Tag: PLPN

Categories
Politics

the edge of politics

LA FEMME NUE DANS LE DESERT-1 There was a time when this blog would devour any news political coming out of the island in a voracious manner. Analyse, chew, criticise and expect viral reaction. Or so went the music and momentum. It’s hard to put your finger on the moment when you stop caring so deeply – for want of a better description. The irony is that what goes by the name of politics in the republic has followed the most predictable path foreseen by this blog from the very earliest of musings. The phrases “race to the bottom” and “battleground of mediocrity” had become a cliche in these columns long before the realisation dawned in other observatories.

There is little or no comfort in having been right though. With clockwork regularity every stroke and news item from the political milieu seems to confirm even the wildest of suspicions that we may have had as to the heartless direction that political representation could have taken. The blatant cynicism of one party combined with the clueless misdirection of the other can only be fuelled by an electorate that not only hangs on dearly to a partisan vocation but also throws in a level of short-sighted calculation that baffles even the most prophetic among us.

There is a moment of realisation that the business of government still owes much to the governed. J’accuse was much enamoured with the phrase “you reap what you sow” and playing the blame game with an electorate that is often reluctant to shift the goalposts remains a sordid temptation. It’s all there to see though – as much as the “paese di coglioni” formula that remains just as apt as when it was first conjured up mid-blog. What to make of a governing party that has rewritten all the rules of the game and manages to make transparent the dirtiest truth of the political game : everybody has a price? Somewhere in the Labour unconscious lies a stock market of sorts where every shaping factor in Maltese society has a price and a trade to work upon. Morbid calculations mean that everything goes so long as the final judge and jury can remain sufficiently opiated with new age doses of newspeak.

On the other hand the party in opposition remains at sea grappling for an old fashioned tidal wave of a rallying factor that would bring it back to drier and safer ground. It’s internal conflicts and failures are evident even in what should be mini-triumphs while it has still found itself unable to redefine itself and give itself a purpose. The opposition runs the risk of being stuck in opposition mode (and it is not even there yet) for a long while to come. It finds the new playing ground a very uneven place to work and is still unaccustomed to the shifted goalposts. This is not about shifting to trendier liberal stances but about being a more congruent, consistent whole once again. Without that newfound centre of gravity it is destined to play second fiddle to the puppet master’s shenanigans.

Right now, in what should be an important maturing point for the young republic, non-partisan observers have been pushed to the edge of politics. I like to think of this as our moment out in the desert in the manner of the prophets of the old book. The current order is a disaster in the waiting. Policies of appeasement and populism are destined to fail in the long run and there is only so many hacks at its breast that the golden goose can take.

In the meantime we observe the events unfold. At the edge of politics.

Categories
Constitutional Development

Crossing the threshold of faith

believe_akkuzaCriticising the workings of a government or an opposition is what this blog has done with consistent regularity. No matter who was in “power” the line taken from these pages has always been consistent. Also, very consistently, this blog has always managed to ruffle some feathers in some quarters. More often than not it would be the partisans of a faction that is being criticised who would vociferously disapproved of the contents of J’accuse’s latest missive. More often than not it would be the messenger and not the message that would be shot at.

In these halcyon Tagħna Lkoll days I often find myself in a quandary as to how often I could put finger to keyboard and criticise yet another mind-boggling move by the people who purport to manage this country. The fear (or self-censorship) is really unjustified. The worry is that repetitive ‘assaults’ on the same tribe gets you quickly labelled as a member of the “other”. Having said that what really gets at me is the way Joe Public is prepared to gloss over the inconsistencies of the PL brigade much quicker than when the Gonzi team was in government.

No matter how shallow, how inconsistent and how potentially corrupt the Labour programme is seeming to turn out, Joe Public is still thinking in terms of the perceived evil that was. I particularly liked a comment on facebook by the man who goes by the moniker “Ze Heckler” – not for reasons that he would appreciate. Here’s his status update:

Min bi Snowden, min bil-Pussy Riot, min b’Grillo, min b’Wikileaks u ahna b’Daphne. You get the rebel you deserve, too.

Admittedly the class of “rebels” is not exactly your average Che Guevara, nor is it your Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi. Heckler’s list is a list of non-conformists (Grillo might be verging on the breakdown though) but I am not here to create a scale of “rebelliousness”. I just found it weird that Daphne would fall in the rebel category. Is it the anti-government streak? The brazen nature of her posts that openly target the above-mentioned inconsistencies? Does that a “rebel” make?

The way I see it, to be a “rebel” in Malta you cannot operate within the system’s parameters. Daphne, like anybody else operating in the system is guilty of accepting the general wider parameters and rules by which our system is run. Throughout the Gonzi years the “rebelliousness” was nowhere to be found. On the contrary, much like the prominent “journalists” of the time (now either retired, MEP candidates or playing to the Labour fiddle) Caruana Galizia would selectively pick out the “interesting news” in order to help preserve the status quo. That kind of blogs must have been grateful for the fact that Malta was kept in election mode for long periods thanks to the antics of that other fake rebel – Franco Debono.

The (quite predictable and understandable) position of Caruana Galizia’s blog is not among rebels but among anti-Labour blogs whose aim is to simply get Labour back out of the driving seat. Nothing wrong there. What is missing is the realisation that the framework within which the alternation takes place is only destined to produce the same. Or worse. “Rebels” are those who are pushing for a paradigm shift that moves the whole framework into a new dimension. A real second republic if you like (not the marketing one that Muscat smartly nabbed).

A failure to acknowledge that the system (the framework if you like) is faulty and will produce more and more of the same means that you are a willing participant in the system. That’s not rebelling. That is opposition. Thankfully, there are signs of early realisation, even in the quarters such as Caruana Galizia’s blog, that much more must be done than simply playing along. Whether such elements would be willing participants in a discussion about (let alone action) the possibilities of a paradigm shift is another question. Old habits die hard – and more messengers will be shot.

As things stand we are moving further and further into a system built of two parallel worlds in which the value scales are very very different. Which is why all Labour’s moves will continue to be accepted by a large chunk of the Maltese population. Their value scale is different from that of those who might have shared a value scale with the PN in the near past. The same applies vice-versa. The dynamics of democratic representation should have allowances for such possibilities. In our case though, the inertia caused by the PLPN system is gradually moving the very tenets of representative democracy towards a breaking point. This too is what is meant by the race to the bottom.

Our parties have created two faith systems within which it will become less obvious why and how people will cross the threshold to the other side. A re-calibration of the value scales of one party might serve to trigger the beginning of a change.

* One final note. This blog post is not meant as some kind of competition in comparing the size of “light sabers”. Consider it an observation – as we always have done – of the current situation on the ground. The interesting thing of inhabiting a system with multiple value scales is that suddenly there is not one “right or wrong” but a multiplicity. Take the following simple example: “Selling citizenship without residency requirements rakes in millions”. Value scale one cannot agree more – Malta gains. Value scale two is appalled – Malta is sold cheap. Value scale three examines a European dimension. On each of their scales they are “right”. Not the “it’s my opinion so it is true” kind of right (which is irritating) but right in the sense that in each case the policy position is feasible – the consequences are different.

 

 

Categories
Mediawatch Politics

The unpredictable past

portents_akkuzaThe Russians had an interesting expression while under the communist rule. They would say that even the past is unpredictable – because it kept getting rewritten in order to better fit the needs of whoever was in power at some particular moment. I was reminded of this when I read about the PL Deputy Leader’s surreal “Thank God for Simon” speech at the opening of the Labour Party Conference. Particularly interesting was the section about how Mintoff had transformed Malta into a chicken that lays golden eggs and how the nationalist party in government had managed to turn these eggs into leg. Presumably the chicken was not stolen from someone else – seeing how our potential new residents seem to think that Maltese are “chicken thieves” all.

Elsewhere on the net during my latest period of self-imposed exile, we saw that not too endearing man or woman who frequently gets pride of place on the blog that we still like to call the Runs hit the nail on the head a couple of times. It would seem that certain arguments that would not have been seen as valid under a nationalist administration are now worth entertaining. Ah well, the past – as they say – is so unpredictable. The gist of what the Scooter persona said was very much a summary of what was oft repeated on this blog and hence very acceptable to our ears. It had much to do with with why the nationalist party in power lost the plot – particularly with regards to the (un)conscious re-prioritisation of certain values.

Prominent among these values is that of wealth, translated unfortunately by our political aficionados into an idolisation of “money”. In a letter to the press that I had co-authored and co-signed a couple of elections ago we (the co-authors) had pointed out how the Nationalist Party only functions as an efficient vehicle of popular sentiment and representation whenever it manages to put its thumb on a “proper and just cause”. Thus 1987 with all its promises of change from the socialist block, 1992 with the continuation of the change and the beginning of the mission of European Membership … all the way to 2004 and actual membership. Having dragged an overall skeptical nation into the EU, the PN failed to regalvanise its sense of purpose with new blood. The downfall from then on was all too easy to predict. No purpose, no party.

A pragmatic and cycnical Labour has stuck to one purpose – transparently clear through all the marketing stunts – hanging on to power. Labour is the perfect machine of the PLPN era. It sells an idea of representative majoritarian democracy (with hugely familiar consonances with Gaddhafi’s Green Book of Instructions for Popular Democracy) while actually dealing solely in power-trading politics. The ultimate unit is not values but greed in a wider sense. You get what you want if you are willing to play along with the tune. Lobbies are transformed into piglets running around the teat of a mother pig that is itself busy swilling at the trough. Rights are not really so much a matter of discussion as much as a form of barter in the power game. Which explains the roughshod manner in which even those rights that could be described as universally desirable are suddenly introduced.

With the PN currently in “renewal” mode and the PL preparing for its first reshuffle, the present is not half as clear as it could be. The first headlines to trickle out of the PN reform conference seemed to me to be heavily reliant on cosmetics and the cliché point winners (more women, more participation). I may be missing something but I did not really see much that was related to the PN soul-searching for that new basic sense of purpose that builds upon past ones (notably upon EU membership). Ironically much of the way that the Labour government played the EU side with regards to the citizenship issue was not too different from how the PN itself had “used” EU structures for other sensitive issues – and I have hunting particularly in mind.

The PN would do well to examine the possibility of becoming stronger on Europe. More Europeanist. Yes, it is possible. For until this moment what with all the “good” it may have done by forming the bulk of the movement for EU membership, the heritage that the PN left behind points to anything but a Europeanist wave. Our knights in shining armour (as they portray themselves) might have galloped all the way to the door of Europe but their horses are still tied outside. Europeanism might be a solution that the PN could explore and embrace. It will not be easy because for too long has the PN kidded itself that it carries a 100% Europeanist movement behind it. It does not. A battle would still have to take place for such Europeanism to assert itself. And there is no guarantee that such a philosophy and politics could be a “winner” on the Maltese stage.

A murky past, an even murkier future. Things are definitely going to get interesting.

Categories
Mediawatch

Notre classe politique est une pipe

pipe_akkuza.com

I believe that I have referred to this idea at least once before. Magritte’s creation seems prima facie to be an inherent contradiction since he accompanies an image of a pipe with the caption “this is not a pipe”. In actual fact Magritte’s observation was more of the obsessive compulsive kind – “you could not stuff this pipe, it is just a representation, it is not a pipe but an image thereof”.

I like to think that our political class, and particularly the Taghna Lkoll Movement/Government have mastered the art of denying the obvious that is in your head. They will present you with a pipe – as real as can be – and then proceed to deny that it is a pipe at all. Magritte’s prima facie contradiction becomes a reality after all. In this the Taghna Lkoll Movement and its discontents are aided by a particularly malleable media and a voting class that is more than willing to dance to the tune as the piper intended.

It is only with such “politics” that a government can afford to claim not to be putting citizenship up for sale when no matter which way you look at the (revised) proposals we are still facing an outright sale of passports – changing the small print does not change anything of the final underlying reason for the transaction. It is such “politics” that allow a well-oiled media machine to “sell” the idea that citizenship has always been easily obtainable (so why no charge a price?) while at the same time denying that this has anything to do with price. Such “politics” sells you the lie that this is all about attracting “talent” to Malta. Indeed.

Meanwhile the opposition huffs and puffs and is still unable to put Humpty together again after his great fall. Right now the opposition is gearing for the forthcoming MEP elections and is investing quite a little bit of its time in hyping up its list of candidates. The latest to be mentioned is one of the biggest pipes in Maltese “journalism” – the inimitable (thankfully) Norman Vella. Not content with overhyping the legal qualities of some of its line-up, still unsatisfied with the questionable economic credentials of some of its other careerist members of the list, we now have the PN pushing Norman Vella as a journalist. “Ceci n’est pas une pipe, c’est Norman Vella.”

Will the voters have enough? Have they not seen enough posturing and over-hyping from both sides? The great toilet of so-called journalism in Malta will survive many a flush and seems to be geared to provide the electorate with more and more choices for European election day. The parties will strut up the figures of their supposedly pre-selected candidates and will over-sell them to a populace that seems to have given up on any concept of discernment. The candidates will shoot non sequiturs of the highest order – sometimes hyping up an issue as though they have discovered the world. Thus Cyrus Engerer and Stefano Mallia supposedly “agree” that the President of the Republic should be chosen from outside the politicial milieu. A non-politician. “Ceci n’est pas un politicien, c’est votre President de la Republique”.

It’s getting very, very confusing and more and more difficult to cut through the hyperreal crap that the establishment uses to legitimate the ideas that it sells. When we fail to question the obvious and to point out the embarrassing nudity of the Emperor we insist on committing a disservice to ourselves. As the various lobbies continue to struggle for a place to suckle at the teat of this Labour government’s fat pig bonanza, they become willing participants in the lie that we live in daily. It will become harder and tougher to call their bluff. And by “their”  I mean all of them.

Ceci n’est pas un blog post politique.

1. The government will be revising art censorship laws. Malta does not have art censorship laws, it has censors in artists’ head. Ceci n’est pas une phrase censurée.

2. The biggest issue in the controversy on gay adoption is not whether it should be allowed but whether this government had a mandate to introduce it. Ceci n’est pas un enfant terrible.

3. The Bishop’s rant about moral duties of politicians in parliament is a huge tautology. The truth is that any politician is accountable to his own set of morals and values as well as those of his party. Whether they are legislating on spring hunting or gay adoption politicians are supposedly inspired by a code of ethics, morals and values. The trick is in finding out what values our politicians and their parties represent. Ceci n’est pas une blague.

4. 10 months into this legislature and we still have no news about those ridiculous claims by various ministers as to what they earned. Ceci n’est pas un bon souvenir.

5. The oil purchasing scandal rages on. It remains the biggest excuse yet whenever you confront Labour with anything wrong with their government. Ceci n’est pas une bonne excuse.

6. Arriva left the island. The money that went into the government side of transport planning remains money hopelessly spent. The luminaries behind the ideas that tied Arriva’s hands as from its arrival (excuse the pun) have a lot to answer for. The general public remains blind to a series of improvements that Arriva made (quality wise) – except in Gozo of course where Arriva worked like clockwork and actually contributed to an increase in public transport use. Ceci n’est pas un autobus en flammes.

 

 

Categories
Rubriques

Sycophants

sycophant_BR

 

 

Is the sycophant a product of our political system or is he a cause? Do the parties feed on the sycophantic needs of many involved or linked to our political system or do they generate new ones? In any case, the sycophant is ever present and more dangerous than ever.

In un paese pieno di coglioni, ci mancano le palle.

 

Categories
Mediawatch Politics

Where’s the plague when you need it?

It’s become too much of a cliché for people like us to yell “A plague on both your houses” at the PLPN and all they represent. The first line of defence is always that your repetition of the PLPN mantra is an obsession. Hand on heart however, how many can sincerely say that this is not the era of the proverbial fecal matter hitting the rotating device. We’re knee deep in doo-doo and the rot is only obscured from the man-in-the-street’s eyes because he is high on a double dose of “Taghna Lkoll” pills and post-trouncing of the nasty PN euphoria.

Here at J’accuse I should be popping champagne bottles and rejoicing that our warnings of a dire future that would be caused by this obsession with a race to mediocrity have been (are in still in the process of being) proven right. Naysayers will chime in with that ever so wonderful chorus – “Sure but we had not alternative other than to vote in more of the same”. Right. It’s not like observations such as those that often were to be found in the posts on this blog were only directed at the creation of a credible third alternative. No, they were and are also directed at the fact that as a nation of supposed discerning voters we stop enabling the farce and the circus that are the Nationalist and Labour parties.

What did we do instead? We immersed ourselves in this delectable Maltese version of the war of the roses and threw all caution to the wind. Seven months of Labour and what do we have as a result? In your face appointments that defy reason, unshamefaced cavorting with people of questionable history and the selling out of the nation as an outpost to (parts of) the Chinese behemoth. Elsewhere these ugly warts of Labour’s je ne sais quoi are being dutifully exposed. Well done and more – though it took some people quite some time to notice that the Chinese deal is all about the PV market (Liang Mizzi’s appointment being only yet another unpleasant spin-off of the “già che ci siamo“) kind. Focusing just on one minister – take Anton “Minimum Wage” Refalo as a random example … opens up a pandora’s box of no nos that only serve to demonstrate Labour’s inability to conceive of what democratic representation and the rule of law is about.

Meanwhile Joseph Muscat has turned into photo-op PM hoofing around the world trying to get his not so attractive mug in as many photo shoots as possible. When he is not giving lessons to the United Nations as to how to notice that the REAL sufferers in world immigration are the Maltese he is teaching the United States the secrets of Malta’s economic success (So we are successful now?) to FOX news journalists. Back home his cabinet is engaged in a free for all that makes a herd of pigs battling at a trough look like a silver service  dinner at the Ritz.

The opposition is lost in its own thoughts but is increasingly sending out signals that all is not too well and settled in its house. This blog has already voiced its opinion as to what the early steps in the rebuilding of the PN should be so we will not go there again. As far as we concerned the real measure of the EU Parliament campaign for the PN will not be so much how well it fares vote wise but really how much of the old strategies (read vote driven) still survive. Will the candidates be chosen purely on their propensity to attract votes and their marketability (are we still in DJ’s and popular faces mode?) or will their be a block of political thinkers being pushed? I suspect the temptation to go along with the old fashioned “motley crew” is still very much what the PN is about. Tant pis. It will be a missed chance to inject real quality.

So yes, we are left with wishing a plague upon both their houses. There will not be of course and the population is entitled to dream that everything is fine and dandy for a while longer. That is until the sums are made and the result is not very much to their liking. Pleasures yet to come.

 

In un paese pieno di coglioni, ci mancano le palle.