I see from our letters pages today that, apart from being “more Catholic than the Vatican”, this sweet land of ours is also home to catechism experts and lay theologians of (literally) every shape and size.

This is good... nay, excellent, for there are a few niggling theological questions which have long troubled my inferior mental faculties... but which will no doubt elicit a prompt and exacting answer from the Great Ones themselves (you know, the army of outraged Catholics who, in their Infinite Wisdom, occasionally see fit to denounce this newspaper and all its works... mainly, for the grave crime of publishing opinions which differ even slightly from their own.

Anyway: here is the first and most mind-boggling question of them all.

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Which is more powerful (theologically speaking): God, or the Malta Football Association?

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The reason I ask has much to do with a small incident which took place just a few weeks ago at the National Stadium in Ta’ Qali. It seems that one football supporter, not content with the MFA’s decision to continue with its weekend fixtures regardless of Pope John Paul II’s demise, took it upon himself to criticise our national football association.

Yes, folks, you heard right: to criticise the organisation run by He Who Must Be Obeyed. And guess what? He chose to commit this crime, this shameful impropriety, by smuggling something called a “banner” (i.e., a large piece of white cloth with things called “words” written all over it) past the innumerable anti-terrorism security checkpoints that exist specifically to quash such outrageous acts of sedition.

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Ooooh, bad move. Fortunately, however, our indefatigable Police Force was on the ball as usual (no pun intended). I can see the entire operation that led to his swift and sudden arrest: first, the strategically placed plain-clothes anti-hooliganism agent, who immediately whispered into the microphone concealed in his jumbo hot-dog: “Red alert, red alert – opinion being expressed in row six...” Then, the helicopter circling overhead, which immediately picked up his distress signal, and passed the following message onto the Depot in Floriana: “Mayday, mayday. This is Black Hawk 1 calling the Eagle’s Nest. We have a suspect trying to put across a point of view. I repeat, we have a suspect trying to put across a point of view. Requesting immediate back-up...”

Two minutes (and one tank battalion dispatch) later, the infidel in question was duly apprehended by two brave police officers in full uniform... who, risking their own lives to nip this act of terrorism in the bud, successfully snatched the banner from the culprit’s hands before the words written thereon could be seen by the general public... or (worse still) photographed by the media.

Meanwhile, rumours that the miscreant’s head was subsequently affixed to the battlements on the Millennium Stand have yet to be confirmed.

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OK, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I made the whole thing up myself, aren’t you? There wasn’t a helicopter flying over the stadium three weeks ago, I hear you say. There wasn’t a microphone hidden in the special agent’s hotdog. Hell, there probably wasn’t even a strategically placed anti-hooliganism agent to begin with... so who’s to say that the rest of the story is true? i.e., that a man took a banner with him to the national stadium, and that it was confiscated by the police... simply because the MFA didn’t particularly like what it said?

And in all these doubts you would be justified. Except for one. For there was a banner, and it was confiscated by the police... and if you don’t believe me, just ask the reporters of in-Nazzjon – you know, the local daily newspaper which is owned and operated by Lawrence Gonzi’s Nationalist Party (and therefore, indirectly, by God Himself.)

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Which brings me back to my original question, which I will rephrase as follows. Which is the more important? That a man may be allowed to exercise his “inalienable right to freedom of expression” (which is supposedly guaranteed to him by our Constitution, and also by the International Charter of Human Rights?) Or that any cause of possible embarrassment to the Malta Football Association is swiftly and effectively suppressed by the forces of law and order? And while I’m at it... since when is it the police’s duty to defend the MFA’s reputation, but not the rights of a private citizen?

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Since when, indeed. Presumably, since the 1980s... when it was more or less standard practice for the riot police (trained by the North Koreans, if there is any truth in the urban legend) to respond to anything resembling a “public protest” using any or all of the following means – firing tear gas canisters; shooting rubber bullets; beating with truncheons; beating with fists. Well, it seems that, for all the Fenech Adami administration’s claims to have “modernised” the country, we haven’t really evolved too far beyond that general mentality. It seems we still have a police force which considers any form of public protest as somehow illegal... which in itself is hardly surprising, considering that with the exception of former Commissioner Pullicino himself, and one or two others who were persuaded to resign, the entire police corps was retained in full after 1987.

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Consider the following example, which took place some three years ago... i.e., in that distant, prehistoric age, when we still had a faulty incinerator spewing thick black smoke all over the residents of Pieta’, Msida, Floriana, Blata l-Bajda, Ta’ Xbiex, Gzira and beyond.

Anyhow, back then, an international organisation called “Greenpeace” staged a public protest which will be longed remembered in local legend... if nothing else, for the sheer trapeze artistry involved in that stunt. In brief, they scaled the chimney a la Spiderman, then abseiled down the side, unfurling a great big banner with the words... well, I can’t remember offhand: let’s just say that the government in general, and the Health Ministry in particular, did not quite appreciate the general message.

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The police’s reaction? Panic in the streets. I mean that literally, by the way. They simply didn’t know what to do, where to turn, or in which direction to look. I can imagine the mad toing and froing of messages on their walkie-talkies. Shall we fire warning shots? Shall we shoot to kill? Does the Geneva Convention say anything about shooting abseilers? Or was that only parachutists...?

Fortunately, however, their attention was distracted just in time. For at that precise moment, a strategically placed plain clothes special agent just happened to spot the staff photographer of The Malta Independent taking photos of the protest. And from a private rooftop, too!

Naturally, this was just too much. I mean, it was bad enough that a handful of anarchist thugs would dare to disrupt the daily monotony of Malta with a colourful and outrageous display of socially conscious spontaneity. But that somebody would try and actually inform the general public that such subvervise actions were taking place... thereby possibly encouraging others to assume that their God-like elected representatives may somehow be criticised... why, that was simply taking things too far.

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Needless to add, our staff photographer was arrested on the spot. And when it transpired that “taking photos of the St Luke’s Hospital incinerator” did not actually constitute a crime, an attempt was made to justify the arrest on the grounds that he was “trespassing on private property”. And when it transpired that he had actually rung the doorbell and requested the owner’s permission before entering and taking pictures from his roof... well, first there was some huffing, and then there was some hawing, and eventually there were some mumbled words about “these pesky journalists” and “how the hell should we know” and “but it was a protest, damn it”... and, to cut a long story short, our photographer was released without charge.

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And if you think that these are things which used to happen... well, off Greenpeace go and do it again. Just the other week, in point of fact... and this time, while the issue and target were different (shipbreaking, and the Ministry for Competitiveness and Communications respectively), the reaction was more or less the same. According to Minister Censu Galea, the protest was “illegal” and “irresponsible”, and the government reserved the right to “take action” against the demonstrators... and so on, and so forth, and so fifth.

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So far, you will have noticed that none of the above examples involve any physical violence. Why not, you might be asking? Is it because we joined the European Union, which (among other things) is supposed to guarantee human rights? Or is it because a concerted effort has since been made by the authorities to educate its police force since the trigger happy 1980s?

Nope. Nothing to do with it whatsoever. In fact, the only reason I can make out for this disappointing lack of violence is that, in all the cases described above, the protestors were white.

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Let’s start with the football supporter at Ta’ Qali Stadium: white as the background of the Microsoft Word Document onto which I type this article. The Greenpeace protestors? Equally white, if not whiter still. Now, had the protestors in any of those cases been black... ooh, I don’t know, but I suspect we would be dealing with a very different scenario indeed; a scenario which might well resemble the last time a number of black people tried to stage a public protest on the Catholic and hospitable island of Malta... on 13 January, 2005, to be precise, when one protestor ended up with a broken arm, another with a broken leg, and another again with no teeth at all in his lower jaw.

Right, now I must leave you all to put the finishing touches on the banner I’ve been preparing to take with me to the stadium next Saturday. In case you were wondering, it says: “I think the MFA are a bunch of really nice people. Honest...”

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Which reminds me, I very nearly forgot... coming back to the incident at Ta’ Qali three weeks ago: what were the words on that banner, anyway, to warrant such prompt and effective police action? Well, from what I gather the message was something like: “MFA BLA’ QALB – ISTHU” (“Heartless MFA – shame on you!”)

Naturally, I apologise profusely for reproducing such vile and disturbing blasphemy in what is, after all, a family Sunday newspaper. However, I felt it was important that our readers get to know the dangers to which our law enforcement officers expose themselves in the fulfilment of their daily duties...