There are three kinds of euphoric idealists: the dreamers, the rich and the complex. The dreamers take great pleasure out of imagining massive progress at the flick of a finger. The rich are comfortable, have little to do and find plenty of time to dream. The complex individuals and groups are of many types, and they occupy a large chunk of the country’s thinking, as complex feeds thought.
If you tried hard to come across correct moralisers, you have been wasting your time; as you need not try energetically, but simply look around you. The great playwright Molière described how one can be honest, self-righteous and comic at the same time. One of his best characters was named Tartuffe. This gentleman dressed in a costume that looked like a compromise between a priest, a wobbly politician and a sociologist, so as to be able to preach to both the faithful, the idealists of all types and the quasi-atheistic citizens. Tartuffe carried a large handkerchief with him and, each time he saw a lady with some exposed skin, he offered her his handkerchief, adding: “Please, Madame, cover your sinning shoulders as they will be responsible for my quarrelling with Heaven.” Correct persons suspecting that the Tartuffe character was a mockery of them, had their revenge when they wrote on their hate blogs that Molière was married to his own daughter and his plays were actually written by another writer, not him. He ignored them and went on to win the Best Correct Writer’s Award. Not many were impressed, declaring that correct attack on indecent hypocrisy is too transparent.
Today, ladies associations make it clear that they can do it without men. One typical case is that of groups going up the steps of Castille, pushing and heaving large flower-pots with poinsettias kindly offered to Joseph at Xmas time while encouraging him to be more correct. Something I definitely disagreed with, was the clumsy filming of these ladies from behind while going up the steps. Some photographers should know better. The Correct Cameraman’s Manual states clearly in Chapter 53, subtitle 17 (a) that: “Correct cameramen must never film from behind ladies going up Castille steps.” So there. Hopefully this will never happen again. After all, photographers can sit on the cannons of Castille and film what they like in total correctness and decency.
A politician being close to people, is a sort of positive ideal idealist, as the task is not easy, though generous. I have sometimes listened to political radio programmes where listeners phone in to ask enthusiasts of closeness to people why they had not answered a telephone call, letter, sms or email. I have even myself sent several reminders to the some politicians who are close to people and who had asked me to make sure that I do not forget to contact them….anytime. Excuse me for not calling at 3 in the morning. It is quite satisfying to receive prompt answers to emails sent to the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education and Employment, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Equality etc. Rarely Ministries take longer to answer. Instead of three days like others, they may take three years – correct ponderation, deliberation and procedure obligent. And, besides, what’s in a number? A day or a year makes little difference in a life where medical progress is pushing life expectancy to quasi-eternal limits, thus emptying limbo and purgatory but not indefinite hell.
As expected, and is the duty of committed academics, my correspondence with Ministries is usually related to socio-educational reform and, with most politicians wishing to be close to people, I am earnest for them to react before years go by. Some pondering politicians who are close to people, find most suggestions hopeless, as they do not originate in the sanctum sanctorum of their igloo. Not to be too difficult, I would say that some politicians do not answer my mail as they either think that I am not one of the people or else they have in mind another people, not the Maltese people. A double-bind thus arises: can one be close to people and ignore them at the same time? Yes, but only if one feels very correct and superior.
Some bureaucratic politicians do very efficient work in their office. But the country is beyond their office and deserves consideration of progressive, democratic ideas of reform in a country that is as close to them as the people. There may actually be a good suggestion in correspondence that’s positive for the country including their Ministry. I suspect that the Ministries of Justice in many parts of the world do not daily read suggestions from citizens, or else takes years to digest them and more years to implement them. Apologies are offered for impatience, as some suggestions may look simple, but correct reflexion proves that they may be more complex for some Ministries than for others. However, a Ministry that can boast of being close to people, would actually try and concretise the citizens’ suggestions, as staying in a correct igloo may lead to ears being blocked by snow. Justice from an academic and pragmatic point of view, is a politically educational exercise, though people’s ideas may look too popular and insufficiently intellectual to snobbish Justice Ministries.
Correct people also live in various countries and sometimes come to Malta to tell us a lot about how to be more and more correct. Sometimes you decide to take a look at the areas they come from – which maybe you have also visited - to see what correctness looks like. There you discover academic innovation in crime, incredible infrastructure, poverty etc. and you try to understand how on earth they associate correctness with these virtues. Other correct people have an earnest objection to Malta’s fiscal systems and they stop seeing us as sympathetic, just because various regulations block them from using a similar system. But, if I can’t play, can I be angry and spoil your game since you are small and can’t possibly be allowed to play better than I? Perhaps “Let’s grow up should be the advice they may give to themselves - a selfie in political maturity.
The National European Pickpockets’ Association may visit us sometimes to study and analyse – plus probably condemn – why their members enjoying a well-picked, correct holiday are sometimes arrested just because they clean the pockets of other people. Is not cleanliness a virtue, especially if it is correct? Let’s not boast about being charitable while frustrating lovers of clean pockets coming from depressed areas.
Obsessive correctness, when it is theatrical, is also capable of shattering a party, strategically planning to become electable. It is all very nice to huff and puff repeating words like honesty, correctness, straightness, morality, cleanliness, decency etc. However, to this sense of socio-political resistance, must be added some ideas about correct and decent governability. So, along with screaming and jumping about correctness, one must also have plans. Unfortunately, some opposition parties everywhere making great efforts to have a good programme for a future alternative government, have their well-thought-out plans dismissed by correct and decent factions within. Surveys prove that it is mostly these rebuked plans that would have made a party electable.
Once, somewhere in the Middle East, a holy man saw a group of correct people with stones in their hands. They were about to stone to death a lady whose profession was belly dancing, lap dancing, pole dancing etc. The holy man told them they could only go ahead if they were perfectly correct, decent and clean. They immediately dropped their stones, except for a few who believed that hatred was a virtue.
Closer to us, some young law students were initially discouraged from being hopeful for a lawyer’s warrant and they would have been frustrated if the correct, devout and decent commentators in the media representing the pulse of the people had their way. You see, they had made some incorrect mistakes in the past. Most people believe that the initial resistance was too inquisitorial. But correct is correct and decent is decent. Right?
Not applying the most stringent inquisitorial rules of decency would go against the social norm and fabric of the country – which is basically clean and spotless, as we all know.
I admit to being slightly worried about the extreme liberalism of accepting gentlemen without ties in parliament. With such unheard of tolerance, conservatives in Malta have the right to ask: “What’s the country coming to? What next?” For, little by little, will parliament be transformed to a beach? And what about the free hand allowed to lady MPs who are simply instructed to just dress decorous. What exactly is the definition of ‘decorous’? Will this dilemma lead to lady MPs being allowed more than just a free ‘hand’?
These are the real problems that the country must be worried about and dedicate long hours of debate to…before it’s too late to turn back the clock of correctness.
Dr Anthony Licari has an academic background in human sciences from various French universities.