Yeah, we’ve all always had our “favourite” National Day, defending it like it was on that one particular day in our lives that we had finally become humanised, even if it went back to the Great Siege. We have all happily followed the political bickering over the issue that has now spanned well over five delusional decades, and we’ve all enjoyed the resultant joke situation wherein we ended up, as Vince Farrugia would have once described it, not with one national day, not with two, three or four, but with five National Days!

It’s been fun, thank you politicians of the Left, Right and Centre, but it is now time to grow up. Joseph Muscat’s timely advent into the political scene has been marked by his passionate appeal to end extreme political polarisation by burying past differences and prejudices and belatedly moving into the 21st century as a unified, highly-ambitious nation. It is perhaps fortuitous that, almost one year since his electoral barnstorming, we are going through a year of significant anniversaries and so giving him the opportunity to turn words into action and the rest of us the chance to witness a new era emerging.

In this same space, I had already acknowledged the wisdom behind Oliver Friggieri’s appointment as chairman of the National Festivities Committee. We are now soon to reap the harvest of that same committee’s work, beginning with the 35th anniversary of Freedom Day in March. But it is not enough to merely see a more than welcome uniformity of esteem, volume and expense in celebrations with regard to each of the five national holidays; eventually, there has to be agreement on which one is/are to become THE National Day/s. Five certainly won’t do any more, four remains an embarrassment, three ditto, two maybe.

There will, of course, be the usual political wrangling, but hopefully both parties have moved away from their old standpoints and are ready to come to an agreement. Both know there will be huge chunks of their own rank-and-file with contrasting ideas on which day to insist upon and which day is dispensable. It is difficult changing a 50-year-old, 40-year-old, 35-year-old, even a 10-year-old psyche overnight, but as long as both parties manage to find a way through the maze, people will inevitably come to terms with reality.

In truth, there have been futile attempts in the past to seek an agreement on the issue. Alfred Sant was the first Prime Minister (1996-98) to pay on-site tribute at a monument commemorating a “rival” National event – Independence – but he was at the time sadly rewarded with boos and contempt instead of gratitude by a crowd of Nationalist supporters who happened to be on the scene. It already seems to have happened ages ago, thank goodness.

Today, Malta has a young Prime Minister and a young Opposition leader, both ex-MEPs, both eager to show they have change – positive change – in mind and both will gain the appreciation of most Maltese and Gozitans, of whichever generation, who are highly aware of the need to grow up and move ahead as a nation.

It certainly takes two to tango, and the sooner they are seen to have taken up the tempo and are dancing to the rhythm, the more people will join in the national effort to bring those many years of fruitless resentment and animosity to a much-desired closure.

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The Vatican should do it Joseph’s way

A United Nations committee recently expressed its grave concern over the fact that the Vatican has not acknowledged the “extent of crimes committed” regarding child abuse. In fact, a month-long investigation, which included the examination of cases of clerics who have been “involved in the abuse of tens of thousands of children world-wide”, revealed that the Holy See had adopted policies which had led to a continuation of abuse.

One could only sympathize with committee chairman Kirsten Sandberg when she said: “it is a horrible thing that has been kept silent… the abuse has been going on and on.”

The committee recommended that the Holy See immediately share any information on all cases of abuse, following criticism that the Vatican has declined to provide data relating to the scandal. It also raised concerns that well-known sexual abusers have been moved from parish to parish or even across borders as part of a cover-up and that there was a “code of silence” among the clergy over the issue.

While it is acknowledged that Pope Francis has called sexual abuse of children “the shame of the Church” and has vowed to continue procedures put in place by his predecessor Benedict XVI, the Holy See’s reaction to the UN report was far too predictable and old-fashioned to be taken seriously when it said it regretted to see “an attempt to interfere with Catholic Church teaching on the dignity of the human person and in the exercise of religious freedom.”

A retrospective prescription law that can go back and forth in time to catch abusers, very much the same thing Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s government has done in dealing with political corruption after the highly abusive, decadent years of Gonzipn, would do the trick for the Vatican. Child abuse is not merely a moral issue, it is a criminal offence, whoever commits it and whatever sector of everyday life he or she comes from. And at whichever moment in time.

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More than an apostrophe

I see that campaigners in the UK believe local councils there are setting the wrong example to schoolchildren by not including punctuation on new street signs. This followed Cambridge City Council becoming one of the latest local authorities to decide not to put apostrophes on new signs!

Were we to have campaigners sweating blood over the kind of Maltese, not just apostrophes, being presented by local councils and other authorities, including government departments and corporations, they would have instant heart failure. Even worse, were they to try and keep check of all that is being said and shown on radio and television, they would all too quickly resort to redemption via hara-kiri.

It is a funny twist of fact that while protagonists from the Plain English Campaign, foremost among them Steve Jenner, have said in the media that a lot of UK councils had decided to drop the apostrophe on road signs, our one and only displayed source of well-written Maltese are actually, and only, the new road signs.

Mr Jenner explained that those very same councils that are dropping the use of apostrophes are also responsible for delivering education in their areas, “so in schools we have teachers explaining how to use apostrophes and then the authorities are saying ‘oh well, in certain contexts it is perfectly ok to ignore them’.”

If only this were our linguistic preoccupation.....

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Crucify them

You can’t blame those who are loudly calling for the bastards who have been crucifying cats and dogs around Mosta to be crucified when finally caught and brought to justice. Not only is theirs a hideous crime, but it is also an affront to a nation that has happily, if slowly, grown to love animals.

I am totally against capital punishment, even when the victim is another human being, but I would willingly sign a petition for a sham crucifixion of the perpetrators that would last a few minutes of public humiliation. At least with hunting, in whichever season, there is always the excuse of tradition and a fair chance of survival, but with the cats and dogs of Mosta it all seems so horrid and despicable.