The Euro-MP Simon Busuttil has pointed out that the government had a commitment to the hunters on this business of spring hunting, and was obliged to honour it. Promises were made before the referendum so these people would be brought on board the Yes boat. The risk was too great that we would be locked out of the European Union because of the No votes of the hunters, and it couldn’t be taken, as Dr Busuttil reminded us. Now those particular chickens are coming home to roost.
I remember wondering at the time who these men were, who would put their commitment to bird-hunting before their commitment to their children’s future. Did they really exist? I was assured that indeed they did, that there were men who could see that EU membership would be good for Malta and great for their kids, but who would still vote against it if it meant curtailment or restriction of their hobby. I was skeptical about that then, and I remain sceptical about it today. We didn’t even know for a fact that the shooters were only waiting for concessions on spring hunting so as to vote Yes and then Nationalist. For all we knew, they were rabidly anti-EU on principle, and Labour voters from birth.
I know that there are plenty of men around who are totally self-centred and self-absorbed and so far up their own selves that they can’t see the daylight. But there are limits, and there aren’t enough of them to tip the balance in a referendum or an election. The men who put their hobbies and their addictions before their children’s interests stand out precisely because they are the exception, rather than the norm. Most men are decent, and are prepared to make huge sacrifices for the sake of their children’s future. For every man who spends his money on a flash car and then sends his daughter to a state school, there are a hundred men who have given up many of the things they enjoy so as to find an average of Lm1,200 a year per child for the private education that might – and only might – give them a head start in life.
A nagging feeling at the back of my mind tells me that the men who threatened the government four years ago that they wouldn’t vote Yes in the referendum unless they were given guarantees on hunting voted No all the same, even though they got what they wanted. You can call me cynical, but I’m just one of life’s pragmatists: you can’t expect a voting deal to be honoured by somebody who shoots protected bird species and runs off when the police arrive. I somehow don’t imagine that these people like or appreciate the value system that the European Union stands for in the first place. They are more comfortable with the Malta of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
If this government hasn’t woken up to the fact that the overwhelming majority of shooters support the Labour Party, and so would have voted No and then voted Labour whatever the government of the time conceded to them in 2003, it needs a good shot of adrenalin and a couple of Red Bulls. And how do I know that most shooters vote Labour? Ah, that would be telling. Really I have no special information or surveys at my finger-tips. It’s just gut instinct, which is another way of saying that I’m fairly observant and make a habit of picking up clues and details. The maxim ”know your enemy” has held true for centuries because it is a wise one. Before you start pandering to your enemy’s whims to secure your own future, the most important bit of information you need is where his political sympathies lie. As it is, I think the hunters had their cake and ate it too. What are the odds that most of them voted No in that referendum, and then voted Labour in the general election – and still got what they wanted? I think the odds are pretty favourable.
This is the way they would have worked it out. Voting No and then voting Labour would have got them maintenance of the status quo. But they had no guarantee that the No vote would be strongest, and if it wasn’t, then Labour would lose the general election. So they needed to work out some way of making sure they got as much of what they wanted as possible, even if the Yes vote won out and the Nationalists were elected again. So bingo! They told the government that they would vote No unless this and unless that. And the government wasn’t to know that they planned to vote No anyway, because it wasn’t going to take any risks and because, despite the mythical “files on everyone” that don’t exist at the Nationalist Party headquarters, it had no information at all on the political and cultural attitudes of these people. It was dealing with an opponent who held all the winning poker cards in his hand. And it still does not have that information.
How or even whether people vote must never affect the way that a government behaves towards them. Political discrimination is a democratic no-no. But if a government is going to take extraordinary, unusual and even questionable steps to keep some people happy so as not to lose their votes, then it had better make sure that those votes were theirs in the first place.
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The strange thing is that when the government adopted this policy of appeasement towards the hunters, it never considered for one moment that it might also have to appease the other side: those who abhor bird-shooting. Four years ago, losing an election in 2008 because of anger about bird-shooting, was a factor that wasn’t considered. Or if it was, then it was brushed off: we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. The source of the problem was and remains the government’s failure to comprehend just how strongly
people have come to feel about the subject. Successive governments have been accustomed to dealing with the strong feelings and protest votes of hunters. Not one government so far has had to countenance a situation in which the anti-shooters openly condemn its actions and say that they will use their vote to show their anger. Again, the government has failed to read the clues. In the only Euro MP elections so far, the single candidate for the only party which is anti-hunting polled around 20,000 votes, while the hunters’ candidate, who thought he was going to frighten us all, put up a miserable showing.
What did this tell the government? Nothing, apparently – though that election gave it enough information to refuse to return the hunters’ association’s calls without fearing the consequences (“Sorry – don’t call us. We’ll call you.”). Instead, we have had all this talk about the need to honour a pre-electoral commitment. I admire the fact that the government considers its word to be its bond, which is always the mark of a gentleman. But I consider it truly hilarious that there is this pressing urgency to honour a gentlemen’s agreement with the hunters when other commitments are going down the spout. It pays to be a bully.
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What is bothering people most about this matter is not the spring-hunting agreement as such, but the fact that the government and its various members are coming across as pro-hunting or worse – indifferent to the concerns of those who cannot bear the destruction any longer. There was only one way that the prime minister should have honoured his commitment, which wasn’t even his commitment in the first place: by being seen to hold his nose as he went through with it, and then disinfecting his hands afterwards. It would have told us what we need to know: that he was obliged to honour a commitment entered into by the previous government of which he was not prime minister, but he hated having to do so because he hates what these people do for fun.
At this stage, we really need the prime minister to say that he cannot stand bird-shooting and that he realises how rampant, relentless shooting has wiped these islands clean of birds and contributed to the decreasing numbers of several species. We need him to say that he thinks it is sad to walk in the countryside without hearing birds, but hearing guns instead. We need him to say that he realises how the behaviour of the few is embarrassing the entire population of Malta by painting us as a bunch of primitive savages with guns and no respect for the natural world. Instead, we have members of his cabinet saying in public that they think Malta is being picked on by the international bird organisations and even the EU because it is small, and because the Maltese government has no clout.
Oh dream on! We’re being picked on because what a few of us are doing is really terrible, and the sooner we deal with it, the better.