With a week filled to the brim with controversies and hullabaloo, I thought I would share some thoughts on an array of issues.

 

Charity begins where it is needed most!

Another great event. 

The Solidarity Fun Run re-confirms that people are interested in making sure that our communities support each other.  This country, through the Presidency has managed to shift our thinking from a charity and dependency model that encourages helplessness to a sense of solidarity that makes people proud of giving their share.

The President's Office is doing a brilliant job in getting all of Malta involved in one activity or another.  This is in synch with Her Excellency the President Marie Louise Coleiro Preca's objective to be close to the people.

Maybe a small footnote to all of this. 

I just wish she wouldn't use the term 'vulnerable' so often and so contemptuously. 

Whilst it is understandable that there are people who are poor and emarginated, excluded and sidelined, using this type of vernacular will tend to pass on the message that the people who need our support are eternally doomed to be in danger, defenseless and week. 

Literature has shown that this 'at risk' model of thinking is unseemly.  

 

Dressed like a nun

A few days ago I got a call from the Xarabank Team offices on behalf of Peppi and his colleagues. 

Once again I was invited to participate in an entertainment programme that will contribute to collecting money for the most deserving cause of the year, l-Istrina. 

'Terga' toqghodilna soru?' - You must be joking!

With all the notoriety that the nuns in white have garnered during the Malta Song for Europe I wouldn't give this up for the World!

 

The ugly cry

'Istrina' calls to mind two reflections.

The first is the conversation I had with Peppi some years back on how important it is to collect the cash because as they say in Maltese, bla flus la tghannaq u lanqas tbus. 

I was always very apprehensive of the fact that we need such campaigns for people to get their chance for cancer treatment, hepatitis inoculation, counseling, research and all the rest - which for sure should be available by right - but the truth is that the national funds are what they are and so campaigns are in order. 

The second thought that comes to mind is the vision that Peppi had, not only to collect the money, that's the easy bit, but to use a particular moment in the year where people manage to come together, think outside of their own needs, realize that the community is there to take care of them and others.

 

Peppi and Raffaella Carrà 

I really think that Xarabank has been turned into an extended Song for Europe shenanigan. 

Tit-bits of news and the occasional story that is dramatized to an exaggeration fills the gaps with good old Vince strumming the same tune with different words week-in-week-out in-between a moment of 'so called discussion made up of people getting at each other's jugular.

Xarabank has turned into pauses and hiatus that make you want to jump into the screen and hug the 'victims', boot the presenter, or both.

 

Pepp-ism

But I must add another bit here.

During these last month I had a bit of a struggle and before you know it Peppi is calling trying to soothe the pain and ready to put his head on the block. 

He does this with everyone. 

He hears about the pain, the discomfort and 'you' will soon get a call. 

Incredible.  I don't know how he manages, but he does. 

So yes whilst his Xarabank is turning into a Raffaella Carrà bandwagon the sensitivity and consciousness of this man is implausible. 

And while he keeps reminding us that he has a position on this, that and the other that are as confusing as the arithmetic sequences and sums that my Math teacher never managed to get through to me, yet when it comes to the human narrative, the loyalty of this man is second to none. 

I don't know what 'eggs him on' to do this. 

He so reminds me of the George Orwell classic, 1984's 'big brother'- but in the good sense of the word. 

He is there, watching over, there when needed.

Very true, Peppi is terribly controversial. 

I know very few if any who manage to get on my nerves but yet I have appreciation towards the man which is more than a blog on the independent could elucidate. 

His eccentric way of getting on in life, his thoughts at times verging on the outlandish, his stamina to keep going against the grain are astounding, not to mention his work rate and his emotional fullness. 

This man lives the talk.

 

'Your 'Favourite budget measure'

 

Last Saturday I had Prime Minister Joseph Muscat as my main guest during the radio show I anchor, Ghandi xi Nghid on Radju Malta (http://andrewazzopardi.org/ghandi-x-nghid-radio-show/).   

In-between the Mallia debacle and a couple of Ministerial booboos we discussed the budget. 

I asked the Prime Minister what was his favorite set of budgetary measures. Without any hesitation he said that the disability related proposals top his list. 

Naturally with such a passion that I have for the sector this reply was forthcoming.

After the 'Speaker Gonzi' era where the disability sector was placed on the national agenda, all had gone slow and quiet for some years. 

Now there is a resurgence not only in terms of policy and discussion papers but in terms of action supported by a committed rights discourse. 

Brilliant, let's keep this going. 

The people affected by this narrative have waited on the sidelines far too long, and time is of the essence.

 

Footing the bridge

The newspapers on Sunday have once again made a mention of the permanent link. 

Whilst I still need to be convinced that we are ready to spend 1 billion Euros on such a project and more so that it would take just four years to construct (hoping this time round that the concrete is strong enough to take the weight), I still think that there is a great deal of reflection and dialogue that needs to take place with the Gozitan community in particular. 

Most Gozitans, I know, would die for that permanent link but have we thought through what this link will do to the culture, to the identity, to the beauty of that Island?  I'm good if it works for that community. 

 

Doing the Ministerial thing

I believe that considering that Minister Mallia is the politician responsible for the police and internal security, offering his resignation is the honorable thing to do after this tragic comedy of people being chased with a ministerial car, shots being fired in the middle of the road, idiots ramming each other's cars, number plates being replaced, alleged cover-ups, a battle of the twitter and the rest. 

So offering one's resignation is the minimum one could do. 

Had this happened Minister Mallia would have avoided the flak and blushes for his Prime Minister, softened the impact and reassured everyone that there wasn't any attempt to cover or conjure-up what happened and that the investigations are taking the natural course. 

I still predict that one or two heads will roll following this incident.  The public opinion is up in arms on this one. 

What is the moral of the story?

I believe that this is very related to what I have been 'talking about' for ages, that the public are too close to the institutions, too buddy buddies with whoever is in power and the consequence of this is that when the push needs to come to shove it gets incredibly complicated, knotty and full of twists and turns even if some or all might be perception.