The social media is regularly agog with complaints and protestations over the fact that Malta is suddenly replete with foreigner workers who cannot speak the national language. Many of them working in restaurants and cafeterias even find it difficult, if not actually impossible, to utter a few of the words in English they could read – if they can read at all – from the menu.

I will not open the usual box of live sardines regarding the use of Maltese or English in what is perceived as a bilingual nation, for that is an on-going debate that is frequently brought to the fore when we are not discussing spring hunting, the American university, sex at 16 or the Gaffarena family. But there is a consumer argument that needs to be raised on the issue, particularly since 2003 when we have all along been led to believe that the Maltese language is an official language of the European Union and as such has as many rights and protections as any of the other official languages within the Union.

Consumer rights are not restricted to expiry dates, ingredients and other minute details one finds on supermarket products. They also cover services in a large variety of fields, including air and sea travel, security, mobile phone use, texting, postage and hotel accommodation. The consumer in Europe is equipped with self-defence armour that is rarely appreciated or used enough, but those rights exist, continue to be updated and are there to be exploited – on the question of language too.

For example, it has come to my knowledge that there are supermarkets who expressly insist with their overseas producers that it is ok if their products have content details in Italian, because most Maltese can understand Italian. Lidl is allegedly one of them. This goes against EU regulations with regard to recognised official languages. Can a Maltese consumer object to this misleading notion and insist on the use of Maltese (I unhesitatingly assume English is for GB consumers) on products that are imported into Malta for sale nationwide? What has Vytenis Andriukaitis, the EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, to say about this?

Language, however, is not something to read only. Language is, first and foremost, spoken to serve as a communication tool. So how does someone go to a restaurant and unfailingly find he/she cannot discuss the menu in his/her own language, simply because the waiter or waitress cannot speak it? Is the Maltese consumer entitled to protest against being taken for granted in this offensive way, or should we just be happy to be served by a blonde Bulgarian or Ukrainian?

Facebook is littered with such cases, and with the incredible spread of Italian restaurants, it now transpires that not only Maltese is being ignored, but also English, as the chefs, pizzaiolos and their compatriot table-servers can often rarely muster a word of English.

Bilingual nations like ours – but more serious than we are – do not accept such situations where the consumer or the receiver of services is not considered important enough to be addressed in his/her own language. An English friend of mine whose son has suddenly opted to go and teach in Wales, for example, has expressed some frustration at the fact that his highly-qualified offspring has found, to his surprise, that to take up that teaching post he has to at least have a grasp of basic Welsh. Why? Because students and students’ parents have consumer rights and if they want to speak Welsh in Wales, where practically everybody also speaks English, they have every right to do so.

One more serious case that came up recently involved a person with a high public profile who complained furiously that he had telephoned a state hospital and been told by the duty operator to refrain from speaking to her in Maltese as she could not understand anything of what he was saying. It was also obvious from her pidgin English that she could also hardly understand anything in English either.

Of course, hospitals have patients, but what rights do these patients have as consumers when it comes to being addressed, possibly over their immediate future health, by foreign doctors, surgeons and nurses who do not speak Maltese?

It is fair to say that action was taken immediately by the authorities concerned over this complaint and the same hospital is now served by a Maltese and English-speaking customer care official. That is an isolated case, though, and most Maltese consumers are being denied the use of their own language simply because those who are employed, particularly in the catering and tourism business, cannot speak it. What has Vera Jurova, the EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, to say about this?

I know the National Council for the Maltese Language (il-Kunsill Nazzjonali tal-Ilsien Malti) is considering addressing this growing problem by taking the initiative of organising crash courses in the use of everyday Maltese for foreigners working in Malta. Would these workers be bothered to attend, and would their employers be bothered to insist that they do so?

Their clients, as consumers, expect them to.

 

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All the lonely people....

We should not for a single moment, in this people-packed, car-infested island, think there cannot be among us lonely people who deserve our help and need our attention. The hyperactive, cosmopolitan nature of modern Malta must not lead us to believe this. There are Eleanor Rigby characters who cry out for some company when they are, incredibly, surrounded by loud, striving communities that very rarely find the time to stop and think.

Being busy all the time, keeping up with the Joneses and sustaining this breathless tempo, society tends to overlook the human stories that occur at its very doorstep.

In the past few days we have seen how one old-timer in St Julian’s almost died from asphyxiation during a fire inside his cluttered home where he keeps – some insist he sleeps in – a coffin and part of a tombstone. We have also seen how a much younger man in Gozo has publicly admitted he is missing his solitary cannabis plant, risking prosecution by a society that fails to appreciate his attachment to it.

Where do they all belong? Certainly with us, not just among us.

 

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Texan stupidity

We are often amused by what the Muslim mullahs and other God agents within various religions come up with from time to time, including the Bible-thumping clowns all over the United States, but this one takes the prize.

A Texas judge told a young couple to get married and copy out Bible passages or the bridegroom would face 15 days in jail for a misdemeanor charge. What if they were non-believers; send the young man straight to jail simply on that pretext?

Twenty-year-old Josten Bundy, no relation to our popular presenter, was naturally worried about losing his job if he spent 15 days in jail, so he chose to accept the sentence of marrying his 19-year-old girlfriend Elizabeth Jaynes, along with copying Bible verses and attending counselling. The stupid sentence by Judge Randall Rogers of Smith County, Texas, was the result of a court case in February when Bundy punched Jaynes’ ex-boyfriend twice in the jaw for insulting her.

The couple had only met six months prior to the court sentencing. They did intend to get married but not under the pressure of a court order that gave them just 30 days to do so, as a condition of Bundy’s probation.

I wonder how many Bible verses they would need to copy if they eventually have to divorce....