Harry Vassallo - My Cyberspace Corner

A godsend in disguise

2008-12-19T19:35:00.002+01:00

Quite apart from Dr Borg Olivier’s fate as a consequence of his fumbling at the keyboard, his infamous e-mail offers us all a splendid opportunity we are very likely to miss altogether, a stimulus to fundamental reforms that would allow us to make several democratic and economic leaps forward.

Only the irremediably naïve can express surprise at the content of the e-mail: an institutional and unconstitutional melding of party and government. We all had good reason to suspect it. Many of us had the proof in pre-electoral missives specifically addressed to us on the basis of our professions and occupations, data legitimately available only to the government. Only the self-inflicted blindness of the true partisan can prevent anyone from seeing the constitutional depravity of this system within a system.

Once we have been blessed with Dr Borg Olivier’s blunder, a veritable X-ray of the unavowed, we are challenged to decide where we stand. Before the proof stood before us in all its awful ugliness, we could have avoided the issue, now we cannot. The party and the government have melded into one. The e-mail reveals a complete fusion in the minds of the author and of the intended recipients.

A meeting of key employees of various ministries with the Secretary General of the Nationalist Party at the PN headquarters to discuss the systematic, joint, PN-Government processing of complaints and requests to government by private citizens, speaks volumes about the background political culture. None of the participants appears to have objected or raised the issue of propriety. It did not seem to have occurred to anyone.

The idea of an impermeable barrier between government and party, the government being at great pains not to appear to give its own party any unfair advantage, seems never to have crossed anybody’s mind. The contrary does not register as a venial sin in Maltese political culture. Dr Borg Olivier will not resign because of his misdirection of an e-mail, nor for orchestrating an unconstitutional complaints processing setup explicitly intended as part of a five year PN re-election campaign. This is the apotheosis of the client/patron system combined with totalized government. It is the medieval Siculo-Arab heritage we share with the mafia. It is definitely ours, it is us.

The question is: do we like it this way? Are we merely resigned to it or do we actively promote it? Do we take it for granted and assume its immortality calmly settling down to our learned helplessness, or do we sneer at idealists for even thinking of opposing it, our talents lying in its dexterous exploitation?

Power to the party, necessarily to the party in government whichever it happens to be, means that the one recognized virtue in our society is loyalty to the party. Nothing else really matters. All the talk of meritocracy, of productivity and competitiveness being achieved through education and personal development is not all nonsense, just most of it. If you strongly believe otherwise, strongly oppose the government, show a chink in your unquestioning loyalty at a crucial moment and then tell me about your equal opportunities. If your philosophy is invisibility, living below the political horizon and seeing to No 1, you are not innocent. You have acclimatized to feudal subservience and powerfully sustain the status quo. You have denied yourself the freedom to speak out while you harbour contempt for those who fight for theirs. You are the unmovable mass, most of the problem.

If you are politically labeled, and it may have happened to you for the best of reasons at the worst of times, then your freedom to choose your government is all but lost. All the political arguments you get into are just a smokescreen for the fact that you cannot afford to lose. Once labeled, you have every reason to expect to be discriminated against for at least a decade if your party loses. It does little to allow you a clear mind on your way to the polls. Further government/party melding will only add to your hysteria.

Do we want to live like this forever? Or do we want to say out loud that the content of the Borg Olivier e-mail is profoundly shocking to EU citizens with high aspirations for their future?

I want to believe that there are serious politicians in every political party. Can they admit together that this sort of constitutional confusion has gone far enough? Can they make of Dr Borg Olivier’s fiasco a monumental watershed in our democratic development? Can they make of this most fortunate accident a catalyst for profound, lasting and critical reform?

Never mind

2008-12-12T19:37:00.000+01:00

Malta, along with all other EU member states, is a signatory to a draft political declaration to be brought by France before the General Assemby of the United Nations calling for the depenalization of homosexuality worldwide. Even if adopted by the General Assembly such a declaration, on which no vote will be taken, will bind only its signatories. Still, it is a laudable global publication of the stance taken by these countries. Well done Malta.
Decades ago, homosexuality stopped being a criminal offence in Malta. The matter was and remains a taboo for the vast majority but few would have the police investigate anybody’s sexual preferences and much less haul them before a magistrate for it.
Even today the annual Gay Pride event is poorly attended and to a great extent by liberal heterosexuals. Decriminalisation and all, the taboo is alive and well. Fear of discrimination rationalised in various ways, still keeps most gays away from their own celebration. More significantly, it is still the cause of unnecessary personal trauma, family crises and, greatest taboo of all, suicides.
Despite our new status as an ostentatiously liberal nation, thanks to participation in the proposed UN declaration, our first gay and out candidate in a National Election contesting with Alternattiva Demokratika, Ing. Patrick Attard, made history as recently as last March. We are still far from being comfortable with LGBT reality.
What may cause our governent more than the usual discomfort is the contrast with the position taken by the Vatican on the proposed declaration. Its permanent observer at the UN, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, has achieved global notoriety for his stance opposing the declaration. The gay and liberal worlds are up in arms.
In a comment to the French news agency I.Media, Archbishop Migliore premised that all that is done in favour of the respect and protection of individuals is part of our human and spiritual heritage; that the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms that every unjust form of discrimination against homosexuals must be avoided. However he went on to add that “such a declaration would require states and international structures applying and monitoring human rights to add new categories requiring protection against discrimination without taking account of the fact that if adopted this would create new and terrible discriminations. For example states which do not recognise same sex unions as marriage would be pilloried and come under pressure.”
All this puts our government in a very peculiar position. Malta is one of the states that does not recognise same sex unions. Does our government see any danger of being pilloried or pressured in future because it opposes the persecution of gays wherever it may take place? Clearly not. Malta is one of the proponents of the controverted declaration.
The sensation caused by the Vatican’s response is due to the inescapable fact that the Vatican, in order not to allow even the remotest possibility of gay marriage appearing over the horizon some time in the future, is prepared to ignore the actual and very real persecution of gays in many countries of the world where they are punished by beatings and even capital punishment. The most barbaric of public executions still take place today.
For Malta the matter is a little more complicated. A government monopolized by a party that traditionally monopolises the catholic faith is in direct collision course with the Vatican. For many Maltese catholics, as for catholics around the world, the matter is one of dismay if not bewilderment. How can we defend or make our own the position taken by Archbishop Migliore? Can any of us witness a beheading or a hanging of a gay person because he is gay, even on television or through the internet and remain unmoved? Even if we may be averse to the recognition of same sex unions, we could not fail to condemn such persecution when asked to do so.
As a proponent with no fear of the consequences, the Maltese government, having the responsibility for a country more catholic than the Vatican, should be able to make a very good case for a Vatican change of heart. If the Vatican’s misgivings about gay marriage are allayed, it must live up to its words in favour of human dignity.
However it is far more probable that Malta will lie low, ignore the contradictions, miss the opportunity to shine and hope that it will all blow over soon. Ironically it will be the same attitude as that of those Maltese gays who experience the same mild irritation as they decline the invitation to the annual Gay Pride march. Doing nothing changes nothing and remains the easiest way out. Never mind the killings. Never mind the suicides.

Renzo Piano’s challenge

2008-12-06T18:24:00.001+01:00

Removing parliament to the site of the former Royal Opera House may be more appropriate than many people may think. Politics does provide us with endless entertainment. It has become an indigenous art form, a true cultural expression deserving the prominence of location as one enters our capital city.

Where else in the world would you expect to have our most prominent European politician, laying the ground for his European Parliament election campaign on the amazing discovery that Malta is dusty.

With their featherdusters in hand, Dr Busuttil’s fans must have been utterly charmed by his dashing defence of air quality in the final months of his tenure as MEP. In the company of all interested stakeholders whether NGOs, construction lobbies and health experts he discovered that Malta had been shockingly lax in living up to EU accession expectations. The fan club must have tut tutted in unison.

He reported in Wednesday’s Times that the amount of dust in the air is 37 times the amount permitted under EU rules. He seemed horrified. My heart began to bleed when he noted the human cost: chronic respiratory illness, educational deficit, long term productivity effects. It is all true.

The thing is that it has all been true for as long as anybody can remember. Dust pollution in Malta did not come into being since we joined the EU nor has there been any need for new legislation to suppress it. The legislation was in place long before Dr Busuttil was born. What has always been missing has been the will to do something about it. EU membership has made it possible to document the situation and to quantify the pollution level, that’s all. The political will to act and enforce was and is still missing.

The superb theatre, the uniquely Maltese political genre of theatre, comes to light in the bold championing of outraged health and ecological values by none other than Simon Busuttil. Since we are not all batty old crows, we have to ask ourselves a few questions. Was this not the same Dr Busuttil who in 2004 performed the Berlusconian transformation from Head of MIC and honest broker in the EU accession process to PN star candidate in the EP elections? Is he not still the PN’s main foothold in the European Parliament?

His political birth in 2004 may be a rather recent affair but even he must have noticed that the PN have been in government with only the slightest interruption since 1987. EU rules or no EU rules the dust has billowed unimpeded for decades under his party’s rule. Every government for the past 50 years has had the power and authority to suppress the pollution and has failed miserably. In fact no attempt has ever been made.

For the past 21 years or so the Dr Busuttil’s PN government colleagues have had every opportunity to begin to do something about the familiar outrage. They have done absolutely nothing to address the issue. On the contrary they have actively promoted the causes of dust pollution and strenuously denied the evidence. Does anybody recall then Environment Minister, Dr Francis Zammit Dimech, announcing that the dust was brown not grey and that we had no cause for concern? I do.

Mabel Strickland’s White Dust Case in Lija dating from the 1960s remains an all time classic. The cause and the pollution are still there today. Dust from building sites clogs culverts all over the country causing havoc at the first rains and annual expenses in damage to waterlogged roads and clean-up operations. Every hardstone quarry in the country is visible from space because of the long white plume of dust covering vast areas downwind of each site determined by the prevailing westerlies. Check it out on GoogleEarth. Did we need Dr Busuttil to tell us that the situation is nothing short of bizarre? And of all people, Dr Busuttil, a major divinity in the pantheon of champions of the status quo?

Political U-turns are performed everywhere. In Malta we have developed the technique to be able to do S-bends as we have on the divorce issue where we are here, there and everywhere at once. More than this, we have exceeded all competition by achieving simultaneous two-way travel. Dr Busuttil is devastating the reputation of his own party while taking credit for salutary change and bagging it as a political advantage to the same political party. Now that’s entertainment.

Renzo Piano has once more been given the irresistible challenge of expressing all this: a show of leading edge democracy and delight in the wealth of diversity as members of the EU balanced against a reality in which what is essentially a one-party state generates and digests internal dissidence while ignoring all else. Can he perform as well as our politicians?

More guts than brains

2008-11-27T12:12:00.000+01:00

Announced on the eve of a batch of local council elections the Smart City project caught all opposition off balance. To criticize the promise of 5000 new jobs would have been politically suicidal. Once the opposition had sidestepped the initial assault, it had no choice but to acquiesce in all that followed. It rode the bandwagon on Smart City in an attempt to share in Minister Gatt’s aura of innovation and futuristic vision. The construction industry which finances both parties in parliament would not have it any other way.

What have I to criticize about Smart City? Nothing in particular except that it is a real estate deal disguised as a technological renaissance. The five thousand jobs made to seem as though they were all already feeding families are a guesstimate over the next decade and there is no guarantee that they will fall to anybody Maltese if and when they become available.

Far be it from me to be against Smart City or any other such project. I just want them to be sold with less hype and for our government not to make nonsense of our laws to make them happen. The 2006 Local Plans for the area explicitly stated that there were no rules governing the area and that each project would be considered separately. The plan was no planning.

Having succeeded with Smart City, Minister Gatt must have convinced himself that he had found the holy grail of government without rules. If the timing is right and enough energy is committed, a Minister can become a sultan. He probably regrets the Prime Minister’s U-turn on the Xaghra l-Hamra golf course. There should be villas and greens now where a national park has come into being.

The charge of the light brigade over electricity tariffs is well known to us all. With industry to the right of him and unions to the left, Minister Gatt pointlessly charged the canons of common sense, humiliated regulators and consultative bodies to take the country into such a crisis that unions spoke with one voice probably for the first time in history. The greatest casualty of all was our government’s reliability with foreign investors. We have become unpredictable.

His latest project is a road from nowhere to nowhere at great expense and at horrendous damage. No, not to the environment. Who ever worried about damage to the environment? In this Minister Gatt turns ecologist. He is proposing the new motorway in Mellieha because he cares so profoundly for the sand dunes.

No, the damage was done as he swept past in his cavalcade through decency and common courtesy. In response to concerns expressed by the Mellieha Holiday Complex he is reported to have quipped that if the operators don’t like the idea of his road running past the most secluded part of their Danish Village, they can sell out at any time. Had Minister Gatt been a common or garden ignoramus it would not have done much harm. Unfortunately he is a Minister of the Government of Malta.

None of us has any business to expect any Dane or indeed any foreigner to make any distinction between politicians of any colour in this matter. Dr Gatt simply becomes Malta, you and I, as the resounding insult reaches the ears of its remote victims. The developers and operators of this complex have the unique merit of having taken over a devastated barrack complex and turned it into Malta’s best landscaped touristic development.

By operating it as a holiday venue for union members they have been able to maintain a constant flow of visitors from a country otherwise far removed from us through good seasons and bad and very, very bad and for several decades. Telling them that they can jigger off just because Minster Gatt wants his road to go through is outrageous.

Only political prejudice and ideological blindness has kept us from seeking to have a dozen Danish Villages. All over Europe but particularly in the North, unions and pensioner associations, invest in similar operations in the warmer south. Two Danish Villages in Gozo would break the back of the seasonality monster which leaves many Gozitans without a job in winter. Such projects give stability through recession and financial turmoil without the spectacle of high rises and vast glass walls. They are our softspoken support especially when things become tough.

Minister Gatt should not apologise for his unforgiveable arrogance. He should resign. He has shown himself to be worse than unpredictable. He is a menace to economic security and at a time when caution and prudence are mandatory. Never mind the road. Never mind the electricity rates. His methods and his manners are an extravagance we cannot afford.

The maggots at work

2008-11-14T15:09:00.001+01:00

The customary budget ritual is in full swing. Bombast by the Minister of Finance, followed by denouncements of irresponsibility by the Leader of the Opposition and then a barrage of scorn by the Prime Minister. In an atmosphere of the deaf shouting at the deaf, I feel not in the least inclined to discuss it.

What is the point of making even the most constructive criticism if at the outset it is clear that the government will decide everything alone, smacking down every critic and never giving credit to those who make valuable contributions even as they are plagiarized? Having humiliated the MCESD over the hike in energy tariffs, the government is rushing ahead with its plan as though it ruled the country only for the most rabid of its partisans.

For those who were persuaded that Greens in government would have been a threat to stability and (long ugly word) governability, this is a moment when they could feel justified. Greens could not participate in a government like this. Their presence would have made this behaviour impossible. By keeping them out of parliament and out of office, voters have secured the perpetuation of Mintoffian style government sometimes by the PN and sometimes by the MLP.

Chances are that a significant segment of the electorate likes it this way. Still in the Dark Ages of democratic development, they perceive Dr Austin Gatt’s swashbuckling exploits as spot on. Not everybody.

Some of us voted for EU membership precisely to end this nonsense. The vast, if shallow and rapid, stakeholder consultation exercise in the EU accession process whetted our appetite for inclusive government. It was a first experience of the wealth of possible contributions ordinary citizens could make of their professional and sectoral experience and expertise.

Since 2003 it has been one long betrayal of all such hopes. To participate in MEUSAC or MCESD has become complicity in sustaining a façade of consultation while the pre-EU membership sultanate ruled untrammeled. In 2008 the last shreds of justification on the basis of better-a-façade-than-nothing-at-all have all been blown clean away.

The government has provoked the unimaginable: first a joint statement criticizing the government by all civil society bodies and now an all-union demonstration. The unions’ principal demand is authentic consultation. Ironically what is essentially a conservative part of society in so far as it has an interest in resisting change in the interest of its membership, is currently the principal driving force seeking the attainment of the EU Dream method and style of government.

In smashing all the mirrors and tearing down all the veils, Minister Gatt has revealed our political reality in all its awesome ugliness. With far less spectacle, Minister Fenech has helped him along in an aside in which he revealed that the Malta Resources Authority was deliberately left on the sidelines twiddling its thumbs on the issue of electricity tariff revolution. Our most crucial regulators can be disabled at the flick of a political switch. In Strasbourg MEP Simon Busuttil has been active in a venetian blinds exercise over the Ramla Bay petition to the Petitions Committee of the European Parliament. Another regulator has fallen victim to political expedience, in this case: MEPA.

In its fifth term since 1987, the PN in government is displaying all the symptoms of fear and insecurity of a minority government too long in office. It seeks total control. Exclusion has become its hallmark, advisory institutions are mocked and regulators disabled. Overhabituation with being the government has shorn it of all the profoundly democratic values gained in its years in exile in the 1980s. The post 1987 years of reconciliation are long gone. The wisdom which suppressed retaliation and sought to bridge the unbridgeable divide in its first term, is lost.

This government through its acolytes and apologists is banking on a propaganda campaign unearthing the horrors of the 1980s to smear the brand new Leader of the Opposition. Nothing better to rely on? No insight to the jarring anachronism? Which PN guru has determined that the party’s last salvation lies in scaremongering and exclusion at the cost of its avowed democratic and European values?

The final cruel irony is that the MLP’s failure to seek EU membership left it to the PN to achieve it and now the PN is in a far better position to eat the heart out of the values EU membership should represent from the inside. The hopes of better quality politics in mutual respect and widespread participation allowing a careful consideration of the issues with full information at hand are all but dead. The PN has smothered those hopes in their infancy. It may take generations before we can entertain them again.

Dr Vassallo is a Member of the Committee of the European Green Party
http://www.harryvassallo.blogspot.com/

Improbable hope

2008-11-07T19:07:00.000+01:00

Barack Obama brings hope to the United States and to the world at a time when gloom and uncertainty seem to be taking over. The infectious euphoria of his victory is a mild inebriation we should all allow ourselves to enjoy, a welcome break in the clouds of gloom that still promise us tough times ahead.

Perhaps Barack Obama’s greatest burden is just that: not to disappoint us all. Black America and much more is overjoyed but Obama inherits an economy $480 trillion in debt and facing the world’s worst financial crisis for generations. To what extent can he change the lot of the underprivileged in the US?

Can he pull the US out of Iraq without provoking disaster across the Middle East? Can he bring Russia back to fruitful dialogue mode? How will his presidency affect the range of allies, puppets and opportunist friends collated by the US in the Bush era? The UK and Kazakhstan? Have we heard the last of Axes of Evil and Rogue States?

Will he be able to take the US from major cause of climate change per head to principal solution and crucial driving force? His potential for benign change in Africa is immense? Will he use it? Will he walk the talk or rely on his unquestionable showmanship to make us all believe that he has done much when effectively little or nothing is changed?

America is dreaming again and that is already heartening but it will take more than talk to keep it going. We have every reason to expect a New Deal from Obama. He is being touted as the Messiah who will put an end to the era which started with the election of Ronald Reagan to the White House. Can he pull that one off? Or will he seem to have made a change while preserving and indeed consolidating the fundamentals? We all live in hope even when we can agree that it is an improbable hope.

A new team and a different political culture, suppressed and denied for almost a decade, now takes up positions of decision-making. These are the people who will be calling the shots, the new incumbents. Will they set out the new rules of the game or will the lobbyists hold them down to the old ones? Who does call the shots, Barack Obama, his entourage or those who hold the purse strings? How much room to manoeuvre does a US president really have?

Will Barack Obama want to change the system that brought him to power? Closing down Guantanamo Bay and repealing the Patriot Act will earn him easy kudos from liberals but will he even dream of addressing the ludicrous electoral systems which exclude all minority parties from representation in Congress? If he is trapped in the cliché of the US being the cradle of democracy, he may never acknowledge that an infancy extended from 1787 to the present day may be a little too long.

Having become the darling of the free press, will he have any interest in revisiting its failure to function in the wake of 9/11? This bulwark of democracy, this fourth estate, evaporated as President Bush went to War on Terror. How free is the free press? What access does it allow minorities? Who owns it? Will Barack Obama dare to ask?

Eliminating the threat of an extension of the Bush/Reagan era through a McCain/Palin victory has been an achievement which earns Obama gratitude worldwide. Ironically it may serve to obscure the fact that the US is the basic resource of all those who want to reduce politics to bi-polar confrontation, a minority political culture among developed democracies but a growing and menacing trend in Italy and Poland as in Malta and Albania. Relief at getting rid of George W. Bush and his aliases may make us forget about the system that produces them.

A black US president, with family in Kenya and a Muslim education in Indonesia is himself a beacon of hope for tolerance and dialogue in a very troubled world. He becomes a disappointment once he rules over the “Best democracy money can buy” without acknowledging the dissonance.

Barack Obama already has his hands full dealing with a full agenda of massive challenges. He may be forgiven for directing his energies at these first and leaving the root issues for later. Still, it would be a severe disappointment if a president so well endowed to change America keeps himself too busy to take a shot at it. The time is right and he is the best man for it. There could be no better way to tell the rest of us that he truly means business. For him to be effective, to exorcise the Bush era, he must persuade the world that a post-Obama US will still bear his mark. That may be the greatest challenge of all.

http://www.harryvassallo.blogspot.com/

Dr Vassallo is a Member of the Committee of the European Green Party

A campaigner by the name of Hu Jia

2008-11-01T16:09:00.001+01:00

A campaigner by the name of Hu Jia

A Green Star

2008-10-17T11:18:00.001+02:00

A Green star

Harry Vassallo

Wangari Mathai provided the highlight of the European Green Party’s Council in Paris last weekend. As she took the floor, the political became profound in a way which is peculiarly feminine: practical and in perspective. Founder of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, she has taken Green politics to parliament in her country and has become a global personality simply by planting trees.

Millions of people have planted myriads of trees all over the world; none have sown a seed so fertile. Wangari’s secret has been to engage and empower women to address a practical problem. She went to work giving peasant women her vision and the means to address directly the threat of deforestation. They needed the firewood and were travelling ever further from their homes to collect it as the forest receded.

Unlike many another afforestation project, the people immediately effected were recruited to solve their own problem and the global challenge at the same time. In doing so they became a symbol of the empowerment of African women. Just throwing money at the problem would never have achieved as much. The award of the Nobel Prize to Wangari Mathai was an acknowledgement of her insight and commitment; a recognition of the contribution of every participant in any of her projects.

Today she is a global celebrity and she told us of the contrasts in her life. One day she is talking at a kindergarten involved in one of her projects and the next she is roping in world leaders to contribute towards the financing of similar initiatives all over Africa. She is a bridge between the grassroots and the stratosphere, welcome and at home wherever she happens to be.

We certainly welcomed her in Paris where she could address the leaders and delegates of 34 Green Parties from across the continent as well as the MEPs from the Green group in the European Parliament. We were keen to hear of Africa from an African but she unwittingly spoke about everyone in her reply. Political exclusion is a short cut to power in Africa. Tribal loyalty secures support in exchange for the promise of privilege or advantage over other tribes, a pathological bond between leaders and supporters which defeats democracy and justifies corruption.

Wangari is Kikuyu and was penalized in the recent elections for refusing to contest on a platform based on tribal divisions. That is as Green as it gets, going against the current even when it becomes a torrent. Today her stance in the elections puts her in a position to address the aftermath of internal strife. Her peace tent travels around Kenya to treat the wounds of political violence.

How is this different from the rise of right wing parties in many EU countries, the rifts in Belgium and the lunge towards bipolar politics in Italy? Malta, the quintessence of bipolar stagnation had the bizarre experience in March of having the ghosts of political violence two decades old invoked to panic the fearful, the faithful and the loyal. We belong to tribes other than the Kikuyu, but the promise of protection from the other side, the threat of being exposed to their ravages and the bribe of gaining some advantage over them, work in precisely the same way to defeat any idea of equality and mutual respect, to mainstream the tolerance of corruption despite all the noisy scandals.

Wangari does not despair. She is busier than ever, there is more to do and she is able to bring ever more energies to bear on the challenges before her. She is a Green, necessarily an optimist or, at the very least, a courageous realist: the challenges are enormous; the means to address them often non-existent at the start and Greens just go to work at them.

Just a couple of decades ago there were no Greens elected to office anywhere. In this short time, particularly in Europe, Greens have taken their place at every political level and have continued to punch far above their weight. Their contribution at an EU level has made the union the most advanced economic and political bloc in environmental matters and an acknowledged leader in addressing global issues such as climate change. The scramble of all other political families to appear to be Green is a measure of our success.

We share with them the concerns over the current crises on energy, climate change and certainly that in the financial markets. The difference is that we do not only address the crisis but look beyond it. While others despair, Greens dare to hope, turning problems into opportunities: environmental challenges have become employment creators and the financial crisis can lead to a sane, safe and just employment of global wealth. Wangari Mathai had every reason to feel at home among us.

harry.vassallo@europeangreens.org

Dr Vassallo is a Member of the Committee of the European Green Party

A particular belief

2008-10-15T09:44:00.000+02:00

On the face of it, the opening barrage in the Archbishop’s Victory Day sermon seemed intended to stop dead in its tracks all forward movement on the divorce issue. It went much further. This was no chiding pastoral letter addressed to the faithful and somehow to be considered a private affair of a particular belief. It was power politics at a moment of symbolically charged Church - State interface. The government was put on notice: the Church is prepared to do battle.

It is also the first public showdown with a PN government at the helm. Everything is different and the tone was a little strident, the sensation of overkill hinting of panic veiled by fulminations. The PN has relinquished its tacit claim to monopoly over everything Catholic thus releasing the MLP from the need to compete with it. Instead, the Prime Minister’s gambit on divorce has led the MLP leader to threaten to move a bill in parliament if the PN does not walk the talk. In a matter of weeks the situation has been reversed and the PN and MLP are in competition on a trajectory tangential to Church doctrine.

The Church cannot fail to oppose divorce. This very fact weakened its efforts to participate in the civil debate on the basis of long experience and expertise in social matters. Everybody knew that the Church had a different agenda.

With the dramatic reversal of the situation brought about by the need of the other two parties to take over the Green manifesto lock, stock and barrel following the March election, the Church has decided that there is no time left for polite pretence. The issue is not divorce as far as the church is concerned. It is a matter of putting up a last ditch defense against modernity, secularism and pluralism. The Church will not succumb without a fight to a reality it views with apprehension.

Perhaps the Bishops are hoping for a miracle but they know what the future holds and, at the very best, they can hope to postpone it a little further. Still, the way this battle is fought, the means adopted, will also colour the Church’s future.

A universal church resorting to nationalism is a contradiction in terms. Recalling the wars our ancestors fought for the faith is hardly ecumenical in this day and age. Demonizing secularists and giving them the guise of invading Ottomans or bombing Fascists and Nazis, does not score high in the free and frank exchange of ideas.

Concocting a troika of divorce, abortion and euthanasia is illogical, manipulative and unfair. If intended to convince the unconvinced, it was a miserable failure. Opinions will be variously divided on each of these issues. Divorce is on the cards today, the others are political bogeyman cards.

The vision of a future secular society in which young Catholics will have a harder time making the right choices because they are exposed to the wrong messages and influences, was shocking. What we need is not to lock out a “future” which has already happened but to address it with authenticity for all people. Speaking of Catholic morality in contrast with a value free society as though only Catholics can be decent, honest and true is offensive and contradicted by experience.

The Bishop of Gozo was reported saying that “In a pluralistic society such as ours there are those who claim that it is arrogant to suggest that moral truth tied to a particular belief ought to lead a civil order that would bind everyone”

What is a pluralistic society for the Bishop of Gozo? One moral truth tied to a particular belief? The same leading a civil order that would bind everyone? It is not arrogance, it is detachment. His Grace is not merely being arrogant, I dread to say it, he is proposing a subversion of the existing civil order. He is not fighting to preserve the status quo but attempting to take us all back centuries, not generations. Our laws cannot be founded on belief but on communicable reason. They are already in clear dissonance with Catholic doctrine in the recognition of divorces obtained abroad and the decriminalization of adultery and homosexuality.

The divorce issue has ballooned into a Church - State ideological and constitutional conflict. The Prime Minister and his government will have to stand their ground in defense of the state or forfeit their authority. The other political parties will back them up. It is a definition of lines of demarcation such as De Gasperi had with the Pope in Italy some 60 years ago. In Malta, it cannot be postponed further.

Give them the tools

2008-06-14T13:14:00.000+02:00

It appears that many people too easily assumed that my promise to resign my post as chairman of the Green party was to be taken with a pinch of salt. It appears that power is intoxicating and not a few make fools of themselves in the end by clinging on too long.

Perhaps I have the advantage on them because the power and glory that is the share of the leader of the Greens is just a tot and not enough to inebriate anybody. It is time to go and I am going.

In this too I believe that I serve the political party I have co-founded and served as soldier, staff officer and general for almost 19 years: Alternattiva Demokratika, as all political parties, will contest the European Parliament elections this time next year. In order to present a fresh proposal, it would be best to have a break with the past, a new image. And how better than by having somebody new flying the flag?

There is not much time available to make all the necessary changes and to establish the leadership in the public mind, not a day to spare. Judging by the report prepared by the commission engaged to analyse the general election results, AD will have to start from scratch. It seems there was nothing there at all. Certainly no money to speak of and the handful of people involved were obliged to multitask to breaking point. It's all true.

It has been a matter of keeping up appearances for a very long time. The age of volunteers is long gone, our socio-economic model has changed over the years and people expect to be paid for work, not least for hard work and often unrewarding of itself. The few who do it gratis are overburdened twice over because they are so few and because they too have to survive in the rat race.

It is poor consolation that AD may be the only political party with its books in the black and its soul intact. The commission's report certifies the Greens clean. But clean and unable to communicate one's vision is also a betrayal of a sacred trust.

Although still out in the cold, the Greens have positioned themselves evenly between the PN and the MLP, sitting astride the centre with a support exceeding the difference between the main contenders. The fact that the PN and the MLP together with the mainstream media avoid this fact as though observing a taboo only serves to underscore the Greens' potential for themselves, for a possible political ally and for all those seeking a radical change and able to invest time, effort or money to achieve it.

Tomorrow's extraordinary general meeting is billed as a changing of the guard and as the start of the discussion on the clinical dissection which the commission's report claims to be. Nobody will be asked to take a vote; there is nothing to be decided on; no official document before us to approve or otherwise, so nobody will check whether one's subscription is paid up. Party members, old and new, as well as interested bystanders, will be most welcome.

I do not expect that there will be time for everybody to have their say on each of the very many issues raised in the commission's report, so the event will be something of a media ritual, but this does not make it any less a watershed in our history which should be attended by those who have watched our progress with interest.

It will also be a farewell and a time to augur the new leadership the strength and persistence it will need to address the many shortcomings pointed out by the commission as well as the wisdom to weigh up and decide on the policy and strategy issues raised. I certainly hope that, in the coming weeks, it will have the benefit of many contributions from the party grassroots and not only the good wishes of all concerned. It is time to look forward, for me and for the party. I confess that I am looking forward to charging realistically for my services once more: no more free legal advice, no more environmental consultation gratis, no more political lobbying as an unpaid public service, no more articles, policy documents or even formal correspondence written without significant financial reward. At last it will become politically correct for me to accept the tempting eco-business proposals I have puritanically refused by the dozen.

It may not be a bad idea for the party to work out something on these lines itself. With no public financing of political parties available, how can all those who turn to the Greens for support continue to expect them to campaign for them with no resources? Perhaps the commission's report will make the matter more easily acceptable.

The Greens need almost nothing more than this: the commitment is there, the vision is clear, their relevance grows by the minute. They do need support and encouragement. It is Malta that needs the Greens and not the other way around. Perhaps we should all stop taking them for granted.

Dr Vassallo is the outgoing chairman of Alternattiva Demokratika – the Green party.

www.alternattiva.org.mt, www.adgozo.com

A Bolt From the Blue

2008-05-17T10:38:00.000+02:00

Of all the possible outcomes of the inquiry into the death of Nicholas Azzopardi the least damaging to the country's institutions will be that he sustained his injuries in attempting to escape from police custody. That alone would be a disaster.

It would mean that his arresting officers and interrogators had failed to keep him under proper control and that he had been driven to affect an escape that put his life into manifest danger. The blackest rider is added by the questions asked as to the care received in hospital.

The magisterial inquiry instituted to establish the facts in connection with injuries sustained during an escape from custody has been transformed by events into an inquiry into the death of the detained person. Its function is to establish responsibilities and to determine whether somebody should stand trial for them. At this time it is not for the inquiring magistrate to establish guilt; nobody has yet been charged but the quality of the evidence available will already indicate whether anybody can be found guilty. It already seems improbable that guilt beyond a reasonable doubt can be proven. The only witness is the victim and he is no longer available for cross-examination.

Corroboration by witnesses would have to be a confession by his alleged assailants. Material evidence from the crime scene or crime scenes, as well as that recovered from the victim's body during the autopsy, may or may not be sufficient to sustain any possible thesis but seems unlikely to provide proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The victim's relatives, vehemently demanding justice, have the odds stacked high against them.

The internal inquiry launched by the Minister of Home Affairs is another matter. Judge Albert Manchè has been commissioned to determine what went wrong, and something certainly did go wrong, and to make recommendations to avoid any future repetition of
such failures.

The magisterial inquiry focuses on criminal responsibility, on the question whether anyone should stand trial and for what. The Manchè inquiry examines whether an administrative failure has taken place, if so, why and what can be done for similar failures to be avoided in future. It is not Judge Manchè's job to recommend that anyone stands trial. It is not Magistrate Vella's job to recommend a change in the law governing detention or in police interrogation practices. Both are legal experts and need not be told how to keep out of one another's hair. Not everyone will understand their careful avoidance of one another. Both are very likely to leave many of us unsatisfied, most of all those who most crave closure and a tidy conclusion.

At the outset, all the circumstances seem to conspire against all parties involved. The victim's family, already stricken by their loss, seem unlikely to obtain even the relief of knowing with any certainty what actually took place. Everybody else is under suspicion because, no matter how painstakingly scrupulous anyone may inquire into this affair; there remains the simple fact that a public authority is inquiring into events that put the credibility of another public authority at stake.

The fact of our minuscule size does matter. In cases such as this the odds are heavily against anyone labouring to ensure that justice is seen to be done. Our geography is against us and our politics don't help. In a land where everything is all too easily short circuited, faith in due process wavers between being a grace from God and proof of naiveté. Our land denies us the hope of conviction.

While anticipating the bitterness of not knowing at the end of it all, it may be useful to set this tragedy against the background formed by several others in our history. The death of Nicholas Azzopardi has not occurred at a time of high political tension by Maltese standards. Because it comes as a bolt from the blue, it is in useful contrast to earlier tragedies because it allows us to pick out the similarities.

The victim's family evidently felt extremely vulnerable and alone, under threat from the institutions set up to ensure their safety. They complain that their demands for protection were left unheeded. There they were freefalling to the bottomless abyss. They were not the first. Instead of leading a posse with all the police force rallying around them, they felt the cold discomfort of knowing that all the vast machinery of state established for their added security may have interests contrary to their own in this case. It is a very frightening feeling.

Many have experienced it before them. Their case makes it clear that any one of us may face it tomorrow. The very fact that this has not taken place in a time of political upheaval and anarchic mayhem should invite us to take a greater interest in the proceedings and to recognise our interest in ensuring that sufficient safeguards are put in place. The next time somebody is summoned to a police station and shouted at we should take an interest too. It is a matter of civil rights, not politics. If we thought everything was put right in the 1987 election, it may be time to have a rethink.

Whether we like it or not, it is the police force which is on metaphorical trial in this case. Conservatives who quiver with anxiety whenever anything connected with law and order is put in question should quiver now. Sceptics who always nourish their paranoia with regard to anything in authority can begin their I-told-you-so mantras. Once we have all knee-jerked to our satisfaction, it may be useful for us to realise that we are on trial together with our police force. Have we been guilty of complacency? Have we minded our own business too much and never wondered about the rights of detained persons? Have we absolved ourselves of any duty to take an interest in such matters too easily, assuming that all was going well? Did we leave it to some vague figure in authority somewhere to make sure that everything is done properly? If we do not safeguard our civil rights, who will?

If by his death Nicholas Azzopardi wakes us up to our share of responsibility, he will not have died altogether in vain. If we only follow his case out of morbid interest and forget it once the din subsides, we may become accomplices in the death of the next Nicholas Azzopardi.

Ahead of the Posse

2008-04-24T18:02:00.000+02:00

The Irish Green Party's participation in the government was recently described in the Irish press as being ahead of the posse. It conjures up a scene from any one of a multitude of Westerns in which the sheriff takes off on the trail of our heroes. It could never happen in Malta.

Comahontas Glas, the Irish Greens, not only elected TDs in the 2007 election, they were asked to join a government coalition giving added legitimacy and the fresh input of a young political formation eager to see its policies take concrete form.

Without the Greens the rest of the present coalition could have ruled the Republic of Ireland with a slight majority. It is to outgoing Prime Minister Bertie Ahern's credit that he recognised the advantage to his government coalition of taking the Greens on board. They added stability apart from adding their vision to those of their colleagues in government.

Such a move seems improbable in Malta because we seem to lack the culture. Despite having identical electoral systems, Malta and the Republic of Ireland have steered different course in their political development.

Coalitions have been the norm for decades. It is perfectly normal for negotiations to take place after an election. It is not at all unusual for a Prime Minister to call to government those who, until just then, had the task of being his critics.

The Irish Greens were offered and took up three ministries in the Irish government in the process.

It is easy to understand why the lack of coalition culture makes such an event a matter for the far distant future in Malta. What is not so obvious is how or why the absence of such a culture makes it improbable that any Maltese newspaper may ever come up with such an expression. Operating in a well-established multiparty system, the Irish press is far freer to comment. It is not stuck firm in the rut of party loyalty and fulfils its democratic function far better. It can keep politicians on their toes and praise them without fear of being accused of bias.

Until very recently, the Irish press did not give the Greens much attention. Represented in Parliament and having elected two MEPs they still were not mainstream items. Since coming to government, they have performed; they have performed so well that a hitherto inattentive press has been pleasantly surprised. Irish journalists have not begrudged them the enviable comparison to their colleagues in government, egging on the laggards.

Greens everywhere are ahead of the posse. There is a Green Party in every European country from Georgia to Norway and everywhere they are acknowledged to be years ahead of the competition in everything environmental.

Competence on energy, food safety, nature protection, and climate change is easily conceded to the Greens everywhere.

The fact that mainstream parties are everywhere saddling up to follow in our tracks only underscores the distance we have travelled ahead of them. In the Republic of Ireland journalists make it clearer than elsewhere.

In the European Green Party (EGP) Council, ended Sunday in Ljubljana, some country studies made known to the participants established the well known fact with scientific precision. What was also made clear was that we have not yet gotten clear away.

Quite apart from the amazing spectacle of mainstream parties getting ready to gallop away on their environmental missions, in itself a resounding victory for Greens everywhere, there remains the troubling fact that voters everywhere have not yet made the connection between Green issues and their daily lives. Climate change seems very far away for most people. How does that connect to an election in Belgium or Romania? How can it tip the balance in the polling booth when pensions and available income are being eroded and made the heart of the contest?

Before we can leave the angry posse behind for good, we have to make the connections between the economy and the environment, the health, wealth and happiness of our children and our ability to see the whole picture.

The rising cost of oil and the basics of our diets such as wheat and rice can make us focus more clearly. Non-politicians can now make the connection between the two. Climate change is talked about everywhere and the challenges in our future have become inescapable even for the most reluctant of the mainstream political fractions.

The interconnectedness of everything is becoming ever more obvious to everyone. The Green discourse about maintaining a holistic perspective and taking responsibility for the actions we make in our daily lives because of their connection to everything else, including the future of life on the planet and the survival of the global economy, has become compelling to an ever-growing number of people.

While Greens are now widely acknowledged to have been ahead of the field in their concerns, the mainstream media and the public have not yet made the next step: if everything is connected there is a need for maximum coherence. It is still possible for mainstream politicians everywhere to gallop both ways at once.

The environment is very fashionable but the economic, social and cultural changes necessary to do something about it are not.

These days everybody wants to be seen to be saving whales and dolphins and inaugurating alternative energy setups. Nobody wants to say a word about the need for profound culture change.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has launched the most far-reaching environmental policy every heard of in France but remains firmly convinced that nuclear energy will save the world. The contradiction is not yet obvious to everyone.

Our own Prime Minister has taken direct responsibility for our eternal environmental challenge, land use planning, but continues to lead a party beholden to the construction lobby.

So far, only the Greens point out such glaring inconsistencies and the vast majority still fails to notice them.

The change we must all make is still too much for populist politicians to admit to themselves let alone to their constituencies. The fact that Greens have a vision of a world that has escaped the end of civilisation threatened by climate change is not enough. Being alone ahead of the posse will not do the trick.

We have been assigned the role of pathfinders but we can only claim success when the path is found and followed. The profound commitment of Greens to democracy is no accident. It has long been obvious to us that we will never address our challenges successfully with top down measures.

Mainstream political movements committed to economic or power elites simply cannot pull it off.

Most people still cannot figure out what we are talking about. We are dangerously far ahead of the posse and time is running out for them to catch up with us. It is running out for all of us.

As a member of the EGP committee I will be travelling to Sao Paolo, Brazil at the end of the month to attend the second Global Greens' Conference. In the 20 or 30 years since Greens first entered the political arena we have gone from being completely misunderstood to having our issues embraced by our competition.

It gives us all hope that the next step is also possible: that they will understand the method, the way we address our challenges is as crucial as coming to grips with the technical problems. It is inevitable that at Sao Paolo our hope and fears will come together.

Is there still time? Will it take another three decades? It is clearer than ever that absolutely everything hangs in the balance.

Our sense of urgency remains as keen a prod to action as on the first day that any of us realised that being Green is necessary. There is no time for self-congratulation that we remain so far ahead of the field.

Nothing is Impossible

2008-03-16T11:09:00.001+01:00

Within hours of writing this I will watch as the PN is awarded additional seats in Parliament in order to have one more than the opposition. The last additional seat they gain will represent the 1,200 vote margin which grants the PN absolute power for the next five years. The 3,810 people who voted Green will not enjoy minimal representation in their country's Parliament. The average electoral backing of every single one of the 69 new MPs will be less that that of the Greens.

With a nearly 100 per cent increase in Green support since the 2003 national election, the pundits are dressing up for our funeral again. It has become an electoral ritual complete with their regular disappointment. Once more we have been foiled by the system while for at least the third time we should by rights be celebrating our representation in Parliament. The feeling is of frustration, even bitterness, but not of defeat. We have sustained the greatest direct assault in our history and we have survived. It is not enough.

In this election Alternattiva Demokratika should have entered a new phase of its service to the Maltese public. It should have taken its place in Parliament and been able to contribute to political debate through constructive criticism giving voice to its crucial electoral location. Because we will not, I will keep my word and offer my resignation at the next extraordinary general meeting of the Greens.

With PBS still in election mode, my offer of resignation, unfortunately timed with the resignations of Alfred Sant and Josie Muscat, was made out to be on a par with the defeat of Labour for the third time in a row and Dr Muscat shaking the dust from his sandals. It means nothing of the sort for the Greens. We are still fighting fit. We have given our giant adversaries a tremendous run for their money. With almost nil resources we have taken the brunt of the direct up-close-and-personal assault and character assassination attempt of the PN and we are still smiling.

It did become a wider smile when we watched a sea of people celebrating democratic defeat. What on earth would they have done if they had the approval of a majority of the electorate? It was a release of tension, but triumphalism...? It was Kenneth Zammit Tabona wiping the tears of his terror as he popped the champagne. It was Daphne enjoying the ħamallaġni, wondering how her reputation will survive the overdose of vitriol.

Life is about living and Greens live gloriously. What a fight it has been! What a glorious fight. There are 3,810 of us who have been confirmed resilient to fear and propaganda blatant and subliminal. Perhaps I was born a snob, but I am grinning with pride in being Green. The fewer we are and the more massive the hysteria, the taller I stand. Ninety-eight point seven per cent of the voting population may take offence at it, but I find it hard to hide my satisfaction in not being counted among them. My bond with our splendid core support is unbreakable. What terrific, rare people they are!

With our presence in Parliament we would have been able to bring about a much greater political culture change and much faster. Still, our 1.3 per cent has begun the process. For the first time in 41 years no political party has an absolute majority of the vote. I prefer to say it another way: We are all minorities. It should be a sobering thought and the government party especially should be more inclined to modesty. Instead we have triumphalism to hide the bare facts. To give him credit, Lawrence Gonzi spoke of togetherness and of uniting the country when facing the milling sea of people. With his adversaries still bruised and bleeding from his blows, it takes greater magnanimity to listen than to talk.

Having spent the last 36 years of my life in opposition, not being among the victors is nothing new to me. What is new is the fact that it is a universal experience after this election. The math shows that AD plus MLP comes to more than PN, which is the government by law and concession of the majority. Now that is new. We have every right to expect a new style of government, less arrogance, more respect of the other side, no bulldozer tactics, no more justification of the unjustifiable. We shall see.

In the 2003 referendum victory celebrations, Arnold Cassola and I were toasted by the mainly PN crowd as we walked through Freedom Square packed end to end with Yes to EU supporters. They kept telling us to stick with them afterwards. Arnold and I already knew that their leadership would not allow it. The crowd was warm, loving and sincere.

On Sunday morning, on my way to the counting hall, I stopped in the square in Naxxar. A parking place presented itself miraculously across the road from the MLP club. I was hoping for a moment's quiet in the deserted church before I walked into the counting hall. All the church doors were shut tight.

It took just a moment to walk back around the church to my car but the crowd was now waiting for me. I could not refuse their invitation to a drink at the bar. They too were warm, loving and sincere. If anyone there took a picture, I want a copy. I stood with my back to the bar while my hand was pumped during Labour's brief foretaste of victory. It was surreal but beautiful.

Among the unique privileges I have enjoyed as the leader of Malta's smallest political party, the love and the respect of ordinary men and women of all political parties will always remain the one most cherished. These are my people, my adversaries, my friends. They help me believe that nothing is impossible.

Konferenza Stampa

2008-03-06T00:10:00.001+01:00

Waqt konferenza stampa f'tas-Sliema Dr Harry Vassallo Kap ta' Alternattiva Demokratika qal li il-kampanja elettorali waslet fil-qiegh taghha meta llum gie infurmat minn gurnalist tan-Net TV illi multa imposta fuqu mill-qorti kienet giet ikkonvertita f'sentejn habs. "Din kienet ahbar ghalija ghaliex id-decizjoni tal-qorti li ttiehdet hames
xhur ilu biex il-multa ssir prigunerija avzawni biha l-pulizija erba sieghat wara li kien telaq il-gurnalist tan-Net television" qal Dr Vassallo. "Din in-nasba ilha tinhema ghal hames xhur billi minflok gejt avzat immedjatament bli kien sehh il-qorti, il-fajl thalla f'xi kexxun ghal meta jkun utli ghall-Partit Nazzjonalista fl-izjed kampanja elettorali moqzieza li qatt mexxa."

"Mhux veru dak li deher fil-website tal-Partit Nazzjonalist li dawn il-multi gew imposti fuqi ghaliex ma thallsitx taxxa tal-VAT minn kumpanija jew minni personalment. Dawn il-multi gew imposti fuqi ghaliex kumpanija li ma kellix x'naqsam mat-tmexxija taghha ghal ghaxar snin naqset li tibghat ir-returns tal-VAT. waqt li kont nahdem maggha u kont
immexxi din il-kumpanija dejjem inbaghtu r-returns u thallset kull taxxa dovuta. Minhabba li ismi baqa' jidher bhala l-persuna li tibghat dawn ir-returns il-proceduri ttiehdu kontrija u wehilt il-multi jien.

Illum fl-4.15 gew zewg pulizija l-ufficcju u tawni kopji ta' zewg Dokumenti Biex Persuna Tinzamm il-Habs it-tnejn li huma jgibu d-data ta l-10 ta' Ottubru 2007. F.12.00 kellna konferenza stampa fl-istess ufficcju li ghaliha ghall-ewwel darba f'din il-kampanja elettorali attendew gurnalist u kamerman tan-Net TV. Wara li saret il-konferneza
stampa il-gurnalist tan-Net talabni kumment u staqsieni kontx naf dwar kundanna biex jien nintbaghat il-habs. Fil-fatt ma kont nafx bl-ebda kundanna bhal din ghaliex il-pulizija ma kienux ghadhom kellmuni u minn meta jidher li saret id-decizjoni tal-qorti hames xhur ilu jien ma gejt mgharraf b'xejn.

Madankollu bsart li dak li kien qieghed jirreferi ghaih il-gurnalista kellu x'jaqsam ma' kaz ta' multi imposti fuqi bhala l-persuna registrata mad-Dipartiment tal-VAT peress li kienux gew ipprezentati r-returns ta' kumpanija. Jien kemm il-darba tlajt il-qorti dwar dan il-kaz u spjegajt li ma stajtx nipprezenta kontijiet ta' kumpanija li ma kellix x'naqsam
maghha ghal izjed minn ghaxar snin.Bil-ligi kif inhi bhalissa l-qorti jidher li ma kelliex ghazla hlief li timponi l-multi u ghalhekk tlabt il-mahfra tal-president billi kont qieghed nigi mmultat eluf ta' liri mhux ghax ma thallsitx taxxa izda ghax ma gewx ipprezentati r-returns fi snin meta jien ma kellix kontroll fuq din il-kumapnija li minna kont rrizenjajt bhala direttur.

Fil fatt il-mahfra giet michuda u jien ipprezentajt rikors ghar-rikonsiderazzjoni tal-kaz

Minn meta sirt kap ta' Alternattiva Demokratika ma kellix hin nipprattika l-professjoni tieghi u wisq anqas li nkun involut f'attivitajiet ta' negozju. Id-dhul tieghi sar ta' Lm400 fix-xahar bhala impjegat tal-partit. Mhemmx mezz li jien inhallas dawn il-multi li
jlahhqu mas-Lm6000. Illum sirt naf li l-multi mhux imhallsa jissarrfu f'sentejn habs

Waqt li huma mijiet ta' nies li ghaddewhom minn inkwiet bhal dan u ohrajn hallsu multi kbar meta ma kellhomx jaghti centezmu f'taxxa, nahseb li jien biss sibt ruhi mgharraf minn sitwazzjoni bhal din minn gurnalist tan-Net TV gurnata qabel elezzjoni u 5 xhur wara d-decizjoni tal-qorti.

Jien kont u ghadni tal-fehma li mhix haga ragonevoli li xi hadd jigi mmultat l-eluf tal-liri ghaliex il-burokrazija titlob li jimtlew ir-returns vojta fil-hin u lanqas li xi hadd jinbaghtat il-habs meta fil-fatt m'ghandux jaghti ta xi taxxa li gabar jew fuq dhul li kien ghamel. Jien ma qlajt xejn u ma gbart l-ebda VAT fis-snin kollha li ghalihom gejt immultat eluf ta' liri.

Sa llum gamilt il-battalja tieghi fil-privat b'inkwiet knir ghalija u ghal xhur u snin shah. Ma stajtx naghmel kampanja pubblika dwar din is-sitwazzjoni minhabba li ghandi interess personali u dirett fiha. Izda llum li l-Partit Nazzjonalista ghogbu jinqeda b'din is-sitwazzjoni personali tieghi nifrah li saret haga pubblika u li b'hekk nista nwieghed li naghmel kampanja biex l-infurzar tal-ligi jsir b'mod ragonevoli u fejn tkun nieqsa xi bicca karti ma jigi ttrattat hadd bhala xi kriminali vjolenti.

Rigward l-ordnijiet biex nintbaghat il-habs jien rgajt tlabt li tigi rrikonsidrata t-talba tieghi biex dawn il-multi ezagerati ma jkissruniex u ma jaghmlux hsara lill-familja tieghi. Bien inhallashom meta ma kkommettejt l-ebda reat, ma sraqt l-ebda centezmu taxxa u ma ghamilt ebda qliegh jidhirli li hi piena tal-wahx u kontra r-raguni.

Ma nafx il-President tar-Republika joghgbux li jikkonsidra l-kaz tieghi jew le. Jekk ghal darb ohra jkun jidhrilu li haqqni nmur il-habs ghal sentejn ghax haddiehor ma mliex formola tat-taxxa jien immur il-habs. Li nista' nghid minn issa hu li jigri jigri f'din l-elezzjoni, mmurx il-habs jew le jien ser naghmel kamanja biex burokrazija qattiela bhal din tispicca darba ghal dejjem.

Harry Vassallo

Din id-darba Alternattiva

2008-02-16T19:20:00.000+01:00

this poem was graciously sent to us by Alfred Magri.

Din id-darba Alternattiva

se nivvota kif nixtieq.

Mhux lin-nies li gà bieghuna

li jaghtuna biss bis-sieq.

Mhux se nitfa l-vot fil-kaxxa

biex igawdu l-ftit ta’ gewwa.

Se nivvota Alternattiva

ghax kapaci w jghidu s-sewwa

Mhux se ntih lill-kuntratturi

mhux se npaxxi l-kaccaturi

mhux se ncedi ’l dawk li saqu

qishom gaffa minn fuq rasi

mhux se ntih ’il min ga staghna

minn fuq dahar it-taxxi taghna

mhux se ntih lic-caqnijiet

biex nitmermer hawn fis-skiet.

Jien dad-dritt mhux se ncedih.

Dan il-vot mhux se nahlih.

Ma nibzax minn popli ohra

mit-twemmin u mill-kulur

Imma nibza’ mir-razzizmu,

mill-mibgħeda, mit-terrur

Ma nibzax mid-differenzi

il-bnedmin hekk maghmulin.

Ahna kollha lwien f’qawsalla

li jixghelu lil xulxin.

Jien did-darba rrid il-bidla

mhux politka tat-tpacpic

mhux min jiflah tih ha jhawwel

go dar-renju tat-tghaffig.

Dal-vot tieghi, xejn hlief tieghi,

u se naghmel bih li rrid.

Tghid mhux se naghtih lill-klikka

li staghniet ghax tal-partit?!

Tista’ toqghod hemm titbissem,

Tista’ tidhaq, int, kemm trid...

Se nivvota Alternattiva

biex ghal darba nghid li rrid.

Jien irrid partit li jahdem

biex dal-bini ma jkomplix

biex din l-arja tkun nadifa

biex l-iskart ma jordomnix.

Biex inharsu dil-kampanja

Biex fis-sema nara t-tajr

biex il-bahar ma jkunx mandra...

Dal-partit, avolja zghir,

ghandu l-hila, l-konvinzjoni

ghandu l-gazz, ghandu l-vizjoni.

Din id-darba Alternattiva:

Tghid li trid it-Times li ghandna.

Jghid li jrid xi Fr. Peter,

hawn eluf li xebghu bhalna.

Mhux se nahli l-vot did-darba

fuq xi kiesah b’mohh ta’ bott

fuq xi hadd li bena Malta

fuq xi pampalun korrott

fuq mudell ta’ l-arroganza

fuq min ligi mhemmx ghalih

fuq min jhedded u jitpastaz -

jien dal-vot mhux se nahlih

Din id-darba Alternattiva

ghazla bhalhom zgur li mhemmx.

Din id-darba Alternattiva

forsi fl-ahhar titla ix-xemx!

ALFRED MAGRI

e-Politics

2008-02-10T13:25:00.000+01:00

A neighbour stopped her car by the kerb to ask me to explain an sms message on her mobile. The government has informed her that unemployment benefits would be credited to her account. Her question was: “How do they know my number? How do they know my account number?”

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, the government’s ability to please you personally on the eve of an election knows no bounds. My advice to my neighbour was to make hay while the sun shines. It was in sharp contrast to a widow who has been denied her widow’s pension because her husband and she arranged for a separation of acquest before he died.

The Director of Social Services deemed the marriage at an end even though the couple did not separate, did not have a judicial separation and in fact lived happily together until death did them part. The widow was obliged to contest the DSS decision in the appropriate tribunal for several years until she was proved right. The DSS has still not paid her a cent many months later. Perhaps this is the season for her to return to the assault.

Friends and Neighbours

2008-02-09T10:22:00.001+01:00

Mrs M smiled serenely as we settled down in her front room. It was an election house call and she knew it. Her smile broadened as she said: “I must let you know that I am very happy with the government’s performance”

I smiled back. “In that case I will not disturb your evident happiness” I said. “Since you are so happy with the PN, I assume that you are keen to avoid a Labour government and in that case, may I point out that you would do well to give AD your last preference vote. If things pan out in the way they did in the 2004 EP elections AD will be left to compete against the MLP when the last PN candidate is eliminated. In that case you may want your very last preference to come to bear in favour of AD against the MLP and not waste your last vote completely as happened with the PN surplus in 2004.”

“But what if the last two candidates left in the running are PN and MLP?” she asked. “What happens to my vote?”

“In that case the AD candidate will never get your vote and you will have done your best for your party” I replied. “Will you consider giving AD your last vote?”

“Yes, certainly. Once I have voted for all my party’s candidates I could not use it better” Mrs M smiled again.

It was a very pleasant exchange. I do not feel that Mrs M is an adversary and I sincerely do not want to disturb her happiness. It seems so very rare. In almost a year of canvassing I have never heard anyone justify their support of the PN in such terms. It is usually a lesser evil decision. Nobody else claimed to be so satisfied with the government’s performance.

I left her house with a broad smile. The votes that will take any AD candidate to parliament will come from people like her and I am comfortable about being answerable to her. Many Labour voters will do precisely the same and that is a unique feeling.

Clearly the bulk of our support has to be in first preference votes but No 2 and later preferences are also essential. The thought that they will come from both sides of the political divide means that we are a meeting point in Maltese politics, a precious place. If we are not the bridge between Labour and PN, we are the hope of finding the foundations for such a bridge sometime in the future.

While the panic and tensions of an election campaign mount around us, Mrs M and I smile serenely. We are friends and neighbours. We always will be.

Hello

2008-02-08T18:29:00.001+01:00

Every civil servant in the country has received a personal letter from the Prime Minister thanking him or her for his or her splendid service in the last five years. The achievements of the Civil Service were duly listed and ascribed to their devotion to duty. It sounds wonderful.

The recipients are well aware that between election campaigns this government has acted enthusiastically on the policy of shedding everything run by government employees. Privatisation is a religion. We have privatized the Lotto Department for reasons as yet unexplained. At every point PN Ministers have justified their dedication to the privatize-at-all-costs religion by claiming that the civil service is inefficient costly and slow. I wish they would make their minds up.

Mr C retired from the Civil Service two years ago after giving 42 years service. From the lowest clerical grade to the top of his profession and through an amazing array of difficulties he evidently served his masters to their satisfaction. On his last day at work he cleared his desk, as Head of Department and went home. No Minister called him upstairs for a drink, there was no souvenir watch to take with him for long and faithful service. Nothing at all. No private employer, not the worst possible would see of an employee of 42 years standing so despicably.

Prime Minister Gonzi’s state paid election publicity may not be as effective as he hopes.

In Two Minds

2008-02-07T18:30:00.000+01:00

The PN campaign song about togetherness is almost frightening. It is not about being together with others but about being together alone. To promote a single party government as togetherness is the height of exclusion. It is the ultimate expression of our political duality.

To those singing and to those to whom the song is addressed the limits of the universe stand within the PN. It is the only way that they can romanticise togetherness in the middle of a bitter contest for power against their adversaries whom they claim to despise.

It makes my hair stand on end to hear it. Now I have had my fill of political propaganda these last 18 years. I feel that I have heard it all before. I am a jaded politician myself but this form of “togetherness” gives me the creeps.

It is exactly the opposite of togetherness. It is the inward looking political pathology that makes a political party sufficient unto itself, detached from the rest of the country in which it operates. No doubt the Labour party suffers from the same syndrome. I have constant experience of two realities in the same space existing quite separately from one another.

If all your friends are blue or all your friends are red, you may already have fallen victim to it. You are at least exposed to it. Thankfully most people and particularly young people have developed immunity for political dualism. They are able to change their minds and are proud of the fact. They resent being politically labeled and their friends are their friends, period. They are the future.

For healthy people togetherness implies being with others and not a concentration of the like minded to the exclusion of all others. Today people enjoy diversity and they can cope with it easily. They can support a party on one issue and its adversary on another. They can turn up at a protest without promising their eternal political soul to the organizers. They can keep all political parties on their toes.

In the bad old days Labour Ministers stood on trucks in their singlets and shouted: “All we have is for Labourites, what remains is for Labourites and if Nationalists want a share they must become Labourites” Exclusion politics fully expressed. Nobody could be so brutal today. Instead we have a song about togetherness, a togetherness that excludes instead of embracing diversity.

The only thing that scares me more is that the people promoting and enjoying this “togetherness” have no insight of their political pathology. So what else is new?

A Million (Wo)Man Years

2008-02-06T20:05:00.000+01:00

In a study carried out across the EU it is estimated that it will take a million (wo)man years to achieve compliance with the new regulations on the energy efficiency of properties. It means jobs and work for whoever wants it. It means money and money well spent on salaries and materials which insulate not only against heat and cold but also against the rising cost of energy.

Malta also has its share. It also has much, much more. With over 192,000 properties 40% of which require significant repairs, how many man or woman years would it take to get them up to scratch? It is not my field to make such estimates but just one look around me tells me that nobody in the construction industry will ever be out of a job if we ever get going.

It is clearly our future. With a surplus of 53,000 properties which can never be occupied because we would not be able to withstand the influx of 100,000 and never be able to supply them with basic water and electricity services, new building is bound to be reduced to an absolute minimum in the very near future.

Ironically the shift from new construction to maintenance and restoration was the express policy of a Nationalist Minister: Michael Falzon in 1988. Nothing serious was ever done about it. We continued to expand greenfield take up right up to the bizarre extension of development zones in 2006. Or was this the plan, to drive the country far over sustainable limits until the shift to restoration and maintenance becomes inevitable? What a way to govern a country?

Bil-Vot Tieghek il-Bidla

2008-02-06T20:00:00.000+01:00

Have a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8YXTEwBTNM

A Quick Word

2008-02-02T18:53:00.000+01:00

This morning I was stopped by a stranger while going about my business in Valletta. He wanted to thank the Greens for the service we give the country. In 18 years nobody has been so clear. It took me completely by surprise.

I was busy. My mind was far from politics. It was almost a shock to be told in one or two short sentences that somebody has understood not only our message but also our motivation. It is usually “I like the way you talk” or “You have it right on this or that issue”. This was a “Thank you” and not on any particular or personal service.

What this stranger cannot possibly understand is that it is his encouragement that keeps us going. Let’s face it: if one is in politics for gratitude perhaps a visit to a shrink is called for. We do not expect gratitude for doing what we consider to be everybody’s duty.

Precisely because we do not ask for it, an expression of appreciation is embarrassingly welcome. More than that there is the joy of meeting minds, the mutual recognition of people who have gone beyond the fear and mental blackmail of the two-party dilemma.

That laconic “Thank you” spoke volumes about the need for change, a change of system and not merely an alternation of one-party governments. There was no need for lengthy explanations.

Leave All Hope Behind

2008-02-01T18:18:00.000+01:00

The most commented news item on the Times website in the past week was the report of a female traffic warden cleared of a charge of posing naked in public. The comments reveal that some of us are not as batty as our legal system. All of them pour scorn on this prosecution.

It all adds spice to our next traffic fine since we can now speculate that we are being penalized by a wannabe porn star. Withholding her name from publication only adds mystery and possibly infuriates more of her colleagues who may not be as inclined to display their birthday suits.

Pity that my latest day in court was not so amusing. I was there on a rare visit as counsel to a witness in a prosecution of a bar owner for playing infernally loud music in the small hours of the morning. It meant that I heard all other loud music cases bundled together for that morning’s sitting.

It was a rout for the prosecution. In every case a Malta Tourism Authority official swore that according to the license conditions in his file these people had no permit to disturb the neighbourhood. The Police also raised the general rule against loud noises after 11.00 pm. Then defence raised the issue of the original licenses issued by the police a record of which may not have been transferred to the MTA. A minute doubt was sown that these establishments may somehow have been given a permit sometime in the past.

They were all acquitted. It seemed like nonsense to me. The court made monkeys of the police. The neighbours who had plucked up courage to report the Mafiosi who run these joints had been thrown out of court more naked than our beloved warden. Will they ever try again? Will the police waste their time again?

The court claims to be powerless. The police are impotent and the site neighbours are mocked by the system. Some clever dick somewhere has figured a way to sabotage almost any prosecution by ensuring that the MTA records cannot be certified as complete. In this way the system appears to work or grind its way slowly forward through reports at police stations and appearances in court but in fact nothing will ever be done to address neighbours’ complaints. The mysterious operator of the system has figured out a way to give everybody a non-answer and to keep the Mafiosi more than satisfied.

My client has made the mistake of buying a flat for Lm85,000 over the neighbours from hell. There is no way out.

Cultural Diplomacy

2008-01-30T08:41:00.000+01:00

I was in Edinburgh for just over 24 hours with just enough time to walk down a street or two, have a taste of haggis and experience the biting January cold for myself. The trip was gift from the British Council Scotland which invited me and two other delegates from Malta, Giovanni Buttigieg and Carmen Sammut to discuss “Scotland’s place in the world” in a one day seminar attended by guests from a multitude of small countries.

Devolution in Scotland has meant more than a realization of a national identity. That was always there. The Scots want to develop their relationship with the rest of the world, with the community of nations. They also want to get beyond the stereotypes of kilts, scotch, shortbread and Highland games. There is much more to Scotland.

Certainly it is no mean thing that the first note from a bagpipe anywhere in the world instantly recalls everything Scottish to millions with a Scottish connection and otherwise. Still there is so much more which Scotland can make available to the rest of us in science and engineering, in the arts and in business.

The outreach to Armenians, Slovenes, Croats, Serbs as well as to Maltese may itself be a measure of the Scottish willingness to explore other realities, to learn from them and build new bonds. It was all about cultural diplomacy, about going beyond interdependency to interconnectedness. All small countries have a lot to learn.

I came home turning over all I had heard and discussed in my head. It was stimulating to apply it to Malta’s case, to explore all the potential as yet untapped. Who will begin to do so? How? There is no Maltese cultural institute to interface with the British Council, the Alliance Française or the Goethe Institut. Perhaps there should be. Our potential as a venue for cultural debate and developing interconnectedness in our region is out of all proportion to our size. It is all there for the taking.

NO Greens, NO Governance

2008-01-16T18:32:00.000+01:00

Most people have never forked out a cent to any political party and would not dream of doing so. They may feel that they get it all for free and wish that they did not get it at all. In fact they pay through their noses and never get a receipt.

Interviewed in 2003 Joe Saliba PN Secretary General, estimated that his party had spent around Lm480,000 on the general election campaign. Thousands must have thought that it was a glorious waste of money and guesstimated that the MLP had spent a similar fortune. A mass meeting five years ago would put the PN back by Lm10,000. The MLP must be forking out similar amounts in such events.

To most innocent bystanders it does not mean much at first glance. Who cares? Perhaps we should. Election campaign expenses are only the tip of the iceberg. The expenses between elections are no joke either. Where does it all come from? Time and again we are told that party businesses, subscription fees and the generous donations in the pre-Christmas TV extravaganzas cover it all.

If it had all been clear and above board as Joe Saliba has insisted, why has Lawrence Gonzi promised a law regulating the financing of political parties, to take effect maybe, sometime in the next legislature? And why not before the election?

Politics as a whole has nosedived in the popularity polls and donations from eager partisans must be getting ever more scarce leaving the parties exposed to donors who expect something in return for the hefty amounts they advance.

While Malta remains one of very few countries with a claim to democratic institutions that still does not regulate the financing of political parties, the major donors remain shy about their generosity. While other countries have had scandals of all sorts exposed, Malta does not even have a law to be broken. And still the donors do not boast of their openhandedness.

Some people are irritated when they receive mail from Ministers in government envelopes which are little more than state subsidized canvassing. Others realize that several state advertising campaigns costing tens of thousands are a free ride taken by the party in government at taxpayers’ expense. Did we really need to advertise the new state hospital to such an extent? Was there any danger of it losing our business? All this is just small potatoes.

When a road is not finished in a reasonable time, if the cost overruns are systematic and huge, it must be awkward for a government minister to come down like a ton of bricks on a generous donor to his party. How about planning permits? The choice of plant and equipment? Which policies are influenced by whom? Which reforms are delayed in order not to cause discomfort to which loyal enterprise? We may never know. We can never be sure either way.

However, as long as it remains within the legitimate options of anybody with deep pockets to buy out a political party, we would be unwise and indeed naïve not to suspect the worst. Such suspicions are strengthened by the poor quality of our urban environment and the constant threat under which what remains of our rural environment survives. The cost of cost-free politics is, very probably, simply hideous.

No matter which political party assumes power as a one-party government following the 2008 election, unless the system is radically changed, we will continue to pay through our noses. We will continue to be annoyed by all the systems that do not work as they should and not even begin to guess why not. Nobody will ever begin to assess the cost of this dominant, covert anti-system.

My guess is that if donations and loans to political parties above a certain amount were to be made public, very many things would change. Above all many of the numerous spanners in the works would be pulled out. The taxpayer would make a huge bargain.

In all likelihood we would then have our first party financing scandal some time in the future. While we may poke fun at Italians for their tangentopoli and mani pulite sandals, at the Germans and French for the Kohl-Mitterand debacle or at the British for their cash-for-ermine comedy, we are being robbed blind. The availability of all government systems to ordinary citizens is significantly reduced. We can never achieve our full potential relying on a mechanism which is necessarily warped.

Alternattiva Demokratika – The Green Party has demanded a law on the financing of political parties at least since 1992. Until very recently the only result was an increase in the expenditure allowed to election candidates making their returns of expenditure following every election less of an insolent joke. Following previous elections AD candidates refused to file a return in protest at the blatant falsehood of sworn returns passively accepted by the Electoral Commission. We were duly prosecuted.

On the eve of the 2008 election Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi has promised us all a law on the financing of political parties if he is elected to the post he holds and when he is moved to keep his word. What exactly he proposes is not clear. Going on previous reforms in the field he may legitimate the present system and claim that it has been regulated.

The big question is why has he chosen to adopt a crucial reform proposal made by the Greens almost two decades ago, only now? Why not six months ago? Why not on his taking office to inaugurate a new era in Maltese politics? Would it be embarrassing to have to divulge all the obligations his party may have taken on in view of the next round of elections? For at least the next five years the effect of such obligations will continue to take their toll whether or not an effective regulation of party financing sees the light of day.

This election will produce a government under the influence of the present system just as the one before it and the one before that and so on in unbroken sequence. The undocumented but harrowing cost will continue. Regardless of all the fanfare and the mass enthusiasm, the rousing speeches and the fun filled events, ordinary citizens will continue to be robbed of the full effect of their tax money, and our governments, of whichever hue they happen to be, will continue to fall short of their full potential. That much is a certainty.

What remains in doubt is whether the PN adoption of the Green proposal to come clean on party financing will ever take effective shape. How likely is it that a government under the influence can legislate effectively to rid itself of the shackles it is now begging for? How likely is it that the matter will even be raised in parliament without the full force of Green prodding?

Our campaign on the joint issues of rent reform and property prices including the ongoing referendum campaign has been effectively resisted by government. Not being able to stonewall completely as it is did prior to 2003, the government promised a White Paper which is now 2 years past its due-by date. Without Greens in government making such reforms necessarily part of a government programme agreed in coalition talks, we will have waffle and promises on good governance as we have had on rent reform. With Greens in government, we will find out what the cost has been and finally put an end to it.

The Self-Propelled Sitting Room

2008-01-12T10:32:00.000+01:00

You poison my children and I do not seem to mind. I poison your children and you do not seem to mind. Thanks to me your aged mother runs a greater risk of dying of respiratory failure at the next heat wave but that's alright because, thanks to you, my mother runs the same risk. You breathe the air which has been run through the air cleaner in my car and I breathe the air carefully mixed with petrol or diesel in yours. We both breathe each other's exhaust fumes and we find that perfectly convenient.

Neither of us thinks much of the expense. Not really. The claims of injustice regarding exorbitant car registration taxes are mostly an expression of our wish to spend more, our chaffing at the fact that the tax burden prevents us having a bigger, shinier beast.

It is rarely the careful computation of those who resent the fact that such a vast segment of their income is devoted to their means of transport. Turning the key for the first time in your brand new pride-and-joy loses you around 10 per cent of what you pay to buy it.

In those few seconds, before you have moved a millimetre, in a car worth a mere €20,000, you have enjoyed €2,000 worth of undiluted pleasure. Never having had the experience myself, I am consumed by the curiosity of the innocent.

And it does not stop there. Whether your treasure is paid in cash or bought by hire purchase (and there is a huge difference), the total is subtly hiked up by the rate of income tax you pay.

Do you garage the precious thing? How much does that cost you per day? What fraction of the cost of your home is attributed to your garage? Did you buy or do you rent the place? It appreciates in value does it? Except that you will never realise your gains until you decide to get rid of your car.

There are also the annual tolls of insurance and road tax, a ticket or two, servicing and fuel, occasionally, parking fees. Meanwhile, the process which started when you first fired up the engine has carried on inexorably eating away at the value of your latter-day coach and horses.

Summed up by an expert friend of mine, it was all estimated to run up to €15 per day on a €20,000 car.

If, like me, you are a driving addict, you may be tempted to put the pleasure of driving into the scales. Unfortunately, there seems to be hardly anywhere left to put even the most modest of our darlings through its paces. I reckon that average driving speed has dropped far below 40kph, increasing the risk of accident by dropping off at the wheel through sheer boredom.

It must be torture for those who never liked driving in the first place. My heart also goes out to the owners of those over-engineered, mobile monuments to ostentatious imbecility who sit in air-conditioned embarrassment in traffic jam after traffic jam fully air-bagged and protected against high-speed impact which is never likely to happen unless they attempt suicide at some unique moment when the road is clear.

When justification by satisfaction fails, we turn to necessity. How would we get to work without our cars? How would we do the shopping? And how would we be able to ferry the kids from school, to private lessons or pick them up when they go out? What about those five-errand journeys altogether impossible by any other means? How would we go for a picnic otherwise? Poisoning one another at huge expense is an absolute necessity, isn't it?

Only because we have no other real choice at present. Only because we have designed our lives around car ownership allowing our destinations to spread far and wide. Only because we do not imagine putting our resources together to provide ourselves with alternatives. Only because nobody in authority has the stomach to broach the subject.

There exists an astounding array of alternatives to private car ownership, tried and tested elsewhere, which have never crossed the mind of anybody in Malta with the political power to reach out and make one possible. Malta is 24 kilometres long at its longest axis, Gozo about eight kilometres. The idea that we are left almost without any option other than the private car is simply mind-boggling.

Malta needs a mass transit system but we have not begun to talk about it yet. It could be by tram, overhead mono-rail or underground railway. It is still decades away because we were too busy to think for the last several decades.

The existing public transport network could be enormously improved by being decentralised and by developing circular routes linking regional localities.

There are several options in private mobility: from car pooling to timesharing vehicles, from pay-per-use vehicles linked to our mobile phones to chauffeur-driven luxury. All of which are miles cheaper than owning a car and just as flexible. Malta could very easily become the only country in the EU in which cars become almost exclusively weekend or pastime items but only if its 400,000 inhabitants decided that it would be a good idea.

Of course, there are an almost infinite number of challenges, systems to adjust and practices to change. How will wholesalers distribute their goods?

What about heavy vehicle traffic? How will sales assistants get around? Doctors doing their rounds? Were any traffic reduction measure ever to succeed, would that not ease pressure and restore our appetite for more cars?

Addressing them all will not address our rapid cultural mutation into a people expressing itself through its motor vehicle. It would take massive investment in a public education campaign to get us to shed our need to stun the neighbours by our extravagance, our exquisite taste in pollution source and our ability to customise the mass produced.

What else could stand a chance against the millions of euros spent each year indoctrinating the masses through car advertising, half-naked women sprawled over the bonnet of one of our ancient buses?

Is it not amusing that it is illegal to advertise cigarettes but perfectly legal to pitch the internal combustion engine?

It would be too much to expect any political party with 50 per cent plus electoral ambitions to even begin to hint at anything rational. In Malta, where it should be the easiest task of all, it is said to be risky even for the Greens to be so futuristic as to talk of reducing traffic significantly. If we get too far ahead of the field, our adversaries would have too easy a time making us out to be eccentric, far out and extremist.

Still, this is precisely our function: to point out the obvious facts that few people are willing to acknowledge; to point out the very long-term policy options; to have a vision which is not a regurgitation of the past; to propose today what our adversaries will make their own only decades in the future. We have more or less done away with the habit of buying our cars second hand. How about getting our politics first hand for a change?

Pure Evil

2008-01-03T18:37:00.000+01:00

The sudden illness of the leader of the opposition has called for a truce in an election campaign in all but name which has been ratcheting up since September. Everybody has wished him a speedy recovery. Nobody wants to be seen to be hacking away at Alfred Sant, the public persona, while the physical Alfred Sant is laid low by ill health. It is not so much the merit of the political class which sets itself a limit but that of a population which would not stomach political business as usual in such circumstances.

It does seem hypocritical to be humane to an adversary whose plans and ambitions one has opposed and thwarted by every possible means for years on end. His worst political enemies have no choice: better to be suspected of hypocrisy (nothing new) than to become a self-confessed monster of inhumanity.

Most people are genuinely affected. Those who can never be classed among his sympathizers or supporters are also showing and feeling sympathy for him. Cast as the principal focus of their political apprehension, he is suddenly revealed to be only human, very human indeed. Their natural instinct for compassion is provoked, to a very great extent dissipating the effect of months and years of demonisation.

It is a disaster for the PN spindoctors: all geared up to raise the tempo in the final run up to a first quarter election in 2008, they are obliged to pull back, regroup and rethink their strategies. An early election would be seen to be bad PR by not giving Dr Sant sufficient time to recover and return to the fray. The blizzard of ridicule and invective has to be stopped.

This may have significant consequences on the cohort of new voters who seem to be the only element that is consistently responsible for changes in government. Hammering away at Dr Sant’s image and keeping him a figure of contempt may have been expected to deprive him of the degree of coolness necessary to secure a segment of young neutrals more than likely to vote for change by default.

We need only wait a little while. The PN spin factory will certainly find a way around its difficulties and surprise us all with its creativity. It is endowed with real talent for creating virtual reality and blessed with an attentive, all-forgiving audience: the range of possibilities is almost infinite.

Timing the election remains a dilemma. Anything after the end of March brings in the effect of price hikes over a wide range of consumer goods as well as the debacle over hunting in April. Anything from here to end March could seem like a desperate measure to steal a march on Dr Sant as he valiantly struggles to get back into stride.

Dr Sant himself may be of assistance. His entourage will encourage him to climb back into the saddle as soon as possible, not only to do battle with the ancestral foe but also to discourage any discussion of a political succession on the eve of an election. This is an MLP dilemma: allowing any hint of leadership vacuum to be created is dangerous, a return to business as usual too early could be just as dangerous by allowing the PN to return to their customary tone and even to consider a return to their original strategies on the timing of the election.

Whatever happens, Dr Sant can no longer be tagged pure evil in spin and slander. Still, his faults and defects will not be glossed over and his own past actions or failures will not be erased from memory but the mounting demonisation we had every reason to expect in the coming months will have to give way to something else.

It suits me fine. Perhaps we can become as grown up as children who read Roald Dahl instructions on the identification of witches. Sticking to stereotypes may be a dangerous self-deception. Our list of suspects must be expanded to include those who cast themselves as “sweet and nice” in order to gain our trust to do us harm. The concept of a good looking witch is a valuable acquisition for any child. Why not for grown ups too?

With Dr Sant demoted by fate from the invidious title of pure evil, we stand a better chance of realising that there is no such thing at all. It is never really that easy. If our greatest menace sported horns and a long tail, we would all be fine. Of course we can have no further use at this point for Roald Dahl’s tips: no politician should be eliminated simply for wearing pointy shoes, for having an itchy head nor for having a strangely coloured tongue, even if it does happen to be blue.

In my book, colour has nothing to do with it but there are some acid tests. First of all, for people who stand as candidates in an election, rather than attempting to become dictators by force of arms, democratic credentials must be up to scratch. It rapidly eliminates at least two thirds of those presently in parliament who approved the change to the constitution which creates two tiers of citizens: those whose votes will be weighed with utmost care to produce perfect proportionality and those whose votes will not be fully weighed in, no matter what happens.

Pure evil takes on a different meaning at this point. It becomes evil posing as pure. Of course strict proportionality is an excellent democratic quality. It becomes less than pure when it is applied to some and not to all. Those who palm it off as a universal salve to our electoral ills are not without taint. None of them. Did any MP vote against or abstain? Not even the sweetest and the nicest?

With that criterion alone, many would be reduced to voting those in their favourite political party who were not asked to vote on constitutional changes, the new faces. There will be dozens of them in the next election and not without good reason. Their function is to sponge up No 1 votes from people who cannot bring themselves to vote for established candidates who have disappointed them bitterly. The new candidates will seem very sweet and very nice especially when compared to their colleagues who have been wheeling and dealing, U-turning and S-bending all over the place. That is the very reason that they will swell the lists.

They seem pure but they whitewash every evil great and small. By standing as candidates, they endorse all that has been done. They perpetuate the status quo. They lend themselves to a process which gives the status quo a new lease on life. At least the battle weary candidates stand before us showing all the signs of their passage. The new faces invite us to believe that they have nothing to do with all that has aroused our ire. They lull our resentment, they bewitch us far more than those who have offended us.

The question is do we want a change and I do not mean do we want to flip the omelette? Going from a Blue one-party government to a Red one-party government brings a change of the guard, a change of the clique at the helm without even a major change in the mix of financiers of the one party in government. The names and faces may change but the system will be precisely the same.

A mere 2,500 of us voting Green in any one of the thirteen electoral districts can bring about a change far more profound than can be hoped for by the hundreds of thousands who will put their vote elsewhere. It will no longer require the serious illness of a principal political figure for us to be reminded of our humanity. We can hope to begin to forget the serial demonisation of whoever leads the other side. We will begin to develop our critical faculties to higher levels driving the whole political class to compete more on substance and to rely far less on stereotypes devised by their backroom boys and girls. Only ordinary voters can bring about such a change. Politicians are their product: every combination of pure and evil performing at the highest or at the lowest levels of decency, honesty, consistency and democracy according to their fateful choice.

Never a Better Time

2007-12-27T16:14:00.000+01:00

It is the time for taking stock of 2007 and making a guess at 2008. From my perspective everything in 2007 makes the change possible in 2008 all the more alluring, useful and necessary.

The economy has shown signs of recovery and the Euro changeover will be celebrated as some sort of certificate of economic strength. It is certainly a long way from the admission of deliberate deception in 2003. Thank God we joined the EU.

Had we not joined, that fatal admission of economic recklessness might never have happened until it was too late. We have been obliged by the EU Commission to provide an acceptable account of the administration of our public finances and bound to a path of economic discipline. Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Parliamentary Secretary Tonio Fenech will bask in the light of success thrust upon them. So be it.

Would it not be wonderful if the EU Commission could poke its nose into everything else binding our governments hand and foot, delivering them like parcels to the next celebration of success? Unfortunately this is not possible and we remain solely responsible in very many areas where the EU Commission cannot and will not be our nanny. We are responsible for choosing a government that will act reasonably and sensibly in order to succeed

In a few days’ time we will be paying and being paid in Euros. For a while we will suffer the disorientation to which we are exposed at Christmastime when the holiday season makes it a little harder to make out which day of the week it is: a temporary need to keep our bearings a little more deliberately. A week or two into the New Year and we will behave as though we always dealt in Euros.

And then we will realize that getting into the Eurozone does not change the fundamentals. It will be very similar to joining the EU. There are benefits and significant ones for those who realize them and are in a position to take advantage of them. For the population as a whole there are advantages but they hard to perceive. There are also disadvantages and risks which must be recognized and dealt with. The Euro is not a magic wand which will take all our troubles away. We will still have to earn our living in a highly competitive world.

The New Year will be precisely like the old year, as it always is. The sun will rise and it will set, there will be rain and it will shine again. Even the general elections will come and go. The question is what will we make of it all? Just like EU membership and joining the Eurozone, it is a matter of what we will choose to do once the opportunity to choose has been secured.

The pattern is almost identical. The hype and frenzy of an election campaign preceded EU membership. With the Euro there is less controversy and less opportunity for hysterics. In all cases we are wound up for the event and distracted as to the unfolding of events afterwards. We are focused on a target and everything beyond it becomes blurred. It is extremely difficult to speak of the world beyond the target while we are about to shoot, to make the final choice.

Then, even as we fire, it dawns on us once more that hitting the target is the briefest of events in an infinite series. It is the stroke of midnight on December 31st. The party might not be over but the tension is gone. We will soon be back at work.

If the opposition had not bent over backwards to make itself an also-ran, the government would be in serious trouble. After twenty years in office, the PN could not seriously expect to win the next election if it faced anything like a reasonable alternative. It should be a foregone conclusion that Labour will win the next election but nobody has any reason to feel that way. The early months of 2008 should be a confident, almost majestic march to office for the Labour Party but nobody believes that they will be.

Nationalist spin doctors have had a hard time pumping up the fear factor. The dose of election campaign adrenaline prior to Christmas is not a sign of desperation as to the outcome but evidence of the need to gain time: to build up steam in an engine that will be hard to get going. There really is no Devil on the other side, so the spin doctors have to invent him. It does not help them at all that the Devil does everything possible to be a clown.

Still, they will persuade thousands upon thousands to vote in fear and safeguard the status quo….. from what exactly? A Labour government having run the country in the past few years would, more than likely, be stretching out to bask in the warm light of success on entry into the Eurozone if it had been bound hand and foot as ours has been. No matter who runs the country after the next election, the EU Commission and the European Central Bank will not tolerate the level of tomfoolery that were inflicted upon us by our governments prior to 2003.

If I were to choose just one achievement of the very many which Alternattiva Demokratika has secured for the Maltese through its very active, if short, political life, that would have to be EU membership. The taboo imposed by the Gonzi government on giving the Greens merit for their part in securing that epochal change certifies the efficacy of our key contribution prior to the 2003 Referendum. Our prediction has been proved right. The PN wanted to join the EU as some sort of insurance against the MLP. The MLP did not want to join because the PN wanted to. Neither of them has acclimatized to the EU environment.

The PN clocks up infringements of EU laws as though it had opposed EU membership and the MLP tries but fails to forget that it had opposed joining. Thankfully both are bond hand and foot to the mass of legislation which is a certain guarantee for citizens and endless trouble for recalcitrant politicians. The Greens in 2003 determined the future for the PN and the MLP.

In 2008 we have an opportunity to secure an even more fundamental change. This time, unlike 2003, the PN will be doing it utmost to prevent us. From here to the election the PN will scare the living daylights out of its supporters predicting cataclysm if the MLP is elected to government even though it knows full well that this is already a very remote possibility. It has already won over the MLP, what it wants to secure is victory over the Greens, over change.

Only the Greens can change Malta’s political landscape and everybody knows it. The PN leadership is challenged only by the Greens and the awesome possibility of the Greens being in parliament in a few months’ time to shake up the place for good. It is the one scenario they truly dread: for the first time in four decades they will have to do politics and not merely rule like sultans.

Beyond the target we are being invited to focus upon, lies to possibility of a completely new political landscape, something that we can all achieve in 2008 which we could not enjoy in previous years. As you draw your bow and hold your breath and squint it would add to your chances if you envision what you want to achieve. Do you really want everything to stay exactly the same as it is? Are you quite sure that the best thing to be had is a PN government free of any checks and balances, free to extend development zones illegally in a country possessed of 53,000 vacant properties?

Imagine an election result in which neither the PN nor the MLP can take over the streets in celebration after the election? Imagine no olé olé and no red flags. Imagine the settling down to form a coalition government requiring not consensus within a party but consensus between political parties, just as happens every time in almost every country in the EU. From that moment politics in Malta will change forever. It will begin to change from that very first moment. Everything that comes afterwards will be different and we will not return to winner-takes-all and governments held unaccountable thanks to the awful prospect of the alternative.

Since May 2007 I have been visiting people in their homes every day. It was a long, hot summer. The Greens did not wait for the PN spin crew to start the election fever, we opted for slow but sure. Nobody I spoke to assumed that Labour would win. Nobody. Yet another PN victory is as certain as it could possibly be at this point in time. The PN will return to power once more surprising their supporters who were made to believe that everything hung by a thread.

Never was it a better time to change the course of our history. Never was it a better time to have Greens debate in parliament to challenge and propose, to bring in a wealth of ideas attuned to the times, to take responsibility and to decide. It is time. It was never a better time.

My proposal for 2008 is for us all to take our time, to resist the pressures to focus on the stroke of midnight. It could be the worst thing we could do. The clock does not stop then. What do we want for New Year’s Day and for the days, months and years that will certainly follow? If we refuse to be rushed, panicked and stampeded, we can choose a better, calmer, more reasonable future in which ordinary citizens will have far more influence on the political class. The choice we have is between making our future and sticking to our past.

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Eyes Bright at Christmas Time

2007-12-20T11:26:00.000+01:00

It was about this time some years ago when my son came home from kindergarten and announced that Father Christmas is a fraud and that God does not exist. A friend who had only just shed his own diaper had given him these certainties. My own upbringing seemed even more like a series of events in the late Neolithic.

It was not hard for my parents to have me believe in Father Christmas, the world conspired with them. Far from anybody contesting the existence of the Almighty, there seemed to be a wall to wall belief. We acquired our faith by osmosis simply by being exposed to the religious practices which permeated our daily lives long before we were formally prepared for our First Holy Communion.

We acquired religion and associated traditions just as we acquired speech. Did I even ask how Father Christmas broke into our house and delivered gifts for six children without the benefit of a chimney? Why should I? There were four angels guarding my bed every night and a guardian angel followed me around all day. All grown ups spoke about them so it did not matter much that I had never set eyes on them.

God was something like my grandmother who ruled a vast clan simply by being there. Her unspoken decrees were obeyed by the apparently infinite tiers of grown-ups towering above me. She was loved and respected by all the uncles, aunts and cousins who gathered at her house. Everybody was at pains not to incur her displeasure although I never heard her speak an angry word.

Nanna died in 1965 and it seems like a whole world died with her. Christmas was never the same after that. The vast clan had lost its focus, its five branches set apart to face the novelty of a world which combined the Cold War and the Cuban Misslie Crisis with the Vietnam War and Biafra with the mini skirt and the Beatles, the bomb, the pill and psychodelia. My guardian angel and all his mates had a hard time of it. I never asked him how he coped with Vatican Council II.

Malta went from misery to wealth. Emigration petered out as tourism picked up. Fortunes were made in the building industry and everybody waited his turn to scoop up the takings from a fabulous property deal. Politics was always a nasty business but it then turned deadly. All landmarks seemed to be gone forever. All certainties were gone.

Malta remains more Catholic than the Vatican but there is sometimes good reason to doubt whether it is even Christian any more. Christmas is good for business, indispensable for some businesses. Midnight Mass will be a standing room only affair as always with plenty of restaurants making a buck on Christmas breakfast. There are still plenty of intricate cribs to visit but can children be fascinated by a slow moving mechanical donkey when their own toys transform, squeal and pop to wireless command?

They will have to make their own way to belief or to the lack of it in a world with plenty of both. Wherever they get to, it will not be because everybody else did the same as far as the eye can see. They have something like a choice and they are brought up knowing that some do and some don’t believe. Their convictions will be their own.

One thing remains amid all the distractions: a child was born 2007 years ago and grew up to bear a message inviting us to love our enemies, to turn the other cheek. Sheep and shepherds may no longer be a part of our daily lives but the birth in a manger still calls us to something better than the fattest bank account of all.

Every year, we are reminded of our own mortality by all the ghosts of merry Christmases past. Even as we feast we realize that time is more precious than money and that the twinkle in a child’s eye is worth more than anything we could buy.

We may rant against the hypocrisy and the exploitation of Christmas if we choose, but heart of the matter remains no matter how deep it may become buried in tinsel and crackers, puddings and macaroni: there is happiness to be found in touching somebody’s heart, a reward far greater than the cost of any gift.

It is a Christian message which has been taken up by non-Christians the world over because it was always theirs also. Christians may believe that He came to remind us of the best part of our humanity, all others can experience the truth of it directly. Christmas provides an excellent annual opportunity indiscriminately. If we realize that nothing can make us happier than making others happy, we may have saved our souls even if we have come to doubt their existence. Nobody can doubt that the world becomes a slightly better place for it.

Ironically the absence of wall-to-wall Christianity allows its essence to shine brighter. Perhaps the commercial hullabaloo provides a sharper contrast to the peace promised on earth to men (and women) of good will. Christmas remains impervious to it all, pouncing out upon us when we least expect it: in “the ghastly tie so kindly meant” or in the taste of mince pies which remind us of somebody who loved us well. The more we are urged to rush about to spend and celebrate, the more poignant it is when we are reminded that we too have a heart and that we need not be ashamed of showing it.

May your hearts be touched this Christmas and may your eyes shine in reflection of the joy you bring to others.

Not A Moment To Spare

2007-12-20T11:08:00.000+01:00

Listening to Martin Scicluna giving a Strickland Foundation lecture on climate change and how it affects Malta was both novel and deja vu'. He described Maltese politics as trench warfare: a noisy, bloody business with the combatants yards away from one another but completely lost in the fog of war, unable to see the whole picture, unable to consider anything but the immediate; prevented from leading the response to a universal challenge. It was nothing new to me. It was new to have somebody of his calibre speak so clearly.

My job as leader of the Greens in Malta is to drive a wedge in between the other two parties and to drive them into taking a look around them before they proceed with their trench warfare. All my energies are now dedicated to gathering the support of 2,500 of the 23,000 or so voters in an electoral district in order to give Malta a Green presence in Parliament and hopefully in government. It is all I can do.

Meanwhile, I must concentrate on what I have to do immediately. If the Greens are not elected to Parliament, the post-2008 eco-consciousness of the next government will be governed by the need for their financiers to make even more money: climate change panic will be used to provide them with more millions; a Sarkozian conversion to all things ecological as part of his global sales pitch of everything nuclear.

All we need are 2,500 votes in any district to begin to bring the change about. Then we can negotiate and cajole, we will be able to raise awareness and inform public policy. We can then begin to influence events to head us in the right direction and force the positive exploitation of Malta's privileged voice on an international level. It will be backed by convincing action at home.

Greens have been far ahead of mainstream politics on climate change awareness; we are still ahead of most on the post-awareness era. Having been optimists in the face of cataclysms unrecognised for decades, we are confident that we can continue to be optimists and hold on to a far more encouraging vision than those newly arrived to disaster view.

The world has just begun to react. We must envision success because failure does not bear contemplation. All our ingenuity will definitely be devoted to providing us all with an excellent quality of life to be achieved at a tiny fraction of the energy we require today, with far less consumption of materials and very little waste creation. Climate change will bring about not only political change but also profound economic, social, technological and cultural changes. The very real threat of climate change puts us on the threshold of a new era.

Silenzio

2007-10-06T10:56:00.000+02:00

The view from the Franciscans' garden in Floriana is breathtaking. It had never been my lot to visit their little heaven before. It also came as a complete surprise at the end of a mass marking World Environment Day which I attended on invitation of the Church Environment Commission. The bishop of Gozo celebrated mass and gave a longish sermon.

I was treading a fine line I have set myself. As the leader of a political party which makes a clear distinction between religion and politics, attending masses and religious celebrations on formal invitation because of my post is always tricky. I am also a private person entitled to the wrestle with or to the surrender to God and to walk away from it if I choose. Generally speaking I avoid the religious bit simply to be there as a politician. Somehow it is much easier with faiths which are not my own. I have been to mosques, synagogues and Hindu temples, Bahai faith meetings and Buddhist events, where being a visitor is much easier. The terms of my presence are clear. In fact the hospitality offered to a stranger always creates a strong positive feeling, a definite warmth. There I represent politics, green politics and the respect it shows to all faiths and to philosophies of no faith.

As a catholic in a catholic religious celebration, the overlap with politics is uncomfortable. I do not want to be swept along, taken for granted to be one of the community or even under pressure to be seen to be so or risk coming under suspicion of being an apostate to the dominant faith. The fact that I am catholic is a complete accident as far as politics is concerned. I have no wish to secure votes on the basis of religious allegiance. I find the thought of it repulsive. Still, I feel the pull of those who are disgusted by the exploitation of religion for political purposes and of those who demand an obscene mingling of religion and politics. I know that almost nobody will understand what I am doing there: doing my job as a politician and acknowledging the immense social, cultural, political and now environmental potential of the Catholic Church in Malta.

Then again, this was special event. There have been few developments in recent years as positive and encouraging as the setting up of the Church Commission on the Environment. It is competent, prudent, precise and also courageous, above all it is authoritative. There can be no question of its enormous potential to create awareness of the environmental challenges we face to an extent we could not begin to hope for if it did not exist. The presence of the Bishop of Gozo rather than of the Archbishop is also very positive. So far the Gozo diocese does not have a Church Environment Commission of its own while Gozo faces an onslaught on the environment like never before. There is hope that the bishop of Gozo will avail himself of the services of the Maltese Commission and extend its positive influence to events in Gozo.

I definitely wanted to be there if my presence would be seen to be an encouragement to the ongoing process. It turned out that I was the only politician present and I enjoyed the experience all the more. Not least the surprise vista over the harbour with its twinkling lights. I will certainly accept the monks' invitation to return, to visit them privately, to learn more of Francis, their saint who called the sun his sister and the moon his brother, of his challenge to the nascent modern world eight centuries ago and of its relevance gaining strength with every passing day. Perhaps they will let me meditate in their garden, reached through the door marked Silenzio.

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Fighting Extiction

2007-10-04T23:35:00.000+02:00

P is a boat builder. For some people it could be a job, for him it is a passion. He is driven by an ambition to restore traditional Maltese boats and to build some of the crafts which are no longer around. He is a precious piece of a puzzle I have been dying to solve.

Traditional Maltese boats are on the way to extinction. How many new ones have been built in recent years? Will fishermen replace the ones they still use or will they opt for craft less unique but cheaper or more cost-efficient? I have gone from interest to concern and then to near panic as I have been asked to champion the interests of groups of fishermen over the years.

In St Julian's the fishermen of this once traditional fishing village have come under pressure from the tourism industry. First their boathouses were taken over and transformed into restaurants then the quays became promenades and spaces for outdoor restaurants. They have become guests in their own house restricted in the times they can bring a boat ashore for maintenance or repair, hassled for leaving tackle on the quay.

It is the same everywhere from Marsaskala to Mgarr. Fishermen are poorly organised and rarely unable to withstand the combined force of restaurateurs, the local council and the police. ironically their boats are icons par excellence of everything Maltese. Enter a souvenir shop and count how many separate items showing a Luzzu or a Dghajsa you can pick out in five minutes' browsing. It is hard to believe that anything so iconic is so heavily persecuted. the latest has been the takeover of the PO Customs Shed in Pieta with no alternative offered to boat owners.

The reasoning is that other businesses make more money. Nobody stops to consider that together the fishermen and boatman keep alive a feature which is absolutely essential for the "real" businessmen to make money.

The boats may be dead already although they last for long ages individually. When people like P give up or fail to pass on the skills they safeguard, the boats will be dead even if several examples remain. Every one that is left to rot on a quay is more than just one less if no new ones can be built.

For these boats to survive an economic justification must sustain them. What is the number of new constructions per year needed to keep the craft of boat building alive? Is there a demand for such a number? If not how can demand be increased and sustained in a permanent manner? can the MTA, local councils, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and all other responsible get together and form a binding policy to sustain the traditional boats? They need more than rhetoric. if the republic of Malta claimed a right to royalties for the use of any picture containing a traditional boat even if it meant collecting a fraction of one cent per postcard, significant funds could be found. If sponsors could be found to build a large Speronara, the link between Malta and the outside world for many centuries, it could be Malta's roving ambassador in the Mediterranean. Perhaps we can persuade one of our more affluent citizens to commission the construction of one of them for use as his yacht. Perhaps others can be persuaded to use a fregatina as a tender. How about a race between traditional crafts rigged with sails? Would they not make a fine start event to the Middlesea Race and other major nautical events?

My jigsaw puzzle is still far from taking shape but meeting P has been a special boost. Now how to link him with the friends I made in Cyprus who built a classic warship, with other groups seeking to safeguard their own nautical traditions around the Mediterranean and beyond, with the Cottonera waterfront project and with the Grand Harbour regeneration idea? Do the people very slowly rebuilding a Gozo ferry in Mgarr want to play a part? How can I find the time to get this thing together? Who can help?

Having a dream is great. It is even better when you find that it is shared. Who else has a passion for sailing, for sailing history, for our traditional boats?

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Fado

2007-10-02T17:47:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I enjoyed one of my privileges as Green Party leader attending on invitation the performance by Fado Singer Cristina Branca at the Manoel Theatre in Valletta. It was a magical evening of traditional Portuguese music courtesy of the Portuguese Embassy. Cristina’s passion for her craft is evident and it was not only her skill, her talent and the music that attracted the massive applause every time. She seemed to be responding to the place and the people. Had such music been hear in Pinto’s theatre? Was this an echo from a forgotten past? Did some in this audience have ancestors who were similarly enthralled centuries before?

Listening carefully one can make out some words in Portuguese if Italian and French are familiar. But not a lot more. I must have missed much and yet it seemed so familiar, like the sound of a language one knows well following the cadences one hears every dya. Perhaps this was part of the magic of Fado in Malta taking back its audience to a distant past which is still alive in us, a facet of our character we share with other Mediterraneans.

Between the songs Cristina spoke of destiny, that she felt like it had been her destiny to perform in Malta. She spoke of the mysticism of Fado. For those who had ears it was more than that: the easy assumption of ownership of a music which should be unfamiliar, it tells of origins distant in time and which none of us may ever fully explore. Here were the voices, the hearts and minds of peoples from every shore of the Mediterranean coming together to produce something at once beautiful and awesome, clearly antique and so very much alive.

Five Days of Blessed Nothing

2007-09-04T22:54:00.000+02:00

Once a year I sail away to Sicily with some friends. What we do there should be a great secret. We are sworn not to divulge any detail to our wives. In fact there is nothing to divulge to anyone except our growing expertise in il bel far niente.

The whole point is to get away from it all and do blessed nothing in good company for five days or so. I recommend it. Some drink, some don’t. Some wash with admirable scruple and others don’t bother. We are a tolerant crew.

For a while we are allowed to forget that we are husbands and fathers, that we have professional responsibilities: five men all over fifty leaving it all behind for a short while. On the eight hour passage out, everything is set right by the night sky: time and space regain their true meaning under an infinity of stars reflected in an endless sea. I enjoy my four hour watch: the sound of the wind in the sails and the sea rushing past.

Syracuse has become our home port away from home. We know what we want and where to find it: great restaurants and the open air market where we shop for our feast of fish and seafood. There are superb cooks among us.

On just one day we concede to tourism and have ourselves driven to some part of Sicily we have not yet visited. Nothing strenuous, no rush: a stroll here, a coffee there, sometimes a volcano, sometimes a temple, a lake or a forest. All viewed gently, with mild curiosity. If a plan has to be changed or simply goes phut, it’s never a tragedy.

In no time at all we must think of the return passage. Back to business but first the passage itself. Heeling over in bright sunshine doing a steady seven knots is nothing short of glorious. I could do that forever. The Sicilian coast disappears and then appears once more for a final farewell before the open sea.

The dolphins don’t seem to mind the loud music in the cockpit. They came to play in the bow wave this year also and turned the conversation to talk of their growing numbers and of whales in the Med. It’s not all melting icecaps.

Malta blazes its lights forty miles out to sea. I wonder what for. It seems very small indeed when one can make it out from end to end. In harbour the wind dies down, the boat sails on an even keel and the engine takes over. Five tanned and tired men disembark in various states of disarray and smugness. We’ve done it again. Back into the fray.

Politics Aborted

2007-08-28T21:03:00.000+02:00

Most days of the week I would find it hard to imagine what it would be like for me to be a woman. Tony Mifsud writing in The Sunday Times drove me to make the attempt. More than that he drove me to imagine what it would be like to be a woman considering abortion.

It must be said, with the greatest humilty of course, but no feat of my imagination could allow me to picture the female version of me making ship-to-shore phone calls to procure an abortion in international waters in Dr Gomperts ship patrolling off the Maltese coast to keep Tony Mifsud awake nights.

How could he think anything like that out loud? Write in beside the leading article in the Sunday Times? He very well knows that abortion is far more easily available to Maltese women in Sicily and in the UK combined with the privacy required to preserve appearances and our precious double standard. Who wanting an abortion would be so indiscrete as to give Dr Gomperts such a triumph and the Tony Mifsuds the resulting hue and cry? Unbelievable.

Raphael Vassallo’s crie de coeur in Malta Today for the establishment of a liberal lobby in Malta stands back to back with Tony Mifsud. And jolly good for him. Raphael made the clarion call and I hope that many will flock to his banner. Well a few at least.

The battle is joined but not on abortion. The issue is whether or not any Maltese citizen is free to hold opinions not made sacrosanct but the present political conjuncture. In fact anyone may spout anything but at the risk of being demonised by a provincial culture aided and abetted by blackmailed political parties.

Which brings me to the soul-searching political debate within the Greens of England and Wales on whether or not to appoint a party leader. There are political parties which are not into practical politics. Both sides of the debate have respectable arguments.

But politics is not theory alone. This is not an ideal world the rules of the game are not set by those with the highest democratic credentials nor do the people who vote have the time to analyse and weigh arguments to any significant depth. Politicians are shallow and politics is a virtual world because people do not have time for anything else. The politicians are simply meeting what little demand there is.

A party without a leader simply does not have a face. It has been possible for the GPE&W to carry on without one because they have not been a practical proposition in their mad first past the post electoral system and it may be a moot point whether appointing a leader will change much unless their country achieves a better level of democracy. For Greens in jurisdictions where they can achieve decisionmaking positions the risks to sainthood involved in playing the game are simply necessary.

Lobby groups without political savvy may be great fun but may be a great big useless merry-go-round if they do not have a target and the means to hit it. Our homegrown anti-abortionists have created their campaign out of nothing and made such a storm so early on that interest has now faded. Their focus on constitutional change has become a little suspect when there is so much to do in practical terms in protecting mothers, their unborn children and their offspring from the effects of pollution and sheer ignorance. Would it not make much better sense to have a wall-to-wall campaign to prevent spina bifida than to make such a hoo haa about constitutional change which will not prevent a single abortion?

Theoretical liberals are not much better. How, in the context of Maltese politics, will it help to theorise, flatter or condemn? Can either the blues or the reds be made to suffer from any pressure brought to bear by a liberal lobby? Only the Greens for not being as liberal as the lobby would like them to be in the most ideal of worlds? Now that sounds very clever indeed.

Sometime soon an election will be held in Malta. In fact there will be thirteen separate elections. It would be a real and remarkable change if the Greens achieved representation in one or more of these elections. It is possible. It takes just 2,800 votes from the 23,000 available in each district to make it happen.

Imagine that there would be no scope for any lobby group to make the unnecessary attempt to jam up the constitution because it would be politely turned down. Imagine that liberals have someone to develop citizens’ rights far and away from the fantapoltical abortion issue. It is far easier for me than to imagine phoning Dr Gomperts.

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Journey into the Unknown

2007-08-25T13:42:00.000+02:00

"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties". - Francis Bacon

This blog creates a space that didn't exist before where my public and private lives as well as all the people who relate to me in various ways will have a moment of exchange. This I find to be an awesome thought and I am in no way sure of what the outcome will be.

I know love, admire, envy, like and respect a huge variety of people whom I know in separate realities and truly wonder how they would relate to one another here. Add to these the people I will only meet through cyberspace and the possibilities can only be exciting.

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