This article and accompanying Bertoon appeared in The Malta Independent on Sunday.
Dense and denser
Turnout was low. Incredibly low. Notwithstanding heavy investment in a campaign that urged voters to use their prerogative to determine who will best represent them in Brussels, most voters preferred to cock a snook at all things Bruxellois and deserted the polling booths in their masses. At the end of the day, all heads counted and all desertions considered, we ended up with the ignominous figure of 43%. That is the number that counted. Whatever Lawrence, Joseph and Arnold had to say should have been paled into relative insignificance considering the huge disappointment that the 43% would end up representing.
Of course that is not really the case. While the European Union project was busy coming to terms with the fact that the turnout for elections to what is supposed to be its most democratically representative institution had once again fallen to a record low (43%), we were busy drawing our own interpretations of the various figures churned out by the voting population of this isolated island. Oh island in the sun (willed to me by my father’s hand)… so detached from the mainland realities. Or is it?
In actual fact the interpretations and readings of last week’s election results are as colourfully variegated as a kaleidoscope. It is the kind of result that spinmeisters can dream about – one that allows for a multiplicity of conclusions all of which contain a relative amount of truth. In fact, Maltese Relativism delivered its little baby and the banners of mediocrity could be seen flying from Hamrun to Pietà in equal measure. Inevitably J’accuse was busy drawing its own conclusions – sophistry mingled with oriental poetry allowed us to shoot pills of j’accuse wisdom at whoever cared to listen beyond the partisan cacophony.
Lest I be accused of ignorance by pedants of the musical persuasion allow me a little clarification before we proceed. Today’s grand title is an intentional perversion of the lyrics of a song by “The Killers”. In their song they ask “are we human, or are we dancer?” – don’t ask, just enjoy the song. I’ve chosen to play on the misheard lyric purposely by asking the question that is a corollary of Norman Lowell’s assertion d-day after… when we state that our population is the densest in Europe are we unconsciously formulating a not-so-elaborate pun?
