Last week I commented about how, in the UK, spin doctoring has been almost elevated to the level of an art.
In Malta we seem to be catching up fast – with a difference in the sense that the Labour Party invariably seems to be the stool pidgeon. And the main target.
To cite a few examples from a local daily:
Alfred Sant speaks in Mellieha on Sunday. He claims that the government should have acted fast to investigate Dr Frank Portelli’s allegations about “kickbacks” connected with the Mater Dei Hospital Project. Nothing is reported. On the same occasion, Dr Sant comments about an apparently embarrassing past conversation allegedly involving a Cabinet Minister that implied awareness of nefarious goings on in an authority that fell under his responsibility at the time. Once again – no mention.
The day after, the same newspaper carries a banner title that “PM asks police to probe Mater Dei hospital corruption claim”. Forget for a moment that, in my candid opinion, the Commissioner of Police should have acted pretty fast on his own initiative, once the allegation was made on state TV during a Bondiplus programme.
Alfred Sant. Same Mellieha speech. Report title: “Hunting u-turn unjust”, implying that Labour was once again pandering to the hunting lobby at a time when the PN is trying to redeem itself of its not too distant sins by trying to endear itself with pro-environmental NGOs and, obviously, with Brussels itself.
Dr Sant is then reported, in small print, to have said that the MLP believed that the EU’s rules, and the agreement between Malta and the EU on hunting and trapping, had to be observed while fully respecting, however, Maltese tradition. In what was meant to be a straight report of his speech, we then get the subjective comment that “he did not explain what he meant by this”. No wonder certain NGOs asked for clarification, once these seeds of doubt and suspicion had been sown by the newspaper involved.
Normally such comments by respectable newspapers are reserved for editorials not for factual reports of conferences covered, whether they are political or not.
A week last Sunday, a lengthy, researched article I had written, to show how none of the targets and benchmarks of the Mater Dei Hospital Migration Project had been met on time, was published. Almost coincidentally, on the front page of the same newspaper we were regaled with the “good news” that this is now due to open on 29 June – invariably by a regular harbinger of good tidings that almost always put the PN in the best of light. Except for a recent interview with Austin Gatt, which offered more questions than answers.
Labour intensifies its outreach meetings on its draft foreign policy document with a number of constituted bodies. None of these meetings are given any media attention, almost as if to try and deflate Labour’s intensive efforts to act as a good listener before formulating its future policies and finalising its strategic objectives.
Were this to be an isolated case, one could blame it on the journalist/s involved – for whom I have much personal respect in spite of their political views. But this seems to go beyond a mere act of omission.
It rightly or wrongly gives the impression that spin doctoring is at work as to what should be covered or not about what Labour does or says – as well as in what light it should be portrayed.
As the elections fast approach, expect this to happen even more frequently.
I have not mentioned anything about certain PBS programmes, particularly those farmed out to certain local production houses. Nobody can be blamed for mistaking these “investigative journalism” programmes for a NET TV production or a blatant apologia either for government or the PN itself.
Expect more of this in the near future too – obviously at the taxpayers’ expense.
A true Mediterranean citizen
Unfortunately I could not make it when Miguel Angel Moratinos, the Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister, addressed a distinguished audience on the occasion of the bestowal of his honorary doctorate. This was due to prior commitments.
Having received a copy of his speech, courtesy of the highly articulate and hard-working Spanish ambassador HE Marta Vilardell Coma, I soon found out that I was the net loser for failing to turn up for such a well thought out and heartfelt speech.
Although born in Castile, in Madrid, far away from the Mediterranean coast, he spoke of the Mediterranean as his greatest vocation and passion.
He almost compared himself to Cervantes, who remained seized by the Mediterranean long after returning to Castile, following five years of captivity in Algiers.
While others tend to speak truthfully but nostalgically of the Med. as the mere foundation of our history and culture, he went one further by adding that it is also the task of our future.
Rather then dwelling on the past he also looked at our present and our future.
For him, the Med. is a melting point that embraces peoples, states, regions and religions. This is his idea of our Mare Nostrum.
Promoting once again his country’s noble ideal of an alliance of civilisations rather than the doom-laden clash of civilisations, he expressed the opinion that the unique history of our language qualifies us as citi-zens of honour of such an alliance.
On the situation in the Middle East, he was down to earth enough to admit that the situation today is even worse than a decade ago. He made the following factual comment – that peace is not utopia nor is it an illusion. Peace will be possible as long as all involved want peace.
A true Mediterranean citizen
What Mr Moratinos said in his speech is more or less reflected in our foreign vision statement – primarily that stability and peace in the entire region require a fair and permanent solution for Israelis and Palestinians, a mutual recognition of the Palestinian and Israeli states and a comprehensive settlement and lasting reconciliation between all Arab countries and Israel.
Not without a touch of merited self-praise, he correctly claimed that our “olive belt” of Mediterranean European countries have indeed become main actors in this quest for peace.
But perhaps the most forceful part of his speech was when, apart from appealing to one and all to commit ourselves to avoid reducing our history to clichés and myths by behaving as foxes not hedgehogs, he stated boldly that the challenges we encounter today in our relations with southern rim countries stand little chance of being successfully resolved by demonising the other. The scourge of terrorism simply cannot be ascribed to any single faith, culture or religion and it would be insane to perceive our Muslim neighbours or citizens as enemies, as some are dangerously trying to suggest.
His final appeal was practical and forward-looking. We must find ways of building economic stakes in each other’s economies, between north and south and horizontally between southern states, just like we have done successfully among European countries.
It was a speech to make you feel prouder of your Mediterranean heritage and also more involved, attached and committed to such a noble cause as expounded upon by an eminent and true Mediterranean citizen.
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Leo Brincat is the opposition spokesman for Foreign Affairs and IT.