Opinion | Sunday, 14 March 2010

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The myth of the unifying President

The other day I was invited to join this Facebook group called ‘We support President George Abela’. (Note: if you still don’t know what Facebook is, I suggest you read Daphne’s blog from time to time – if nothing else, just to find out that you are not alone on that particular score.)
Anyway, I have to admit the invitation marked a considerable improvement over all the usual requests I receive on the same social networking/poker-playing site. Things like: ‘So-and-so needs four cartloads of horse manure to add to the rest of his Farmville crap’... or ‘Joe Bloggs has just become a fan of Joe Bloggs, and thinks it’s high time you became a fan of him, too.’ (I mean, modestly...)

In any case: I was momentarily caught off guard by the George Abela group invitation. It’s a linguistic thing, you see. I happen to belong to that tiny, weenie little minority which insists on arguing that words like ‘support’ – and a few others beside, but let’s stick to the example at hand – actually come complete with unreasonable things called ‘meanings’.
Unreasonable, because such ‘meanings’ have this remarkably consistent tendency to assume other nuances and connotations, depending on the precise context within which they are used. For instance: ‘support’ may mean one thing when applied to a football team like (dare I say it) Chelsea; but it might mean something considerably different when applied to, say, those left homeless by the Haiti earthquake; or the victims of a grave injustice; or yourself, when you receive your next water and electricity bill, and so on and so forth.
Applied to individual persons in particular, it can mean any number of things, each with considerably different implications. For instance, you can:
a) financially support people who are unable to support themselves;
b) show solidarity with someone when they are persecuted for their political or religious beliefs (or whatever); or
c) hold someone aloft during a rugby line-out, or perhaps as part of a complicated ballet manoeuvre.

So coming back to the Facebook group invitation, and it was natural for me to assume (after reluctantly eliminating both rugby and ballet scenarios) that I had been prevailed upon to support my President because... well, he needed some kind of support. Why? Oh, I have no idea. Maybe his popularity ratings had unexpectedly nosedived. Maybe, like the A-Team, he had been wrongly convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. (Honestly, these days you can never really tell). Or perhaps the DOI decided to have another go at having his official snapshot taken. The possibilities are endless.
Whatever the case, I had been called on for help, and my heart immediately went out to His Georgeness in this, his moment of great need. So with a deft flick of my wrist I directed my mouse cursor to the bottom right-hand corner of the pop-up window on my monitor, so I could ‘learn more’ about this particular group... you know, its aims and objectives, its whys and its wherefores, and above all, whether any of my ‘Friends’ had already joined, and what they were wearing in their profile pics.

Well, what do you know? Not a single one of the above usages of the word ‘support’ could be made to apply in this particular case. It turns out the creators of this Facebook group belonged to that vast majority which sees no reason why it should be constrained by the precise meanings of individual words. I had been asked to ‘support’ George Abela for no other reason than the fact that he exists.

But wait: it seems there is more to this group than meets the eye. For wading through the comments posted on its ‘wall’ (yes, on Facebook you write on ‘walls’... if, that is, you’re not too busy throwing ‘food’ at people, or whacking them with your ‘pillow’, or collecting crap for your ‘farm’, etc.), there seemed to be a preponderance of people who genuienely believe that President George Abela had somehow managed to ‘unify the country’ while we were all looking the other way.

Huh? Did I read right? ‘Unify the country’? Oh, OK, I get it. There must be more than one country called ‘Malta’... and more than one George Abela running around, too. Because unless my and eyes and ears have greatly deluded me over the past 38 years, the ‘Malta’ I happen to live in right now (which by a huge coincidence also has a President named George Abela – fancy that!) is not what you would call ‘united’ at all. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Nor has it ever been – at least, not as long as I can remember – and barring any unforeseen miracle, nor will it ever be united in future: not by Lawrence, not by Joseph, not by Paul, not by Mario... and certainly not by George.

Actually, we seem to be heading in the clean opposite direction. Existing divisions appear to be deepening with each passing day. And I would argue that this has taken place more noticeably ever since George Abela himself became President. The gulf between the different Maltas has grown wider, not narrower... and more significantly, the differences themselves are now expressed with infinitely more spleen, bile and guttural hatred than ever before.

Is this President Abela’s fault? Not according to his online ‘supporters’, who argue – and here I agree, albeit with reservations – that ever since his investiture, Dr Abela has handled his office with such moderation as to ‘transcend party politics’... thus earning the respect of either side and living happily ever after, etc.
Ah, but this refers only to the parochial battle-lines of Labour versus Nationalist divide... and no offence or anything, but as somebody who can’t even remember a time when he counted himself among either of those two tribes, I really don’t give a damn about whether Nationalists hate Labourites less now that there’s a Labour President (even if it were true, which it patently is not - look at that blog I mentioned earlier for more details).

Besides: much as I hate to be a spoilsport, I feel compelled to point out that politics is but one of the many factors that divide us as a nation – and arguably the least worrisome at that. There are several other national divisions, some of which appear to be insuperable. We are divided according to social class – in fact, we have arguably the most glaring and astonishing class differences in Europe, complete with ridiculous disparities in education levels and life aspirations.
And what about our national language division, whereby a tiny minority is actively excluded from practically all aspects of public life? I have never heard President George Abela even allude to these rifts between different segments of ‘his’ people. How, then, can he possibly be credited with bridging them?

Malta is divided according to religious belief, too – and here I have to point out that, far from ‘unifying the country’, President George Abela has done quite the opposite: publicly align himself with one faction at the expense of all the others, at every given opportunity.
For instance: when he forged a clear and deliberate between Maltese national identity as Roman Catholicism, despite recent evidence that practising Catholics now account for less than 55% of the population. When he took the personal initiative to invite Pope Benedict XVI on a State visit ‘on behalf of all the people of Malta and Gozo’ (thus betraying ignorance of the fact that Malta and Gozo is also home to non-Catholics); and by unwisely involving himself in the ongoing controversy regarding the European Curt ruling on crucifixes in Italian classrooms.
In so doing, even his credentials as a political unifier have been tainted – for in case no one has noticed, Malta is poised for the mother of all politico-religious disputes, this time concerning the long overdue introduction of divorce.
By aligning himself too closely with one side against the other, Abela’s evident bias against non-Catholics has brought itself to bear on what may well prove to be the pivotal issue in the next electoral campaign.

So no offence or anything... but all things told, I don’t think I’ll be joining the ‘We support President George Abela’ Facebook group after all. But for what it’s worth, he’s always welcome to join my list of Texas Hold’em Poker buddies. What do you say, eh George...?

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