I was going home through San Gwann on Friday and met the tail-end of the Duluri (Mother of Sorrows) procession. I remembered that three years ago I was passing through the same road, on the same Duluri feast, and the loudspeakers then were relaying a nationally-prepared pro-family message to accompany the procession, in view of the 28 May divorce referendum.

Yesterday, from what I could hear, it was back to the usual devotional songs and prayers. Much the same, I gather, went on in the other parishes.

And yet, if divorce was the first step, these are the days when George Abela made the whole country believe it could still stop the bill enabling civil unions and gay adoptions from coming into force.

Instead, tomorrow, the House of Representatives will vote the Bill in the third reading and the new President will then sign the Bill into law. And the gay community will hold a celebration in Palace Square, which I think is a tasteless gesture.

Even more distasteful is the fact the Third Reading will take place in Passion Week.

The retreat by the Church into devotional prayers after the bad drubbing it got in the divorce referendum was sorrowfully to be expected. The Church battled like a lion when its status and/or money and/or schools were under attack. The divorce ‘battle’ was wrongly fought from start to finish, from top to bottom. Basically, it disregarded the clear fact that the Maltese grass roots wanted divorce to be legalised.

This time round, over an issue such as gay rights, the local church has been completely absent. The Church, locally and internationally, is still smarting from so many episodes of paedophilia that anyway it were to speak about gay rights issue would have been very damaging.

Its absence has been partially replaced by a fundamentalist pastor whose anti-gay stance is notorious complemented by an attitude that has made him the butt of jokes and ribald laughter. Whatever the pastor said about the accident that happened to the Prime Minister, ministers and party leaders last Sunday resonates of a vindictive God who, if it were true, I refuse to believe in.

In the divorce issue, the Church had been allied to the Nationalist Party then in government and differently led. Both lost, with the party losing power after 25 years just two years later.

As regards the gay issue, during the election campaign the PN tried to echo the libertarian stand of Labour, with some subdued noises and ambiguous phrases. They fooled no one.

When the Civil Union Bill, as promised, was presented to Parliament and included references to adoption by gays, the Nationalists made some noises but then had to back down when it was pointed out that gays can already adopt if they approach as single persons.

The Opposition moved, if I remember correctly, some amendments at committee stage but then caved in to the government’s superior numbers. Now it has been said that the Opposition will abstain tomorrow night.

That, I think I can attribute to George Abela deluding the country into thinking the Bill can somehow be blocked by refusing to sign it in the last few weeks of his presidency. In reality, however, a president’s constitutional power does not extend to blocking Bills approved by Parliament. If a president finds himself/herself unable to sign a Bill passed by the House, the president must resign.

Being numerically so inferior, the Opposition cannot hope to block the Bill at the third reading. And in order to wash its hands of the whole thing, it intends to abstain.

Nevertheless, the feeling at grass roots level is of shock and concern. This concern is misplaced, at least time wise. It should have taken place when the country was debating the issue, and then when the House was debating it. To now pin the hopes on the new President who has correctly said she would follow her constitutional role is worse than futile. It is counterproductive.

Beyond the Civil Union Bill (which is not gay marriage as it has been unfairly described, even with adoption thrown in), there are far more serious matters happening at grass roots level that worry people. Those who feel that tomorrow is the end of the world are right in a way: it is the end of a world, the world we used to know. But it is not the end of the world.

The country has been shocked by all the implications surrounding the death of a young girl and the arraignment of her drama teacher and has been lapping up all the sordid details.

For all that has been written, there is much, much more that the media, the so-blasted media, have not revealed. Facebook pages have been removed but now everybody has discovered AskFM and we have had endless television shows with police officers warning parents to keep their children away from it. There are other sites, such as Tumblr, which are as revelatory.

This, as I see it, is the reality. It is the end of a world, but not the end of the world. The reality is that today’s young people life is far removed from that of their parents’ youth. Parents today cannot fathom what their teenage children experience from the internet and the many sites they access. They just have no idea what their children are up to. Until maybe it is too late.

In our time, it always took two or more generations for fashions abroad to come here. Our children today are on the same wavelength as their counterparts elsewhere in Europe and in the US. A cursory reading of the media in these countries shows that greater countries have not found any ready solution and are still plagued by youth deaths, and so on.

However, without meaning to in any way belittle our efforts and inordinately praising that of others just because they are foreign, there are areas where we can do far better. One such area, very topical these days, is education. Here is a link to a blog post I found yesterday which makes very interesting reading: http://confessionsofachocolateeater.wordpress.com/2014/04/10/whats-with-our-ask-fm-generation/

We have not even begun to scratch the surface. Our educational system is far too monolithic while other countries, perhaps the US more than the UK, have been experimenting with different types of schools, some (to refer to the blog post) more teacher-based than Education Department-based.

This is just one approach. Families that function are another. As I see it, away from fundamental diktats, there can be (and are, even if we may not have come across them) loving families that foster growth and care in so many formats. What I know is that I know some very dysfunctional families in the traditional mode.

Besides, we are all citizens of the same country and every citizen has his/her rights. That includes minorities and they should be allowed full and free use of their rights, including the right to spend their lives how they believe they should with whom they believe they must.

I just do not believe they must make a song and a dance to celebrate the coming into effect of a law allowing them to enjoy their rights. But maybe they feel they must and, if that is the case, I will not stop them.

The country has far more serious problems that are not so easily solved. Apart from the political problems that we seem unable to solve, to the increasing environmental problems, to the problems of the still remaining (and increasing) pockets of poverty, to problems of discrimination and racism, etc.

Our media and our leaders seem oblivious to most of these or only tackle these issues when they can derive some electoral footage but otherwise they let them fester.

Maybe tomorrow, after the gay celebrations are over, we will return to being a normal country. And maybe we can learn to focus on real issues instead of allowing ourselves to be duped by traditional feasts that sweep the real issues under the national carpet. (Not that gay rights was not, so far, a real issue).

 

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