culminating in L-Interdett (Interdiction) and the second was the 1995 Church-State Agreement between Eddie’s and Guido’s PN government and the Roman Catholic Church. The first has left long lasting scars of rancour that inevitably pollute any discussion that involves anything remotely spiritual, and the second has proven to be detrimental to the (crucial) roles of both the Church and the State in our society. At the end of Affari Taghna I could only ask a rhetorical question to the “fathers of the nation”: “Can you see what mess you have left us in?”

For the love of God

There were a couple of reassuring voices on the night though. The first came, surprisingly enough, from Fr Charles Vella. Surprising because of all the controversy that has surrounded the notorious clip in which Fr Vella declaims his lack of fear of divorce. In the full clip, as aired on Bundy’s show, it is clear that Father Vella is stating what every rational human being who participates responsibly in society should be saying. Fr Vella has no problem reconciling his dislike of divorce (as discovered through the words of God and the teachings of the Church) with the civil issue of the availability of divorce. It is men like Charles Vella and the spokesperson for the Catholics − Yes because it is a right (I believe it was Carmel Hili) − who have managed to shed the blinkers inherited by our black and white society.

Father Vella does not favour divorce. No, the Cana movement director was quite clear about that when he appeared on Norman’s show. He is though, a strong enough Catholic not to fear it. He knows what is right and what is wrong according to the tenets and moral principles of his Church and − as he said − he is prepared to fight to the death to protect the principle of marriage. What Father Vella did add is that he cannot countenance the possibility of ramming his tenets down other people’s throats.

Free will is an element common to both the tenets of the faithful and those of the lay. Both have a set of guidelines intended to ensure that the exercise of free will brings about the best in mankind. It may be that my mixed Lasallian and Jesuit upbringing combined with my legal background allows me to appreciate the importance of both situations. A citizen expects to be able to exercise his sovereign free will insofar as he causes no harm to others. A believer is thankful to the Almighty for having created him a free thinker and granted him his time on this earth to choose between right and wrong. The accomplishment of the virtuous citizen − whether lay or faithful − comes with making the right choices: and not with having those choices being made for him.

Movements

Father Vella of the Cana Movement knows that. So do many of those participating in the discussion. Even those lawyers, like André Camilleri and Arthur Galea Salomone who are arraigned on the side of those adamant to oppose the introduction of divorce legislation, find it hard to explain their position when it comes to deciding for others. The NO side can perform verbal somersaults and claim not to be grounding their arguments in religious ethics (on what then? on misreading of scientific studies? on the hushing of the real questions?) but at the end of the day there is little to go on between Galea Salomone’s ultimate aim and that of the preacher on Bundy’s programme whose heart beats for Christ and whose only argument against divorce is that God hates it.

And there we are. As more movements spring up than in a kitsch Monty Python Jerusalem Liberation Front sketch, we are stretching an open and shut case to realms that go far beyond the Kafkesquely absurd. Our political backwater still soldiers on and can only take a breather until “the people have spoken” and then − in the case of a YES vote − the fun will begin. For I cannot wait to see how our “leaders” will squirm out of this one. They do after all represent this motley crew that is our nation.

Cheap flights, cheap votes

Finally, I have had it up to here with this stupid idea that people abroad get some kick out of taking days off and flying to Malta on a “cheap flight” just because the collective leaders of the nation and the people who vote for them every election have their heads stuck so far up where the sun does not shine that they cannot see the absurdity of this exercise.

Last time I was in Malta I got my voting document delivered by a postman. I don’t see why I cannot return that service. Barring any last minute change of heart that can only be provoked by further ridiculous arguments by the NO camp, I will not be taking the flight from Luxembourg to Malta to vote. Make that two of us. That’s two YES votes down the drain because work does not get done on the Friday we would be away and, quite frankly, I’ve had enough of abetting this ridiculous backward way of doing things. Votes in embassies should be the priority of the next movement to crop up in this country.

Free will

How hard can it be? Free will. A vote for divorce means allowing people to choose to start a new life − married − long after their previous marriage has broken down. Is divorce a solution? It was never meant to be one. Divorce is a grown-up and mature acknowledgement that “rien ne va plus”. It is much more mature than the arbitrary denial of the existence of a marriage via “annulment” if you ask me. Maturity, fairness, free will. That’s adult talk isn’t it? I’m hoping that the referendum will prove that there is hope for that yet.

Vote ‘Yes’. It’s a matter of choice.

Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife

Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray;

Along the cool sequester’d vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

www.akkuza.com freely exercising hard headed will since 2005.

 

This article appeared on yesterday’s edition of The Malta Independent on Sunday.

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Flights Can Vote

I received an unsolicited email from the Malta Labour Party. Since I’m not sure whether I had subscribed to some form of Labour mailing list in order to keep up to date with the latest missives from that corner of the world I am not sure whether this is a typical PLPN invasion of privacy.

On the other hand the message does not carry a justification as to why I am receiving it: you know the type that goes “You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to [insert name here] mailing list. To unsubscribe please click here” – so whether I am sure or not isn’t really the issue.

Of course the PLPN have no real reason to bother with these courtesies, particularly when it comes to contact details of potential voters – another reason why the flight home business pays them is in order to stay in control. Then when they don’t get their way you get Alfred Sant waving lists of private details in Parliament. So. I will not know how Mr Louis Gatt of the “Ufficju Elettorali, Partit Laburista” got hold of my work email and sent me an unsolicited mail. What I do know is that if it was meant to inform me of anything it sure did a poor job.

Here’s the text in Maltese:

Ninfurmak li l-Airmalta issa qed toffri flights bil-Eur35 minn Luxemburg sabiex ikunu jistghu jivvotaw fir-Referendum tat 28 ta’ Mejju 2011, u anke fl-Advance Voting tas-Sibt 21 ta Mejju 2011.
Sabiex tibbukkja ghandek iccempel dirett lil Airmalta fuq linja apposta 00356 2364 5321
Grazzi
Louis Gatt
Ufficcju Elettorali
Partit Laburista

Interestingly, Louis Gatt is using his own private email to send this information in the name of the PL. But now down to basics. The email informs me that Airmalta is offering €35 flights from Luxembourg. The badly constructed Maltese implies that it is the flight that will vote (toffri flights bil-Eur35 minn Luxemburg sabiex ikunu jistghu jivvotaw)and not the person but hey… it’s the thought that counts.

Then there’s the additional bit of misinformation: “even the Advanced Voting on Saturday 21st May“. Oh No we can’t. There is only one return flight from Luxembourg (and that is one too many) and that leaves on Thursday 26th and returns on Saturday 28th. So no, Louis, there are no flights available for the advanced voting on Saturday 21 May. All we have is flights available for a backward/retrograde/neanderthal/antique system of voting that costs the State money, wastes the voters’ time and gives the PLPN a control mechanism of knowing who does and does not regularly exercise his vote from abroad.

There you have it — Labour & Nationalists….  holding you back from 21st century politics.

VOTES IN EMBASSIES NOW!

 

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Silence of the Nats

There’s an eerie, deafening silence coming from the PN HQ in Pietà. Yesterday night Joyce Cassar of the No to Divorce people did her flipping utmost to try to divorce her movement (tee-hee) from any association with the priests, the nuns, or the church (as she put it not so mildly). And she also did her damndest to underline the fact that she is not working in cognito for any political party. Damn right she isn’t. On the other hand the PN silence of the matter is as politically absurd as Joseph Muscat’s attempt to get his testicle-less Labour linked in some way to any possible achievement of the YES vote without doing anything.

JPO has introduced one of the greatest minefields that Gonzi’s PN ever had to face. The feeble, abstract party line opposing the introduction of divorce pales in comparison with the numerous activists and natural blue-voters who are all out in favour of the introduction of Liz Taylor’s second favourite right (up there with inheritance). Speculation is rife about whether a YES or a NO vote can benefit one or another party. Only in Malta. The PN has taken the best tactical position – it is slowly vanishing into nothingness. Notice. Vociferous party flag wavers and even party sympathisers have gone AWOL. The usual suspects have supposedly “had enough” of the divorce debate. Others, who are all noisy and cantankerously irritating when it comes to womens’ lib and the like have suddenly taken a sabbatical (apart from the random swipe at the levels of nothingness the NO camp can reach).

The PN cannot cope with the fact that the intelligent voter – in a civic sense – would have no qualms with voting YES any day. Not being in control of the critical swinger (who might be scared away from voting AD but is less easily bullied into voting on some misinterpreted principle that only the current batch of neo-catholicmullahs would understand) is very very scary for the PN crowd. They just don’t want to alienate him or her. Thankfully the intelligent voter will also not fall for Joseph Muscat’s false bravado and his empty no-progress brigade. Which means that the less the PN gets associated with any decision the better the chances to keep the status quo.

Hence the silence.

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Warning: Divorce can harm your religion

I am a non-smoker. I have been a non-smoker since November 2008 and it has been a long time since I last craved a cigarette (I almost wrote “craved a fag on my lips” we’d never have heard the end of it…).  Nowadays I find the strong stench of cigarettes repulsive and given the choice between a smoke-free environment and a room full of tobacco enthusiasts I will choose the latter.

My evening habits have changed since I very rarely venture into bars or clubs that oblige me to smoke passively as though my life depended on it. One of the things that has crept into the Top Ten Things I Hate List is using a lift after a bunch of smokers have just exited. Stomach-wrenching stuff. I will still happily puff on the end of a Fiorentino cigar any day though.

It’s all about choice really. Smoking is bad for your health. I was brought up in the eighties and nineties when the crusade on smoking was in full swing and am now living in the aftermath of the politically correct naughties were the final nails in the coffin are being hammered into the cigarette industry. Growing up in Malta I’d expect an institution such as the Department of Health to warn me about the dangers of smoking. I’d acknowledge the use of fiscal measures to disincentivise smokers from indulging in their habit. What I would never condone is the government banning cigarettes outright. It would just not make sense would it?

I mean health-wise it would be a bonus for our society in general and I do know that I am toeing a fine line when I say that the there is a line to be drawn when it comes to government interference in what is essentially a pleasant addiction for many (why not drugs? why not less rules on hunting?). The “harm” issue is also fluid here since the question of harm to the self can be counterbalanced by the harm to others issue when it comes to indulging in a puff or two outdoors or in public places.

Yet we accept the state of affairs. The DH warnings get more and more critical (this year the ugly photos of the effects of tobacco on humans will appear on your pack of 20). The government will tax and tax. But you still have the choice as to whether or not to smoke. It’s a matter of your will – and until the balance is definitively tilted about the social burden and harm of tobacco we will never see a ban on tobacco. The tilt is towards choice.

There. Now think in terms of divorce. Think of the Church as the Department of Health – issuing warnings to the health conscious about the recommended way of life for a longer and healthier living. Is it that hard to understand the difference between a fully informed citizen having the option and choice and one who has been totally deprived of choice by the nanny state that thinks it knows better?

Call me presumptuous but I think that someone who willingly quit smoking after realizing the dangers involved is in a much better position than someone who had the last cigarette pulled out of his mouth. From a purely Christian perspective the No to Divorce activists who kick start their reasoning from the “Alla U Gesu ma jridux id-divorzju” perspective should be asking themselves whether not choosing the option of  divorce is the same as not being able to divorce.

I have long gone on record that a christian-democrat politic can comfortably accept divorce legislation as a right in society. Which is why the new Catholic Pro-Divorce movement does not surprise me at all. What does surprise me is how the Nationalist Party has rejected this strand of christian-democracy in the most unqualified of manners.

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Let me tell you about Amina

In these days of “the Great Divorce Debate” it is easy to forget what history has taught us about the struggle for basic rights in society. When we read about Rosa Parks refusing to give up a seat to a white man in 1955 we tend to assume that every other man in the USA would have been on her side automatically. Rights however are not always held to be “self-evident” as the constitutional dictum goes and in 2011 we still witness the struggle in different societies for different kind of rights.

I stumbled on the story of Amina on Time Magazine. The story is of the right here, right now kind. It unfolds in Syria – a hardline Middle-Eastern state where the Jasmine revolution has been raging for some time now – not without brutal consequences on the protesting population.

Amina is a Syrian girl.
She is also a blogger.
And she is gay
…. in Syria.

If your preoccupation with the divorce debate has muffled you from the events in the outside world let me just give you some other facts. Syrian law outlaws homosexuality. While you were busy “liking” the petition against Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Law on Facebook you might not have been aware that laws in states such as Syria make being gay illegal.

Amina’s blog looked at the current wave of protests in Syria from the LGBT perspective. In her first post she wondered what could be expected from the potential wave of change sweeping across the quasi-totalitarian state. Involvement in change can be – has to be – egoistic. We all ask ourselves what good can come out of this for us. Few however have the guts to speak out when the forces resisting change use the heavy handed methods. Amina’s father reacted to special forces who had come to their house to arrest Amina on the basis of “conspiring against the state, urging armed uprising, working with foreign elements.” after her blog had drawn international attention to the Syrian protester’s cause. His words are a lesson to many:

“She is not the one you should fear; you should be heaping praises on her and on people like her. They are the ones saying alawi, sunni, arabi, kurdi, duruzi, christian, everyone is the same and will be equal in the new Syria; they are the ones who, if the revolution comes, will be saving your mother and your sisters. They are the ones fighting the wahhabi most seriously. You idiots are, though, serving them by saying ‘every sunni is salafi, every protester is salafi, every one of them is an enemy’ because when you do that you make it so.”

Amina’s father was later obliged to go underground for his own safety but Amina blogs on. Yesterday she posted a new insight about recent events:

So, when I started this blog, I assumed that I had two groups to worry about:
Syrian government authorities and Islamic extremists.

Well, the first has made it abundantly clear that they are most displeased with me in person. I’ve even seen a few comments posted on this blog that I am 99.9% certain originate with regime loyalists (and a few emailed threats as well … which leave me shrugging: ‘uh guys – just because you like Bashar a lot … you do nothing this way …)

I’ve also seen the usual anti-Islamic and the usual pro- and anti-Israel comments posted …

BUT the one thing I haven’t seen, the one group from which no one has made threats or sent deranged emails nor sought to harass anyone is the ‘Islamic extremists’,

One thing in common between different struggles for different levels of rights is the struggle for understanding and being understood. The fight for being able to get a divorce might not be as fundamental as the right to be gay but both depend on the fundamental recognition of modern society that acknowledges the importance of “live and let live”.

Let it be. And unless you are harmed or threatened in any way by my way of life then don’t interfere. Or as the silent movement put it so poetically.

Tindahalx.

Amina Abdullah blogs daily at A Gay Girl in Damascus

 

When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree,
there will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is still a chance that they will see,
there will be an answer. let it be.

Let it be, let it be, …..

And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light, that shines on me,
shine until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Let it be, let it be, …..

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