Part of socially intelligent behaviour is the knowledge of how to behave appropriately, given the context. Many Maltese are not socially intelligent because they live their lives in a tightly closed box, not exposed to other influences or modes of behaviour. This is the principle reason you can spot a Maltese at 50 paces on a city street or department store in Europe.
The Maltese on the whole do not blend in, but stand out, because on average there is no understanding of the necessity of doing as the Romans do when in Rome. There is no sense of self-awareness; these people do not see themselves shopping in their mind’s eye. They are entirely unself-conscious, like Americans, and like Americans, you can spot them anywhere.
If they do have sufficient social intelligence to notice that perhaps the codes of behaviour are different to what they are used to, in the particular place that they may be, then they do not have enough of that social intelligence to realise that they should follow suit. They put it down to ‘each to his own and never mind the difference’: we are Maltese and we behave like this; they are ‘foreign’ and they behave differently.
It is not a matter of better or worse to them; it is just different. How wrong they are, though, because on the whole, behaviour in Malta, even among what passes for the higher social echelons, tends towards the poor side. Manners are rather crude and comportment a little primitive and unpolished.
In context, these people get away with it because around here, pomposity, self-importance and a Lilliputian mentality are the order of the day. Take such people out of context, and their behaviour makes you want to cringe. I cringed to the bottom of my seat when, some seven years ago now, I watched the comportment of the Brussels-Malta Group during an open meeting at the European Parliament.
I wished I could shrink into a little ball-bearing and roll out of the room unnoticed. I really did not wish to be tarred with the same brush. I suppose I felt roughly what decent English people feel when they watch one of their own go by on a continental street, wearing Union Jack shorts and a red face, socks and sandals and a can of beer.
If I was aware that the rest of the people at that meeting were sniggering softly, smirking and humouring the uncouth and unpolished delegation from Malta, boring on into the microphone, then why in heaven’s name was not the delegation from Malta noticing the same things?
Too pompous and self-important, that is why; no sense of self, and absolutely no awareness of how they are perceived by others. It is a common malaise. The greater the self-obsession or the sense of one’s own cleverness (jien avukat u membru tal-parlament – arani, ma!) the greater the inability to see oneself as others do. All sense of perspective is lost.
And now here we are again, with a mention in The Financial Times, for precisely the same kind of behaviour. The Financial Times is very pressed for space, and doe not include material just to fill the pages around the advertisements. It must really have thought this piece, which it titled Mike of Malta so entertaining as to be worthy of prominent inclusion in its influential ‘comment and analysis’ section, which is read round the world.
Now readers of The Financial Times know that at a Unice gathering at the European Parliament, all was going smoothly until one of the ‘regular inhabitants’ intervened. I think it best to quote from here on: “During a question-and-answer session, the moderator kept hold of the microphone, to limit rambling from the floor. John Attard Montalto, a Maltese MEP, tried to wrestle it from him – and, after an altercation, they ended up holding hands across the mike while he gave a bland little speech.”
The Unice conference in question was attended by more than 900 business persons from around Europe. John Attard Montalto was the Labour Party’s spokesman on industry, and the minister responsible for this sector in Alfred Sant’s government. That says a lot. It does not mean he is not a lovely man. He is a very nice man indeed. But his public performances do leave a lot to be desired. Had I been there, I really would have turned into a ball-bearing and rolled out unnoticed. Cringe. Cringe. Cringe again.
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All the people in decision-making positions in this country, bar very few exceptions, are men – and that is why there is so much loss of touch with the realities of life, which in traditional Malta are generally handled by women. As Marisa Micallef pointed out in her column last Monday union leaders were up in arms about the loss of some holidays (typically male reaction; women never have holidays) when there was something in the budget that affected their members’ families far more and hit them much harder: the doubling in the price of paraffin.
Paraffin has actually almost tripled over the past 15 months – from 12c a litre to 17c a litre to 34c4 a litre.
It has so far been the main source of heating for those who cannot afford air-conditioners all over the house or electric radiators in most rooms, but it is now unaffordable for those on a fixed wage, ordinary salary, or pension.
The men down at the unions do not realise this; their wives probably deal with that sort of thing. Well, if any of their wives are reading this, then I ask them: why do you not point your out-of-touch husbands in the right direction?
It is the same problem with politicians. Surrounded only by men, men and more men – and, more to the point, mainly men from the same socio-economic background and possibly even the same profession – their perspective is totally skewed.
They have not a clue what goes on in other people’s lives – but their wives or ‘partners’ or whatever one has nowadays should be well aware. If they want their husbands to survive and to do their decision-making well, then they really have to serve as front-line lobbyists.
It has been the chief role of good consorts throughout history, and actually gave rise to the maxim that behind every successful man there is a good woman. Not necessarily a good woman in that sense, though. Several of them were actually rather bad women by ordinary standards: cunning, deceitful, manipulative, ruthless, but always, always clever and aware of what had to be done to ensure their man’s survival in public life and power.
That is because if their man survived then they survived with him, but if he was deposed, well, out they went along with him. They had motivation: their own
survival.
There are not too many of those around anymore because women in the main can survive without a man’s help, and many women of prominent men would actually be happier if their men left public life; it is quite obvious.
The decision-makers are so out of touch with the lives of ordinary people that they might as well be flying across a reworked CD sleeve of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Their wives are not advising them well enough, and as a result, they are not serving the public.
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My column last Sunday was about the paraffin price hike, which has made heating unaffordable in many homes, and so further reduced an already low standard of living. The next day, Marisa Micallef’s column was about precisely the same subject. Neither of us knew what the other was writing when we wrote it.
When she read my column, Marisa would already have written hers and sent it in. Was it a coincidence? Only if it is a coincidence that we are both women and, above that, we are women who are constantly and regularly in touch with the lives of others outside our immediate group – Marisa through her work as chairman of the Housing Authority, and I through my incorrigible propensity for starting up conversations with people everywhere except at cocktail parties, where I usually glaze over.
Everybody else ignored the subject, though it is the one hot potato of this budget. As Marisa so aptly pointed out, it is not the loss of holidays that people are shocked by and angry about; it is the fact that they now cannot afford to heat their homes and the government does not care about it.
They have been punished along with the bus-drivers and the fishermen.
These are all the silent people, the ones who do not write cheesed-off letters to The Times or columns for The Malta Independent, the ones who do not call up radio stations to complain – even if any radio station bothered to dedicate a slot to the issue. So the government and unions imagine that there is no fuss. Great God in heaven, how wrong they are.
This is the last remaining place in 21st century Europe where even the well-off cannot afford to heat their homes properly, and where those on ordinary wages or pensions cannot afford to heat them at all. It is a scandal, but there the unions are, fussing over the loss of a few holidays. If I were them, I would be grateful. It is probably warmer at work, and the boss pays for it.