For all the seriousness with which we take our politics, and ourselves, we still have, god bless our tribal souls, a hint of humour. That is the one thing a nation needs when the situation starts to deteriorate to one of absolute hopelessness, as it is here.
The examples in modern world history of what a touch of humour, when it manages to surface, can do are many. As in the case of Viagra and baking powder, the process of raising a smile has a certain fascination to it.
Seventy or so years ago, when the Germans finally realised that the war was well and truly over, and the Soviets and the Americans were running the major networks and roads in the country, there were so many suicides and impromptu executions that it become suddenly obvious to one and all that an entire nation had sadly been taken for a long and cruel ride by the vicious fascist/nazi machine. While Hitler and Co opted to exit this world quickly, leaving hardly a trace of their physical nature, the rest of the German nation, after surviving a war they were convinced they were going to win, had to contend with the humiliation and the tribulations that came with defeat.
There was no humour they could turn to, alas. Raising a smile for them was unthinkable, given the state of the country and its people. To their credit, they chose instead to dedicate themselves to the miracle of an infrastructural and economic revival that worked wonders for their spirit. A few years later they had already achieved a standard of living and a level of production that were the envy of the rest of victorious Europe! And all that was practically done without a smile.
It is only today, so many decades later, that the Germans have rediscovered their sense of humour, if they ever had one, and are no longer inhibited from making jokes and doing send-ups of that sad period in their history.
The British, of course, have always been known to let their sense of humour camouflage military and economic disasters. No harm in that, especially since they always tend to come up with a trump card as they did immediately after WWII when an over-confident Winston Churchill, still basking in the glory of an American-financed triumph, lost the post-war general election. In short, the joke was on him.
Not to be outdone, the Americans also cracked a lot of jokes during their Vietnam debacle. They imported the Bob Hopes, the Martha Rayes and Sammy Davis Jrs to entertain stoned audiences of soldiers while the rest of the world reeled from the shock of watching TV footage of tiny pockets of villages with their elders, their women and their children, being either napalmed or obliterated as part of a rather humourless scorched earth policy.
To this day, the French still basically distrust everybody, while the Italians have kept a special regiment trained to beat the quickest retreat to the sound of their own music.
Ironically, today the Germans are also probably the only ones able to smile freely anywhere in Europe. And the suicides and executions in the form of joblessness, pension massacres and benefits denial, are occurring in places like Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal where what may be a keener sense of humour has had to be shelved while the bonus-happy bankers from, well, Germany, and their greedy local politician friends frantically go round in circles trying to solve the dire economic situation they have themselves created. Here the raising option has been restricted to public outcries and understandable union fury.
We are ourselves witnessing a colourful spectacle as we watch a hapless government trying to stop tossing and turning in an endless dream of its own creation. Rather than a scene from Raising the Titanic, Prime Minister Gonzi’s desperate attempts to keep the boat afloat has more of the 1987 comedy film Raising Arizona, a movie replete with symbolism, unconventional characters, pathos and idiosyncratic dialogue. How else can one better describe the internal condemnations and counter-condemnations, the rogue MPs, the drama in Parliament and Pieta’ venues, and the strong language that plays forceful thunder against careless whispers and vice-versa?
As for the rest of the populace, if one can’t possibly raise public and general business morale, then raising an ironic smile always helps to limit the extent of the damage on the national fabric. Happily enough, the Maltese still do have that benevolent bee swirling in their bosom. Centuries of political deceit and a masochistic approach to what is an innate helplessness have not had an insecticide effect.
One recent example suffices. Only last week, when the setting up was announced of the “special vehicle” company – Malita plc – to finance the horrid City Gate project with its on-going and let’s-beat-the-election-deadline speed construction of a new parliament building and a new theatre, the nameless authors of all our one-liners and the joke mongers quickly came out of the woodwork.
It is difficult to list even a few of the quips and wise cracks in such a limited space I am entrusted with on this newspaper, but the jewel that has emerged the brightest is certainly the snide remark of some who said they’re “only” interested in investing in the roof of the new theatre.
No one needed reminding that the new theatre is going to be roofless. So decreed the Balotelli of international architecture. Very much in the spirit of the whole City Gate project that will, after all, be giving us a new entrance to the fortified city of Valletta... without a gate.
The problem is you sometimes feel lost as to who is really trying to raise the greatest sardonic smile of our time. Is it the government that is pulling a fast one, or is it the frustrated man in the street? I guess the joke is on all of us.