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The demise of the chairman at Xandir Malta was no great surprise. When Michael Mallia was appointed we all sat back and took a deep breath and exclaimed in a loud voice: “loose cannon, loose cannon,” and then we cried.
Mallia may have been a loose cannon, but the removal of two chairmen from PBS in such a short time, says more about the Minister and his government than Mr Mallia himself.
If PBS needs changing it should not surely not be done in this Talibanesque way. Public Broadcasting has been denuded and is now dominated by the traditional talking heads. The news division has become poorer and less relevant losing out to the black and white minstrel show on Super One and Net TV.
Michael Mallia may have got the stick but the real fault lies with the people who manage the station on a day to day basis. In a ‘normal’ broadcasting environment, the resignation of a chairman would lead to ripple effects all around.
It would lead to sympathy from the people who worked with the Chairman. There has been no such thing outpour.
There were few tears for Mr Mallia. Those who worked at PBS for years and offered a sterling service were humiliated and asked to leave in Mr Mallia’s trim trim programme.
Today, the station needs to be reinvented. Austin Gatt may be a dynamic minister, but he has no soul for public broadcasting. To have a nation without a national broadcasting station is inexcusable. To have a public station that is more interested in tele-shopping or plastic surgery or political whitewash is sad, very sad.
Michael Mallia has departed but his legacy lives on. Today we have no public broadcasting - indeed we never really did.
Once upon a time Maltese flocked in dozens to the continent of Australia. Then there was little sympathy for us dark Latin people from the largely Anglo-Saxon community.
The Mediterranean Maltese who spoke a sort of Arabic were labelled as little dark people. It took decades for many of them to integrate in a society that was largely white.
For years, the Maltese populated faraway countries. They were greeted as ‘immigrants’ and fought hard to install themselves in the different classes of society. They were many times the victims of racist hatred.
That we have little or no compassion for the immigrants that could be integrated in Malta is understandable, but not forgivable.
When we talk of xenophobia in Malta we confuse the problem of clandestines with immigrants. We cannot seem to make the difference. In Italy there are some 800,000 immigrants. In Malta there are an unknown number of immigrants, but the community is smallish and recognisable. They are not a cause for concern but the conditions of clandestines held in ‘detention camps’ are.
All this xenophobic talk of coloured people invading us and taking over our jobs is indicative of our insular Island mentality fuelled by the belief that before Adam and Eve hit the road, there must have been a Maltese.
Most of us sincerely believe that we are going to be run over. In the long years of the British colonial period, few of the millions of former British subjects namely Indians, Burmese, Pakistani and so many others considered setting up base in Malta. Some did, but their numbers are irrelevant.
Malta is indeed a minuscule place, but there is still space for the integration of immigrants. Perhaps not as fully-fledged citizens, but as rightful registered members of the Labour force.
They have every right to be given a chance.
If the clandestines were afforded work permit status, they could easily replace the ‘black’ labour that is so prevalent in the construction industry and the ‘cleaning’ industry dominated by hundreds of people who do not pay tax. Just imagine how many could replace the thousands of maids that continue to work illegally.
This may be politically incorrect to say, but someone has to say it.
I am not advocating that we should pay immigrants less, or treat them as second class human beings, all I am saying is that we must give them a chance.
I for one, would love to pay someone to do maintenance work at home and ask for a VAT receipt. But as everyone very well knows, it is impossible to find a plumber, electrician, plasterer or tiler who declares his income.
And Tonio Fenech and all the finance ministers before him know that.
Our Home Affairs minister renowned for his complete lack of vision in politics must be egged on to address the issue.
Every other day, one hears of the University of Malta’s problem with funds. The funds are so low that many departments are struggling to make ends meet. Research is no more.
I have little understanding of the University, but what I do know, is how irrelevant the University has become in the political development of this country. Few or none of the lecturers are involved or vocal on many of the major issues any longer. What should be a hot bed for new ideas, innovation and research is nothing more than a rubber stamp for academic certificates and a massive parking lot for hundreds of students.
One friend described the clashes between lecturers and senior lecturers at University, describing their actions as typical of a small Island University.
I was also briefed on the regimes, nepotism that exists and the different classes and favours that exist.
Yet, if the University does not have any money to make, the same cannot be said about some lecturers, who have set up lucrative businesses, which could have easily been operated by the University authorities.
What strikes me as strange, is the general apathy across the board, making my belief that University as a launching bed for reform is wrong.
Satellite dishes on homes provide Maltese viewers with bountiful vistas of the modern world, needless to say thanks to Europe, there is no licence. Satellite is sought after and many purchase this technology to watch porn.
Most people who surf on the Internet, sooner or later quench their insatiable curiosity and also visit sex sites. Those who use the electronic mail are normally drowned with ‘uncensored’ images of sex scenes.
TV from abroad, books and cinema seem to suffer from limited censorship of objectionable sex and violence.
And all this cannot be controlled. All this cannot be censored, impounded, stopped or blocked.
Whether this is good or not is another matter?
But in a last ditch attempt to hang on to censorship, Maltese drama plays or any other production that finds its way to Maltese theatres is subject to scrutiny at the censorship board.
Films, books, satellite provide us with all sort of blasphemous and ridiculous portrayals, but if these remotely surface in a play they are censored.
The same applies to Maltese TV.
In none of our soap operas or TV programmes do we hear expletives or blasphemy.
I am not suggesting that good TV only comes with the use of Haqq but how can we depict real Maltese life and events in general without replicating the truth.
Censorship is a symptom of our political and social malaise. We seem to be fixated with the small picture and forgetting of the bigger one.
A typical analogy: nail the plump doughnut attendant for not issuing a VAT receipt and completely ignore the people at the Foundation of Medical services who oversaw the spending of millions of liri at the Mater Dei white elephant.
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