Opposition Leader Bernard Grech obtained a good vote to confirm him in his party’s top job. Politically the vote should provide him with a platform from which to build the PN’s internal structures from the ground up, as necessary.

One doubts whether his main target should be the one he has described – that of solving the party’s financial mess. Clearly it is a leading problem and needs to be given full attention. But a more essential aim would be that of ensuring that between and across all sections of the party, common links of confidence and solidarity are set up, individually with each other and among each other.

Grech is being given up to the European elections to deliver acceptable results, and it’s too short a time. For what needs to be done, a number of capillary initiatives have to be undertaken, especially among the party grassroots, but these take time to develop and mature.

Still Grech seems prepared to make things more difficult for himself. Statements when the election was over in the sense that the vote was some victory of love over hatred or of truth over lies, were misplaced at a time when what he had to do already was to stimulate the growth of a lost camaraderie between all tendencies of his party.

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BLINKEN ON CHINA

The speech on China given by US secretary of state Anthony Blinken at Georgetown University was confused and confusing. It is clear that a worldwide competition between the US and China is unfolding.

In his speech Blinken advanced a number of propositions regarding the US reality and the country’s aims which were rather ambiguous, indeed contradictory. How do they tie in with each other to present a coherent picture of US “China” policy? Some of the premises put forward are spot on – like the “openness” of American society which endows it with flexibility when in renewal. Others – like how the US defines economic and commercial competition – are arguable, perhaps false.

All things considered, the conclusion has to be that the US are determined at all costs to remain the top dog in any global competition. But they find it difficult to clearly admit this.

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DUN KARM

The spring edition of Knisja 2000, a magazine published by the Dominicans, entitled “Is Dun Karm still relevant?” features an interesting range of issues. It contains a number of useful contributions by critics – mostly academic – who evaluate the works of Dun Karm from a contemporary perspective. Evidently, over the years, the critical apparatus by which academic thinkers appreciate the works of the National Poet has continued to become more sophisticated.

Even so, one does end up with the impression after having gone through them, that the views expressed still reflect critical values that are rather “traditional” on the lines first laid out by Professor Ġuże Aquilina and later modernised by Oliver Friggieri. Except mostly in the contribution by Adrian Grima, one does not feel that Dun Karm’s poetry has managed to provoke a radical critical response that would have perhaps given it a new life.

The critique advanced by Mario Azzopardi revolving around “Dun-Karm-as-he-should-have-been” hardly leaves a trace in the Knisja 2000 issue – though saying this, does not imply that Azzopardi was fully correct with his denunciations.