I want to discuss briefly some recent goings-on in Bobbyland.
“Bobbyland” comes from an association of ideas. The testimony given by Melvin Theuma in court, in which he said that he saw former Deputy Police Commissioner Silvio Valletta at Yorgen Fenech’s place. Police Commissioner and “Fenech” reminded me of fenkati, fenkati of “Bobbyland” (the famous restaurant-on-the-cliffs), and the rest is obvious.
What’s also obvious is that the mentioning of Silvio Valletta is not a detto del detto – it’s not hearsay. Mr Theuma, as reported by The Malta Independent, said that some time after Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder he went to Fenech’s ranch: “As I was walking in, I saw through a narrow opening in the door that there was Silvio Valletta.”
Some people are arguing that what Mr Theuma said in court is hearsay. In this particular instance, I disagree. What Mr Theuma said is what he saw not what somebody told him. Mr Theuma is clearly stating that he saw Mr Valletta. If Mr Valletta remains immune to any police action, then we have no choice but to ask what’s going on and what’s the deal between Muscat’s men and Prime Minister Abela.
Now let’s pass on to something else.
Martin Scicluna, the Theologian
Elsewhere in the printed media, the Stephen-Warren-like (Stephen Warren is a character in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, a black slave on an American plantation who calls other slaves “nigger” and “boy”) Martin Scicluna shared his theological musings on conscience.
He was more or less arguing that abortion is permissible if the conscience of the mother allows it. He forayed into Catholic theology territory by arguing that Catholic thinkers have held over the centuries that conscience is supreme.
I’m not a priest and my knowledge of theology is that of a layman, so I won’t try to offer a counterargument to Martin the Theologian’s theology. But as a layman, I think that Martin the Theologian seems to have forgotten that one’s conscience has to be informed, and that requires one or more discussions with a trusted person who has studied theology. It’s like when you’re sick: you don’t self-administer a cure; you discuss with a doctor. But, ultimately, it’s up to you whether you follow the doctor’s advice. You are free to do as you please: your body, your choice. You may also seek more than one medical advice. But, to my layman’s mind, it’s only a fool who doesn’t follow medical advice. What applies to the body, applies more or less to the soul. This is Martin the Theologian’s humongous error in his personal, à-la-carte theology. He thinks you can follow your ignorant conscience, that your conscience does not need to be informed. He seems unaware that you don’t inform your conscience by reading the Bible with ignorant eyes and that many people don’t have the time to undertake serious, in-depth Biblical studies. He seems unaware that you inform your conscience by discussing what is troubling you with somebody who has studied these matters. Only then – after such a discussion – does it make sense for you to listen to your conscience.
Be that as it may. Martin the Theologian’s expert opinion on Divinity reminded me of a story.
There was once in St Petersburg a young and impoverished law student called Rodion Romanovich, to whom an idea occurs: kill an old pawnbroker and take her money. He eventually carries out his plan, murdering not just the old woman but her half-sister too. He makes away with only a purse and a few other belongings, leaving much of the old woman’s wealth behind.
Rodian later talks about his crime with his girlfriend, the pious prostitute Sofya, who eventually leads him to admit the crime, for which he’s exiled to Siberia. He explains to Sofya the five motives which convinced his conscience that he could murder the old woman. First, he killed the old lady because he was poor and needed money. He also wished to benefit society, as the old woman was useless and would have let her money rot. Thirdly, he killed the old lady out of some subconscious compulsion. The fourth motive: he had a right to step over the bounds of ordinary human laws, as his will was above good and evil, and above law and order as well – his will was autonomous and his ego expanded. Lastly, Rodion unconsciously poses the problem of man’s relation to God: “Was it the old hag I killed? No, I killed myself, and not the old hag. I did away with myself at one blow and for good. It was the devil who killed the old hag, not I.”
The law student’s name was Rodian Romanovich, and his surname was Raskolnikov. His story is related in Crime and Punishment.
Mr Scicluna might wish to read (or, hopefully, re-read) that classic, before proposing the horrendous idea that mothers can kill their own children ...
An afterthought: “Raskolnikov”, like almost all names in Dostoyevsky’s oeuvre, is a play on words. “Raskol” in Russian means “schism” and refers to the schism in the Russian Orthodox Church, between those who followed the reforms of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow (“nikov” seems to indicate a connection with “Nikon”) and the Old Believers, who were against the reforms.
If we look at these reforms with 21st-century eyes, we would probably find them trivial. One reform, for instance, was that in the Creed, the Old Believers maintained the old practice of saying “in the Holy Spirit, the True Lord and Giver of Life” while the reformers embraced a new wording, “in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life”. It’s interesting to note that the reformed wording agrees with the Creed of the Catholics and of the Anglicans: “the Lord, the giver of life”.
For somebody, like Mr Scicluna, who repeatedly asked a Catholic population to donate funds for the restoration of an Anglican Cathedral (a praiseworthy cause, mind you), it would denote coherence if he were to remember that phrase: “the Lord, the giver of life”.
Then again, Mr Scicluna the Liberal (the alter-ego of Martin the Theologian) was an advisor to Eddie Fenech Adami, one of the most Catholic and conservative prime ministers of this country. I wonder how Mr Scicluna convinced his conscience at the time.
Why do we go to work?
No, I don’t mean why do we need to work but why do we need to go to a workplace. Why can’t we work from home?
Let’s have a quick look at the past. (Brace yourselves for the ubiquitous elderly gentleman, Mr Oosterman, who, just for the fun of it, will probably disagree with what I’m going to say.)
In the distant past, when Christians still roamed the Earth, people worked from home. Farmers (and serfs) lived on farmsteads, artisans’ workshops were parts of their homes, and the monks worked (lived, and prayed) in monasteries. Brothels, that were owned by either the City or the Church, were where destitute girls worked (to keep young males away from girls of good families), but I don’t remember reading where the working girls lodged. The Church, wanting them to get married, promoted the cult of Mary Magdalene as redeemed prostitute, to convince bachelors to deliver young, destitute girls from their predicament. Only the warrior had to commute, but back then, war was not work; war was a means to settle disputes between noblemen.
So essentially people worked from home. Then industry started to expand, particularly the textile industry. At first, industrialists employed women and children in the countryside, who would work from home. The industrialist would go from farm to farm leaving raw material to be woven and collecting worked material. But people working from home weren’t always reliable; the industrialist not only had no control on the level of production but would have to foot the bill for late deliveries.
So it occurred to industrialists that it would be better to have the weavers and other workers work under their direct supervision.
And that’s how the mass migration from the countryside to the cities began, and how the art of management came to be.
So the crux of the matter is control. How to control your employees in order to guarantee timely production.
This is the task of the manager, who not only has to know how to motivate his subordinates, but also how to mete out organisational justice and beat the employee’s perennial temptation: Windows Solitaire.
Be paranoid!
Whatever Bobby Star says, it’s imperative to stay safe.
Therefore, please, make it an obsession to wash your hands when you go back home and before you touch anything. First thing you do as soon as you’re in, wash your hands. Thoroughly. Then, out of courtesy toward the other (all the other) members of the human species (including those you dislike and those who don’t really deserve it), please wear a mask that should (in theory at least) be fine enough to prevent the passage of the virus should you be an unwitting carrier of the deadly thing.
Now we have a new challenge. Thanks to Bobby Star’s brilliant idea retroactively to pardon certain virus-related fines, the less bright will think that the pandemic isn’t serious. The State is clearly failing us. It’s up to us, therefore, to exercise our God-given right to live. If you meet somebody who thinks it’s okay not to wear the mask, be assertive and tell them to wear it. If they don’t, then keep away from them like they were, well quite literally, the plague.
Professor Christian Scerri – somebody who knows a thing or two: i.e., an expert, whom we should listen to – has publicly insisted on maintaining social distancing.
Social distancing is important. At least 1.5 m. How much is that? Five feet? If it’s someone who spits while talking, then even more.
Remember what Bill Gates teaches us: “Only the paranoid survive”. Be paranoid!
My Personal Library (95)
I recently bought a copy of an old book, Denis Mack Smith’s 1968 A History of Sicily: Modern Sicily After 1713, and leafing through I found this: “The sociologist, Vilfredo Pareto, spoke of ‘groups of criminals who flourish under government protection’. Pareto saw [Italian Prime Minister] Crispi as inescapably dependent on such people; [...] this is why the government did nothing about the massive misappropriation of communal property by the local oligarchies. Pareto favourably compared the British government of Malta, and thought it explained why the Maltese were more loyal to Britain than Sicilians to Italy. ‘The government does nothing to suppress these abuses, because the same persons who dominate the communal councils are the chief electors of the deputies, who, in their turn, employ their influence with the government to screen the misdeeds of their friends and partisans.’”