It is true that the 2014 Budget, Labour’s first after a lapse of 15 years, came as a shock to an Opposition that is seemingly still under sedation from the general election result, but recent statements and comments on the issue of the Individual Investor Programme (IPP) show there is something seriously wrong with the psyche of the “new” administration of the Nationalist party.
It is not, I hasten to add, that they disagree with the brilliant idea of garnering millions in this way as a substitute for increasing taxes, as had been the norm for too many years and as has now been officially confirmed to have been planned, had there not been a change of government. It is also not that the Opposition seeks to amend – and hopefully improve on – the announced scheme, for it is, after all, its duty to do so.
It was not just the Nationalist Opposition that had initial doubts on the idea. I personally met several level-headed people of different political persuasions who were hesitant to accept it as it first came out, regardless of the fact that other bigger and richer nations had already done it with much success and other bigger and richer nations are in the process of introducing it, all in their own ways and within their own time frames.
It is why the Labour government was willing to listen to suggestions and to amend or improve, where necessary, any aspects of the proposed scheme, which it eventually did with the most important change of all being the removal of the “secrecy” clause. At the stroke of a pen, many people’s justified fears quickly evaporated. At the same time, however, an Opposition MP’s phantasmagorical claim that some countries could end up buying Maltese passports for their secret agents was also quickly laid to rest. All James Bond needed to get a Maltese passport for nothing in the past was becoming attached to a Maltese lady – no problem, given his famous penchant for luscious examples of the opposite sex.
This “spies like us” attitude that has characterised the Opposition stance against the IIP continues to nibble piranha-like at its credibility core. It merely shows it is not happy that, just a few months after taking over, the new government has been able to come up with methods and ideas that attract investment as well as ways of giving new hope to people who had been suffering most under Gonzi’s squandering squad: families at serious risk of poverty and a dispirited middle class.
Credibility is a precious thing. It is lost and re-won, won and re-lost, a socio-political reality that is part and parcel of the democratic system and which ensures the on-going process of change.
Opposition leader Simon Busuttil’s high-pitched declarations on the IIP issue, when it is known that thousands of Maltese passports were issued to foreigners for nothing by the previous government – confident it was investing in its own electoral survival – before the 2008 general election in particular, do not help with his party’s lack of credibility at this moment in time. Nor does his reference to a “national alliance” against the scheme, a phrase taken straight out of Joseph Muscat’s book.
As to Busuttil’s assertion that Malta “has become the worst country in the world” in just a few months of Labour administration – in stark contrast to the recent views of European Commission economic gurus – the dainty credibility vase just drops abruptly and shatters into a thousand pieces in an instant.
Sixteen: the perfect age
I am a self-confessed liberal, open to giving rights to each and every person in a free society, including animals. I was for divorce long before the referendum, and I am all out for IVF, gay marriage, gay adoption of children, women priests, non-celibate clergy, and, the latest addition to the rights showcase – the vote to 16-year-olds in local council elections. Hopefully, it will eventually lead to a vote in national and European Parliament elections.
Sixteen is the perfect age. It used to be 18, but society in general moves on, thank goodness. The education system is better, most people are better qualified and the new media has created many generations of young men and women conscious of their rights as well as their duties but, more importantly, of their increased knowledge of things and the ways of the world. It’s a far cry from the time when most of us had to wait until the age of 21 to be able to vote, although other aspects of life, such as sex and procreation, even conscription, came earlier to many!
This is where it should stop. I think recent proposals in the international media calling for consideration to be given to the lowering of the age of consent to 15 are stretching it a bit. Yeah, I know, the sexual urge of a 15-year-old cannot be any less than that of a 16-year-old, but a line has to be drawn somewhere, especially since experts believe that at 14 there still may be quite a difference.
For all my liberal values, I agree with the thesis that the current age – 16 – is in place to protect children and that there should be no plans to change it, even if this contradicts official statistics (in the UK, at least) that suggest that up to a third of teenagers have sex before the present age of consent of 16.
The threshold between adolescence and adulthood is indeed an extremely fine line, but children have rights too and they need to be protected. Looking forward to turning 16 has to remain a positive ambition in society, whether it’s to have consensual sex or to vote in an election.
Our greatest national heritage
What is our greatest national heritage, one that distinguishes us as a nation and is actually a wonderful phenomenon? The unique Neolithic temples? No. The Knights’ wondrous palaces, churches and fortifications, with their vast artistic and architectural treasures? No. The time-honoured, patterned fields in the countryside? No. The crystal-clear blue sea that surrounds us? No.
It is the national language. It is what gives us a national identity, more than the flag or the coat-of-arms, the parading soldiers and the presidential fanfare. It is a heritage that has sadly been left to rot for far too long by politicians and authorities who should have known better.
A case in point, two in one in actual fact, are Heritage Malta and its volunteer sister organisation Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti, with the latter doing everything, except sporting its title, in English. Both have done an incredible amount of work on the protection, promotion and welfare of our national heritage where stone, history and art are concerned, and yet both are somehow unconcerned that they are almost completely overlooking our greatest heritage – the Maltese language, not only still the proven everyday language of the vast majority of the Maltese, but also a linguistic phenomenon that strangely did not occur in places like Spain and Sicily where the Arabs historically stayed longer than they did in Malta.
Heritage Malta’s fantastic publications are almost always in English. On their English-only website, I counted only two publications in Maltese out of 42, and, as far as I could gather, there has never been a book on the national language.
The same goes for the “Fondazzjoni”. Its English-only website reveals there have been 38 publications, all of them in English. There’s a lot of art, history and culture packed into all that, but our greatest cultural heritage, the national language, does not even come into the reckoning.
The hard-working chairman and governors of the Fondazzjoni have just kindly invited me, in English of course, to the launch of their newest publication, Architects and Knights – Italian influence in Malta during the late Renaissance by Francesco Menchetti.
It is hard to understand. There is absolutely nothing wrong in reaching out to the world via the English language and, in so doing, promoting Malta’s artistic and cultural heritage, but there has to be a level playing field that caters for our bilingual situation. Ignoring the Maltese language, our greatest national heritage, shows both a lack of sensitivity and an utter disrespect to the vast majority of people on these islands.