Some bloggers have tied the PN decision on divorce, which is to be taken on Saturday, to Valentine’s Day a couple of days later.
They are wrong: an even better bet would be to link it to the Feast of St Paul’s Shipwreck celebrated next Thursday. That is a feast with links going straight to the PN’s historic core. George Borg Olivier used to attend every year, then Eddie, now Lawrence Gonzi plus a bevy of PN big shots – Austin Gatt and Paul Borg Olivier among them.
Decision day may have not been planned with the proximity of St Paul’s feast in mind, but the coincidence reinforces the reaction that is coming up through PN ranks.
Perhaps the way it happened was inevitable.
Many, including me, feel it is a pity that an issue such as divorce should get caught in the warp and woof of the political scene, but it could not be done in any other way, since legislation is made by legislators and legislators are politicians elected by the people.
Whatever the merits of a referendum as the expression of the people’s voice, to completely bypass the legislative branch would be to relegate it even more to the margins of national life.
What is emerging however is on the one hand the strong return of the PN core and its insistence on what it describes as the historic ID of the party, and on the other hand the unexpressed perhaps but equally virulent reaction of core Nationalists who are both Nationalist and for divorce.
The party seems to be about to decide, come Saturday, to oppose divorce but to somehow insist that those Nationalist voters who are for divorce are ‘free’ to do so and are still welcome inside the party.
Whether this could pass any coherence or logical test beats me. But even more this stretches maybe to an impossible point the internal coherence within the party at such a difficult time – with the government low in the polls, with dissatisfaction rife in the party ranks, with an Opposition with all its problems but consistently up in the polls.
Could it be there are now two reasons why the party does not split up: it is kept together by animosity against Labour and for the simple reason that it is, so far, in government and each needs to be where the action is.
Maybe this last point is not relevant for many who are not in government employment or not close to any of the sources of power (or funds). Coincidentally, these people who no longer need the government seem to be the ones who are more cavalier about divorce.
Of course, such an approach may be felt to be inexcusably reductive with regard to all the issues regarding divorce both for the pro- and anti-divorce groups. Both sides are having the airing the country needs (well, maybe the pro-divorce group has been making a bigger run) and will undoubtedly have more (until the whole country cries “enough”) but it is, to my reading, the inevitable complication of partisan politics that may bedevil the issue even more than it is.
There is the Labour side to the equation, but even more importantly there is the situation inside the Nationalist Party that merits close attention.
Maybe we are looking at from the wrong perspective: let’s try this way. Over the past years, under both Eddie Fenech Adami and Lawrence Gonzi, the party has been solidly in Centre Left mode. That was the way the party moved to get hold of the centre and snatch it away from Labour.
Could it be, I ask myself, seeing the recent statements, there is a move ahead to strengthen once again the party as a force of the Right, or maybe to strengthen the Right wing of the party, which over the past years has become practically inexistent?
Maybe I am seeing too much in things. Maybe it just happened like it did. Or maybe I have come to see motives behind motives in politics, especially when things are in a state of flux or at a crucial time as they really are now.
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