Maltastar’s Censor: Nothing new under the sun

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A couple of days ago I read an article on Maltastar.com entitled “Shattering democracy: 2007’s long and shameful list“. It’s basically a list of how our country is run in such a way that democracy is completely shattered and obviously implies that proper democracy will be reinstated by those great guardians of rights and representatives of the people based in Hamrun. I sort of skimmed through the list and confirmed my suspicion. In their rush to list all the “atrocities” that our democracy has had to suffer because of the nasty people in government, the maltastar team forgot to mention the most “democracy shattering” event of 2007.

I immediately clicked on the very democratic “Have Your Say” button and gave my feedback. In it I explained that, probably because they were very busy looking at other party’s faults, the maltastar team had overlooked what is probably the most anti-democratic move of last year in local political terms. I reminded the maltastar team that it was a unanimous vote in parliament i.e. one subscribed to by both of what FZD likes to call “major parties” that effectively buried all hopes for citizens to have an open choice. I reminded them that this most atrocious of macchiavellian political moves that underwrote the disenfranchisement of all those disillusioned in MLPN was not an action that was solely attributable to PN. No sirs. Your leaders, may they live healthily for a hundred years, also gleefully rubbed their hands on that day in parliament. They too loved the idea of squaring it down to a two-donkey race.

Needless to say my comment never appeared on Maltastar. Which is why it is appearing here. I am sorely tempted to start a letter campaign to maltastar in order to see whether any reaction would be forthcoming. Then again I think I will let that pass. Who reads the damn thing anyway?

Viva il-lejber demokratiku u progressiv.

14 responses to “Maltastar’s Censor: Nothing new under the sun

  1. Oqghod hemm ja nazzjonalist Inglottjan!

    Ir-rebha taghna terga’ tkun!!!!!

  2. “Who reads the damn thing anyway?” – apparently you do Jacques.

    int tlaqt jew ghadek hawn?

  3. eeee, milli jidher ghadek hawn, ghadni kemm naqra l-blog ta qabel 🙂

  4. Of course I do Rupert. I am a blog and news-comber remember? (Very old blog post).

  5. I’m sorry but I’m with the MaltaStar editor on this one. What was done was not censorship (you are free to express your ideas elsewhere and you did, on your blog) but the exercise of editorial prerogative. Remember (1) you do not own MaltaStar and (2) MaltaStar unlike, say, public broadcasting, has no obligation towards you. They could have been a little more polite by, for example, publishing the comment and then saying why they think it’s crap as most of us bloggers do but ultimately it’s their “e-gazzetta”.

  6. Of course Fausto is not biased on this one. Of course the reason he does not agree with me is because he genuinely think that editorial prerogative was being used. Of course it has nothing to do with Fausto being just as touchy as maltastar’s team when it comes to MLPN being told that their move did not quite escape the whole of the population. Of course, most importantly, everybody thinks that the idea of a hijack of our parliamentary institution by MLPN is crap.

    Unfortunately Fausto you never did, and never will, prove why the idea is so wrong. If the two parties were so sure that under a proportional representation system calculated on a national basis they were not so threatened then I guess they would have introduced it ages ago. Failing that it’s not suspicion that hangs but a certainty – a certainty that we will not have another party in government, a certainty that they blatantly opted for proportionality only when they are in parliament, a certainty that our country’s political system has been hijacked by those who believe on limiting the right to choose.

    I am right. You are wrong. And Maltastar have no guts to publish something that is in direct disagreement with their line of thought. Whatever happened to publish and be damned?

  7. Oh, God. I thought with you I could forgo caveats like “Without going into the substance of the argument of electoral reform …”. Not for your sake, you know, because I don’t think you’re stupid. But because you are such an expert at (and have no qualms in using) sophistry that I thought your readers would want to know.

  8. I am not a follower of your blog, but was googling maltastar.com and found your very interesting piece abour maltastar.com CENSORING you. So I suddenly recalled seeing your name published in our democratic ‘have your say’… and said… wait a sec… Is this jacques santeur living in the world or not?

    Just in case you missed it here is the link to your say Messieur Zammit: http://www.maltastar.com/pages/msFullArt.asp?an=17828

    One other thing, letters to editor take a few days before publishing because we receive some 30 ‘Have Your Say’ postings a day.

    Thanks for following maltastar.com so attentively.

    Kurt Farrugia

  9. by the way our logo has changed 😉

  10. Thanks. I guess you meant Santer and Monsieur. But who lives in this world nowadays? Let us say that I have faith in your goodwill and the comment did not only find its way into your Have Your Say part of the Maltastar site (new logo) a few days after the Independent published this post on its newsapaper and brought it to your attention. Living in this world, I checked the Have Your Say section daily from the day I gave my feedback to the day this post appeared. No sign of the feedback. Neither was there a sign until after the Independent article.

    As I said, for now the goodwill remains. And yes, I will go on following maltastar.com attentively. It’s a habit I’ve picked up and it helps me keep up with the Joneses (even if in this case and in the case of maltarightnow it’s more like keeping up with the Sants and Gonzis).

    Have a good week Kurt.

  11. by the way, my blog does not have followers… that kind of thing only exists with parties… I am not a mexxej and I do not have a merhla. I just happen to write down what I think… and sometimes (often) people disagree with me – that is where the fun begins because their comments appear immediately and normally so does my response. That is the cool thing about having an internet site – eight day waits for comments to appear is a sorry excuse only printed papers can have! Do you follow me? 😉

  12. Sorry to disappoint you but I had no clue of whatever posting you made on the independent. You should have at least tried to seek an explanation and we would have kindly replied.

    Keep on smiling.

  13. Foutez-nous la paix René

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