We live in a pathetic country.

I just wonder what others think of us when they see that, in 2011, we are still arguing about whether or not to introduce divorce, when this basic civil right should have been made law decades ago.

Whenever I tell foreigners that Malta still has no divorce law, they look at me as if I’ve come from Mars. When I am out of ear-shot, they must laugh their heads off, just as Jean Todt must have done a few weeks ago when a table-football player was chosen as Malta’s best sportsman (I’m so glad that, for the second year running, I did not cast my vote; I’m no part of the farce. Will it be a Cluedo or Monopoly player next year?).

They also laugh just as Riccardo Cocciante must have laughed when he heard the songs presented last week. He must have been so annoyed that he chose to “surprise” the audience with a couple of his songs, just to show us what real music and lyrics are all about.

But I digress; back to divorce.

We hide behind so-called values, but what about the value of caring for all those people whose marriage failed and would like to start afresh? Isn’t that a value too?

What irks me more is that, rather than discuss the real issues at stake and the plight of all those couples who want to officially end their relationship but cannot do so unless they have the means to obtain divorce abroad, our politicians are still discussing how to decide the matter.

Yes, we are pathetic.

There are so many contradictions.

The Nationalist Party wants to play the part of the holier-than-thou. It is acting more conservatively than the Church. Who knows, maybe it’s already planning to get the Pope over for a couple of days again in a bid to stir up religious sentiment that would translate in support for the position it has taken.

It says it wants to give its MPs a free vote and then comes up with an official position against divorce. Divorce is a matter of conscience, and PN MPs who are in favour have been forced to take a position against their party.

The irony is that the PN government is working on a law that regularises cohabitation, which basically encourages people to live together without being legally bonded, and then is adamantly against allowing people to divorce their partner.

There couldn’t be a better example of inconsistency.

While telling people it’s all right to live together without getting married, the PN is telling others they cannot remarry. In this way, more couples will opt to cohabit, which is what the PN, with all its family values, wants to avoid.

For its part, the Labour Party first says that divorce is a matter for parliamentarians to decide, but then comes up with a motion that proposes the people’s voice should be heard through a referendum.

The main interests of the PN and the PL are not to give couples whose marriage has failed the right to divorce, but to gain as much political mileage as possible in the circumstances. Both parties are doing their best – not to resolve the issue, but to gain politically, or to lose as few votes as possible.

They really are pathetic.

It has been eight months since Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando presented his private member’s bill, which has since been amended and presented jointly with Labour MP Evarist Bartolo. And we are still to decide how we will be deciding the issue, and the question that will be asked if and when a referendum takes place.

Well, perhaps we could first have a referendum with a set of different questions to choose from, with the question that receives the most votes then being put through a second referendum that will hopefully settle the issue. And, please note that if I had written this last sentence on my Facebook wall I would have added a smiley – lest someone takes me seriously.

Positions keep changing, on both sides, and we do not really know where we are. The politicians have confused the issue so much, and have contradicted themselves so many times, that the man in the street is completely at a loss. We in the media, who are following the issue closely, are finding it hard to grasp what is really taking place and who is taking which stand – I can only imagine what Cikku and Karmena must be thinking after hearing the bits and pieces at the corner bar or in the grocer’s.

It’s so pathetic.

The PN is then trying to give the impression that it is an open party. Last Sunday, Karl Gouder, the youngest and newest MP and one of only two to publicly announce that he is in favour of divorce, sat next to Dr Gonzi for his usual Sunday sermon. I do not recall that he was ever given such an opportunity, and it did appear strange to me that the PN chose to have him there for the first time the day after it made its official position on divorce clear.

I do not blame Karl for taking the opportunity for this kind of exposure, but I believe that he was thrown there as an attempt to counter-balance. It was as if the PN was trying to say to everyone: “See, what an open party we are. We are officially against divorce, but at the first chance we get one of the two PN MPs who is in favour to sit next to the PM and say his bit.”

I pitied Karl, sitting next to the heavyweights as he tried to meekly speak about his beliefs, knowing full well that his every word was being analysed in the likelihood that it would be used against him. At the same time, I admired his courage for not towing the party line and standing up for his convictions. It takes someone with a strong personality to take the position he did.

But it was so obvious that the PN had given him the opportunity in an attempt to please those of its supporters who are in favour of divorce.

It couldn’t be more pathetic.

[email protected]