Final Thoughts

Guest blogger Justin BB shares his final thoughts with J’accuse readers. From Scotland with ice this article was dispatched shortly before JBB began his long trek to Malta (ah the sacrifices that disinterested navel gazers make for a quick vote on the island).

Final Thoughts (JBB)

The following are a few random thoughts that I typed up in a hurry before getting the bus from Aberdeen to Glasgow. Apologies for the haphazard style, but the bus will not wait:

Time for Change

One thing is certain. This electoral campaign has made it amply clear that politics in Malta must change. Malta is similar to pre-Thatcherite Britain – a centre left consensus among a comfortable electorate leaves no room for politicians to truly tell us what they believe, to respect our intelligence and give us a choice of real policies. The electoral campaign has been low on substance and high on mud-slinging, because mud is all that is left when substance is gone.

So how do we go about making the change happen? And what price, if any, are we ready to pay to do so?

Some will prioritise voting a corrupt and arrogant government out. Others will keep an incompetent, amoral opposition from becoming a bumbling government for a second time. Still others will vote to change the entire system of governance. They will vote not to kick or keep someone out but to knock the demagogues off their pedestals and onto the chairs at the discussion table.

Which approach is best depends on what a voter really thinks is attainable. Will Labour finally get their act together and make good use of five more years in the wilderness? Will PN sort itself out or will it become more rabid if voted out? If AD or AN do win seats, will they really change the way politics is done?

Of course most will vote as they always have, whether they bother to think it through or not.

More Dirt

This electoral campaign was characterised by dirt.

I imagine MLP strategists coming across some flimsy evidence and asking how they can make it stick. Does anyone honestly think that MLP asked if the healthcare charges story was true? Clearly they did not. They’re adverts illustrate their intent quite clearly when they say that a decision has been taken, when the document they quote in that same advert says otherwise.

Did they explore whether JPO really knew about the Mistra application all along? I have no doubt that they did not. They simply found some facts, spun them into the dirtiest narrative they could, and let the media know when JPO was stuck on a boat (the most hilariously childish episode in Maltese politics that I can remember, closely followed by JPO and AS’ antics at MLP’s BA press conference)

Did PN ever deign to apologise for one of their supporters chucking a rock through Harry’s windows into his house? (where as far as the supporters knew, his young children could have been. Raymond Caruana anyone?) No they did not. They said that it isn’t certain that a PN activist chucked the rock.

Did PN ever deign to apologise for illegally arresting Super One journalists?

And then there is the obscene Harry arrest warrant. It has the feel of something from the 80s.

Did AD take a firm stand on this or did they just hope to benefit from MLP and PN’s mudslinging? To my mind, a bit of both is true.

So where’s the beef?

Quite surprisingly, AN was the one party to truly articulate a platform. They’re something like a Catholic version of the more whacky US Republicans: small government, anti-immigration, and pro-family. Unfortunately I cannot find myself commending the substance of most of AN’s proposals, particularly when they have come close to being a force to be reckoned with because of racist sentiments.

PN and its media cohorts focused on demonising its opposition; MLP focused on using flimsy evidence to tarnish PN; AD focused on ‘coalition’, which isn’t quite substance in terms of bread and butter policy. There is a counter-arguments to all of this, namely that campaigns are always about the other as much as about oneself, but wouldn’t it have been healthier had AD articulated a green and socially progressive agenda more forcefully? Would it not have been healthier had PN and MLP actually discussed their own proposals rather than focusing on personalities?

There was some substance surely, but was there as sustained engagement with ideas?

Where are the women?

This electoral campaign looks like it could be something from the 1950s, except in the 50s Mabel Strickland was a major political figure. If my quick mental calculations are right, less than 10% of the candidates are women. Despite Gonzi’s reasonable efforts, Malta is still stuck in a frame of mind that is several decades behind the sorry state of several other democracies.

Part of the solution is to change our outdated schooling system and to integrate boys’ and girls’ schools. How can we sustain an educational system that raises children to believe that they cannot work with the other gender? And how can we hope to have a truly egalitarian society if boys and girls grow up thinking that they are fundamentally worlds apart?

The rise of the blogs

This election was the first to see blogs playing a role in forming public opinion. Of course we have to take the good with the bad. It is too easy to click ‘submit comment’ and deride a faceless opponent, when few would have the guts or the utter lack of respect to do so face to face. That being said, blogs have changed the dynamics of electoral debate. Ideas are engaged with instantly and intelligent discussion is finally a reality in a way that the print media could never hope for. The big parties can no longer hope to bog debate down and crush freedom of speech. I look forward to 2013.

Youtube also played its part, mostly in furthering and fuelling the negative campaigning. Still, this is a positive development in that people talk to each other in real time, rather than Net News and Super One talking over each other.

What next?

On Monday GonziPN might feel that their dirty electioneering was successful. If not, let’s hope that they have a good long look at themselves rather than blaming anything else under the sun as they have persisted in doing since the EP elections.

Alfred Sant might feel vindicated for running a dirty campaign too. He might feel that he does not need to do much to be elected because he might be PM, notwithstanding misprints, computer malfunctions and impossible/incomplete policies. If not, let’s hope that Labour will put its best minds to work on becoming a credible alternative to PN’s hegemony.

AD might actually win a seat in Parliament. If they do, will they live up to the promise of forging a new way of doing politics, a green way of doing politics? If not, let’s hope that they work towards being a more professional campaigning unit.

Towards a decent society?

Patrick Tabone asked me whether I would be willing to publish a reply to recent positions taken by myself and David on a number of issue. I am publishing his article in full and am very pleased to give his point of view this space. It goes without saying that opinions in this article are Patrick’s and my publishing them does not mean that I am in any way in agreement. I will reply to some points today (later… too much work till 1600) and some in my last two articles in the J’Accuse Votes series. Here therefore is Patrick’s baptism of fire in the blogging world as a guest blogger.

Towards a Decent Society?
by Patrick Tabone

In the last couple of days David and Jacques have made two related arguments that deserve to be analysed.
They put the quest for ‘the decent society’ as the primary objective of the political process, and seem to conclude that a vote for either of the two major parties is not compatible with that objective. Jacques reaches this conclusion because he feels the two parties have blocked a move towards a fairer proportional representation system, and David because he feels that the whole establishment is so permeated by sleaze, favours and ‘hatred of the other’ that any vote for MLPN would simply serve to prop up a sick system that deserves to die. Jacques is therefore leaning towards an AD vote, even though he ‘doesn’t care much about’ them. David doesn’t yet say what he will do come March 8, but I guess it’s got to be one of the smaller parties or a no vote.

There’s something that feels strangely satisfying about this line of reasoning. Of course ‘the decent society’ should be our goal. And of course we clearly don’t have a decent society yet. Who can argue that our form of democracy doesn’t have it’s flaws, a too-high de facto threshold chief among them? And the ills that David describes are real, as is the need to address them. Surely the election gives us an opportunity to do so?

It’s worth analysing carefully; I think we all agree that a feeling alone isn’t enough to base something as important as a vote on.

Let’s take Jacques’ thesis first. The two parties have blocked a move towards proportional representation, meaning that, as Jacques put it, a vote for AD ‘has been rendered practically useless’, a ‘wasted vote’. Since it’s MLPN that has created this fact, MLPN should not profit from it. So vote for AD, wasted vote or not. Sounds good, but does it stand up to rational examination?

If it were rational it would need to lead to an improved situation, or at the very least to no deterioration in the status quo. In what way can a vote for AD improve the chance of electoral reform? As Jacques has seen clearly (see para above), the vote does not help AD get anyone elected – the experience of the last few elections, and the info coming from every survey is consistent. AD cannot and will not get anyone elected as things stand – that’s precisely why Jacques is pissed off at the system. Because it’s not fair to AD.

OK, it might not help AD elect anyone, but it would send a signal right? Well, let’s assume for argument’s sake a massive explosion in AD voters, because enough people take this advice; let’s assume that AD get 5% of the vote. This would be a big result for Alternattiva – they have never managed 2% in a general election, and only 0.7% in 2003; it’s also higher than any poll suggests is possible (though, tellingly, still nowhere remotely close to getting anyone elected). Since Labour’s 2003 vote can be expected to hold strong (as the Malta Today Surveys clearly shows), even a smaller switch than this would be enough to bring Labour to power. For a couple of weeks people might point to a higher than expected vote for AD – some would interpret it as a vote for green issues, some for rent law reform, some for electoral reform, some as a protest vote. But at the end of the day it’s a tiny percentage of the electorate and people would move on to the new reality – a Labour government, one that is certainly no friend of electoral reform in the sense that Jacques wants it.

So, the idea of withdrawing support for MLPN because it blocked electoral reform has in fact had the following consequences: it has helped elect the MLP (part of MLPN), has not helped AD elect anyone, and has not brought electoral reform any closer. If you prefer a Labour government to a PN one, that’s fine. However Jacques, for example, doesn’t; he feels that “no matter how much PN policy and strategy is in the shit, MLP policy is even for the worse”.

If anyone who feels the same way votes for AD for the purpose of achieving electoral reform, they do not get any closer to their objective, but they help deliver a government that they feel is second best of the two alternatives on offer.

With David’s argument it’s not electoral reform as such; it’s the entire establishment that is sick. So don’t vote for MLPN, the bedrock of that establishment. Whether you choose not to vote, or to vote for one of the small parties, the consequences will be the same as in the paragraphs above. If you voted to secure EU membership in 2003, then your attempt to abandon MLPN in facts helps create the small swing that is needed to elect the MLP – part of the very establishment you are trying not to support.

In the end, in both cases you don’t really get any closer to your goal (electoral reform or a message to the establishment); but you do help deliver a Labour Government.

Again, whether that is good or bad depends on your comparative analysis of the two big parties. Since it’s a big decision, one that so much, for so many, depends upon, it is important not to just make a sweeping statement that the two parties are just the same. Everyone needs to make their own judgement, trying to stand aside from our prejudices that David describes so well. As I’ve said elsewhere in this blog, my opinion after my own careful analysis of the campaigns, the electoral manifestos, the leaders, and especially the track records, makes me conclude that there is a clear difference between the two. It is possible to say that, David and Jacques, without demonising anyone, without scaring anyone, without bullying anyone.

I’m not going to try and make the arguments for one or the other here; I’ve made them elsewhere in the blog. I’m not even going to appeal to you to accept my analysis. But I am going to say that making that comparison for yourself is not a cop-out to the establishment; it’s the most important thing you will do all year. Your vote on Saturday helps create a new reality, and you should act so that it is the reality you are most happy with of the alternatives on offer.

SO. Am I saying that there is no way out of the MLPN stranglehold? No. But I am saying there’s no easy way out. We can’t wake up a few weeks before the election and say that the election must suddenly provide us with the answer after 44 years of independence. If David’s and Jacques’ objectives are important enough – and I believe they are – than they deserved to be pursued in a reasoned, determined and patient way. The readership of this blog, generally people with enquiring and independent minds, might be a good place to start. It’ll take ball-breaking, thankless, non-party-political work over many years until you can force the establishment to take notice and begin to change. You cannot wave a magic wand and expect it to happen in a few weeks; though in a few weeks you can light a spark as Jacques and David may have done through these pages.

In the meantime there’s a country to be managed, and who manages it matters very much to us all. Our vote on Saturday will elect one of two alternate governments, and if we have a preference between the two we should express it.

This rationalisation may be distasteful to many who feel that democracy should be more lofty and less calculating. But if you’ll forgive me using the much quoted line by Churchill, “Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Whether it’s the widespread tactical voting in the UK, US Presidents like Dubya who gain power after losing the popular vote, sterile deadlocks in Belgium or chronic government instability in Italy, democracy is a very messy business.

But it’s very precious.

Status Quo

by Guest Blogger David Friggieri

Some prefer GonziPN, others prefer Viva l-Lejber. A few of us dream of belonging to a more decent society.

There is one thing that the scaremongers and skwadristi conveniently forget to mention when they embark on their vigilante tactics. And that one thing is that more or less half their fellow voters will put a nice big No. 1 next to whichever of Sant’s merry band of door-to-door salesmen happens to tickle their fancy.

Now there was a point in time (more or less throughout the KMB glory years) when one was led to believe that the expression marmalja Laburista was a pretty accurate description of reality. A regime which ransacked people’s homes, burnt down a newspaper’s printing press and framed innocent bystanders was thuggish, its supporters had a thuggish disposition and if you wanted to put an end to thuggery, you voted PN.

You grow up, you meet people, you chat to friends and acquaintances. And guess what? Amazingly, several of your fellow countrymen and women voted to keep the thugs in power and have voted for a man called Alfred Sant (known by some as Dottor Sant, by others as the bewigged marionette) in every single election since he’s been at the helm of the least left-wing of left-wing parties. Providentially, some of these friends and acquaintances were convinced that voting ‘Yes’ for Europe was a sensible thing to do, following it up with a PN vote in the subsequent general election.

Now who are these loyal Labour supporters? If you were a Martian and happened to pick up a random Labour-bashing article written by one of our crop of independent columnists, you’d have to come to the conclusion that Labour party supporters must be a motley crew of morons with an IQ hovering somewhere between 15 and 25. How else could such people vote for such a hopeless party, such an incompetent leader, such a pathetic deputat mexxej and so vulgar a secretary general? Indeed, how the hell?

Well, we’re not Martians and we happen to know flesh and blood MLP supporters from the proverbial « all walks of life ». And here’s the catch. Quite a number of them are intelligent, decent human beings with hopes, aspirations and personal ambitions. Some even have ideas on how Malta can be turned into a better place. They’re businessmen and students, lawyers and journalists, musicians, housewives and civil servants. Given that Sant’s party is depicted by some ‘independent’ journalists as something of an abomination, it is even more surprising to find several ‘educators’ (teachers, university lecturers and the like) among Sant’s voters. Hell, you even have three gentlemen who’re happily navigating the corridors of the European Parliament on Labour’s behalf. Are all these people delusional psychopaths? Are they all fools? Are they all vindictive maniacs with chips on their shoulders?

Far from it.

But all these people are playing the game they learnt from the MLPN rule book. Not a very complicated rule book to be honest. It goes like this: Min mhux maghna kontra taghna which translates roughly into ‘Buddy, you’ve got to choose your camp. It’s really the only way you can get on in life. There are rich pickings for the core group, decent rewards for the close friends and scraps for the hangers-on. The ordinary voter? Oh, he gets a fair reward too – that euphoric feeling of being part of something bigger.’

The fact is that thousands of us have been happy to play this game and reap its rewards. Some stuck their flag in the blue camp, others stuck it in the red one. Every five years they await election time eagerly to see what the roulette game will throw up. Black or red? Even or odd?The feeling that our politics is running on the fuel of personal gain and short-term egoism is all-pervasive. It’s not difficult to see why panic and hysteria take over when the end of an era beckons.

A few of us have decided that this game won’t do. It’s simply not the way decent societies operate. It stinks of opportunism and patronage from top to bottom, sucking in academics, intellectuals, journalists and ‘artists’ with the contractors, the businessmen and the plain gullible. Some will argue that these are the rules of the political game everywhere in the ‘real world’. But here we’re talking about the extent of the problem. In Malta, one gets the feeling that very few people seems to be immune. The major proof of this is that journalists, who should be standard bearers of integrity, are seen to be the worst culprits. In this scenario we get the usual depressing but, frankly justified chorus of « Bondi Nazzjonalist, Peppi Nazzjonalist, Daphne Nazzjonalista, Borg Cardona Nazzjonalist e cosi via ».

It has turned us into a nation of Dorian Grays whose souls are up for sale to God or to the Devil. It should be clear by now that many individuals continue to do well off the system and have absolutely no incentive to amend the rule book. A week before the election, they will compare thinking outside the box to fantasy football while not lifting a finger to bring about change in the intervening five years. They will belittle and attempt to crush those who argue eloquently that Gonzipn might be better than Viva l-Lejber but that that fact alone is no guarantee of a decent society. They will try to convince you that there is only one solution – maintaining the status quo

We have paid a heavy price for this short-sightedness in the past yet appear to be unwilling to break the vicious circle we have created for ourselves. Make no mistake, the system suits several people like a glove for it offers prestige and rich pickings to those who prove that they are loyal servants in the courts of GonziPN or Viva l-Lejber. In Smart Malta, loyalty trumps integrity, merit, intelligence and honesty. Tellingly, the viciousness of the system has even managed to neutralise the few intellectuals worth their salt in this land of brutal pragmatists. It is a system which continues to deliver the goods: « Gvern tal-Laburisti » , the « Gonzi/Sant giddieb » libel circus, « In-Nazzjonalisti ghandhom DNA differenti », the horror movie demonisation of Alfred Sant, two political party stations presenting a nauseating, diametrically opposed picture of reality, the loathing and prejudice that continue to bedevil a country which has no ethnic, religious, racial or ideological divides but which appears to be gripped by hysteria every four years

Isn’t it clear that what is at stake here goes far beyond the loaded mathematics of coalitions and thresholds? As long as enough of us are happy to play the game according to the old rule book, any hopes of transforming Malta into a more decent society will remain firmly out of reach. The ugly campaign of deceit, lies, bitterness and fear that we have just been through bears witness to that..

Is voting for the “lesser evil” a reasonable option?

This post is brought to you by J’accuse guest blogger David Friggieri. 

This is a question several thousand people will be asking themselves at the moment: and it will be the determining factor on March 8th.

If Malta were simply a business venture, my hunch is that the Nationalist Party would cruise through to another  deserved victory for being a “very good” rather than a “less bad” option. But although the ugly terms “Malta plc” and “Brand Malta” have been coined over the past years, implying that Malta, Alitalia and Nike are interchangeable entities, we are actually still citizens of a country, rather than simply employees and employers, service providers and service receivers, consumers and manufacturers.

And this is precisely where the “lesser evil” dilemma kicks in.

We are faced with an unconvincing, depressingly meaningless option on one side and a party whose value system is remarkably similar to the Vatican’s on the other. For many of us, perhaps those of us with a genuine liberal bent, this is a real problem, not a vexatious little quibble. What we have is a worrying choice between Total Cynicism in the left corner and a Teodem party in the right corner; a choice between the marathon man of European opposition politics on the one hand and a caste of devout Catholic politicians on the other. On one side, a group of people whose political survival appears to trump any other consideration (including the good of the party). On the other, a party for which the word ‘divorce’ remains a taboo and which plays the “abortion card” in order to taint its opponents.

If you genuinely dislike both options should you plump for the “lesser evil”?

We are being told that it is not only the pragmatic option but that it is the only responsible option open to us. Not just that. We are being told by independent journalists that those who refuse to adhere to the “lesser evil” philosophy are “setting themselves up as hate figures” if they communicate their convictions to others.

But accepting the “lesser evil” line of thinking is also dangerous in a democracy , as it entails substituting enthusiasm for a political programme with fear. It can backfire as a feeling of disgust and rejection in those who feel that they are “voting with a gun to their head” as one commentator put it graphically.

The vocabulary used (“hate figures” and “guns to the head”) show how prevalent the fear factor is in Maltese politics. Private individuals are seen to be legitimate targets of hatred and psychological violence for expressing their belief in a third way. Others are actually prepared to engage in a form of political masochism in order to keep the perceived “greater evil” at bay.

Those who vote on the basis of this logic may be led to feel that they are being pragmatic. But thinking along these lines is a trap in which the voter behaves much more like a slave to circumstance, than like a free agent. It is an indictment of our political system and political class that thousands of us will turn up at the polling booth convinced that “we have no choice”. It is an indictment of a country which believes that it is free but whose people are still held hostage by fear. Even worse perhaps, it is an indictment of a people who continue to think that it is inevitable for everyone (including the freest of free thinkers) to sacrifice free thought on the altar of political allegiance and expediency.

David Friggieri