Hello... anybody home? Calling the Malta Labour Party here... come in, do you read me? You see, I just asked your friends round the corner for their reactions to last week’s incident at the Safi barracks... but it seems there’s a judicial inquiry going on, which of course means that “everyone has the right to remain silent... forever.” Anyhow, I was just wondering: seeing as you guys always say that you’re more “advanced” than them, that you’re “ready to take over government”, and all that... Well, are you advanced enough to have an opinion to share with us in this moment of nationwide uncertainty? Anything at all...?
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Nothing. Not a comment, not a whisper, not even a measly little press conference.
With one exception... this newspaper did manage to squeeze a few words out of the usually vociferous Gavin Gulia, spokesman for Home Affairs. Something along the lines of: “This vindicates our call for a national conference on immigration” etc., etc.
Well, thank you, Gavin... it remains better than nothing, but the reason we asked was not to offer a free platform for you to stand up and wave your little party flag. Some of us out there were hoping for something a little more, well, personal; some reflection on the state of human rights in our country, for instance; or some kind of reaction to the military drill we all saw on TV, in which AFM soldiers, clearly following orders from their superiors (and apparently under the personal supervision of their Chief Commanding Officer... arguably the single most incongruous element in the entire equation), assaulted a handful of unarmed protestors as they sat on a football pitch.
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OK, never mind personal reactions from party officials. After all, you may as well ask a dog to part with a particularly juicy bone. But what about the Labour media, normally so quick to form an opinion about everything under the sun? Doesn’t anyone find it odd that the papers and stations owned by the Nationalist Party (which have not exactly been a bastion of free speech of late) gave last week’s incident so much more coverage than their Labour counterparts?
To the best of my knowledge, the first to publish any pictures was none other than PN e-paper maltarightnow.com, in an article written by its editor, Karl Stagno Navarra. Meanwhile, Net News has repeatedly aired its video footage of the incident... even in last night’s (Thursday’s) bulletin – a week after the event.
The odd thing, of course, is that taken out of context, the incident in itself can only cause harm to the present government (which, in case anyone’s forgotten, is occupied by the same political party that pays the salaries at both maltarightnow.com and Net TV.) For not only does responsibility for the Armed Forces fall within the Prime Minister’s own portfolio, but last week’s fracas can also be attributed directly to Malta’s policy of indiscriminate detention for irregular immigrants... a policy currently under fire from abroad, and being defended tooth and nail by the Home Affairs Ministry and the Prime Minister himself.
Unaccountably, then, it seems that Nationalist journalists have gone to town with a story which (in this columnist’s humble opinion) reflects somewhat badly on their own Immortal Beloveds.... while the Labour press seemed to either deliberately underplay it, or – as in the astonishing case of last Sunday’s Kullhadd – simply fail to even refer to the matter... at all.
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Whatever happened, might I ask, to Socialist principles? Am I to understand that the Malta Labour Party – the same party, incidentally, which constantly claims to champion the cause of “iz-zghir, il-batut, il-miskin u l-imsawwat” – took one look at the entire incident, and decided that it simply wasn’t interested? Or... worse still... did it take an active decision to kill the story outright, on the grounds that it might deflect public attention from what it considers the only truly important “crisis” facing the country at the moment? That is, the hike in the price of kerosene, a tax on plastic bags, and a couple of days less leave a year?
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When I raised this question with an acquaintance of mine this week, the look I received was one of compassion mingled with withering contempt.
“Come on, Raph,” I was told. “Stop being so naive. Don’t you know that some 80 to 85 per cent of the army is composed of Labourites?” (As it happened, I didn’t). “How can you seriously expect the Malta Labour Party to condemn an incident which was most likely carried out by people who are its own supporters? And even if that weren’t the case... haven’t you seen the general reaction? Most people I know think the army were perfectly justified in doing what they did; if anything, the general perception is that those immigrants were let off lightly. Some practically started cheering when they saw black people being beaten up by Maltese soldiers on the news. So what did you expect? That the same political party, which has for decades now been locked in a vote-catching stalemate with its rival... and which (or have you already forgotten?) tried to get people stricken from the electoral registry, simply because they had grown old... would suddenly say ‘to hell with votes’, and start acting out of principle? And at what price? For apart from automatically kissing goodbye to around a thousand votes in the Armed Forces... wouldn’t they, by spouting all this Gandhi-style neo-liberal hogwash, also run the risk of alienating their core voters? And why should they, anyway? Because a handful of black people that no-one gives a damn about got what practically everybody thinks they deserved all along...?”
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To which, I must confess, I could not provide a suitable reply. Except, that is, to admit that my acquaintance was right, right, RIGHT.... And having given the matter some thought, I think I can demonstrate the precise hows, whys and wherefores of the matter, too.
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Think about it. As things stand, the only local political party to have publicly condemned the incident is Alternattiva Demokratika, which went as far as to call for the resignation of AFM Commander Brigadier Vassallo in a press conference last Saturday.
Now, I’m not at all sure how much kudos AD expected to receive by means of this gesture, but from what I gather it hasn’t amounted to much. If anything, the very opposite appears to be true. It seems that AD took up this position in the full knowledge that its standing at the polls would be seriously dented as a result. In fact, some AD members have already confided in me their fears that this issue might conceivably weaken the Green Party’s voter base almost to the point of extinction.
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The lesson to be learnt? Simple: If you don’t want to survive in Maltese politics, there are a couple of quick-and-easy ways out. The first and most sure-fire way is to tell people the truth about the country’s finances. This is what Alfred Sant tried to do in 1997 and, well, remember what happened next? (Conversely, this is also what the Nationalists have so far never done at all, and... Oh, look! Isn’t that the same Nationalist Party, still in government after 18 years...?)
The second is to make a public commitment to some deeply unpopular, vote-losing issue (hunting, divorce, human rights, take your pick...), and then stick to it through hell, high water and hardcore racist beatings. That is the course of action decided upon by Alternattiva Demokratika, and, lo and behold! Not counting the MEP election last June, (in which, let’s face it, the terrain was slightly different) it has never polled more than three per cent in a general election.
Makes you think, doesn’t it?
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Well, so much for the mainstream parties... all of which have, for better or for worse, now nailed their colours to the mast. Meanwhile, there’s the rest of the country to take into account. I have already heard it said (as quoted above) that “the majority” agree with the Armed Forces. OK, I heard it from the mouths of people who are very far from qualified to speak on behalf of the majority, but on this score I have a growing suspicion that they may be right. For, apart from Daphne Caruana Galizia’s article last Sunday, and a meagre number of letters in the press – which were in any case counterbalanced by endless letters written in support of the AFM’s actions – there seems to have been no public outcry whatsoever. Which raises the question: if the Malta Labour Party will not take up the cudgels on behalf of the socially underprivileged, and the only party that does so is publicly vilified for its pains... then who the hell among civil society is going to argue in their defence?
And not just in their defence, but in ours, too – for in case nobody’s noticed, both our human rights record and our credentials as a democracy are now being called to account... not in private, over a pint of Maes in some Brussels bar, but in questions asked this very week by members of the European Parliament.
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Where, in other words, is the Voice of Reason in all this... you know, the one that stands up as the rest of the world starts to go mad, and says: “Hang on... this can’t be happening – not here, not now...”?
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Well, I looked in all the usual places and so far I can’t say I found anything worth reporting. Take the university, for instance. Never mind that campuses abroad are traditional breeding grounds for Leftist civil campaigners of every size, shape, colour, hairstyle and creed. In Malta, it seems our students were too busy protesting against a 5c increase in their bus fares to notice the sudden (and very violent) emergence of our latent xenophobia from the closet.
And perhaps it’s better that way: for about the only official student body reaction (SDM’s, in this case) to actually make the news was so woolly, so wet, so wishy-washy, and so weak that it had to be retracted and “clarified” almost immediately after being released. And even then, the position of our “Christian Democrat” Students remains a tad unclear.
Meanwhile, from what I gather, the few individuals to have spoken out publicly about last week’s national disgrace (including at least one popular radio DJ, who – having been foolish enough to express his opinion that “peaceful protestors shouldn’t be beaten up” – is apparently slightly less popular now) have quickly realised what the Dixie Chicks found out about George W. Bush at their own cost: silence might not be golden, but it is relatively safe.
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No: as things stand, it’s all quiet on the Leftist front. It seems to be unfashionable all of a sudden to stand up and make any kind of public declaration in favour of human rights and against needless (in this case, brainless) violence... unless it is to say something conveniently non-committal like “I can’t comment because there’s a judicial inquiry going on.”
Instead, we are to be treated tomorrow (note: I am writing this on Friday) to about the only form of public protest occasioned by last week’s exercise in thuggery. It has been organised by Norman Lowell of Imperium Ewropa ... and guess what? It is to commend, not condemn, the incidents of Thursday 13 January.
The meeting has been dubbed a “National Manifestation of Solidarity With the Army,” although it’s hard to say why the same army should warrant any solidarity in the first place. After all, nobody (apart from AD and a couple of individual writers) has even so much as criticised it yet. Quite the contrary: the Armed Forces are riding the crest of an unprecedented wave of popularity, and both they and Mr Lowell know this.
Tomorrow’s event, then, can hardly be described as a protest at all: both in its timing and choice of venue (Hal-Safi), it is clearly an act of provocation aimed at stirring up a repeat performance of last week’s incident... which, in turn, can only add more strength to Stormin’ Norman’s band of merry, fascist thugs.
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So, to wrap it all up: not only has last week’s event effectively dragged into the open our peculiar breed of homegrown racial hatred once and for all... it has also revealed the impotence of our main political parties in the face of a few lost votes, as well as severely stigmatising all those individuals and organisations who try and speak out in favour of the one thing on which we should all really agree.
The result? Simple: people who condemn last week’s rout now feel they have to do so in private, while all those in favour are free to shout about it from the rooftops... to the extent that the only form of public demonstration prompted by last week’s violence just happened to be a neo-fascist rally.
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As they say in showbiz: “The future’s so black, I gotta wear night vision goggles...”