It is as amusing as it is presumptuous, but there seems to be an obvious scramble for the post of king or queen in Maltese journalism and blogging since Daphne Caruana Galizia’s horrid demise.

Pretty much in the boring style of the hundreds of Elvis lookalikes and impersonators across the globe, there are various self-assumed great pretenders to the throne vacated by the late blogger. Love or hate her linguistically articulate opinion pieces, she was by far the most influential, albeit notoriously so, of our expanding band of newspaper columnists and bloggers. I vividly remember her first forays in the local media, helping myself to talking points from the hard-hitting, often non-political commentaries in the comparatively primitive issues of her first magazines.

The great pretenders have different intentions, of course. There are those who have chosen to jump on the political chariot, and callously exploit Daphne’s murder, in their pursuit of the partisan public’s attention. There are among them those who think they can imitate her no-holds-barred attitude, but like the most pitiful of Elvis imitators, they end up looking so artificial and hollow, as in the sad case of the University lecturer who not too academically insisted the recent vandalism on some of the temporary art installations at Valletta were not only to be condoned but even perpetrated further.

The truth is no one can fill Daphne’s place. Some may feel relieved, others believe in the old Maltese maxim of “imut Papa, jilħaq ieħor” (literally translated, “a Pope dies, another takes his place”). She was, like her or not, the original and no amount of imitations and inky, electronic make-up can replace her. The beauty of having columnists and bloggers lies in the vast and exciting exchange of ideas and opinions that they provide, surely minus the melodrama and theatrics of some people who, with their manifestly hopeless and desperate masquerades, only represent a score or two of limelight-seekers.

We have always had the grand columnists, those people liked or despised at the same time, including those who hid behind a famous pseudonym. Historically, the famous Cassandra (William Connor) on the UK’s Daily Mirror comes readily to mind. He wrote a regular column for over 30 years with a short interval during the Second World War, after which he restarted it with the famous line: “As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, it is a powerful hard thing to please all of the people all of the time.”

Food for thought for those of us who have the privilege of accessing virtual and/or newsprint space.

Many of us still recall perhaps the most followed columnist of the post-War period in Maltese journalism – Roamer (George Sammut). His Sunday jaunts in what was strictly a newspaper environment not always won him friends, but he certainly earned the respect of many, even the most ferocious of antagonists. When he eventually left the scene, his mantle temporarily went to others in the same newspaper, but, like an unrestored Caravaggio painting, the colour and the mastery had gone.

We’ve all had our favourite weekly or daily opinion writers. Who, from my previous, slowly vanishing generation, doesn’t miss Herbert Ganado’s sumptuous meal of everyday life on these Islands? Or nearer to us, Lino Spiteri’s wise counsel and Anton Cassar’s cautious, dignified delving into the socio-political field of many years ago as opposed to Lino Cassar’s popular adjectival bulldozer? Salvu Balzan saying it as it is? The Indy’s own Noel Grima? Dom Mintoff himself had written the most explosive of opinions in this same newspaper, as several good and relevant colleagues, old and new, still do on the larger canvas of present-day Maltese journalism of whichever political shade, form and posture.

But the pretenders you can pick like an Easter egg from a bunch of coconuts. Thank goodness for those who have their own style, their own outlook, their own standpoints, their own ideologies, and their own passions – we are all there for the taking. How exciting can that be? It is why it is so uneasy to have to rub shoulders with the great pretenders belting out their pathetic versions of Jailhouse Rock.

 

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Religious codswallop

Long-suffering readers of mine will have long acknowledged my rather irreligious view of things, but in what is certainly a juxtaposition, I have also always been fascinated by the practice of religion, both the philosophical and humdrum aspects of it, and the general meandering into the hearts and minds of people.

Perhaps it may even surprise some people to learn that I actually graduated in theology. I certainly wasn’t the first one and, again certainly, won’t be the last of the doubters to take on the cerebral challenge. My lecturers, most of them learned and respected churchmen of repute, were there for the sparring and they enjoyed it as much as I did, for which I will always be grateful.

As to the outlook on everyday things, however, it seems all religions tend to have their false prophets immersed in codswallop. They surface at different times of history, and they will continue to haunt those of us who prefer a down-to-earth approach to things spiritual.

All three major religions have had them, but Islam today seems to be serving specimens at a crazy conveyor-belt rate.

Take Turkey’s highest religious authority, the Directorate of Religious Affairs, or as it is known the Diyanet (nothing to do with cyberspace, I must add). We have come to learn from them that every pious Muslim must only use the right hand to eat and drink because, apparently, only demons are left-handed.

Now that is a long-buried issue in Catholicism. As a left-handed toddler in my first years at school, I had my fair share of hostility from reverend teachers, but it soon fizzled out and my poor mum, hitherto afraid I could possibly be condemned to eternal hell because of it, was eventually assured I could still cope with the learning process!

As if the Diyanet’s fatwa of only a couple of weeks ago was not enough, out comes a senior cleric at one of the world’s largest Sunni Muslim seminaries in India with a religious decree saying that Muslim women should not watch men playing football, even on television. Mufti Athar Kasmi said that women who watch men “playing with bare knees” violate Islamic doctrine.

Now with women’s football becoming ever more popular, I wonder what he thinks of men watching their games... and it’s not just bare knees.

 

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The miserable one

Remember the fuss over the lonely monument to phallic cultural values at Luqa, now neatly hidden behind ever-taller trees? Well, the current Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang has seen an endless procession of sporting tourists wanting to visit a nearby park where a variety of such maxi-sized symbols is publicly displayed in all their glory.

No trees here or controversies but phallic shapes moulded into benches, totem poles and even a huge cannon which tourists have been wisely warned not to mount.

Visitors have been told the whole display is dedicated to a virgin who, according to local legend, died in a storm as her boyfriend collected seaweed from a rock in a nearby cove. How sweet, almost as sweet as the story of Adam, Eve and the apple. But wait for it, the girl’s spirit came back many years later when a fisherman urinated into the sea and hence the symbol.

In the meantime, our artist’s creation stays miserable and bereft of the public eye as endless traffic whizzes past for most of the day.