I couldn't help remembering a G.K. Chesterton quote as I watched the small gathering of Maltese "patriots" waving the national flag and eating ham sandwiches at Msida the other day. It goes: "My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, my mother, drunk or sober." Oscar Wilde was more incisive, however: "Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious."
The thing is I seriously believe that true patriotism should make the heart beat faster and the tongue wag slower, and not the other way round. This business of finding a place of worship for the Muslim community in Malta, for example, has taken a bizarre twist and the sooner it is buried the better.
In my last piece for this newspaper, I pointed out that traffic-infested, parking-traumatised Msida with the parish church as a background certainly did not qualify for the ideal choice and the authorities did well to have a re-think. I do not think Muslims really care where they can have their Friday prayers as long as they are facing Mecca, and places like Ta' Qali and Ħal Far would provide them with all the peace and quiet they deserve, though with this sudden cold spell, had I been a Muslim, I would rather Google-earth Mecca and face it cosily from inside my sitting-room.
Does this make me more of a patriot or less? The mind boggles. I am a patriot if it means showing my country and countrymen as a welcoming place and nation where race, religion and colour of skin are not in the reckoning when it comes to granting and sustaining liberties and rights. I can be a patriot even in the presence of other cultures and traditions, as long as mine are mutually recognised and respected. No culture is superior to another, just as no religion is greater than another, including of course the concept of non-regimental religion or no religion at all.
I do not think that Muslims praying in a public place are a threat to one's culture or recognised religion, but choice of place has to depend on practicality and availability. Yes, there are Muslim countries where your wife can't even go about with her hair unveiled or wearing a short skirt and the solution to that is - just don't go spending your money or energy there. Of course if you happen to be a Maltese Muslim, and they do exist, this won't worry you, but you rightly still expect to be able to worship anywhere in your own country, given there is a practical approach on the part of who is to give you this right.
Practicality and common sense have to prevail. During a visit to Macedonia a couple of years back, for example, I happened to be taking part in a live television transmission of a famous poetry festival at Struga when the local mullah inside the town mosque suddenly started singing out his prayers via a loudspeaker for all to hear - Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox Christians and the non-religious. What amazed me was the reaction of the two TV presenters as well as their producer - they just went on, quite unperturbed, with the business of delivering a live transmission. I was reading out a poem in Maltese, so I could hardly expect any one from the large audience of Macedonians present or the TV viewers to understand a single word, but the mullah added a surreal tinge to the whole scene!
Of course they are used to all this in ethnically and religiously divided Macedonia, while it is more or less pretty new to us in Malta. Pluralism in religion is, however, a reality we cannot overlook or disregard, as long as we treat it fairly and, you've got it, with practicality.
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... and Cameron's way?
Some people have been shocked by British Prime Minister David Cameron's announcement that Muslim women who fail to improve their English face will be refused permission to stay in the UK. He has even launched a €25-million initiative aimed at helping female members of the Muslim community with their language skills in an attempt to integrate them into the community and help tackle extremism.
It makes enough sense to me that one is expected to learn and use the language of a country he or she enters as a migrant or refugee. Better communication is vital to integration and, yes, practical too. Why not mandatory Maltese for the migrants and refugees among us?
Would the Maltese migrants in places like Australia, the US and Canada have made the headway that they did in those communities had they not shown the language skills required of them? Certainly not, but while so doing they have not been denied their processions with religious statues and fireworks in the wide streets of Melbourne and Sydney full of somewhat perplexed passers-by, ħobż biż-żejt and xalati, Maltese language programmes on radio and TV, Maltese language newspapers, pastizzi, Kinnie and Cisk. Integration, tolerance and the merging of cultures and traditions have seen to all that. And don't dare say to any Australian that he or she is not a patriot because of all this.
It is complicated sometimes, though. You are an infidel if you happen to be a non-believer, but then if you belong to one religion and not the other you might still have your head chopped off. This can be carried out physically, as we have sadly seen time and time again in news clips from the Middle East, and metaphorically when isolated incidents in the West are quickly interpreted as the actions of a whole, representative religion, which they are not.
In the meantime, Pope Francis continues to lead by example as he visits all sorts of places of worship, from synagogues to mosques and cathedrals, to preach peace and to denounce all violence committed in the name of God, rightly saying it has nothing to do with religion.
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The biggest threat
The biggest threat on our congested roads is not exactly the amount of cars. Nor is it the obvious lack of courtesy shown by most drivers and pedestrians alike. It is the use of mobile phones when driving.
Try driving behind a distributer's van, a heavy goods vehicle, or a taxi while the driver is talking on his mobile phone, presumably seeking directions on how and where to find a client. It is a reality we are living all over these islands and certainly a major contributor to the permanent state of road rage we have thrust ourselves into. The girl driver sending text messages on her pink mobile from the car ahead of you is no less frustrating and dangerous.
The problem needs to be addressed. In the UK, for example, as from this year it is being seriously considered to have drivers who use mobile phones behind the wheel hit with increased fines and points under new government proposals. Offenders would see a rise from three to four penalty points on their licence and a rise in fines from £100 to £150, while an educational course to try to change behaviour is offered to first-time offenders.
On the local front, the problem of drunk driving is being tackled successfully enough, and the use of mobile phones when behind the wheel should be the next challenge.