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Media power is a menace. In makes the media-power drunk. It gives a sensation of omnipotence, the illusion of being able to manipulate reality forever. Sooner or later the manipulators become detached from reality and fail to see their own immense weak spots.
For Lawrence Gonzi the past year has been an exceptional year. Except for the tight knot of media manipulators around him, he’s all alone. The last 12 months have been an annus orribilis for Malta. It has not been a “great year for the PN” either. Lawrence Gonzi can scream the contrary until he is blue in the face. Objective reality will not change. Too bad Net TV.
The harrowing anticlimax following the 2003 election has been a void none of us will ever forget. The memory of last summer makes most of the country anxious to have done with the European Parliament election as soon as possible and with as little fuss as possible to avoid a repeat of the barren desert of summer 2003. There is no way that the country will tolerate another long hot, summer of nothingness simply because the media manipulators are too exhausted from the election carnival.
The economic revelations following the 2003 elections have been a traumatising shock to the country. Coming so soon after the “Good economic foundations/Ekonomija fis-sod” campaign it was a whistling slap in the face. It was as though the newly installed PN government had had the cheek to look the country in the eye and ask: “Ever been had?”
After that, the so-called reforms at the Dockyard, Air Malta, PBS and whatever else is ailing, give the PN no credit at all. How can anybody boast of a reform that costs the country Lm450 million or of a restructuring that shifts workers from public employment to public employment without any retraining or labour market empowerment? All happening now because no government had the courage to plan ahead and restructure humanely with economic good sense.
Pension reform and any social pact the country may achieve have been delayed for years because the PN leadership postponed economic imperatives in its own interest, to further its own power plans, to avoid the flak. The cost of delay has been immense. It will mean years of additional taxation to make up for it, years of our inability to invest sufficiently in areas crucial for the country’s development such as education and research. Our common future is postponed because the PN did not dare tell the truth in time, because it was confident that it could hoodwink the country long enough for its own purposes, because it controlled an exceptional media machine and felt safe.
Dr Austin Gatt has had the cheek to tell us that no further ruinous investment was made in Azzur Air after April 2003. Why was the haemorrhage not stopped before April 2003? Did the 2003 election have something to do with the timing? Would it have been bad for political business to declare that Air Malta had made incredible losses for the first time in its history?
We can expect more spectacular untruths in the run up to the EP elections in June. The PN’s slanderous whispering campaign alleging that Alternattiva Demokratika is in some way in favour of abortion has shifted another gear and PN leaders are now cruising for a bruising in a libel suit.
The Maltese Greens have been consistently and publicly contrary to abortion. On signing the European Federation of Green Parties’ statute, Alternattiva Demokratika made specific reservations insisting on its position against abortion. On taking his post as Secretary General of the EFGP in 1999 Arnold Cassola made it clear in writing that he would represent the federation on all matters except abortion. It is a matter of principle, a cast iron position we have held in Malta and abroad whether in public or in private. AD has never ever done a Joe Borg waffle on abortion anywhere.
In the 1996 George Pullicino lost a libel suit to the Greens for alleging the same scandalous slander which is being spread about in the 2004 EP election campaign. The Nationalists never learn. They rely on the fact that they control the media and create or destroy any reputation they please. They are getting altogether detached from reality. They are unable to see that the country has come to consider Net News a dream factory. The Broadcasting Authority has been obliged to slap them on the wrist for fabricating the news. It was a slap on the wrist encouraging them to carry on.
The damage to the Greens, the distortion of the EP election results and the damage to PN credibility through this orgy of media manipulation is nothing compared to the damage being done to the country.
Once the election carnival is over we will all be forced to face our economic reality. In the months ahead the most valuable item will be reliability.
Who can have confidence in a Prime Minister that makes a fool of himself claiming that the last 12 months were exceptional? Who can trust a deputy Prime Minister re-exhuming the abortion slander and criticising the Greens for being consistently opposed to nuclear weapons? Joe Saliba’s main talent lies in histrionics. He should be claiming an Oscar in Hollywood not running the country from L-Istamperija.
When the dust settles we will need to trust one another. The country will need a leadership it can trust. The social partners will need to be able to rely on a government that will keep its word. There can be no social pact otherwise. Without a social pact there will be no economic recovery. Without a trustworthy government there will be nothing of the sort for years ahead.
In this scenario the PN media machine is squandering the remains of the remnant of public confidence in the government in order to gain a victory in the EP elections to bolster the new Prime Minister’s public standing. It is extravagantly stupid. The PN is incredible and getting less credible every passing day. It is suicidal in the economic emergency it has placed us in.
Dr Vassallo is Chairperson of Alternattiva Demokratika – The Green Party
www.arnoldcassola.com
harry.vassallo@alternattiva.org.mt
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