From Mr W. Cunningham

Charles Flores is unquestionably right when he argues that Malta would benefit greatly from having its media publish parliamentary sketches of the sort so popular elsewhere.

Unfortunately, this would require the Maltese Parliament to drag itself (no doubt kicking and screaming) into some semblance of a modern, enlightened, democratic chamber ... an overhaul so radical, so contrary to Maltese traditions and practice, that I for one will not be holding my breath.

For a start, there would have to be a press that is not in thrall to the political machines. Politicians would have to accept that a democratic media has a responsibility far beyond simply turning up to take their pictures when it suits them, or reporting every word the party hacks might utter with all the gravitas that suggests said words were chiselled into tablets of stone and carted down from a mountain in Sinai by some bloke in a nightshirt and beard. Ministers would have to realise that they can be criticised, without it being libel, lese-majeste, or heresy.

I could go on and on but, in short, Maltese politics (and politicians) have a lot of growing up to do before we’ll see real parliamentary sketch-writing here.

Coincidentally, Charles’s article was published on the very day that I began researching a piece on Tom Lehrer, which will be published shortly, the legendary American satirist, commentator and humorist of the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. I don’t suppose many people in Malta know (or even knew then) about Lehrer: some instinct tells me that an American satirist who wrote anti-establishment songs like “The Vatican Rag” would not have been all that popular in the Malta of 50 years ago.

However, Lehrer was a cult figure in those days of my youth. Then, suddenly, at the height of it all, he retired and returned to teaching mathematics ... which had been his original profession. Legend has it that he explained that decision by saying that, on the day Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, “I realised that it was no longer possible to satirise politics.”

Is it indeed possible to satirise a political structure and system that is already a satire??

Wylie Cunningham

BALZAN