Saviour Balzan | Sunday, 04 January 2009

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It’s wonderful… it’s wonderful

Just under a month a half ago I was fortunate enough to attend a Paolo Conte concert in Rome. Clad in black, the septuagenarian rose to the occasion as always, delighting young and old alike with the recital of his repertoire in his inimitable, croaky jazz voice.
But it was Via Con Me (It’s wonderful), that moved the nostalgic audience.
2008 was a truly extraordinary year with a horrible beginning and an awful end. Nothing could be more surreal. Yesterday the day started off with the usual freezing of food after by picking some friends from the four star hotel, The Waterfront.
This couple has only visited Malta some 45 times in the last 22 years. So they really are quite used to Malta’s peculiar traditions. They love the location of the hotel and its views over the harbour. But they say it is no longer what it used to be.
“Run down” is an understatement. “Soiled carpet and overused shower”… they aren’t very fussy Germans, but German enough to notice that the head-waiter in the breakfast room was too taken up by his mobile to notice that a junior waiter was enjoying himself by landing the cutlery and plates into a tray, in a feeble attempt at imitating the percussionist Renzo Spiteri.
We sped off to the airport. And if it were not for my vulgar visage, easily confused with that of some errant Irish drunkard, the hideous young man at the Air Malta counter would not even have looked up. Not even a good morning, just a rude nod that really meant, “wait and shut the f*** up.”
A nice word to show him that I was citizen of this great nation and not a stupid tourist did the job.
Then it was off to the cafeteria. “One still water and an espresso please.” The espresso was cold and the glass accompanying the San Pellegrino bottle plastered with the leftovers of a hot chocolate. I didn’t even dare try complain. It would have been too hard keeping in all those expletives.
Really, if I could I would have bought myself a one-way ticket to seek some solace from all this. And then a goodbye and back to the drawing board.

There is talk of a difficult year. That is surely the preoccupation for much of the overstretched middle classes. But beyond the credit crunch that will directly hit us, there are those who have made it their mission to live beyond their means. And beyond that, there’s the underclass that will be further crushed with the new austerity measures.
Still, as we worry whether we have enough to pay for our digital TV package or where to purchase a sexy Calvin Klein underpants with Happy New Year emblazoned on its elastic. The real issues of life or death are simply eluding us.
I have not been to one Christmas event where talk did not fall on how overweight we are all getting, or how good the food is. Not a meaningful word about the things that matter.
Indeed the other day as I was rudely halted at the outdoors table of a café by a lecturer in philosophy from our University. I had just opined how I was quite amused by philosopher Joe Friggieri’s eulogy to the Renzo Piano project on Radio 101.
“Every time I see your face I remember Malta… I do not want to hear anything about Malta,” the philosopher screamed. Very philosophical, I thought!
So we continued with our intelligent conversation, which by the way focused on how good the apple pie at McDo tasted, or how yummy Black Gold’s hamburgers were.
It was perhaps emblematic of such coffee table conversations.
So throughout this festive period, not a whisper about the Palestinians bombed into submission by Israelis. Not a word over the Tamil Tigers and their conflict with Sri Lankan troops and the hundreds dying there. Or perhaps a word of two for the migrants landing on our coast. Only because it feeds on our xenophobia and not because of our concern for human tragedy.
Christmas is of course a time for solidarity. But is this not all a whole load of hogwash, to put it mildly? The other day, one of those Church-going puritans who spends his time screwing the VAT department and feeding off government contacts to build his debt-ridden business, proved to me how extremely wholesome Christmas can be.
He is not alone. Of little significance to him and many others is of course the Israeli overreaction in killing 100 Palestinians for each Israeli murdered by badly designed rockets. I cannot hate Jews, and I am not a racist. But nothing can justify this kind of punishment. If the Israelis believe they have a right to live, then so do the Palestinians.
And beyond the recriminations, the numerical equation applied by Israel to punish the deprived Gaza residents can only be compared to the reprisals the Nazis applied when they would shoot and kill 100 innocent villagers for the death of a German soldier.
What the Israelis carry out on other peoples is effectively criminal and genocide. And a wonderful reality check for the rhetoric of President Obama. It is unfashionable to describe the atrocities by the Israelis on the Palestinians as unacceptable.
But whoever justifies them is downright blind and unfair. It is a permanent tragedy that will continue to destabilise the Middle East, enrage the poor masses of Muslims who feel that they are the world’s underclass, and promulgate political apartheid.
But it cannot go on forever. Even evil has an expiry date. It will move more people with no hope to extremism and to the road of revenge.
And yet we look on and can only talk about the soufflé. And that is why I am not looking forward to the next Christmas party. I too could do with some escapism, some alienation, but this year I guess I have to face the real world. The cruel world.
I will gladly miss out on more Christmas drinking and feasting. But I really do not wish to let pass the real world, the issues, and the debates. So stay with MaltaToday as we drive home the message that beyond the smiles, the Christmas cards and the false promises, there is another world.
Is it not wonderful?

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