With a little help from our friends

In the wake of the Electoral Commission’s decision to de-register more than 900 non-Maltese EU citizens Labour is offering help (please keep in mind that in the Electoral Commission Labour has representatives):

In another statement, the Labour Party said it was offering those whose name had been struck off the register its services.

The party would be launching an application in court on their behalf for their name to be reinstated in the register. The party said it was also offering its services to non-Maltese EU residents who had been struck off.

All people who had the right to vote should be given that right, the PL said.

Time do change, don’t they? Five years ago Labour, through the Electoral Commission, attempted to strike off the register the names of Maltese nationals. That the Court decided in favour of the voters should have come as no surprise not only in view of the Cassola decision in the previous year but that this time round, with Malta a member of the EU and this being a European election, Labour’s case was even weaker.

What says it all about the Party’s erratic approach is that non-sensical “all people who had the right to vote should be given the right to vote”. If you have something you do not need to have it given to you and possession of a constitutional right is determined by the Court. Not the PM and not the Labour Party.

How the Greens were “vindicated”

Remember when, following that Parliamentary debate where Joseph Muscat said he’d be ready to suspend Malta’s international obligations and use the veto at the EU level, Arnold Cassola came out saying that the Green Party’s position had been “vindicated”? Somebody asked what:

“We certainly were not referring to these [Muscat's] proposals. We abide by international rule of law. And the reason why we strongly support the Maltese government in its recent standoff with Italy and Maroni’s stupidities is because the Maltese government has the rule of law behind it.”

Even the Green-friendly MaltaToday journalist was perplexed:

So in what way was AD vindicated?

“It was a decent debate because MPs were coming up with proposals in a decent and civilized way and were largely going in the same direction. Certainly however, declaring that one will use the veto as an instrument whenever one does not agree with others does not work in politics. One can play the tough guy once but then the cry wolf syndrome will rebound on us.”

“Proposals” only came from Labour sides and, even then, they were either already being implemented, implied more or extended detention centres, breached international law or involve Malta acting as a jackass on the European stage. No bright ideas from the Government benches because all their speakers did was to defend the status quo.

So what makes Cassola feels vindicated? To him, MPs are acting “in a decent and civilised way” when they respect the convention to talk in turns. Nothing to do with threatening with failing people in danger at sea and acting like the representatives of a pariah state. That, needless to say, is a very low standard. By that token even Norman Lowell’s “Erga’ lura … wiehed. Erga’ lura … tnejn” qualifies as “decent and civilised”.

Get over it

Labour still cannot get over the fact that it lost the 2008 general election fair and square and instead it clings on silly hopes that hoaxes pandered by a man involved in a high profile bribery cars, whose story was believed, no questions asked, by the Deputy Leader of the Party.

The recent debate on the changes to the General Elections Act showed that it still hasn’t got over it. Joseph Muscat’s contribution to the debate dealt only briefly with the mechanism allowing for early voting; it was mostly anger that no moves were made to reassure Labour (no one else) that the names on the electoral register and those of people who have an unequivocal right to vote.

Here’s Maltastar:

Prime Minister Dr Lawerence Gonzi has failed to offer a reassurance that each person who is on the electoral list is eligible to vote.

Prime Minister Lawerence Gonzi was asked by maltastar.com whether he could offer a guarantee that each person who was eligible to vote for a General Election, instead he opted to discuss the proposed amendment on the General Election Act.

Pressed on to provide an answer on whether or not a person who has been living abroad for over two years without paying taxes in Malta was eligible to vote in General Elections, Prime Minister Gonzi said that anyone who had a doubt had to seek the judgment of the Court.

It did not cross the interviwer’s mind that the PM discussed the proposed amendment because that is what is on the table. Incidentally, Labour is not proposing anything of its own except the “no taxation without representation” criterion, one which would disenfranchise many who have always lived in Malta while leaving on the register many who have definitely left but who are still domiciled in Malta for tax purposes.

First things first. Anyone whose name appears in the electoral register has the right to vote. That judgement was handed by the Court in the Licari case. The constitutional qualifications (nationality, age residence, etc.) refer to inclusion in the electoral register not the right to vote. Inclusion in the electoral registered is what can be challenged meaning that, whoever voted in the 2008 election was perfectly entitled to do so.

But what about the electoral register? The PM can reasonably be asked for “guarantees” as much as the greengroced down the road. Elections in Malta are not run by the PM or the Minister of Home Affairs but by the Electoral Commission on which Labour not only has its representatives but, judging from the way electoral districts were last drawn, actually holds sway over proceedings. Instead of the PM Maltastar could have directed the question to the Labour-friendly Chief Electoral Commissioner and seen what reassurances he had to offer.

He’d probably offered none except, like the PM, recourse to the Courts. That’s what’s been happening for ages. Muscat complained that this was not fair: his Party is being told to take the matter to the Courts and when it does it is labelled undemocratic.

If you believe that’s a reasonable excuse think again. In the 2004 EP election Labour took many cases to court … and lost. It had not learnt the lesson, only a year before, that when the Court decided in the Cassola case that “residence” did not mean physical presence but a direct and continuous concern in political developments in the country. If Labour looked “undemocratic” it was not thanks to having brought cases after this judgement as much as having brought cases after this judgement which it was obviously set to lose. That’s actually worse that “undemocratic”, it’s plain nastiness.

Labour is in a quadranty. There will be no revisiting of the constitutional qualification and their clarification with the current attitude it is adopting. Amendments here require a two-thirds majority and they can forget that if they’re more into bridge-burning. On the other hand, they’ve been trying to shove the onus elsewhere. That that’s not getting it anywhere is obvious to everyone. Except Labour.

No EP election without nutters running

Compared to the 2004 EP election the political parties are offering tighter campaigns this time round. Thankfully, there’s still some offers outside the mainstream ranging from the eccentric to the creepy. Here’s Frank Portelli, Nationalist MEP candidate:

Nationalist candidate Frank Portelli said Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had clearly stated that, since European countries had exploited Africa in the past, Africans had a right to invade Europe and take back what was theirs.

Dr Portelli said Col Gaddafi had got it into his head he could turn Europe into a Muslim continent. The number of immigrant arrivals in Malta was higher than the number of births, so the word “invasion” was justified.

He said “it is not true there is poverty in Africa” but many African leaders were spending money on armaments and nuclear weapons rather than education.

Oh yes, that clip. There was a mini-stir in the letters page of the Times recently started off by someone who claimed that while “zapping” on the Internet he came across the video on “U-tube”. Someone writing later did notice that Gaddafi is not exactly the most accurate source of information (the Colonel thinks Albania is in the EU, for example) but we should panic nonetheless. Want to think that Gaddafi is to be taken seriously? Go ahead. Maroni did, despite four decades of hindsight, and now finds he has to pick on Malta to mitigate the damage.

But what is more worrying is the claim that that the number of immigrant arrivals in Malta is higher than the number of births. This urban legend was started off — to their eternal shame — by no less than the Emigrants Commission. Mgr Philip Calleja was reported to have said that he was only trying to “convince” Europe to take some of the burden, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was adopting the same vocabulary as National Action not to mention wrong figures. That an act of crass carelessness that put at risk the same people he’s trying to protect. That no newspaper was ever arsed to challenge Calleja (or Frank Portelli) and that the claim still gets a hearing goes to show that when people want to panic they’re not bothered with being discerning.

Portelli’s final claim does not merit much comment. Whatever could be said has already been said by James Debono. Just one thing: I’m still trying to think which African leader is spending money on “nuclear weapons” when even Gaddafi has given up on that.

Let’s act even more like headless chickens

The EP election is close so the story that the European Socialists and European Greens successfully pushed through an amendment to Simon Busuttil’s report that proposed granting voting rights to immigrants in local elections just won’t die.

Let’s start with where Simon Busuttil got it wrong:

Nationalist MEP Simon Busuttil said today that the issue of voting rights for migrants was crucial for Malta because the country could not afford to give such rights to the 5,200 immigrants currently living here.

“This is one of the red lines that we cannot cross,” Dr Busuttil said at a press conference, pointing out that the last general election was decided by a mere 1,500 votes.

Here’s what’s written in the text adopted (translation mine):

32. [...] invites member states to facilitate the system of support to civil society in the process of integration, permitting the presence of migrants in the political and civil life of the host society, their membership in political parties and union and to give them the right to vote in local elections;

Busuttil’s fears that a general election can be decided by the immigrant vote in Marsa and Hal Far rather than the expat vote in Brussels and Luxembourg are unfounded.

There is, however, something which Busuttil got right. He criticised the European Socialists and the European Greens reminding that the Maltese Labour Parties and Maltese Green Parties are members respectively. Which shows in what esteem the European organisations in question hold their national outfits.

This is incidentally a repeat of what happened in the 2004 EP election. Busuttil said the European Green Party was pro-abortion. He did not say the Maltese Greens were pro-abortion; he was making the perfectly valid point that, even if the post of Secretary-General of the European Greens was Arnold Cassola, the Maltese party had very little power in determining Party policy.

That should have been plain obvious to everyone. Except for a raving mad Harry Vassallo who hastily called a press conference in front of the Hamrun Police Station saying that he was not only instituting libel proceedings against Busuttil, he was instituting criminal libel. That turned out to be little more that pre-electoral drama for when the case was called after the election it fell through … because Vassallo did not bother to turn up. When some years later the subject came up on television Vassallo could be heard to explain from his foaming mouth that he wasn’t there because for the case of the century which could have been the first time when a Maltese politician end behind bars … he was late.

Back to 2009. Cassola accuses the Nationalists for making a “partisan issue” out of immigration. Really? It has been so for a couple of months and it seems only the Greens have failed to notice. But here’s Cassola:

“It is easy but also dishonest to selectively interpret a complex and highly important EP vote. The PN’s unnecessary alarm about voting rights for legal, registered and regular migrants is simply a populist vote-catching attempt which dangerously fans the flames of xenophobia, fear and racism.

“The right to vote, according to this document, is being proposed for regular migrants at local council level only, and not to irregular immigrants.”

Oh, the Nationalists are selectively interpreting “a complex and highly important EP vote”? There were no scruples whenever the Greens quoted the Friends of the Earth scoreboard on how European parties vote in the EP on environmental matters. No questions asked then because the Greens are not only morally superior but also intellectually superior.

Cassola is trying a fine balancing act here, on one hand using the politically correct term “irregular immigrant” and on the other trying to convince himself and others that there’s something illegal about immigrants who have been given refugee or humanitarian status. A Somali who enters Malta on a boat may have entered the country illegally. But once he applies and is granted humanitarian status he legal in terms of the Geneva Convention and the Maltese Refugees Act. He cannot be detained, he cannot be deported and he also has the right to move freely and to work. For the simple reason that his stay in Malta is now legal.

Dream on, Tonio

I honestly tried, on a number of occasions, to put my finger on what’s wrong with Tonio Borg the politician. He seems to live in some sort of bubble which keeps him from seeing the stark obvious making some unbelievable errors of judement. Take this:

The minister said the United Nations High Commission for Refugees was reviewing its list of countries deemed to be dangerous and once Somalia was taken off that list it would be easier for Malta to repatriate Somalis arriving here.

Har, har. What leads the Minister to think that Somalia, deemed the most dangerous place in the world by the UN’s humanitarian supremo, could be removed from the list? And here’s the question Thermidor regularly ask: who’ll fly the plane to Mogadishu? Notice, I’m not asking about the safety of the immigrants, I know that making an appeal to such sentiments does not get you far with the Maltese. I’m well aware of the hypocrisy of many European states who warn their nationals against traveling to the country but deport Somalis to less dangerous but restive parts of Somalia like Somaliland. When it comes to immigrants we have shown ourselves capable of worse.

I only hope that that AirMalta pilot will read this (by Pekka Haavisto, representative of the Finnish government, who recently visited the Somali city):

A plane carrying US Congressman Donald Payne was fired on at Mogadishu Airport by insurgents on the day after my departure. Payne was unhurt, but some Somalis living nearby were killed by stray mortar fire.

At last … a rowdy Parliamentary sitting

There has just been a rowdy session in Parliament while Joseph Muscat was intervening in the debate on the amendments to the General Elections Act which would allow people who’ll be abroad on polling day to vote a week beforehand.

Soon after the start of this legislature a Select Committee was set up. It was grandiosly called the Select Committee on Democratic Change. From the onset I thought one shouldn’t hold much hope. First, because previous committees and commissions with similar but less ambitious briefs failed or succeeded only marginally. Second, with Anglu Farrugia being the most senior nominee for the Opposition on the committee you can’t really expect much, can you?

Muscat is asking why the Government is not running these proposals by this Committee. His Party’s earlier proposal, to fly a ballot box to Cyprus so that athletes participating in the Small Nations Games on polling day, did not come with such a requirement. Not only, the “early vote” proposal would only be considered if it is part of a package of changes. Those who are still star-struck after Muscat raised the expectations so high in the beginning could do well to realise that these are none other than Labour’s usual paranoid gripes about ways and means the Nationalists “steal” elections.

Take this bit of obsessive control freakery:

How was it that people could declare they would be away just 12 hours before early voting? This would not give enough time for verification. Making a sworn declaration was not enough. Voters should be required to produce their air ticket and they should be required to produce evidence, once they were back in Malta, that they had really been abroad.

Furthermore, one could have a situation where a person declared he would be going abroad, but did not go abroad and had a choice of voting either early or on polling day proper. This was not right. Persons who applied for early voting should lose the right to vote on polling day proper.

Can anyone make sense? Muscat is complaining that I can take and oath and within 12 hours I can cast an early vote. Then, within the week until the vote proper I decide not to go abroad (which decision could be for the most justifiable reasons imaginable). What does Muscat find objectionable in such a scenario?

He doesn’t consider that but moves on to list the usual stuff:

In order to clamp down on abuses, particularly the stories he had heard of ‘bullying’ by the government/PN at St Vincent de Paule Home (interruptions), voting should also take place early to ensure there was proper monitoring, not by pro-government workers, but by staff selected by the Electoral Commission.

Got that? “Stories he had heard”. Like Anglu Farrugia’s urban legends told to him by someone who acted as a go-between between a drug trafficker and a bribed judge and which the Deputy Labour Leader felt he could believe. And here’s more “stories”:

Flight arrangements should start being made early for voters who needed to be flown in from abroad, so that one would no longer have situations where some people did not find seats. Flight arrangements should henceforth not be made by Air Malta, but by the Electoral Commission. Would the government take up this challenge? (interruptions). After all Air Malta was headed by a person who formed part of the PN strategy group. There were stories in the past where persons were told there were no places on the planes, only for seats to be found after a phone call from the PN.

And then, not for the first time, it gets totally unfocussed:

Dr Muscat said that while the government was amending the Electoral Law, nothing was being said on how the sixth European Parliament seat would be allocated once it became available to Malta. The opposition would not accept a situation of having the appointment made behind the scenes or by Parliament. What the Opposition wanted and was proposing, was that the sixth candidate who got most votes at the last count and failed to get elected would be allocated the sixth seat once this became available.

That conveniently ignores that, with the same number of valid votes, more seats means a lower quota means a different result. In the last EP election the unsucessful candidate with most votes in the last count was Arnold Cassola. But had the quota been calculated on six MEPs instead of five the sixth MEP would not have been Cassola but Joanna Drake who would have benefitted from larger vote surpluses from Simon Busuttil and David Casa.

The usual tirade against voters abroad had to feature:

Dr Muscat said he was challenging the government to declare that all those who voted at the last general election met the appropriate residency requirements and had not been abroad (interruptions). The fact was that there was no verification method and no guarantee could, therefore, be given. (interruptions, Speaker calls for calm).

As Tonio Borg pointed out, the law offers a remedy. That Labour did not choose to apply it is its problem. First, because unlike the long queue at Mile End to join the suit against the Government on car registration tax it would be bad publicity. Secondly, because after the failure of Labour and its representatives in the Electoral Commission to strike off Cassola’s name from the electoral register in 2003 it is even less likely that the Court would upheld such a plea in 2009.

Muscat has a solution which, as usual, is inane:

With regard to right to vote by people who were abroad, the Opposition based itself on the principle of taxation with representation – the eligible voters should be those who paid tax in Malta, with some exceptions for students and those doing voluntary work abroad.

Oh yes, “taxation with representation”. Does he mean that foreign nationals who pay tax in Malta will get to vote? Does it mean that Maltese nationals who do not pay income tax because their income is within the tax free bracket lose their right?

Now let’s all act like headless chickens

After successfully standing up to Italy over the 150 migrants stranded off Lampedusa it’s now time for all those particular symbolic acts the Maltese are known for to show that we stand our ground now and forevermore.

I’m not referring here to the Times commenter who said that the Maltese should boycott pizzas — like the Capricciosas we eat are flown straight from Rome. No, it’s the Maltese MEPs voting against an amendment supported by the European Socialists and the European Greens to a report authored by Simon Busuttil which recommends giving the vote to all immigrants in local council elections.

In case you didn’t know EU nationals resident in Malta can already exercise this right. But we won’t let the residents in the Marsa Open Centre anywhere close to a polling station. No sir. In case they all decide to vote for the National Action candidate and overturn the Labour majority in the locality. Or worse still they’ll get attached to voting for the local council so much they wouldn’t want to leave not only for greener pastures.

Don’t think that’s too far fetched: Malta’s veto prevented a proposal from becoming European law which would have given immigrants freedom of movement within the entire EU. Reason being that we weren’t ready to give them more rights even if it were one which would have allowed them to leave the country to take up residency legally elsewhere.

They’ll be given the vote in local elections? Why should we care? Judging from the comments in the Times just in case we’re seen as conceding something even if it’s totally worthless.

With friends like these

Yesterday I quoted an Italian Senator for the Northern League who described that what Roberto Maroni had said on international obligations on rescue at sea was “sacrosant”. And to ensure that he’s heading straight in the direction of “santo subito” Maroni has already performed his first miracle that’s in the same league as in the multiplication of loaves: a standoff over 150 immigrants has become a question of long-standing recriminations over no less than 40,000 immigrants which, over the yeas were rescued in Malta’s SAR but proximity meant they were taken to Italy. Here’s San Roberto Maroni:

The Corriere della Sera says that Mr Maroni is also claiming that Malta failed to intervene 600 times in cases involving migrants at sea.

The newspaper says the most serious spat between the two countries took place last month when the frigate Minerva carrying 76 migrants rescued “in Maltese waters” was not allowed to disembark the migrants in Malta and had to take them to Sicily.

It says that Italy had on several occasions accused Malta of having directed migrants’ boats towards Sicily, going back to 2004. It had not intervened 600 times, and as a result, Italy had to receive 40,000 immigrants who should have been taken in by Malta.

One improvement of the Gonzi-II cabinet over its predecessor was that Tonio Borg was taken off Home Affairs and given the Ministry of Foriegn Affairs. A largely ceremonial portfolio these days thanks to EU membership, Borg can be crediting with his predecessor’s “Arabisation” of Maltese foreign affairs. Then again, that’s no big deal and the man should really get ut of his bubble.

“A dispute between friends” he described the latest spat. Had Maroni been a friend he would have discreetly sent a note of protest through the Italian ambassador to Palazzo Parisio and asked the European Commission to help negotiate some clear rules all can agree to so that any disputes between friends would not boil over. He didn’t. Instead he tried to shame us with whatever he could lay his hands on and put it in a dossier. I’m liking Carm Mifsud-Bonnici with every passing day. Here’s him telling Maroni where to shove his wretched dossier … and, indirectly, Tonio Borg his “friendly dispute”:

“Mr Maroni can prepare as many dossiers as he likes. We are small and it’s very easy to perform an audit of what we’ve done in this case. But other larger countries should be subject to the same audits that we are subjected to,” Dr Mifsud Bonnici said.

“If there is anyone who expects Malta to take illegal immigrants that are his responsibility, he can forget it,” the minister said.

The current Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security is a Frenchmen. Yes, he’s from that country Joseph Muscat suggested we snub by vetoing the Immigration and Asylum Pact at the European Council it was presiding. We didn’t follow Muscat’s advice and here’s what Commissioner Jacques Barrot had to say on the standoff:

Barrot was quoted as saying by Agence Europe that he was delighted that the migrants were safe but the problem remained in that, within the European Union, there had to be much more effective solidarity.

[...]

The commissioner said he did not want to blame anybody over the standoff but international maritime law stated that those at risk of shipwreck had to be taken to the nearest port with acceptable conditions for receiving them.

Now doubt in his mind who was right and who was wrong. Now that is what I call a friend.

Coda: Jacques says that I try to “deverdate” the Greens. Nice verb (next time I’ll sign as “Agent Orange”) and it’s a charge to which I gladly plead guilty. Which I why I can’t resist noting Jürgen Balzan, former Deputy Secretary-General of the Green Party, saying that he’s ashamed of Gonzi, Muscat, being Maltese and even being from a country that’s close to Italy. He does not seem to be ashamed of being previously associated with a Party that told the Maltese government to stand firm in the stand-off with Maroni. Of course not: if there is indeed a xirka tal-qaddisin the Greens will be there along with Maroni.

How to make friends and influence people

Between the 27 and 28 of April the General Affairs and External Relations Council, bringing together the EU’s 27 Ministers of Foreign Affairs, will be meeting in Luxembourg. Expect Italian Minister Franco Frattini to raise the matter of the standoff with the Maltese authorities over the MV Pinar.

As always, we start as a disadvantage. No, there is no “international media conspiracy” to single out Malta and giving her more punishment than she deserves. It’s simply that our voice is not so easily heard (unless we’re making complete fools of ourselves and what we say becomes newsworthy all for the wrong reasons).

You only have to check out how a supposedly impartial source like the BBC reported the matter. Comments from the Italian authorities are everywhere and their interpretation of international law is nowhere questions. None from the Maltese authorities are reported except to say that Malta insisted that the immigrants be taken to the nearest safe port “which it says is Lampedusa” like there could be any doubt that 41 nautical miles are less than 114 nautical miles. So Tonio Borg better know how to make friends.

That conclusion would be too obvious to merit a blog post. But that’s not the point. It’s precisely that it’s not obvious to Joseph Muscat and the Labour Party. While the standoff was on he was saying that this indicated that the “action plan” he had put forward was necessary, oblivious to the fact that if Malta had a leg to stand on it was that it was right as per international law.

No, it wasn’t the “we’re full” number which is, by the way, the argument brought up by an Italian Senator from Lampedusa on why the immigrants should have been taken by Malta (after describing what Maroni said as “sacrosanct” — should we expect “Maroni santo subito” next?). Because if Malta can suspend its international obligations there’s no reason why Italy shouldn’t be allowed to join the fun.

But something else will be at stake at the Council of Minister’s meeting next week. If anyone recalls that the end of the French Presidency of the EU Muscat had said that the Government should veto the Immigration and Asylum Pact as it required burden-sharing of immigrant arrivals only on a voluntary basis. Can you imagine the repercussions on the upcoming meeting had we done that?

Think about the French. Sarkozy gives the impression that he’s a man with a long political memory and one who does not forgive easily. Can you imagine if we had vetoed the conclusions of his otherwise very successful Presidency.

Do you think Bernard Kouchner who, incidentally was a co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières with whom we have just had a not-very-amicable fallout, would have been offering much sympathy next week to our Tonio Borg while Franco Frattini went on demonising the Maltese Government and asking that all Italian Ministers be canonised en masse?

And that’s just the French. The other countries have no reason not to think that we’re acting like spoilt brats who only want to have their way. We have a history of acting like that and the latest would only be a confirmation.

Standoff resolved

The standoff between Malta and Italy over which port the Turkish ship should be allowed to enter has been resolved:

The Turkish-owned boat which has been stranded with a number of illegal immigrants between Malta and Lampedusa since Thursday is being allowed to enter an Italian port.

[...]

The incident has been the cause of a diplomatic battle between Malta and Italy with both countries refusing to allow the boat to enter their country. Italy argued that the immigrants were found in Malta’s search and rescue area and Malta said that the closest safe port was Lampedusa. The immigrants were taken on board the Turkish owned ship 45 miles off Lampedusa and 112 miles off Malta.

International law has been upheld and, as happens when the rule of law is repected, it is not the party with higher firepower (Italy) that got its way but the party that was right (Malta). Having won the battle on the international front the government should move for the proverbial kill on the domestic theatre. It should remind Labour that had international obligations been suspended as per its “action plan” those immigrants would have by now been at Hay Wharf.

And not to forget a good-dressing down of the Greens’ Cassola who saw it fit to remind us that the Italian Minister for Home Affairs is “a member [sic] of the right-wing Lega Nord party, well known for its xenophobic and racist attitudes, and he was taking such a stance because of the upcoming EP elections” while his reaction to the debate in Parliament was that his Party’s position had been “vindicated”. If we’re free to speculate that Maroni’s stance was taken because of the upcoming EP elections can’t we say that Cassola’s is determined by the hope of some koalizzjoni with Labour come next general election?

Standoff at the Freeport

Hats off to di-ve’s Vanessa MacDonald for offering some sober commentary on the standoff between the GWU and the Freeport management. In her latest installment she reminds foreign trade unions on the GWU’s bandwagon that the Malta Dockers’ Union (MDU) is a legitimate trade union too (although, in actual fact, “foreign trade unions” sounds more like this one representative of the Merseyside TUC, someone who ate greasy kirxa with Tony Zarb).

MacDonald also wrote an article on what’s at stake for the GWU at the Freeport. How’s the situation panning our for the Union? In an interview in which he claims that (pace Toni Abela) the Union still cannot forgive President of the Republic George Abela for falling out with the GWU and help create the MDU, Tony Zarb claims that there is a “movement intended to destroy the GWU”. But why would anyone want to do that when the GWU is so able at digging its own grave?

It does so with the way out it has proposed to this impasse: a secret ballot (it now seems that not even the GWU finds its “secret ballot” — which was as “secret” as a show box in a street gets and which is what the GWU is basing its claims on — credible). Now think of it: if union recognition and representation at the place of work were determined by a secret ballot what incentive for workers would there be to become members of a Union? Forcing them to do it through the “closed shop” method?

Can anyone make sense of this?

Here’s Roberto Maroni over the standoff between Italy and Malta. As it starkly shows the man for the bonehead that he is so I’ll also quote the original:

“C’e’ oggi un dispositivo – ha spiegato Maroni – che consente a Malta di scaricare sull’Italia le responsabilita’ che sono sue nel soccorso degli immigrati.

Finora lo abbiamo fatto ma continuo a chiedere a Malta di assumersi le responsabilita’ che ha e che, fino ad oggi, non si sono assunti dopo aver firmato accordi internazionali”.

Translation (mine):

“Today there is a mechanism — Maroni explained — that permits Malta to unload on Italy responsibilities which are hers when it comes to rescuse of immigrants

So far we have done it but I continue to ask to Malta to assume the responsibilities that she has and that, to date, they have not assumed after having signed international accords”.

So there is a “mechanism” — which presumably is part of international law — which allows Malta to shirk from responsibilities which are hers in terms of … er, international law? And, according to Maroni, Malta has “signed international accords” (like the Maltese were that stupid) which gives it responsibility to take in whoever is rescued in its search and rescue zone. And what happened to the “mechanism”? Can’t the man even remember what he said in the previous sentence?

Standoff

As I write some 150 immigrants, rescued at sea, are on a Turkish vessel just outside Italian territorial waters. The immigrants were rescued from two boats in the Maltese search and rescue (SAR) area and the instructions from Maltese rescue coordination was for the ship to proceed to the nearest safe haven as per international law. This was — unequivocally — Lampedusa. But the Italians are refusing the ship to land even though there are injured people and a pregnant women amongst the immigrants.

The man behind all this is Italian Minister of Home Affairs, Roberto Maroni. The man is as stupid as he looks and, as is often the case with people like him, talks more than he should and what listeners can reasonably be expected to suffer. Here’s what he said:

[...] Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni this morning accused Malta of not taking its responsibilities on migration and instead dumping the migrants on Italy.

In tough language, Minister Maroni said that relations between Malta and Italy had taken a bad turn recently over this issue and said that he has asked EU Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot to intervene and convince Malta to assume its responsibilities.

[...]

‘The areas related to the responsibility of search and rescue are well defined but in many cases Malta is not intervening, leaving this responsibility to Italy. Last year we had to do this 80 times. I have now referred the issue to the EU to make sure that who has the responsibility does his duty. If not we should change the rules,” Minister Maroni said.

“Change the rules”? Isn’t that an admission that, under the current regime, he’s wrong? Some months ago I wrote that if international law is suspended the weak suffer. Which means Malta in the case of a standoff between us and one of our neighbours. Some time later there was an incident similar to the one we’re witnessing now involving immigrants rescued in Malta’s (SAR) but with Lampedusa being the closest port. That on that occasion the Maltese Government only had its way because what it insisted on was what was to be done according to international law. All this while facing an Italian warship.

Meanwhile, Labour is telling us that “the standoff between Malta and Italy confirmed the need for the plan of action proposed by the Labour Party”. If I remember correctly that “plan of action” proposed the suspension of international law. Which is what Italy wants to do right now. Incidentally, Maroni is not only stupid and loud-mouthed, he also sports a moustache. Had he been Maltese he’d be a Deputy Leader with the Maltese Labour Party.

Update: James Debono makes the same point on suspension of international law obligations. He drifts off course when he says “the least willing to help us are those governments held at ransom by anti immigrant parties” and that “Ironically [sic] those led by EPP parties are the least sympathetic to our cause”. Left-wing government have not been very helpful either (and, in all fairness, I wouldn’t expect, say, Zapatero’s government, with immigration problems of its our own, to be able to offer much help) and the little relief Malta has received were from countries like France and the Netherlands both governed by the centre-right. The centre-left, as is often the case, can only be counted on for moral posturing.

Meanwhile, the 150 plus immigrants and still stranded somewhere off Lampedusa.

The Reverend is back to his senses

Last week I commented on Rev. Joe Borg’s column on the Times. My theory is that Lenten abstinence clouded his judgment (not only his but of many other co-believers), leading him to think that Lenten sacrifice “flies in the face of the current belief in self and instant gratification”. That’s right folks. All non-believers, gluttons and fornicators to the last man, are all of one mind and one opinion.

There’s one thing I didn’t mention last time. I still appreciate as a child being told not to eat sweets no a Good Friday so as to remember that there were many children my age who did not get enough food to eat let alone any goodies. Borg’s reason for self-mortification are that the person who “live[s] only for himself and exploit[s] all life’s possibilities for personal gain finds that life itself becomes boring and empty because it becomes senseless”. Borg’s critique of all the hedonism he imagines around him turns out to be as self-centred as the caricature he paints of those who do not share his beliefs.

It seems that after Easter Borg, eating as much as he should eat, regained some perspective. He writes about his experience in a home for the elderly and concludes “Some people tend to romanticise old age. I definitively do not!”. Only a week before he was romanticising sacrifice that served no end, instrumental or symbolic, and implied that it was meaningful.

Not that there are no lapses of judgment:

There are more families affected by this [old age] than there are families affected by drug abuse or alcoholism. This notwithstanding, the drug and alcohol problems are present on the national agenda more than issues that have to do with old people. The number of homosexuals is definitively smaller than the number of old men and women. However, homosexuality is present on the media more than old age.

A number of factors explain this. I think that drugs and homosexuality can be dramatised and/or glamorised more than old age, consequently the media projects the former much more than it does the latter. The gay lobby, for example, is quite strong and vociferous. It is not too difficult for it to have its voice heard. On the other hand there is no lobby for and of the Third Agers.

First, note the subtle association by proximity between drugs, alcohol and homosexuality. Second, no lobby for Third Agers? The Hon. Mario Galea is Parliamentary Secretary for the Elderly and Community Care. He works in close proximity with the Minister of Social Policy and sits on Cabinet holding a brief exclusively for Third Agers.

Now, will the Rev. Joe Borg tell us who’s Parliamentary Secretary for Gay Affaris?

Wake up and smell the (organic) coffee

As usual, James Debono is spot on when it comes to analysing what’s at stake for those who are not his political bedfellows. I had already posted, elsewhere and on another occasion, that in the coming EP election the performance bar will be lowest for the Nationalists and the claims to victory can be justified if they even manage to hold to their abysmal 2004 which, it ought to be remembered, was followed by a general election victory four years later. Debono gives the prequel to that on how it could come around the second time (and the 2004/2008 cycle playing itself out again) thanks to a high abstention rate.

Now, to the other side of the coin. It is with equal certainty that one can say that Debono is wrong when he’s analysing the fortunes of those with whom he shares things political. Ok, he does make the correct observation that playing to Nationalist disenchantment was the Greens’ greatest strategic mistake post-2004. But consider this:

In their obsession to remain politically neutral (which translates in most cases in associating with everyone except with the Green Party), many green NGOs seem to forget that their newly acquired power came from the latent electoral threat posed by Alternattiva Demokratika. Would the PN have re-invented itself as a green blue party before 2008 had AD not existed? The answer is a definite no.

Now the PN has gone one step ahead by proposing Alan Deidun — a foremost critic of MEPA’s follies — as one of its candidates. Despite being a very nice and respectable guy, Deidun has absolutely no chance of being elected. He was only fielded to compete with AD and give his adoptive party a green wash. If AD does badly and Deidun is not elected-the ultimate result will be a weakened environmental lobby.

Let’s start with the “definite no” answer Debono gives to the question whether the Nationalists would have gone greener “before 2008″ had the Greens not been around to skim off some of their votes. The Nationalists were greener for some time before 2008.

My contention is that the most environmentalist government we ever had in Malta was the Nationalist administration of 1992-96. On taking office in 1992 the Nationalists could not have been troubled by any Green Party threat thanks to the fact that they had been voted in office with the greatest margin a government has ever been re-confirmed. And if that same environmentalism was important in its defeat in 1996 it wasn’t because the voters, on that occasion, drifted in the direction of the Green Party.

This is not quibbling about a detail. In 1996 environmentalism proved to be more of a political liability than an asset. Thirteen years later that may no longer be the case but its lobbyists definitely seem to have grown more astute and are associating with those who matter. That that does not include the Green Party may be a gamble but certainly not one taken by political illiterates. The way things might turn out the EP election of 2009 might be remembered as the one in which the Maltese Green Party entered into a terminal decline.

They went through a local council cycle in which they lost three councillors (including the politically important Birkirkara). They got nowhere close in a general election without an overarching theme like EU membership. And if polls are to be believed, they risk making their 2004 “success” look like little more than beginners’ luck.

I started off by saying that in the EP election the bar stands lowest for the Nationalist Party; I can now say that it stands highest for the Greens. How they perform this time (and, may the psephologist add, in the local council elections for Birkirkara and Lija) will determine their future.

Malta’s leftist jamboree

Ever so often the Maltese left (a very nominal left and a flag of convenience, mind you) lies on its back and cries “Somebody come tickle me!” in the form of a seminar organised by the Youth Section of the GWU. “What’s Left“, brings together the Union youths, the Labour and the Green Parties, the people behind the publication of the Communist Party and other organisations.

There’s usually not much to note on the seminar. I suppose participants get a kick in thinking they have more political friends and they get to enjoy the swell feeling of being all smart and radical. Beyond that there’s not much to comment about. Whine about, perhaps. In a country where a main Union owns a mass-circulation daily and whose “ex-spouse” (still on amicable terms) owns a national TV and a radio station plus a weekly and news portal someone at the seminar still felt he had to complain about the media’s failure to cover properly new related to industrial relations.

This year there was a little bit more substance to allow one to get his teeth into. It was the story that the GWU’s industrial action at the Malta Freeport has earnt it a € 1 million garnishee order from the Courts. Now at a GWU seminar that might sound a bit self-serving but, never mind. It might be worth to go over the points of this story. The GWU claimed it had regained the members it had lost at the Port to the Malta Dockers Union (MDU) which would have granted it recognition. The Director of Industrial Relations interviewed the workers in question and determined that the MDU still had a majority.

The GWU then proceeded to organise a “secret ballot” which, as the article and photo in the Indy indicate, was about as “secret” as a shoe box in the street can get. The exercise was so ludicrous the Communist Party paper Zminijietna, a participant at the seminar, came out asking for a “secret ballot”, oblivious to the fact that their hosts had already organised one.

Well, surprise, surprise the GWU caim out claiming victory. No conflict of interest involved, hand on heart and promise to Jesus. So industrial actions were organised at the Freeport which, coming from a Union not having recognition, is considered to be illegal. Hence the garnishee order.

Probably so as not to be considered a waste of time, participants went around looking for “solutions”. The garnishee order must be weighting on the Union’s big chest big time because rather than the gung-ho attitude which got the Union where it is, it was the victim “we do not get enough coverage” mindset which was speaking.

One was that government should cease being a “spectator” and get involved in arbitration. These people don’t seem to get that, as far as industrial relations go, the Director of Industrial Relations is the government. Labour’s Deputy Leader went one further: to get newly appointed President George Abela to arbitrate. Funny, it wasn’t ages ago that Abela, after being sidelined by the GWU, took up the case of the MDU and was its first legal adviser.

That was the first in what turned out to be a massive fall-out between the Qormi lawyer and the Union. Just in case anyone has already forgotten, just before his appointment as President George Abela won a libel case at the GWU’s expense over a press release the Union issued in 2006 on a court case wehre Abela was defending Josephine Attard-Sultana, a former GWU official who, like him, was unceremoniously sidelined.

The proposal surprised me. There’s a plethora of methods to arbitrate on this matter from the industrial tribunal to the arbitration centre. And not to forget the Courts. The proposal to have the President take a personal interest, when the person in question is probably not exactly well-liked in the GWU, boggles the mind. Just dumb or a way of pre-empting a possible unfavourable outcome?

Choices we make

The Governor of the Central Bank of Malta has commented on kick-starting the economy:

An increase in public investment should be preferred to lower taxation or higher benefits, should the government be considering a new economic stimulus, the Governor of the Central Bank has argued.

“An increased stimulus in the form of lower taxation or higher social benefits is not as cost effective as an increase in public investment expenditure. The latter is to be preferred since it tends to generate a smaller demand for imports, while raising the economy’s potential output,” Michael J. Bonello wrote in the Bank’s annual report.

He also insisted that fiscal prudence remains necessary to safeguard both Malta’s credit rating and investor confidence.

That should have been pretty obvious: political choices are always made at the expense of others. It’s only in Labour’s dream world that a government can, for example, increase benefits, slash energy prices, refund VAT on cars even if the courts deem the practice to have been legal and cut taxes while denigrating the Government because its response to the crisis has been proposing more capital projects and fiscal discipline.

Note also the Governor’s point on the fact that directly splashing out cash generates a greater demand for imports. Put crudely that means that the Maltese Government will be subsidising other countries’ economies. And the issue of safeguarding investor confidence. Can anyone put a price tag on that these days?

Fellow blogger Andrew Sciberras notes that tax cuts versus higher spending may very well be what will set apart the European Socialists and the People’s Party at a European level but then hangs on to little more than hope that Joseph Muscat will be able to defy not economics but simple logic and offer both. And considering that bounties will abound, we’ll probabl also get them on a silver platter.

Muscat has not learnt the lesson from 1996 when Labour offered a populist promise of less tax and — here’s the cliché — “putting money in people’s pockets” and then discovering it could not live up to that when faced with the realities of office. That may have given Labour an unexpected electoral victory and two years of government … followed by fifteen years of opposition. You campaign in poetry, Hilary Clinton is once repurted to have said, but you govern in prose.

Religious versus Secular

Ranier Fsadni was commenting on the new President’s decision to include mass in the official programme of his appointment and the subsequent reaction of the media which asked if the President’s decision was wise considering that he’s there to represent all Maltese.

I won’t go into this particular decision. What’s of greater interest to me is the conclusion to Fsadni’s article:

One is a narrowing religious vision to be increasingly found among Maltese Catholics: increasingly sectarian behaviour whose consequence is that, whenever somebody declares his or her Catholicism publicly, others wonder if it is a sectarian gesture rather than the address from which one reaches out to everyone.

The other is a narrow vision of what secularism is. Instead of keeping up with the thinking of leading secular philosophers, like Juergen Habermas, who believe that a 21st-century liberal society should have place for believers who use religious language to engage in the public sphere, regrettably too much of Maltese secular thinking tends to be stuck with nervous complexes like those of unreconstructed 1920s Turkish secularism.

However subtly, Fsadni is placing the blame for the state of affairs on the “secular thinkers”: they’re the ones who think that a public act of attending Mass is “sectarian” and they’re the one whose idea of secularism is some sort of re-hashed Kemalism.

Fsadni’s article come soon after a recent story I commented on about an American priest who, while obviously knowing zilch about Maltese constitutional affairs, was brought over to support the campaign to entrench the right to life from conception.

Let’s go over the facts again because they assume new importance in this context. A pro-life organisation which has regularly claimed that it is not a religious organisation (presumably, to reach out to pro-life non-believers) invites a priest from the developed country that’s been hardest racked by cultural wars to talk in favour of its campaign. Significantly, which metaphor does this priest find handy to describe what he came to speak in favour for? Raising fortifications. Can you imagine anything more sectarian than wall-building?

Or, to keep with the today’s theme, here Rev. Joe Borg in his online column in the Times:

What Christ says flies in the face of the current belief in self and instant gratification. Christ’s message is clearly that the person who wants to live only for himself and exploit all life’s possibilities for personal gain finds that life itself becomes boring and empty because it becomes senseless.

“Self and instant gratification”? I quote Rev. Borg, by the way, not becuase his views are atypical but precisely because he’s the most media-literate and one of the most articulate members of the Maltese clergy.  If I were to look around me I see people reducing whatever they consume be it as a way to cope with the recession, save for their retirement or their children, for the sake of the environment or the Third World … you name it. They might find it gratifying but it’s anything but “self” or “instant”. But caricaturing the “other” is another typical way of creating sectarian divides where none need to be.

We do not need a culture war. But some believers are all out to provoke one. Why they should want to is beyond me because these people always have their way: those who ridicule their faith get arrested, divorce is off the agenda and our law on assisted reproduction will have the Vatican’s nihil obstat written over it. There’s no risk that the prohibition on abortion be repealed? These people still want to provoke and gloat about the fact that they always have it their way so they want the matter entrenched.

Here’s my hunch: some people just love playing persecuted and martyrs, preferably without the blood and the gore. I understand and fully sympathise with people who make sacrifices: whether if it’s for their future, their children, their environment and even if it’s for symbolic and spiritual reasons as many believers will do today. What I don’t understand or find favour with is the people who take pleasure in voluntary self-sacrifice because it sets them apart from others and occasionally meting some of that to unwilling participants. Which, incidentally, has a name: sado-masochism.

The siege mentality

Thanks to Homer, in the West we have two prevailing metaphors for life: one which sees it as a siege, the other as a journey. Needless to say, the former is the prevalent Maltese weltanshauung due, certainly, to the country’s history.

Which, however, also has a seductive power on outsiders. I still remember when in 2000 Scottish Cardinal Thomas Winning spoke in Malta on the invitation of the Cana Movement, saying to his Maltese audience that in Europe pro-gay activists were “pushing for greater power” and “in place of the bombs of 50 years ago you find yourselves bombarded with images and ideas which are utterly alien”. That obviously equated pro-gay activists with Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy, obvious to anyone except to Cardinal Winning who protested misrepresentation.

We have had the siege metaphor used again recently:

American anti-abortion priest Denis Wilde believes Malta should protect its pro-life stance by establishing this firmly in the Constitution.

Fr Wilde, from the pro-life organisation Priests For Life that preaches against abortion and euthanasia, was recently in Malta and said the island should introduce safeguards to avoid the legalisation of abortion.

“You should put your fortresses up to avoid the invasion,” he said, drawing parallels between the fortresses that surrounded the island and the Constitutional amendment, which has long been called for by local pro-life group Gift Of Life.

He stopped at the “drawing paralells” between the fortresses (sic, he must have meant fortifications) and what are the “invaders” a similie for? It was left hanging there in mid-air indicating a man who was either looking out for a soundbite or who’s intellectually very lazy.

Reading on, I thought it was the latter:

Referring to the 1973 Supreme Court judgment which legalised abortion in the US, Fr Wilde said this made it even more important for Maltese not to be complacent and introduce safeguards.

“Right now it looks like abortion will never be legalised in Malta. But a court decision could change everything,” he said, adding that, while courts could bring about changes in the law, the Constitution was much harder to change.

I’m not one of the le ghall-indhil barrani types. In fact, I quite enjoy having foreigners who know next to nothing about Malta comment on our affairs because, inevitably, they make jackasses of themselves and they provide much raw material for this blog to mock them for their provincialism.

The Maltese Constitution is nothing like the US Constitution, the role of the Maltese Constitutional Court is nothing like that of the US Supreme Court. I hate pointing out the obvious but this priest deserves to have it rubbed into his face: Malta is not a federation of states. There’re more to be said about the substantive points of the argument. For example, Roe vs Wade (the 1973 Supreme Court judgement) did not make abortion legal but removed the heavy restrictions which, until then existed in many states’ laws. In Malta the prohibtion is categorical.

On the other hand, we have an example of a country which introduced a prohibition on abortion (stated as a committment, on the part of the state, to protect life from conception) into its constitution: Ireland. The result was unexpected legal complications. Reminding us that at times it pay to view life more like the Odyssey rather than the Iliad.

Neutrality and all that

Jum il-Helsien was the end of something but, sadly, it was the beginning of something else. With foreign military out we patted ourselves on the back, decided that we’re everyone’s best friend and proceeded to proclaim it to the entire world that “we’re neutral”. Neutrality has a very specific meaning in international law but, being the kind of people who’d always and in all things want to be more Catholic than the Pope, we additionally proclaimed ourselves to be non-aligned, eternally free of foreign military bases and promoters of peace and social progress amongst all nations.

Thankfully, EU membership assured that that strain in our foreign policy which considered itself God’s gift to humanity is now relegated to a curious sideshow. Sadly, it lives on and the unbidden, self-appointed peacemaker occasionally still struts on stage in its over-sized boots.

It did so when we sent the highest level non-Arab delegation to the funeral of Yasser Arafat. It did so when, in response to the Mohammed cartoons, the Maltese Foreign Minister called all the Arab ambassador and apologised for something that appeared in a Danish newspaper. It did so when it decided to open an office in the Palestinian Territories, where there is only one Maltese resident, at the same time that it was considering closing our only Scandinavian embassy (not to worry, though: Kevin Borg, winner of the winning the Swedish Idol contest, was appointed “tourism ambassador” to the region).

Here’s an example where our own self-image on the international stage leads to conflated and confused ideas. Evarist Bartolo:

Neutrality is good for us. Not serving as a military, naval and air base for other countries and their alliances is good for us.

That’s a non sequitur. Not to serving as a military base for other countries and their alliances does not imply neutrality as can be attested by many NATO members who have consistently declined to host armies of their allies, France between 1966 and 2009 being the case par excellance. NATO, after all, is a mutual defence alliance. Interestingly, the famous “an attack on one is an attach on all” Article 5 of the Treaty does not even specify any military nature to the assistance to be given in the case of an attack which is why Germany, for years constitutionally prohibited from sending its armies abroad, could still be a member.

Here’s perception being so warped, the historical facts get seriously twisted:

As a state on the southern frontiers of the EU it is also good for the EU and enhances its diversity and flexibility if it has a member state that can build on its reputation as an ideal meeting place for states, cultures and religions in conflict. It is such a pity that in the last five years we have been largely absent from being a protagonist of Mediterranean politics within the EU and within our region.

And then, all peace agreements I can think of — Middle East, the Balkans — were all negotiated and signed in NATO countries because all beligerents seemed to care for were some decent conference facilities. Bartolo’s rebuke about our “absence” is really about the inevitable failure of living to our own unrealistic self-image. Cheer up, I say. If anyone would have wanted you to act as arbiter they would have called.

Belated thoughts on il-Helsien

I know that this is a little belated but it’s only now that I got the opportunity to put down the Ikea catalogue. I do this to make a few points.

First, I think “Freedom Day” is an inaccurate translation of “Jum il-Helsien” whatever your opinion is of the historical significance of the day. “Helsien” in Maltese is more of a verb than a noun. That’s not the only case of poor translation. Other cases are even worse. Think of “Malta hielsa“. Over at the Times they translated it as “free Malta”. There is only one instance where I can think of the word “free” being followed by a proper noun (as opposed to historic instances involving a common noun such as the “Irish Free State” and the “Congo Free State” which, incidentally, are both transliterations from an original language that isn’t English). A “free” which precedes a proper noun is a verb in the imperative (think “Free Mumia”).

Second point is about Labour’s claim that the Nationalist government is celebrating Jum il-Helsien as some sort of second-class national day out of the five we already have. Incidentally, only one person decided to look into the evidence, Anna Mallia. Sadly, Mallia is out to prove the point that the government indeed treats national festivities differently and pumps up the evidence in one case and not in the other.

Read it carefully, keep in mind that the description of the 31 March commemoration has been somewhat shorn of detail and you’ll realise that the only real significant difference is that Independence Day gets a solemn pontifical mass and a symphonic concert to Jum il-Helsien’s traditional regatta. Don’t know about you but I’m with the Laburisti on this one: give me a regatta with the brawls and controversies over two events for over-dressed people.

Just in case you didn’t know there is an agreement reached in 1990 on how national festivities should be celebrated. The date is significant: it followed the lavish 25th anniversary celebration of Independence and the fracas at the 31st March commemoration when the Labour mob for no apparent reason assaulted the Brigadier-Commander of the Armed Forces and threw him into the sea. For close to two decades, under both Labour and Nationalist governments, there were no complaints.

Only now. On the 30th anniversary of Jum il-Helsien. Does anyone remember a similar complaint being raised five years ago on the more significant 25th commemoration? I don’t and in all likelihood there wasn’t any. There is no factual grounds for Muscat’s complaints but there is a cause. For close to ten years Alfred Sant played down the importance of Jum il-Helsien, seeing it as a “Mintoffian” feast, compensation by trying to boost the importance, in Labour’s psyche, of Republic Day. That the incumbent leader has gone back to the ludicrous “torch ceremony” (a throwback to and a reminder of the partisan aspect the 1979 Labour government attached to the feast) is significant.

Third point is about the number of national days. This, together with such issues as the choice of choosing the President of the Republic, have loomed large as matters requiring urgent answers to address the country’s political divisions. Such choices — a President with a party political history, five national days to accommodate all — are not the cause of national divisions (if such a division is to be considered problematic at all). At most they are a symptom. And even if the medical metaphor is to be considered as being accurate, they’re symptoms about as serious as a common cold. Five national days is ludicrous; assuming that agreement on, say, 8th September being a national day and everyone feeling great and “national” about the move is just as ludicrous.

Final point is about debunking historical myths. James Debono on his blog engages in the exercise specifically the significance of the “liberation” by Count Roger the Norman in 1099, the nation-building significance of the Great Siege of 1565. Unfortunately, Debono is, as usual, partial and goes on to say that “Freedom Day” was when “when Maltese economy ceased to be dependent on the military expenditure of other powers and closed the military base enabling Malta to develop friendly ties with its southern neighbours”.

Malta had friendly ties with Libya (that’s our only “southern neighbour” — let’s just drop the euphemisms, shall we?) before 1979. Actually, they sharply deteriorated the following year over the Saipem-II incident.

But more importantly, the Maltese economy did not cease to be dependent on foreign military expenditure in 1979. The last time we had a reliable, significant report confirming Malta’s dependence on British military expenditure was the Balogh and Seers report of 1955. Between that report and the closure of the military base there was the Suez fiasco (when Britain realised that its days as a global power were over), two massive run-downs in 1958 and 1967, the departure of NATO and the Americans in 1971 and the reduction in British troops during the tense discussions on re-negotiating the Defence Agreement in 1972.

Don’t get me wrong: I think Jum il-Helsien deserves recognition. It deserves that without recourse to spinning Malta’s dependence on foreign military expenditure in 1979 to historical proportions.