It’s fast becoming the talk of the continent. From the boroughs of London to the barrios of Barcelona, from the districts of Berlin to the Due Balli of Valletta, everybody’s feeling the bite of the cold. Luxembourg has long got used to its mantle of snow and after almost five years in the Duchy I have developed a quasi-affinity with the freezing temperatures and stillness of the vanilla sky. Apart from the darned inconvenience whenever it is my turn to shovel the snow outside the common entrance of the apartment block where I live, I have slowly become accustomed to the cold to the point that I am no longer goggle eyed and in awe every time the flakes of snow start their dandruff-like piling on the sidewalk.

Cold it is however and I am told that come Monday Malta is expecting an ultra-cold spell by its standards – of the kind to freeze your whotsits off. Stay inside, keep warm and watch some nice movie. Do your best to stay warm and – here’s a sincere plea from J’accuse – if you know of an elderly person who lives alone do go out of your way to make sure he or she is OK. There is nothing worse than loneliness and cold combined. A warm cuppa and chat will work wonders to revive the spirit and warm the heart.

But mine is not the duty to replace your favourite weatherman, mine it is to rant and rave or depart on yet another week full of interesting discoveries from near and far. You will find that this week’s article will resemble more an Emporium of sorts than the usual coherent and cogent flow of illuminated thoughts that constitutes the weekly J’accuse fare. The management apologises in advance for any inconvenience caused but the work rate at the good old court is such that justifies Marx’s old rant about alienation of the worker, and after hours we have continued to obsess in a very compulsive manner as to the shape and form of the new J’accuse home. That and catching up with the latest episodes of Lost is just about what J’accuse has been up to... what little titbits of information form the bulk of the article were picked up in the usual absent-minded net-combing between work on one important file and another. Sic transit Gloria accusatory (Thus passes the glory of the accusatory).

Grandeur

The political class never fail to make the news headlines and this week was no exception. The most interesting of surveys was published by that pan-European measure of pressure of the statistical kind better known as Eurobarometer. Boy did we have some interesting figures thrown at us to juggle with and dissect. First impressions were simple – we’re a grumpy lot and we are getting grumpier. Your average Maltese is rarely pleased with any measure, law or action that is proposed nowadays and it seems that the collective reaction to the forthcoming (inevitable) recession is a general distaste for change.

An acquaintance of mine put it very clearly – the Maltese right now do not want anything to change. In a way it makes sense if you think about it. Having sniffed the dark clouds of instability – economic and whatnot – having seen the potential dark alley through which the global system as a whole is about to pass, having felt all this, we have triggered off some form of collective nostalgia for the feel good factor that most of us experienced not so long ago when the promises of politicians did not seem so frivolous and fake. It was a time long before “ensemble tout est possible” when the European dream promised us that we would be the next fat cow after the Irish miracle. Instead we get the economic crunch, the same old politicians and a dreary outlook. No wonder our first reaction is to rebel against change.

The Eurobarometer survey told us just what Maltese think of their politicians. Well probably not exactly what they think because I am sure that most of that is unpublishable, but we got the gist from the numbers. The best one of the lot, in my humble, wet blanket opinion is the 51 per cent figure. That’s how many of us Maltese do not trust political parties. Of course this figure has to be seen within the context of the signs of the times where you would be kind to say that your average Maltese person is not quite comfortable with the “see the glass is half full” principle. In any case however, the PLPN and AD establishment should be asking themselves how come our great national sport of politics is so far down in the doldrums. Let’s face it, it’s as though 51 per cent of Italians claimed they no longer find football exciting or interesting.

Actually this is worse. They DO NOT TRUST the political parties. Harsh words aren’t they? It’s not “Ma Tistax Tafdah!” (You cannot trust him) as the unfortunate PN poster went in 1996 but a damning “Ma Nafdawkhomx” (We don’t trust you – plural). Pundits of the pluripartite conviction like myself should be celebrating and popping some fizzy for the occasion. Could it be that we have the final opening of the eyes of the electorate? Are they ready for the great switch away from the boring behemoths of brontosauran politics?

Hang on to the Bollinger. Not just yet. My guess is that we are just passing through a grumpy dissatisfied phase. Look at the other stats: less people are satisfied with the life they lead (down 12 points), less people expect things to improve (down 12 points) and more people expect our economy to worsen (the No-Shit-Sherlock increase of 25 percentage points over last year).

Crisis of faith

Delve deeper into the stats and you see that there is a pattern that emerges. The political parties – those great depositaries of the people’s trust (when they are not toying with the institutions of representation for their own good) – have a steep hill to climb to win some faith back. Surely you must have noticed how hard they struggle to remind us of their green credentials nowadays – how every one has jumped on the green bandwagon? Well, 55 per cent of the Maltese gave thumbs down to the environment in Malta. Which itself is a bit of a weird statement I must admit.

Twelve per cent of the population think energy is affordable in Malta and the same amount think that housing is affordable. Interestingly, 57 per cent of the Maltese trusts the Maltese Parliament while 65 per cent believe that the EU imposes its views on Malta. That says a lot about the value we give to different modes of representation. Which brings me to the issues ranked as being most important for Malta.

Unsurprisingly, immigration is the main issue with 48 per cent followed by cost of living, energy issues, the economy and unemployment. Education, the environment and terrorism came at the bottom of the list. That put the importance of environment policies in a new perspective. Surely we are a disgruntled mass that is truly unhappy with its current lot and furiously desperate to dump the blame on someone else. Immigrants risk bearing the brunt of this newfound anger and unhappiness and politicians face a hard and difficult time trying to please the electorate.

Goody two-shoes

Which brings me to one of the satirical articles penned by Dr Sigmund Bonello this week in the Malta Chronicle on the issue of European Parliament elections and the candidates running the race. In a nutshell, Sigmund continues the basic theme that has been running through the TMC over the past weeks – what is the difference between a PL and a PN candidate running for the EP elections? Is any one of them any different or are we still just voting for one or other candidate based on allegiance to one party or the other?

How do we reconcile these questions with the survey results? Does the electorate really examine the values this or that party represents or does it still vote along the party lines come what may? If a sign was needed that run-of-the-mill politics is not doing representation any good it was there for all to see during this week’s proceedings in Parliament in relation to the project for the extension of the museum at Saint John’s Cathedral.

Now I am not going to go into a huff and puff about NGOs, pressure groups, lost funds, and whatnot. Enough ink has been wasted on that stuff and quite frankly I did not have time to delve into the matter of whether or not the foundations of the great cathedral were really threatened by the project. My interest peaked elsewhere when I saw the Nationalist relative majority in Parliament tweaking the knobs of their version of representative radio to the extreme by shifting and turning the procedures of Parliament in order to accommodate their uncomfortable situation and get themselves out of a fix.

I alluded last week to what I assume is Gonzi’s knowledge of “The Art of War” wherein it is writ in large letters that no man should wage a war that he knows he can lose. When the project was finally abandoned, notwithstanding all the shenanigans that made a farce out of parliamentary representation, one message was clear – it was not, as most rushed to believe, that Astrid Vella had won the day but rather that the heat of such a measly majority that is the result of electoral machinations and legal compensations can be turned up so easily and by the most implausible of characters.

Ironic isn’t it that one of the causes of the hot moment for Nationalist governance was none other than J’accuse and Bertoon personality of the year JPO. The green politician of the year pounced on the first possibility to cause discomfort showing that he still could wreak havoc with the plans of the “Flimkien Kollox Possibli” crowd almost a year after the crocodile tears in Mistra. Ninu Zammit too threw his ha’penny’s worth while Louis Galea threw what was left of Erskine May out of the window (probably in the direction of St John’s).

I may have been slightly cryptic last week about all this but there’s no need to write between the lines here (for you to read between the lines later of course): within the limits of legality, the main function of Parliament to debate and scrutinise the action of the executive has once again been sacrificed on the altar of bipartisan expedience. This time round it was the Nationalists in government who chose to avoid the embarrassment of a showdown that would expose a (not so significant) split in their ranks.

Then they wonder why we still do not trust political parties.

Defection

While Nationalist diehards were still trying to figure out why this lot edged ever so closer to the standards of Mintoffian brinkmanship in the otherwise unimportant St John’s saga, some other diehards were gleefully enjoying a “defection” of former Alternattiva Sannat councillor John Mizzi to the ranks of the Partit Laburista. What they failed to notice was that the former AD councillor stated clearly that he still held AD’s values close to heart but believed that Labour had better resources to achieve these aims (plus he wanted to give Inhobbkom Joseph a try).

This was not a stab at Alternattiva but rather a sad day for representative democracy. The Wasted Vote theory was reaffirmed. The system is such that operation within anything that is not PLPN is inconceivable and impractical. Hence if you can’t beat them join them. Which only means that alternative ideas of people who think different will either be smothered by the masses or be pushed away from the politics that count. Maybe Dr Sigmund Bonello has his answer here. Thinking different IS inconceivable.

Rounding Up

I have a trip to Brussels scheduled for tomorrow and I have overstepped my word limit (again). I would have liked to speak about euthanasia in Italy, Obama’s dwindling choices for his Cabinet or the rise in applications for fireworks factories and gun crime in Malta, but my time is up. Scoot over to the blog in progress for more detailed analysis (work permitting)... meanwhile it’s an à bientôt from J’accuse.

Jacques is desperately fighting the 10th March deadline for the launching of the new J’accuse at www.jacquesrenezammit.com/jaccuse. Apologies for the scarce blogging in the meantime... and oh... Happy Valentines Day to all the ladies!