I watched the Bondi+ show about IVF in Malta a couple of nights ago – but more about that subject on Sunday. For now, I will just say that I was pleased to be able to put a face to the name of Paul Vincenti, at last. He is the man who appears to have succeeded in doing something few others have managed to do before: persuade the government to put a non-issue on its agenda, and in the number one position. In this case, it’s the entrenchment in the Constitution of the prohibition on abortion, its presence in the Criminal Code apparently having been deemed insufficient to prevent the removal of foetuses from the womb, and the use of the morning-after pill, at any time in Malta within the next 1,000 years or so.

For the duration of the show, I scrutinised Mr Vincenti’s facial expressions, body language and verbal communication, and listened to the rest of them with half an ear. The others on the panel were easy to understand – you could see where they were coming from; no mysteries there. With Mr Vincenti, the man at the forefront of Gift of Life, the only pressure group that seems able to exert pressure on the government – to which it appears to have a hot-line – it’s somewhat different. What makes a middle-aged man, presumably with work and family commitments, wake up in the morning in a country that bans abortion without question, where both the government and the opposition are deeply against its legalisation, and where there are no women’s groups calling for the ban to be lifted, and say to himself: “Oh, I know what I’ll do to pass the time of day. I’ll campaign against abortion.”

Quite frankly, I am beginning to think that the idea for the entrenchment in the Constitution of this ban on abortion was born (sorry) out of the fact that there was no other possible goal or objective for an anti-abortion campaigner in Malta, like Mr Vincenti and his Gift of Life. But that begs another question: why do they feel they have to justify their existence by doing this? And more importantly, to whom or what do they owe this justification? I only wish that Gift of Life would disclose the source of its funding; perhaps it’s all being paid for out of the volunteers’ pockets, in which case they are generous indeed, as billboards, publicity and the like don’t come cheap.

Anyway, a goal had to be invented for this anti-abortion campaign in a country that is already anti-abortion, or so it appears to me. Elsewhere, Mr Vincenti and the rest of the invisible Gift of Life team might have campaigned against late-term abortions, or abortion on demand, or the use of aborted foetuses for research purposes. I would even have joined them on that one, because I think that these are hideous things. But here, the war was already won before they began to fight it. In fact, there never was a war at all. It is Gift of Life and the government who have created this controversy where we really didn’t need one. And it’s not enough for the Minister of Home Affairs to write an article claiming that only “the liberal elite” (George Bush’s phraseology) are against it. When the people dismissed by him in this way – the thinkers, and moreover, those who are usually at one with the politics of this government – are claiming to a man (and woman) that this is a most unwise move, then the government should listen.

So, what did I conclude about Mr Vincenti, after close examination via the television screen? Well, let me just say that I am always wary of people who are driven by missionary zeal and who are convinced that they know what’s best for the rest of humanity, you and me included. Perhaps he just doesn’t have enough faith in the criminal code of Malta, along with the government, or so they would have us think.

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Mr Vincenti may very well be genuine in his endeavours, and I have no reason to believe that he is not. What I cannot understand is why he is working so hard to have the use of even the morning-after pill (a pill swallowed a few hours after sex, to prevent implantation of an egg that may have been fertilised) banned by the Constitution of Malta. There is an inherent contradiction between this and his statement on Bondi+ that he is not against the creation of embryos in laboratory conditions for the purposes of IVF. He fudged and fidgeted when asked straight out by the programme host about this contradiction. He said that he doesn’t think there is one, even though many of those embryos die when they are frozen in an attempt at preserving them for future use, that others are discarded outright, and that even those planted inside the woman’s body have a very low chance of survival. Once the embryos are in the womb, he said, taghmel in-natura. In other words, they do not die through human intervention, so it’s acceptable. He appears to think, as did others on the panel, that there is no moral difference between embryos that die because a doctor, with the consent of the parents, has implanted four, which compete for the mother’s resources, and embryos that die through a miscarriage (for which the medical term is, incidentally, “abortion”, from the verb “abort”, which means “to put an end to”) caused by natural selection.

I really cannot understand how somebody can reconcile the two positions of being against the morning-after pill while at the same time condoning such a cavalier attitude to the production of 10 embryos for a couple that wants only one child. I don’t like such gaping holes in the arguments that people put forward; it wipes out my confidence in those who make them.

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I am perturbed by reports of how our various MEPs throw tantrums and protest because there is no phalanx of Maltese interpreters, paid for by the tax-payer (you too, now that we’re in the EU) to make their speeches comprehensible to everybody else in the room. Why don’t they just speak English – or for that matter, French or Italian if they are able to, and really show us all just how smart and clever they are? Part of being secure in one’s national identity – indeed, part of being a mature grown-up – is not feeling the need to resort to such charades in order to prove oneself worthy of respect. By persistently speaking a language that no one else understands, when you are perfectly capable of speaking a language that they do understand, you also expose yourself to accusations of bad manners and outright willfulness. I never speak to English-speaking people in Maltese, nor do I speak to Maltese-speaking people in English (despite what some people might think). And I would love to be able to speak good Italian, French, German or Spanish to be able to converse with people from those countries in their own language. But I can’t. Please, don’t anybody tell me that in the European Parliament it’s different. It’s not. The good manners that apply everywhere apply there, too. If making needless political points about language costs other people money and makes them uncomfortable, don’t do it. Otherwise, instead of gaining respect (Maltese men and their hunur!), you will only ensure that you are disliked as a self-serving irritant.

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Unlike our current crop of MEPs, who surely have better things to do with their time instead of wasting it on sulks about interpreters, I would take great pride in speaking in the European Parliament in perfect English – the lingua franca that the vast majority of Europe struggles to learn and fails at miserably. We only have to look at the thriving business that are our English language schools to know just how desperate others are to acquire the skill that many Maltese have, at least in some measure.

The ability to speak good English is the one thing that is guaranteed to make the Maltese MEPs stand out among the flood of hundreds of others who strive at various forms of pidgin. Our MEPs, all of whom speak decent English and at least two of whom speak it perfectly and idiomatically (one from each camp), are not very clear-sighted if they cannot see that this will bring them far greater admiration and respect than merely chuntering on in Maltese to impress the folks back home. After all, it is not much of a feat to speak your own national tongue. Everybody else in the European Parliament can presumably lay claim to the very same ability, and they’re not going to be floored with amazement because the people from Malta can speak Maltese. I’m not impressed when the Italians speak Italian, or when the French speak French. But I am definitely floored when I come across an Italian or a French person who can speak perfect, idiomatic English, particularly when he or she has no nationalistic hang-ups about doing so.

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Communication is all about making oneself understood in the most efficient way possible. What would be the point of writing this column in Maltese and then having someone translate it for publication in this newspaper? It’s best to communicate directly with your audience rather than going through various intermediaries. An interpreter is an intermediary, who dilutes and obscures the message of the speaker, making it less effective.

This happens no matter how good the interpreter is, because effective communication is about much more than mere words and their meaning. We all have some experience of this in one way or another. We know that we would much rather listen to a television interviewee speak in a language that we can understand, than have to listen to the hurried translation of the interpreter sitting next to him or her. When international events are broadcast in Malta with a Maltese voice-over translation of what is being said by the reporter-on-the-ground, those of us who understand English or Italian switch over to the BBC or RAI, so that we can listen to the reporter without that annoying interference of the translating voice – and this despite the fact that we understand Maltese.

Whenever I have been at a conference or seminar, I have had great difficulty concentrating on the interpreter’s voice through earphones. Most people feel this way, which is why when you see earphones being worn, it is usually round the neck and not on the ears.

The interpreter is too clearly an intermediary, and constitutes just so much interference in receiving the message directly. Besides, that translating monotone can be unbearable, though an excellent soporific.

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It seems that our MEPs have lost sight of their primary goal. Do they want to communicate effectively with as many people as possible, or do they want to prove a point about Malta having a language of its own – a point that nobody cares about and that no one can have failed to miss, given the repeated showdowns and public sulks? If it is the former, then they should speak English and communicate with their audience directly and forcefully. If it is the latter, then we might accuse them of being more interested in scoring points with their electorate back home, and ensuring re-election and another spin on what is increasingly looking like a gravy-train, rather than doing the job they are paid to do.

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It is extraordinary how the political parties to which these MEPs belong so often see fit to carp on about waste of taxpayers’ money, but then think nothing of forcing the European Commission to incur huge sums in unnecessary expenditure. It costs a great deal to maintain a battalion of interpreters who will translate into English speeches delivered in Maltese, and translate from English into Maltese vast tomes of legislation that no person here is ever going to want to read in the vernacular. Where do they think the money comes from?

It comes from the taxpayer, not from a vast well of fortune called “Europe”. And that’s to say nothing of the costs, directly borne by the Maltese exchequer, of funding the training for the interpreters that are needed, when that need has been created entirely artificially. That training isn’t free. It’s paid for through increased taxation.