Newsflash: there are no such things as complicated problems. Only simple solutions. And if anyone starts talking about ‘shades of grey’, well, you can rest assured they will invariably be evil liberal intellectuals, working tirelessly on their hidden agenda to undermine the very fabric of our oh-so-Christian society with their lewd promiscuity and unbridled permissiveness.
Needless to add, the truth is quite another. Everything that exists in this world is either BLACK or WHITE, with absolutely no other gradations in between. And for this, we have the word of Mr Justice Sir Paul Coleridge – the latest in a string of VIBs (Very Important Busybodies) to have made the trip down to Malta in order to generously instruct us on how to live our lives and run our country... after having manifestly failed to make a difference in their own.
But then again: who better to preach about the harm caused by divorce to modern society, than a man who – as senior judge in the UK’s Family Court – has personally overseen the dissolution of dozens, if not scores, if not hundreds of marriages in recent years?
That’s right, folks: it seems the same Sir Paul who waxes so lyrical about the intrinsic merit of marriage over cohabitation, has himself put asunder more marriages in his lengthy career than God brought together here in Malta over the past 12 months alone. And not only that, but Sir Paul has actually managed to raise the bar on divorce settlements in the UK... entering the Guinness Book of World Records for having awarded the highest single divorce payout in that country’s history.
But damn it, you’ve got to hand it to the man. Such is his humility and modesty, that Sir Paul resisted the temptation to boast about the record number of divorces he himself granted in the UK, in a speech aimed at convincing us not to introduce the same legal provision here in Malta. And of course, there is nothing hypocritical – nothing, I tell you! – about preaching one thing in one country, while living the very opposite reality in another. We are, after all, a Catholic nation under a Christian Democrat government... so we ought to know that it is both right and fitting to condemn the mote in our neighbour’s eye, while conveniently omitting to even notice the beam in our own.
But back to Sir Paul’s riveting oration, delivered yesterday at a conference organised by Progett-Impenn, and broadcast live on Radju Maria. Initial reactions were that the same speech should be aired again for the benefit of those who might have missed it, and perhaps made available online for quick ‘n’ easy access. Personally, I would go one step further, and argue that every child over six years old should be strapped to a chair and forced to listen to it over and over again... possibly being subjected to tiny electric shocks every time the word ‘divorce’ is mentioned, and perhaps given a nice sweetie with every mention of ‘family values’. At a stretch, we could relay it via ultrasound as part of a routine scan on pregnant women... so that the resulting babies’ first audible words would be ‘Marriage!’ instead of ‘Mama!’, and ‘Papa Benedittu’ instead of just ‘Papa’.
Until such time, however, we shall have to content ourselves with The Times’ summary, as reported yesterday, which highlighted that:
“The removal of the stigma of illegitimate birth, the taboo of living together and the stigma attached to divorce... (have) contributed to the current situation. The disappearance of these stigmas led to the current instability and lack of longevity in relationships...”
Well, like I said earlier: we are living in a world of BLACK and WHITE, with no ‘grey areas’ in between. If the cause of the problem is simple to identify, then theoretically, so too should be the solution. Now I ask you... Sir Paul has identified removing the stigma on illegitimate children as the cause of the problem. So shouldn’t reintroducing this stigma make the same problem go away? And if our newfound tolerance of cohabiting couples has led to a sharp increase in broken marriages... why, shouldn’t the resurgence of intolerance towards cohabitation automatically reverse the tide, and make future marriages more stable?
Therefore, without delay, onto the Sir Paul Coleridge method of strengthening marriages and saving society from self-imposed rot... in three, easy stages:
1) Re-stigmatise illegitimate children Let’s face it: we all know that children born to (x’gharukaza) unmarried parents should really be aborted before they have a chance to infect our God-fearing society with their filthy existence. But alas! Life is unfair sometimes, and the same Christian values which identify these brats as the cause of the problem, also prevent us from resorting to the most obvious solution. Yes, folks. Unfair as this may sound, killing these little nippers at embryonic stage (or for that matter, drowning them at birth) is simply not an option in super-Catholic Malta. So barring the possibility of mass deportation to Australia – which, come to think of it, would not exactly be the first time – we have no real choice but to put up with the little bastards’ presence in our midst, whether or not we approve of the precise circumstances of their conception.
But hey! That’s not to say that we can’t take immediate steps to minimise their deleterious effects on society. Taking my cue from Sir Paul’s recommendations, I propose that the ruling Nationalist Party (Religio! Patria! Pinocchio!) avail of its total stranglehold over Parliament to devise new legislation aimed at making Malta’s little bastards immediately identifiable at a glance – for instance, by forcing them to wear a yellow star or a pink triangle as part of their State-provided striped uniforms.
This way, all those nice, honest, God-fearing and Church-married couples will recognise the products of Sin when they see them in the street, and take all necessary steps to avoid contamination.
Such steps may include spitting or throwing stones at them from a safe distance (but be careful not to miss, as otherwise it could be construed as ‘littering’), sprinkling Holy Water in their general direction, or simply warding them off with a crucifix and a few cloves of garlic.
2) Introduce apartheid I need hardly add that ON NO ACCOUNT must any of these little bastards be allowed to mingle with nice, legitimate children born to stable couples who were married in Church. To this end, I propose introducing a strict regime of apartheid in Maltese schools. (Otherwise, who knows? Your own darling angel might end up sharing a school desk with the spawn of Satan himself...)
One simple way to achieve strict segregation according to legitimacy is to create special schools just for illegitimate children. But schools are expensive things, and building new ones will invariably cost money which could (let’s face it) be better spent lining the pockets of a handful of blue-eyed government rectum inspectors.
For this reason, I think it would be altogether easier and more cost-effective to simply make it illegal for these little runts to go to school at all. Not only will this measure save the exchequer bucketsful of cash... but it will also furnish our society with an automatic substratum of illiterate (and illegitimate) morons, who can afterwards be exploited at will to perform all those menial, demeaning tasks that no legitimate child would ever dream of doing. You know, collecting the garbage, or emptying the cess-pits, or stockpiling large quantities of toxic waste generated by the Delimara power station, etc.
3. Sterilise cohabiting partners So far, so good. But let’s be honest: it’s not just the little bastards who are infecting our society and causing marriages to spontaneously combust everywhere. Their parents, too, have to shoulder responsibility for their profligate ways.
Fortunately, the Maltese Catholic Church has already taken a number of important steps to identify these immoral sinners... for instance, by limiting sacraments such as Communion only to happily married couples (if only for special occasions such as Papal visits, etc).
I suggest we build on these noble initiatives by, for instance, chaining cohabiting partners together by the ankles, and branding the letter ‘S’ (for ‘Sinner’) on their foreheads, so that all can see and know their sinfulness at a glance. Once identified, the godless infidels should then be subject to a strict sterilisation programme, in order to prevent them from inflicting yet more bastards upon our society in future.
Oh, and you needn’t pretend to be so shocked, you know. If Sweden and Denmark got away with it as recently as the 1980s, I fail to see how a super-secretive society like ours should fail to get away with it as well...
4. ‘Fight them on the beaches’ Apart from helping us rediscover our lost traditional virtues of social discrimination, intolerance of minorities and forced segregation according to moral behaviour, it seems that Mr Justice Sir Paul Coleridge has also reminded us of our sacred duty to declare a Holy War against liberal tendencies, great and small... and to violently butcher, dismember or somehow mutilate all who would call themselves progressive moderates (that includes you, Joseph) using any means at our disposal.
As Sir Paul himself so wisely and prudently put it, ‘Malta needs to fight the invasion against the family with the same initiative and energy that it had fought the Turks during the Great Siege’.
Never a truer word spoken, let me tell you! In fact, not since Sir Winston Churchill’s rousing ‘we will fight them on the beaches’ oration has so much sense been uttered by so able a speaker before so inappropriate an audience.
So forthwith, I humbly suggest that we immediately round up all members of the nasty, evil and anti-Catholic Labour and Green Parties, and force them all to sign a sworn declaration that they will vote against Dr Muscat’s motion in favour of divorce (should he be unwise enough to even present it in the first place).
Of course, all who refuse to sign will be instantly decapitated, and their heads fired as cannonballs from the battlements of St Angelo.
Yes indeed. That’ll teach any liberal-leaning Maltese political scumbag not to go messing with the Moral Majority of Malta Cattolicissima... ain’t that right, Sir Paul?
The above steps, I think, should at least set us on course to reverse the trend of ‘anything goes’ that has already poisoned so much of our otherwise perfect society. Once again, special thanks are due to Sir Paul Coleridge, without whose wise words we would probably still be subsidising single mothers and offering benefits to the unemployed... while also conveying the same rights and privileges upon all God’s children equally, regardless of their precise status at birth.
Any comments?
If you wish your comments to be published in our Letters pages please click button below. Please write a contact number and a postal address where you may be contacted.
Search:
MALTATODAY
BUSINESSTODAY
Download MaltaToday Sunday issue front page in pdf file format
