Now that we are less than two weeks away from referendum day, it is becoming very clear that those of us who were expecting the Movement Against Divorce to come up with factual arguments backing their opposition to the introduction of responsible divorce in Malta, will be disappointed. This fact is reinforced every time the Movement Against Divorce issues yet another misleading press statement, every time they put up a new billboard, every time they take part in a debate.

The crude reality is that all this opposition to a very innocuous Divorce Bill is totally unwarranted considering its impact, and that the Movement Against Divorce does not have a leg to stand upon. This essentially means that they will resort to even more negative campaigning, even more sweeping statements, even more rhetoric and clichés. We have been witnessing this throughout the past week. It seems that the cassocked spin doctor advising the Movement against Divorce, has handed instructions to the leading exponents of the movement, chiefly Dr Galea Salomone (yawn, yawn!), to incessantly repeat to the point of annoying his listeners, the nonsensical phrase “divorzju bla raguni” supposedly meant to convey the message that the proposed Bill is promoting a capricious form of divorce, but also (mis) translating the term ‘no fault divorce’. Given that most of the voters do not understand the term, the Movement Against Divorce has tried to label it as a capricious divorce. This is obviously far from the truth, as is the case with most of its utterances.

In fact, the movement’s insistence on a fault-based divorce is totally incomprehensible given that they pose as “defenders of the children”. Essentially, this fault-based divorce means that the couple will spend ages “battling it out” in court with the possibility of using the children against each other. This begs the question: if you are so interested in the children’s well being, why are you willing to risk letting the parents use the children to spite each other during divorce proceedings? I guess that like so many other questions, the Movement Against Divorce does not have an answer to this. I kind of got the drift by now. The Movement Against Divorce makes its highly speculative, baseless claims, and then its exponents waffle when journalists ask the tougher questions. Incidentally, have you ever seen any one of the leading exponents of the Movement Against Divorce on a one-to-one with a journalist, answering his/her questions? The answer is NO! And you will never see them do that, all we’ll get is Dr Galea Salomone, Dr Cana and their favourite friend – the roll up with the misleading message, delivering a press statement, a set-up that avoids the risk of being contradicted.

The Movement Against Divorce is itself unsure of whether its cherished PR stunt, that is, labelling the divorce as proposed by the Pullicino Orlando – Bartolo Bill as “divorzju bla raguni” should be the (mis)translation of no fault divorce or otherwise. When they were accused of a deliberate mistranslation, they rebutted that “capricious divorce” was exactly what they meant, and yet they placed an advert in the English language papers with a punch line reading “no fault divorce, no thanks”, and the same advert in a Maltese language paper, with the same graphic but with a punch line reading “divorzju bla raguni, le grazzi”. So any brain functioning logically would conclude that the possibilities are two: a) either the Movement Against Divorce did maliciously mistranslate the term “no fault divorce” or b) the Movement Against Divorce does not know what it’s doing or worse, they are fibbing, big time. In a modern, civilized country, the Maltese version of the advert would have been debarred by the Agency enforcing standards in advertising, because it is completely misinterpreting the issue at stake and is misleading the electorate.

The misinformation campaign continued throughout the week, when the exponents of the Movement Against Divorce went to have a chat over a cup of tea, with their closest ally and social sciences luminary, the Commissioner for Children. Ms D’Amato “tortured” a research paper in such a way that she selected those quotes that suited her well-known anti-divorce stance, even though the extracts she quoted were totally out of context and were used in a sense that was diametrically opposite to the conclusion of the paper. Not to mention the fact that the researchers used divorce and separation interchangeably, meaning that there is absolutely no difference between the effects of one or the other. At university we were thought, that “research is a process of discovery not of justification” Ms D’Amato did even worse; she used research to act as a spin-doctor for the Movement Against Divorce.

It is important that we don’t lose sight of the issue at stake. The question that has been submitted to the scrutiny of the electorate is very prescriptive. It does not call for the introduction of any type of divorce and affords the legislator very little leeway. The granting of divorce will be contingent on two conditions: the couple has been separated for four out of the five preceding years and if all attempts at reconciling the couple have failed. Why should two people who have lived apart for a considerable amount of time and who can’t reconcile their differences be obliged to remain married to each other? Is such a marriage less broken than another marriage, which is officially declared so, and officially dissolved by the state? Is this the aim of the Movement Against Divorce, to keep people married to each other on paper? This is a case for a new slogan “Miżżewweġ fuq il-karta biss, le grazzi” – married on paper only, no thanks. Is a “clinically dead” marriage a shining example of what marriage should be about?

One can not forget that the legislator will also be required to include clauses on the provision of adequate maintenance and has to make sure that the children’s interests are adequately seen to. So what is all the fuss about? Why should this sort of divorce bother anyone? Is this type of divorce tantamount to “divorzju bla raġuni” (capricious divorce)? If that is the case, then the Movement Against Divorce does not know the meaning of the word reason and can rebrand itself as the Movement Against Reason.

Another question the Movement Against Reason will never answer is, why is this type of divorce considered more of an ‘evil’ than separation and cohabitation (with the blessing of the State). This is what will happen if Carm Mifsud Bonnici’s Cohabitation Law is approved by Parliament. The mind certainly boggles. This calls for another slogan “żwieġ tat-tielet klassi, le grazzi” – “third division marriage, no thanks”. This is hypocrisy at its very best, the Movement Against Reason and their friends in the Nationalist Party are happy to oppose granting people a second chance to re-marry, but have no qualms with separation followed by cohabitation i.e. a third division marriage. I’ve also heard the argument that it will be difficult for one of the spouse to pay maintenance and take care of the second partner as well! Will it be easier for someone who is separated and who opts to cohabit to pay the maintenance monies and ensure a decent life for his cohabiting partner? This is another example of the misinformation that is pervading the debate, and it is coming mostly from the no camp.

If I had to award a prize for the stupidest argument of the week, I would surely award it to Dr Vella (Cana), who during a debate with the yes movement, made history with his ridiculous arguments when he stated that through the introduction of the divorce bill people were “going to stay together till they were size 10”… Unbelievable, the sheer banality of the argument is incredible and is rivalled only by Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici’s argument that Malta should not join the EU because we would risk having more people infected with AIDS. What stops people from staying together only if they are as thin as Isabelle Caro? What’s this got to do with divorce? Who tells De Vella that people do not already do this? Does this mean that according to Dr Vella, this is what happens in other countries that have introduced divorce?

I see parallels between the strategy of the Movement Against Reason and the strategies of those who opposed European Union membership, because according to them, there were throngs of Sicilians anxiously waiting in Pozzallo for Malta to join the EU, so that they could catch the catamaran to Malta.

The campaign is gaining momentum and I predict that things will get worse. The electorate should sift carefully all that is being said on the subject and carry out its own research. The Movement Against Divorce is bound to intensify its misinformation campaign. I will reiterate what I have already said, that their opposition to this very innocuous divorce law is not about divorce or about the children, but about control. They have this fixation about controlling the lives of people. Personally, I will have none of this. I hope that you too share my views, and make sure that you will convince any people who are still undecided. Together, we can make reason prevail on 28 May!