From Prof. J Baldacchino

As an expatriate, I am grateful to The Malta Independent and the rest of the Maltese media for its on-line service.

Given Malta’s partisan approach to politics, when I read the diverse range of opinions published in The Malta Independent on Sunday, I always hope and expect a degree of respect and civility – which, most of the time, I am pleased to find and trust. However, I am very saddened and disturbed when this trust is broken, and, as in comments that appeared in your newspaper towards the end of August, the line was crossed and public figures were attacked on a personal basis in the crudest of manners.

As far as I know, people who serve the country – whether one agrees with them or not – deserve everyone’s respect. While I admire your paper’s courage to criticise xenophobia and other forms of intolerance like false pieties made in the name of religion by the so called “moral majority”, I am deeply disappointed when in one’s desperation to criticise the PN and MLP (and one would not find it difficult to criticise the partisan stalemate of Maltese politics), a political commentator resorts to attack politicians by way of their age, physical appearance and person.

I believe that (as I am sure you agree) every person of good will (whoever they are and whomever they support) aspires to a society where rational argument, civilised debate and level-headed judgement would prevail over savage partisanship, mule-headed pietism and medieval xenophobia. So it would not help society, and more so its politics, if public figures who have the privilege to exercise their power of opinion through the media simply resort to a generalised critique of the whole political class, premised by singling out its political leaders and present them as if they were common idiots.

Let us not forget that in the specific case of Dr Alfred Sant (who was personally attacked a few weeks ago) we are talking about a Harvard graduate who, apart from being an economist and politician of conviction, is also a prominent literary figure in Maltese literature and someone who has served the country throughout most of his professional life. Let us not also forget that Dr Gonzi, the Prime Minister, enjoys the respect of his foreign peers as well as his own counterpart, including the same Dr Sant. Both have proven to be persons of conviction and are held in high regard by their foreign peers in Europe and beyond.

Let’s take a leaf from Britain and look at how political leaders treat each other. The respect that Margaret Thatcher commands is evidenced by the admiration of both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s acknowledgement of her premiership – even when they remain her political opponents. The late Sir Edward Heath was a politician whom everyone considered a paragon of parliamentary democracy. Likewise, everyone speaks of Harold Wilson, the Labour Prime Minister, with the highest respect.

If we aspire to be a civilised society that enjoys the respect of others – especially other countries and more so, Malta’s partners in Europe – then it is imperative for people who lead by power or by opinion to exercise their duties in a responsible manner. As much as parliamentarians and local councillors are obliged to respect their electorate by dint of their being elected by the people, the media is even more obliged to exercise caution especially because more often than not, journalists and commentators tend to elect themselves as purveyors of power by opinion. And please, given the approaching general election, let’s not fall into a quagmire of personal insults. One seeks to read newspapers like The Malta Independent in the hope of avoiding the partisan misery exuded elsewhere.

John Baldacchino

Columbia University

NEW YORK