With the tussle between Lawrence Gonzi and Alfred Sant almost boiling down to whether children should be given an extra year of schooling, the ultimate disaster for the educational evolution of such a work-proud nation as ours, it seems the only interesting aspect of this election are the negative campaigns being conducted by both Labour and the Nationalists.
With hysteria rising slowly to Second Coming levels (and only if the Messiah had to return with nuclear warheads to deliver final judgement), the election has been split with campaigns carried out on the public surface, and another frantic campaign by apparatchiks and media pundits dedicating themselves to internet guerrilla warfare and blog interventions.
On the surface, the negative campaign ads on TV are akin to HBO standards of doom, death and disease compressed into jam-packed video gold. The Nationalists have an X-files version which attacks Labour MPs using grainy black and white vision, the soundtrack from a Dario Argento movie, and flickering neon lights like a scene from a horror flick where the foolhardy 20-something has stumbled upon old records on the terrifying serial killer that haunts Springfield, only to be later bludgeoned to death by the killer himself.
There follows five minutes of file after file on Alfred Sant and Labour MPs Joe Debono Grech, Karl Chircop, Anglu Farrugia, Joe Mizzi and Charles Mangion – all having insalubrious pasts or record. Members of the 1980s Labour Cabinet, idiotic fumbling on Xarabank, a police officer in the service of disgraced Police Commissioner Lawrence Pullicino, having spent too much time with Mintoff, giving silly quotes to the Economic Update, Sant’s oversized jacket covering up his wrists… it’s a smorgasbord of shame, enough to scare you dizzy into voting for Labour’s banishment. But it’s the most entertaining thing so far.
Labour’s negative ads are less demonising, opting instead for the humorous portrayal of Gonzi’s rubber doll features, shifty videoclips of his ministers shuffling about nervously, whispering into supporters’ ears, and braying Qormi women competing for the ‘red-haired harridan of the land’ award shouting accolades to Gonzi. Or what about the Pythonesque animations of Gonzi with his buffoon-like guffaw in the send-up of his unsuccessful ATM withdrawal; with his ministers bouncing up behind him? Good fun. One of the best.
Or else there’s NET bulletins with an exclusive clip of an elderly Labour supporter in lumberjack shirt screaming “f’gh*** id-demm taghkom” (fuck your blood? Surely, that can’t be it…); or the peroxide blonde shrews holding up Sant’s portrait. Magical. Sant inspecting swine at the pig farm and holding a press conference by a puddle of piss? Sheer poetry, ably handled by NET TV editing masters.
Not that this badass campaigning has had its ugly side. The silencing of di-ve.com after pressure from government officials is the ultimate in the disgraceful wielding of power by the State. That a company like GO bows down to such pressure so easily gives me the creeps, having to live with the type of influence the Maltese government has over private companies and their media. And yet, the grave act of getting di-ve.com to stop reporting the elections seems to go unnoticed in our country. Even by those journalists and columnists who despite all their posturing for freedom of expression fail to dedicate precious inches to the di-ve.com plight – but they don’t find the government putting any undue pressure on them.
Instead we have to contend with the prying eyes of One News and NET News cameraman filming journalists and columnists. It’s a problem because there is a clear abuse of limits.
Daphne Caruana Galizia has to contend with the fact that her son was given the YouTube treatment after fending off a One News cameraman at a public debate at university (public means that privacy is not a big issue here) with a very offensive word: Dude.
Yes that’s right. That’s the old fashioned anti-American in me. For what’s the fuss by One News over her son’s two-word supplication of “fuck off”? Fuck is a word of such rudimentary usage, it should hardly merit the attention of new bulletins, as One News did this week after the University debate (note to self: Joe Saliba described university students as ‘revolutionary’. Must contact the David Herrera resistance-to-stipends-cut cell and summon the KSU politburo for devising ways of how not to come out as a complete prat when asking questions to a politician).
Daphne’s son’s efficient use of the language was nothing out of the ordinary. Fuck is a word of polyvalent usage that has helped humanity express general annoyance, colour in those gaps in the language, and getting its message across loud and clear.
Whoever said that good breeding was easy anyway? Daphne had once written in the Indy of the splendid job she did in refining her sons’ palate into the genteel taste buds that could refuse no food too rich (she said she never had problems with the tykes at restaurants because they would not complain about the delicious foie gras – which is why all you parents of whiny hamburger-eating kids are bad, bad people). Even with all her attention to breeding, no respectable middle-class household will ever be immune from bad language. ‘Fuck’ only happens to be considered offensive by those with prejudices or grudges (that puts Daphne out of the equation). Maybe it’s down to Daphne’s rearing. Some of that posh shit she gave her son to eat is probably still stuck up inside his mouth.