I have to admit that if there was one Nationalist candidate in the recent European Parliament election that I would have loved to find either on the Green list or on that strong Labour team, it would have been Alan Deidun. The lad has, over the years, been a vociferous, highly qualified and respected voice defending what’s left of Malta’s under siege natural environment.
That he chose to sit, albeit unsuccessfully, for an MEP post on behalf of the party that has, over the past two decades, inflicted the biggest damage on the environment, was a personal affront to many who honestly believed, and probably still believe, that he has a valid and committed contribution to make in a sector that is gradually gaining in importance in the national psyche.
It is the kind of Deidunism, if one can excuse my coinage, which sadly permeates everyday Maltese politics. Talking of strange bedfellows is not enough to describe it, as we all have our particular stories to tell about individuals who sometimes wisely, sometimes not too much so, choose to ignore family or professional tradition by joining the so-called opposing camp. We need not name names, but most people know all about the Labour MPs, past and present, who came from a conservative household as well as about the Nationalist MPs, past and present, with a socialist background. Some of us in fact think it is actually a healthy occurrence, one that resembles in no small way the need for genetic enrichment in people and race.
But Deidunism goes further than that. During the recent EP electoral campaign, Dr Deidun was, hardly surprising, caught with his back to the wall as regards his preferred stomping ground. He was evidently at pains trying to decipher, let alone explain, the Nationalist government’s attitude to the ongoing tragi-comedy of the Wied il-Ghasel and Bahrija projects. Had he been in the right team of electoral candidates he would undoubtedly have been the first to condemn such insensitive and sledgehammer tactics adopted for the benefit of the soulless developer.
Instead, he found himself being hounded by the media, alert as always to his well-grounded credentials, for comments he couldn’t freely give. To be fair, he did manage a couple of half-hearted disclaimers, but overall he found himself more or less shielded from the prying predators by canvassers and party officials who knew he was caught in that kind of predicament. He was like the surgeon who, taught the skill of saving lives, was being asked to be present for a political massacre of innocents.
When it was all over and the Nationalist Party had been given the drubbing it thoroughly deserved, Alan Deidun, hopefully, realised he had backed the wrong horse. It was perhaps time for some rethinking and a re-adjustment of sorts while one eagerly picked up the pieces.
The next lesson in Deidunism occurred precisely at Bahrija during the well-attended protest organised by several NGOs against the development being undertaken by none other than the very president of the ruling Nationalist Party. This time Alan Deidun was there, on the very spot, to publicly show his opposition to the project being sanctioned by Mepa, the island’s chameleon-like authority supposedly protecting our natural and cultural environment.
People rightly applauded his presence there with several MPs and newly-elected MEPs. This time there were no canvassers to protect him from the inquisitive media hacks and Dr Deidun was free to comment and show his hostility to the development in a place that is now destined to remain scarred forever and with its natural inhabitants, the fresh-water crab and other species, lost in a concrete swamp.
There were of course the blogging apologists who insisted that Alan Deidun was at Bahrija in his personal capacity and not as an ex-PN election candidate. Would he have been present had the protest taken place before the EP election, I wonder?
Politicians often get away with murder, but they really cannot help being identified as anything else but one human entity. You can be a politician and a tango dancer at the same time, but you are still the same person. That a politician is able to tango along in his political views and long-held principles cannot be denied, but whether in command of the floor inside the party club or the music-hall, he will always be the one and same individual.
Deidunism, though, presumably dictates that such reasoning is no yardstick to go by. If Dr Deidun is true to his convictions, he could not have been comfortable dealing with green issues inside a party that is doing such a hatchet job with its treatment of the environment. What actually drove him to it? That is the question many people were asking as soon as his candidature was announced and, in truth, are still asking.
Some might even be tempted into dabbling with Deidunism in the hope of rationalising the case of the GRTU secretary-general’s candidature on behalf the same PN. It would have made sense on an independent ticket, and the cynics would say also on a Labour ticket given the person’s background. National unions have memberships made up of all political colours and hues, hence their expected stance away from party allegiances. So what actually drove Vince Farrugia to it?
As in the case of Alan Deidun, we may yet get an answer to that question. Deidunism is a reality of Maltese politics. That is why it’s so interesting and confounding at the same time.