Watching the Egyptian protests in the wake of what happened in Tunisia does make the local battibekk on divorce tame journalistic fodder. Although sympathy is now with the oppressed populace, we have all ignored the plight of the exploited in Egypt and Tunisia and enjoyed cheap holidays there.

Countries notably the USA, which has subsidised Mubarak’s military at the tune of 1.3 billion US dollars a year, can now be making much of the importance of human rights but it is their tear gas being used against the protestors.

Mubarak has enjoyed support from the West because he was seen as keeping Egypt stable and keeping the Muslim Brotherhood strictly controlled, but at what price? The oppression of its people has only been given lip service by Western leaders until now and Mubarak’ government received about $30 billion in economic aid from the US besides the support to its armed forces.

But it was not the Muslim Brotherhood that started the revolution, although it has given its full support and the protests gained momentum after prayers on Friday. The Western world is fearful that Muslim fundamentalism is gaining too much ground and is anxious that Egypt, up till now seen as an ally, will become yet another breeding ground for terrorism targeting the West, if the Muslim Brotherhood gain power in the country.

The people of Egypt want Mubarak out, but the West is anxious that the Muslim Brotherhood will overrun the secular population. That is why the message from the White House, while being sympathetic to the people’s uprising is not urging Mubarak to go. The US President spoke to Mubarak after his speech to the Egyptian people, which included “I am absolutely on the side of the freedom of each citizen”.

That statement is as hollow as it is outrageous, yet Barak Obama is still backing Mubarak. He said last night “When President Mubarak addressed the Egyptian people tonight he pledged a better democracy and greater economic opportunity. I just spoke to him after his speech and I told him he has a responsibility to give meaning to those words, to take concrete steps and actions that deliver on that promise.”

I am sure that there was a lot more said to Mubarak in that phone call than the US President told us. Meanwhile a Washington Post editorial opined “Rather than calling on an intransigent ruler to implement ‘reforms,’ the administration should be attempting to prepare for the peaceful implementation of the opposition platform.”

The problem is that the secular opposition, which the paper supports, has been suppressed for so long that it is has not got a platform. That is the irony of ‘stability’ at the cost of oppression.

As I was writing this yesterday afternoon, the situation was still very volatile and tourists are of course being told to stay away from the popular Middle East resorts. Their poison could be our meat, that is if anyone can still afford to go on holiday.

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I shall now move on to our major local concern, which, incidentally, is also seen as upsetting stability – that of the family. I have no axe to grind on divorce, but my oh my, so many axes are being ground over the subject that one must comment.

The tsunami started when Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando shocked the Archbishop, ‘gazumped’ the Leader of the Opposition and kept the Prime Minister in the dark and surprised all politicians by presenting a Private Member’s Bill for the introduction of divorce, last summer. “A bombshell dropped by a lone ranger”, was how PN sources had described it.

Maybe, the reason why JPO kept his cards close to his chest was that he did no want any leaks to get through to the Curia. Archbishop Paul Cremona had said the move came like a “bolt of lightning” in an interview on Radio RTK, the Curia’s broadcasting arm, shortly after the news of the Bill presentation and said he hoped it would be defeated.

He argued that no MP had the moral authority to file a bill to divorce, since it did not feature in the electoral manifestos of both parties. His stance was, “We will not launch a crusade, but we will take part in the debate”.

That of course was not what some had in mind, particularly the parish priest of Zebbug, who, seeming to have a direct line to God, started his own crusade with a huge poster on his church’s parvis – “Divorce: God doesn’t want it” in July.

When questioned about it there was no commitment either way by the Curia. “This was a parish initiative. The Curia was not asked for its opinion so the responsibility falls totally on the parish,” was the Curia’s response. I had no idea that parishes were so autonomous. It seems that each parish runs its own little theocracy.

In August, the Curia’s Pro-Vicar, Mgr Anton Gouder said on RTK “A convinced Catholic who voted in favour of divorce would be going against Christ’s teachings and this was a sin.” However, he reassured listeners “committing a sin did not mean people would be excommunicated from the Church”. Is that what the Curia calls debate?

As for the Nationalist Party, its political ideology is conservative, so I don’t know what Austin Gatt is on about when he said “I – labelled a conservative since I am anti-divorce...” and it is a Christian Democratic Party. Really, however, it is more emphatically Catholic than Christian and as such it has problems with changing social mores, which favour secularism.

In my column of July 11 “Lone ranger’s motion might end in tears”, I opined that the majority, if not all, of the Nationalist politicians are conservative prudes and are a step away from jumped up altar boys. There is no way that they are willingly and visibly going to go against the Church. So this whole divorce issue is going to run and run.

I am still curious to know which unnamed PN MPs were reported as seeing JPO’s Bill presentation as a wake-up call for the party “to get its head out of the sand and discuss divorce seriously”.

Catholicism is deeply rooted in the PN’s psyche and it is therefore no wonder that the ones in the party trying to change things are having a hard time. It is not only the silent minority of politicians within the PN that have been attempting to get national decisions taken without the Curia’s involvement for years.

The Sexual Health Policy is a prime example, The Church’s stance on condoms has had that policy redrafted and redrafted. The first draft was presented to government in 2000 and it took eight years to resurface. It has been in and out of the headlines for over 10 years and we still do not have an action plan, which is promised to appear on St Valentine’s Day.

The STIPC (Sexually Transmitted Infections Prevention Committee) set up to advise the government on sexual health matters and to draft a wide-ranging sexual health policy in 1999, disagreed with the amended 2008, document that included, among other things, the deletion of practically every mention of condoms. It said that the draft policy was reduced to mainly rhetoric. “It is nothing but a paper exercise with no bite whatsoever.” The absence of a concrete action plan was the main reason STIPC had rejected that version. Its funding stopped soon after.

But back to divorce, the Prime Minister has made his opinion clear from the start and his reason for being against divorce is akin to the Archbishop’s “because I am in favour of strong families”. Of course most people are in favour of strong families. Those whose marriages break up are not happy about it and break-up involves a lot of pain, but not allowing divorce does not ensure strong families, it allows miserable ones to survive.

One of the main arguments presented against divorce is that it would weaken the family unit. But strong families will survive whether divorce is available or not.

What really baffles me is how the anti divorce brigade do not see that Church annulments also sanction the break up of families. I had previously referred to an interesting online comment from MgrVictor Zammit McKeon quoting from the Compendium of the Catholic Church, which shows that when comparing state divorce to a Church annulment the result is the same. A married couple is allowed to remarry another partner.

“The Church permits the physical separation of spouses when for serious reasons their living together becomes practically impossible, even though there may be hope for their reconciliation.

“As long as one’s spouse lives, however, one is not free to contract a new union, (and here comes the interesting bit) except if the marriage be null and be declared so by ecclesiastical authority.”

So married couples are allowed to remarry but only when sanctioned by the Church. But surely if divorce weakens families so do annulments.

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