The prospect of a business breakfast with Bob Geldof as main speaker sounded like a slick public relations exercise to sell the concept of corporate social responsibility further. Indeed, it was not!

The man spoke without frills, with a deep sense of conviction, occasionally peppering his interjections with a couple of four letter words but he came across as a very down to earth and sincere person. Far removed from the image-building exercises many singers of fame often tend to indulge in.

The fact that he will be serving on a newly appointed Africa Progress Panel is another feather in his cap, and a wise decision taken by British Premier Tony Blair.

Geldof’s task is now even more gargantuan.

The task of raising public consciousness on the Africa issue might have seemed relatively easy but now he has to move one further step up the ladder of responsibility by ensuring, along with the other high level international panelists, that the world leaders will keep their word. Even though – to be fair to them – this has always been a position advocated by Live 8 campaigners.

It is easy to talk about progress made in increasing aid to Africa, but not as comfortable if one will also have to highlight shortfalls by various governments in meeting a number of promises. Especially if one has to blame and shame the governments in question by name!

During his business breakfast Geldof did not mince words when talking about certain leading European leaders – past and present.

I think that both HSBC and Vodafone need to be commended for sponsoring this YMCA event.

Meanwhile those who are not too familiar with the actual state of Africa would do well to invest in a book by the same name: The state of Africa: A history of fifty years of independence by Martin Meredith.

As a foreign correspondent based in Africa for 15 years, the author’s experience was more often related to wars, revolution and upheaval. But as a research fellow at St Anthony’s College, Oxford and as an independent author, he sought deeper perspectives on modern Africa.

I do not want to sound like one caught in an anti-colonialist time-warp but as the author brilliantly put it in his introduction during the scramble for Africa at the end of the 19th century, European powers staked claims to virtually the entire African continent at a time when their knowledge of the vast African hinterland was slight.

It was shocking indeed to learn that the maps used to carve up the African continent were mostly inaccurate with large areas being described as terra incognita.

He comments as follows:

“When marking out the boundaries of their new territories, European negotiators frequently resorted to drawing straight lines on the map, taking little or no account of the myriad of traditional monarchies, chiefdoms and other African societies that existed on the ground.

“Nearly one half of the new frontiers imposed on Africa were geometric lines, lines of latitude and longitude, other straight lines or arcs of circles.

“Today Africa is spoken of only in pessimistic terms.”

But have we paused to ponder about what really brought about such a state of affairs?

What went wrong? What happened to this vast continent, so rich in resources, culture and history, to bring it so close to destitution and despair in the space of two generations?

Read the book and you will find it as enlightening as Geldof was last Wednesday morning at the Golden Sands Business Breakfast.

As for the concert I had to give it a miss, but then anyway I was always more enthralled by Geldof the intellectual philanthropist than Geldof the rock icon.

Whither tourism?

People in the tourism sector tell me that the outgoing executive chairman of the MTA was never really accepted by the trade. This made his task even more of an uphill struggle from day one. But as time went by and both the Tourism Ministry and the MTA failed to deliver the goods, the calls for his resignation from the position he occupied became even more vociferous.

It takes some cheek for a chairman to step down after only 15 months at the helm under the pretext that he had done so because his mission had been accomplished.

If that was indeed the case why has he continued to soldier on since April? Or are we to understand that his mission had already been accomplished by then?

Francis Zammit Dimech meanwhile reigns supreme, totally indifferent to what the trade might think of him, reassured by the fact that he is virtually untouchable since the PN needs him in the ninth and 10th district because of his sterling constituency work which at the end of the day wins the party much needed votes.

This dismal state of affairs shows that the man ultimately responsible for this mess is the Prime Minister himself.

He has not only allowed the tourism sector to reach its nadir but he seems to try and make us forget that he is ultimately the same guy who is actually steering the cabinet committee on tourism which should also make him that little bit responsible for these shortcomings.

But then this is Malta the little island in the heart of the Mediterranean where the culture of resignations has never caught on. That is primarily among the political class!

The resilience of

Mahmoud Abbas

The man might have never received the support that he deserved from the Israelis although the Western powers have paid much lip service to his sense of fair play and moderation. Although I have my doubts whether Hamas’ implicit recognition of the two state solution will lead anywhere, one has to admit that had there not been the referendum threat on his part, it would have been very unlikely that they would have given in to the mere idea of a negotiated permanent peace with Israel.

I personally think that this had much more bearing on Hamas than the ongoing international sanctions did.

Hamas needed to moderate their position not only because extreme militancy gets you nowhere but more than that because they were giving Israel a carte blanche to unilaterally redraw its borders to annex Jewish settlements further under the flimsy excuse that there was no partner for negotiations.

We had heard this before when Arafat was still at the helm.

And we had also heard it when Abbas was initially portrayed as weak and ineffective.

Abdullah Abdullah a Fatah MP laid the cards on the table when he claimed that the Hamas government was an excuse for Israel to do what it wanted!

Let us make sure that this will not be allowed to happen, although Israel has every right to lay claim to safe and secure borders.

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Leo Brincat is the Main Opposition Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs and IT