It is Christmas. Should we talk about Joseph Muscat?

When three weeks ago I wrote an article called “The Rise and the Fall”, a reader left an interesting comment beneath the online version of my piece. Referring to a sentence in my article – “It is never fair – never ever – for children to have to pay for the misdeeds of their parents” – he wrote, “It may not be fair but it is reality and has been ever since the parents were kicked out of Paradise. It seems ‘fair’ was not a high priority for God.” I reacted with a sarcastic comment, which was not nice of me. So, since this is Christmas, I tell that reader I’m sorry and all that.

But the comment served to inspire today’s piece. This reader’s comment probably came from a free association of ideas... the rise and fall of Joseph Muscat... the Fall of Man... Paradise Lost...

So today I want to write about the Garden of Eden, because Christmas – though this might come as a surprise to some people – is not an excuse to binge-buy, overeat, and revel; it is the celebration of the birth of Jesus, who, according to the story, was born to make good for the silliness of Adam in the Garden of Eden, when the first man listened to his wife and both ate the fruit that God had forbade them to eat.

Why was it an "apple"? Whereas there's no mention of “apple” in the Genesis story, there is an ancient tradition according to which the “forbidden fruit” was a red apple. The renowned psychologist Jordan Peterson suggests in one of his lectures that the forbidden fruit is a red apple because red signifies “ripeness”. It was therefore a ripe fruit which the first man accepted from his wife.

When God got angry at Adam's silliness, God cursed the serpent and the ground; God did not curse Adam. It was after these two curses and God's decision to greatly increase the woman's pangs in childbearing that the first man called his wife Eve, "because she was the mother of all living". According to tradition, the name "Eve" is related to the Hebrew word for "life". ("Adam" is related to the Hebrew word for "red".) According to another tradition, the name of God is the third person singular of the verb in Hebrew related to "life".

Despite the insistence on Life, the punishment for eating the fruit was Death. The story can be read on many levels, but one level should strike us most. When the serpent convinced the woman to eat, the serpent told her, "You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

You'll notice that the claims made by the serpent were twofold. One, that the punishment promised by God was not true; two, that by disobeying God, the two humans would "be like God". This theme is found elsewhere in Genesis, for instance in the Tower of Babel story, as it seems that man can't learn the lesson, keeps falling prey to hubris and wanting to be like God, and keeps incurring God's wrath and punishment. Even if you read this through the eyes of the non-believer, you will still perceive the archetype, and how to interpret what happened to silly Joseph Muscat who fell prey to hubris and to his delusions of grandeur.

In Muscat's case, he might have thought he became a god (many men of power have suffered from this self-delusion – the Roman emperors even made it state policy to be considered as a divinity). But the way I see it, Muscat was more like the serpent. He tempted the "innocent" Maltese electorate ("Those who craved to be duped and now expect commiseration because they were betrayed", as Giovanni Bonello privately told me a few days ago – I'm quoting him with his permission by the way); he tempted them using deception. The Genesis serpent is also known as "The Deceiver".

Genesis is such a powerful text because it is archetypal. Some serious and other, less serious scholars try to divine its numerological secrets. Others consider it of divine inspiration. I think it's divine.

Deception

Muscat deceived the Maltese people in many ways. Not just by pretending not to understand the Panama Papers scandal in 2016 and doggedly defending the "gang who brought shame on our country" when instead he should have instantly fired them. He deceived the Maltese people by promising long-lasting economic prosperity while pushing forward short-termism. We might experience the implications in the not-too-distant future, even though I hope I'm wrong.

He also deceived the Maltese people by promising a twisted idea of equality.

By equality one usually means equality of opportunity. One does not mean that people are personally equal.

Equality of opportunity means that, irrespective of one's condition and family origins, if one is intelligent one gets the opportunity to move up in life. This revolutionary idea comes from the first article of the French Revolution's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen: "Men are born and remain free and equal in rights". Everybody should have the same opportunity to advance in life. Ultimately, equality is a Christian idea: in his letter to the Galatians, St Paul explains that there is equal opportunity for salvation in Christ(ianity).

The other type of equality – the one that pretends that all are personally equal – is what one finds in totalitarian systems. But in such systems, as George Orwell pointed out in Animal Farm, some animals end up more equal than others. Because in totalitarian systems there is a law for the animals and a law for the gods, as Evarist Bartolo reminded us in 2016.

Muscat deceived the people by promising a warped vision of equality. Earlier this year, during the TV talk-show Xtra, Muscat said that he “want[ed] the Maltese youths to get the skilled jobs" and "Maltese workers to be managers or doctors". These words only served to further confuse the people, as he deceivingly fomented the subversive, racist idea that all should be managers and doctors, all should get skilled jobs, whereas the other jobs would be taken up by foreigners.

This was vile deception. How can you ignore the intelligence quotient of people? Muscat's deceptive equality is deceptive because it promises to those with a lower IQ that they can be like those with a higher IQ. It's like telling short people they can have a career in basketball if they want to, or heavy-set people that they can be jockeys or ballerinas, or the tone-deaf they can become professional singers. This is pure and irresponsible deception. And the less intelligent believed it, swallowing the lie that they are really equal to the more intelligent!

Equality of opportunity means that anybody who has what it takes can become anything they want. Muscatian equality means that everybody is like everybody else if they want to.

This is chaos! Diabolical chaos!

Chaos

The Judeo-Christian tradition proposes the idea that Order brings a functioning State and a prosperous society but at its height, Order is betrayed by Corruption and the State and society fall into Chaos. Corruption happens when public administration is no longer carried out according to the principles of morality.

Malta's constitutional setup is basely on Britain's. According to the British constitutional theorist A.V. Dicey, there are two types of constitutional rules: those that are enforceable in Court and those that make up "constitutional morality" – what is right and what is wrong.

But salvation is not achieved through the State per se. Salvation is achieved through the truthful individual, through the individual who speaks the truth and leads everybody else toward the “utopian” State.

When the leader of a nation does not follow (constitutional) morality, when he deceives, he leads to chaos. The crisis that has hit our country with the force of a gale wind is constitutional chaos. This chaos feeds primarily on ignorance.

Even in his last days, Muscat has embarked on yet another attempt at spreading ignorance. I have recently discovered that there is a new branch of knowledge which actually studies the systematic spread of ignorance.

It is known as "agnotology" and it is the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt. Look carefully at what Joseph and Michelle Muscat are doing at the moment, aided and abetted by the Labour-owned and Labour-leaning media. You will see that they are spreading unknowledge and doubt. In other words, they are spreading chaos.

This has been the overall effect of Muscat's politics. He injected into the country a culture of ignorance, of "everything goes", of impunity. His politics have opened the gates for chaos. When the PN was campaigning for rule of law it was implicitly campaigning against chaos.

But now Chaos is here. Muscat leaves a chaotic country behind him. One has to wonder whether we have the resources – human, financial, and cultural – to restore order out of chaos.

Living the Frank Sinatra repertoire

Muscat's style – spreading what he called "positivity" aimed to create the feel-good factor – reminds me a lot of Frank Sinatra's repertoire.

There seems to be a common theme in many Sinatra songs: the post-war feel-good factor. According to one author, Sinatra was the personification of 1950s America: "cocky, eye on the main chance, optimistic, and full of the sense of possibility".

Listen to songs like "That's Life" and "New York, New York" and it's as if Muscat were singing them. Muscat even explicitly used the title of one Sinatra song – "The Best Is Yet To Come" – during the 2017 election campaign!

But then, listen also to the Sinatra version of "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" and "Mack The Knife" – these two songs somehow also feature in Muscat's political biography.

Then there's the song "I Get A Kick Out Of You" of which there are two versions: one mentions cocaine, the other doesn't.

A very merry Christmas and a happy new year. Let’s hope it’s a good one, without any fear.

My Personal Library (80)

The Bible is the most important book ever. Saydon’s translation is particularly dear to me. It should be to Maltese what the King James version is to English. But few people read it, saying it is “difficult”. I claim that that difficulty makes it so precious. Scripture should be difficult because it needs to be read over and over before the meaning is grasped. I disagree with those who want the Bible to be translated into everyday language.

It is said that music heals the soul. But surely, it’s not shallow music that heals the soul. It’s music structured on many levels that you unravel over time, music that initially attracts you not because it’s cantabile but because of a partially-veiled beauty you can’t put your finger on, not immediately at least. Then you listen to it attentively and, in time, you crack the cipher. When you achieve that level of intimacy with a piece of music (a fugue by Bach, say, or a romanza by Beethoven, or even, in certain circumstances, Any Colour You Like by Pink Floyd), then your soul starts to heal. And when you read about the structure of these musical pieces, your brain starts glimpsing why they heal your soul.

The same with Scripture. Scripture should not be approached like a pop song; it should be approached like those pieces of music that attract you with a promise but deliver only after careful listening – not with the ears; with the soul. Scripture is like the woman of your life... you uncover her true self the deeper you know her.

If you are interested in Pink Floyd music, a number of university professors and lecturers contributed to a book called ‘Speak to Me’: The Legacy of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon (2005). Part II deals with the music: structure, tonal coherence, modulation...