From Mr A. Callus

With reference to the photo and caption showing an activity of Moviment Graffitti during the opening of Parliament with the heading “Small Joke” (TMIS, 11 May), Moviment Graffitti would like to clarify and elucidate the following points.

The caption accompanying this photo underlines that “the banner held by the hecklers from Graffitti reads ‘Dictatorial Democracy’, is a silly joke considering the 92 per cent turnout that the MPs in the House represent?” Moviment Graffitti would like to clarify that the symbolic activity did not in any way concern the issue of voter turnout. On the contrary, it criticised the way that decisions of national importance are being taken such that it implied that democracy should be much more than the act of going to vote every five years. However, although a press statement was issued to the media, the journalist/editor of The Malta Independent on Sunday, for some reason or another, chose not to mention the rationale and scope of our demonstration.

In its statement, Moviment Graffitti declared that there should be more participatory democracy, instead of a political system where those who have institutional power decide and act arbitrarily which factor relates an abuse of power. Graffitti stated that at present the latter is very much the case in the local scenario and to sustain this statement a number of examples of such arbitrary and undemocratic decisions were put forward in the environment, economic and foreign policy sectors.

The recent cases of the Mistra permit and the supermarket in Hal Safi are a case in point of such dictatorial democratic decisions. In the first case Jeffery Pullicino Orlando has kept his position as a Member of Parliament notwithstanding the fact that he had the intention of building a huge discotheque on a land of great ecological importance and that he had used his political influence to have this permit granted. In the Hal Safi case no action was taken stop the building of a supermarket in ODZ, even when it was found that the permit was given in a completely irregular manner. This would surely not have been possible if the developers of such supermarket did not have political leverage.

Regarding the economy, we mentioned how various companies such as Mid-Med Bank, Maltapost and Maltacom have been privatised. This took place without any consultations or open debate as to whether giving such economic and political power to private, often foreign, companies is beneficial to our country and the interest of the common people.

Moviment Graffitti also supported its argument by putting forward the example of Malta’s membership in the Nato project of Partnership for Peace (PfP). This was a clear example where those in power just did what they deemed fit without hearing the different voices present in society. In this case, the people were not even given the opportunity to discuss the issue, as they were informed about the entry in the PfP only after the decision had been taken. On the other hand, it was clear that there was pressure from the United States on Malta to enter the PfP.

However, nothing of all this was reported under this photo that tried to ridicule the action of Moviment Graffitti.

Andre Callus

f/Moviment Graffitti