In today’s Malta a grey silence clouds our intelligentsia. To seemingly fill this embarrassing vacuum, a few high profile, self -bsorbed journalists and opinion writers masquerade as political and cultural ‘cognoscenti’ in our Sunday papers, cackling away in self-adulation.
Whilst poking fun at anything from Dr Sant’s wig to the way we pronounce euros, they opt to let this government off the hook by verbose comparisons with a Labour of two decades ago. Other more laid back luminaries mouth mealy monologues to ‘beck’ and beyond. The more business-minded, pseudo-intellectuals hog national TV and take the people for a ride on a wacky charabanc to Aussieland and back, or peddle viewers to sunny Spain, and meddling McCann whodunits and get paid from our taxes.
Tarot cards, clairvoyants, twins all get prime time TV treatment, sometimes twice over and it won’t be a repeat! Strapped and un-strapping presenters ingratiate themselves on rock and self-serving banter. ‘Journalism about Everything’ indeed. More like Bondiplus ca change! Except that no minister will ever get a hammering. No mention of the hopeless state of the environment, the appalling mess that MEPA is, the diabolical propaganda of political party TV stations, the stranglehold of the construction lobby on our politicians or the blatant bias in favour of the government on national TV to the exclusion of other political formations.
And no reaction at all to the recent shameful agreement between the PN and MLP that is designed to stymie the growth of other political parties and perpetuate the MLPN’s incestuous relationship with political power. It would seem that we, as a nation, have no real questions to ask, no grave social dilemmas to address, no democratic deficits to redress. This silence is not golden, not even flavid, just sickly green.
Way back in the 80s in the ‘olden’ age of politics, we floating voters – neo-nationalists, old guard nationalists, anyone and everyone with an ounce of righteousness – stood up to be counted with the majority even though we found it awkward chanting “Eddie, Eddie” till we went blue in the face. We did it because the majority’s wish wasn’t respected but we also did it because our votes, mine and yours, did not translate into a majority in 1981, because some of us were lesser mortals whose vote was not worth the ballot paper it was written on. And we were appalled by Labour’s cynicism, disgusted by their premeditated effort to thwart our individual right to have an equal say in our country’s governance.
And how we were exhorted to protest by the PN to claim back our democratic birthright! On that day a tiny sliver of the electorate, a mere 4,800 of us, made a big difference by responding to the call for decency, fairness, mutual trust, but above all to believe and have faith in the system. And we restored this nation’s democratic credentials by swaying victory to justice and to the PN – in that order. I know this because I was there too and voted for justice as a first-time voter. The majority who voted in the new government would surely remember the exaltation of having made a difference when it mattered, the feeling of empowerment, the restoration of pride in oneself and that of the nation.
Now we have Eddie’s protégée Dr Lawrence Gonzi make a parody of that momentous moment in our history, by muffling my right to determine the stewardship of this democracy, disenfranchising me of my vote through a Machiavellian strategy that is reminiscent of Soviet leaders behind their iron curtain. Unelected in the 1987 poll, he was installed as Speaker of the House and chaired the Gonzi commission whose brief was to discuss and recommend changes to the electoral law to ensure a more democratic process. This was in the time of Eddie’s tenure, characterised by a daily intonation of solidarity and national reconciliation.
In keeping faith with the then PM’s mantra of pluralism, Alternattiva Demokratika naively believed that of all parties the PN would be sensitised to the trauma of the democratically emarginated, aware of the sacred duty to safeguard not only the right to vote but, as importantly, its corollary – that the system takes cognisance of the wishes expressed in that vote, and in each and every vote after that.
As obvious as this may sound, it did not stick long with Dr Gonzi. In 1994 the commission bearing his name proposed a 5% national threshold for AD, a very high hurdle in polarised Malta, from the party promoting pluralism! AD took it in its stride and banked on the maturity of the people and the emerging liberal class of professionals in the pluralistic media. But by 1996, a mere two years later, it became obvious to everyone who doesn’t read In-Nazzjon or l-orrizont that pluralism meant the PN and MLP having more media. In 2004, straight out of Eddie’s hat comes Dr Lawrence Gonzi, this time as new prime minister calling for a new way of doing politics. He duly sends his emissary Joe Saliba to propose 7.5% as a national threshold.
A few months ago Dr Gonzi’s PN agreed with the MLP not to bother at all with a national threshold in an obvious move to veto my vote! How can these people preach pluralism? How can they even dare take the higher moral ground on democracy? How can this party be so insensitive to its own recent history and that of this nation? How can a Nationalist prime minister be so unrequiting to his citizens, disrespectful of the fullness of democratic principles, disdainful of the spirit of democratic law? Could it be that Prime Minister Gonzi is ignorant of these feelings because he himself has not been voted into office? Is it ignorance or malignance? Can he bear the possibility of up to 30,000 votes going to waste, these 16% plus, who bothered to vote, go unrepresented? Is this his best shot at democracy, taking a 7.5% commission to win an election?
How cowardly is it of this leader? Where are my peers now who cried with me for rights? Have they been granted theirs and still wave blue flags in gratitude? Where is their sense of solidarity? Are they first Nationalists and then Maltese? Do they remember their dream, or was it an intoxication induced by some mass meeting hysteria? Where are our thinkers who write so eloquently even on the mundane? Do not our great minds care about democracy? Where are our priests who talk of justice? Could it really be so, that the Fsadnis, the Serracino Inglotts, the Wains and the Friggieris of this land see no injustice? Where’s Everybody and their conscience? This time round can we vote in a democracy please?