Recently, Pope Benedict marked the 10th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York with a speech in which he called for the rejection of violence and indifference towards others and for a “Eucharistic spirituality”. But what are we doing here in Malta?
Both Pope Benedict and Pope John Paul II pursued such themes frequently in the months and years following 11 September 2001. In fact, Pope Benedict himself prayed at Ground Zero during his 2008 visit to New York and asked God to “bring down His peace to our violent world”.
But violence is shown very often on local television stations at prime time, as lots of local episodes contain violence, murder, sex and indifference towards others, and unforgiving people with a vindictive attitude are being aired. Today, television is a source of entertainment but with a difference as it is tool that can form people’s way of thinking in everyday life. Yet we are rarely offered any comedy shows, or similar series of entertainment. Some episodes or shows we watch do affect our minds and play an important role in shaping our social changes; therefore, if our minds are fed violence, then we react to a tense situation with violence and nothing else. We can see that this is affecting the younger generation. In fact, some young drivers are not only becoming violent but also aggressive in their attitude towards others when someone blocks their way or were too slow to drive when the traffic lights turned green.
It is argued that this may be very harmful when more and more sex and violence is portrayed, as quality is being sacrificed for the sake of commercial benefit that takes away the biggest part of our free time with adverts. Television plays a significant role in our social and political life, as it is a means of spreading information and forming people’s mentality.
It is a fact that watching television in the evening is very popular and the reason for this phenomenon is that it offers mostly gang violence and all sorts of crimes. Even news of ongoing wars is broadcast regularly besides movies or episodes showing dark pictures that encourage psychological tension, pessimism and negative emotions that damage our minds. Since it does affect our minds and plays an important role in shaping social changes, such violent episodes should be either totally banned or screened after 11pm or at a much later time.
Although the news is a media that informs us on what is going on in the world, many Americans choose not to view these daily programmes (full of murder and vindictiveness) due to the fact that these generally concentrate mostly on crime. Local news does not only report crimes but also on what actually takes place in Malta or Gozo. The number of such crime stories is constantly growing and these facts have to be studied because now it is mostly teenagers in Paceville and other areas who are guilty of violent behaviour.
John J. Meli
TA’ XBIEX