Chris Evans, who had been engaged by Malta Enterprise as a life sciences consultant a couple of years ago, has demanded an apology from the Prime Minister for disparaging remarks he passed about him and which were reported in the newspapers. Evans was wrong to ask for an apology, and this not because the Prime Minister was correct in what he said. He was wrong because one should never demand an apology, ever, for whatever reason and in whichever circumstances. The thing to do with other people’s rudeness is to ignore it and cut them dead. Eventually they may understand that they were wrong and make a private apology. And in that case, it should be accepted graciously and the matter forgotten. That is outside public life. In public life, and Evans and the Prime Minister cannot possibly be more public right now, you simply issue a statement with your own point of view, if you find it necessary, leave it at that, and move on. To feel the need for an apology from the other person, to actually demand it, is a demonstration of insecurity. And it leaves the other individual, particularly one as predisposed to macho demonstrations of uncouth chauvinism, with the perfect platform for one-upmanship: “I will not apologise.” And that is what the Prime Minister has done.
People who understand they were wrong, those who wish to repair an awkward situation because there is nothing to be gained by either party in perpetuating the rupture rather than repairing it, will apologise of their own accord, privately. If they don’t, then that’s all there is to it. One cannot demand an apology. Apologies are volunteered. An apology extricated by force of demand is not an apology at all, because it is not truly meant or felt. It is transparently all about the locking of horns.
It makes no sense for the Prime Minister to be on bad terms with somebody so well connected in European circles, though clearly he prefers individuals who are well connected in China, Georgia and Tajikistan. If he does not regret bad-mouthing Chris Evans, there is nothing more to be said. It’s his poor judgement. Whatever he may think of Evans privately, it does not do for a prime minister to speak ill of somebody like that – of anybody, really, unless the person is a criminal – in public. He especially should not do so when, at the same time, he speaks well and appoints as his consultants an individual who was internationally disgraced by being sacked from his post as EU Commissioner, and another individual who is debarred permanently by the World Bank. International networks and institutions take note of these things. The platform of government is not the same, by any means, as the platform of Opposition.
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The government first announced that it would not carry on with the previous administration’s system of distributing around €350,000 a year to certain organisations. But after the inevitable indignation from the usual recipients, it stood down. When speaking to representatives of the Malta Employers Association at his office yesterday, the Prime Minister said that the government “had managed to find the funds”.
Oh dear, how ridiculous. Managed to find €350,000? Where would he have found it – under the National Security Minister’s mattress, leaving him €150,000 to play with? With that kind of declaration, the wisecracks are inevitable. This administration has created all sorts of jobs and positions for party favourites and for those who obliged by helping in its election campaign. It has set up a really large Cabinet, all the members of which have fully staffed secretariats, offices and vehicles. The money has been found for all of that. So it is to be expected that when those organisations were told that there was no money for them, as there usually is, they would say to themselves, “Well, of course there isn’t. They’ve spent it on their billboard boys and girls, on the Law Commissioner and various other appointments, on all those secretariats, on lifting practically the entire Super One payroll by transferring Super One’s staff to the ministerial secretariats.” That kind of thing creates really bad blood.
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I am so glad that AD’s Arnold Cassola spoke out about the hypocrisy of this government in extending its condolences to Italy for the death by drowning of all those people off Lampedusa a few days ago. He was so right in saying that “expressing solidarity after death is no substitute for showing solidarity during life, and we condemn the hypocrisy of those who today show solidarity by yesterday were the foremost proponents of pushback policies”.
Also, I have not quite understood why our government gave its condolences to Italy. Why Italy, when the people who died were not Italian? I didn’t like that at all. It seemed to me that what the Prime Minister and the National Security Minister were saying there is that they sympathised with Italy for having to contend with such a problem. ‘Condolences’ is the wrong word: what they really mean is: “We feel so sorry for you for having to deal with all that. All those dead bodies are such a problem, poor you. There but for the grace of God go us – and we don’t mean the drowned but those who have to handle the corpses.”
The Prime Minister and his homeland security minister showed no emotion at all when they spoke to the press after that tragedy. Their faces were expressionless, and they looked highly inappropriate. I couldn’t help but think of their predecessors. Lawrence Gonzi and Carm Mifsud Bonnici would have been genuinely distressed, and it would have showed on their faces and in the way they would have spoken. Unfortunately, we have something quite different now, and it’s really beginning to show: the cold and unfeeling pragmatism of life’s ruthless survivors.
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