Saviour Balzan | Wednesday, 12 November 2008

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Welcome to the trenches

The other day, the newsflash recorded another election result. This time in New Zealand. It talked of a change in government after a number of years. I sort of heard the journalist express a sigh of relief. But it was only eight years of waiting.
In Malta, the mere suggestion that this government has been in power for 21 years plus, is taken as proof that you are either in bed with Joseph Muscat or that you are in league with Beelzebub… Beelzebub being anyone who remotely expresses any sympathy to any other political formation but the Nationalists, or worse: criticises the government for its actions.
Last Monday, Joseph Muscat delivered his Budget reaction. It wasn’t bad. To deny that he was a thousand times better than Alfred Sant is to deny credit where it is due.
That in four years' time he may turn out to be a formidable opponent to Lawrence Gonzi is more of a probability than a mere chance.
But this column hardly does any praising and it will not start with Muscat. On the other hand, it intentionally chooses to monitor and chastise, rather than eulogise. And Muscat will not get any eulogies, not here yet at least.
Yet in this battle of words, I really have the feeling that people are less discerning than we would like them to be.
I am given the impression that as we recall the 90th anniversary of the First World War we cannot but compare the position taken by most Nationalists and Labourites as being akin to those men in the trenches. To them it was not men who were in the trenches, but the enemy.
I am not surprised if Nationalists believe that Lawrence Gonzi did all he could in his budget and Labourites were making a little bit of a fuss. The trench mentality is so widespread, that no matter how exaggerated the utility bills turn out to be, the word of Lawrence or the groans of Joseph come before the truth, depending on who you are and from where you come from.
Yet, in this particular case, I am afraid the utility tariffs and the reasoning that followed their introduction and timing is surely not to be applauded. Because Muscat is saying this, it does not mean that the argument against the introduction of the present tariffs is wrong.
Why should this country always be a black or white scenario?
The Nationalist milieu is so overwhelmed by what is being portrayed as the extraordinary circumstances that led to a budget that registered a three-fold increment in the deficit. And that’s no mean feat.
You can blame some of the financial numbers on the worldwide credit crunch, but you can also point some fingers at the projections and spending spree, in the last budget. That is, the one that preceded the election.
Most of the blues will agree with Gonzi’s line of thinking, even after the first bills start hitting them in their pockets and recession breaks their kneecaps. But when people start facing a serious job crisis, then nothing will make them believe.
They will be so shell-shocked that they will do the unthinkable and cross the trenches over to the enemy. They will defy the shrapnel and bullets and cross the mud plains and abandon their trench, which has been their home for years.
Lawrence Gonzi will not admit it, but many of his parliamentary colleagues are already conscious of the extent of financial crisis. They know what was overspent and how things have been mismanaged. They also feel that the government is slowly losing its ability to steer the boat back into the port.
We do not need Joseph Muscat to tell us that there are many promises in budgets that have been repeated twice or three times and never ever implemented.
But it is slightly reassuring to see that Muscat is finally awakening to his new role as leader of the Opposition. The issues amplified by the journalists – who make it their duty to be inquisitive – are at least given more attention than the mediocre outbursts of his entourage who have not realised what it means to run a government.
In this trench warfare there is great economy with the truth. In the trenches the soldiers were given the impression that their holes would sustain the 60 million shells that would pound the ground.
If recession hits Malta, it will shake the ground and there will be casualties. The tariff structure will not help. It will bring more people to the ground.
Then there are the targets in warfare set out by the generals. In trench warfare it is necessary to give the impression that the next hill that needs to be conquered is only 500 feet away. In fact the real distance is only 250 feet. When those half-mutilated soldiers would have finally defeated the enemy as they get to the hill, they would have imagined a far bigger achievement.
If there is a parallel to climbing up a hill under machine gun fire and through barbed wire, it has to be Tonio Fenech’s decision not to include the sale of the privatisation of the dockyard in the budget estimates.
Fenech’s lame excuse is that he does not wish to divulge confidential information.
Bollocks, Mr Fenech. This is a budget not a radiology report. In a budget one does not divulge who buys into a dockyard but rather what is the government’s target in terms of revenue.
Really and truly, the real reason why Mr Fenech did not include the dockyard sale or privatisation figure is to surprise pundits next November.
His speech will be something like this: “And against all predictions, we (the government) managed to cut our deficit thanks to the sale of the dockyard.”
Once again, who is stating the truth: the government, the opposition or the independent media? The choice is yours.
Now if you don’t mind I will return to my foul-smelling trench.

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