Anyone listening to the anti-EU membership crowd going on about the final package negotiated by the Maltese government with the European Union would be forgiven if he were to conclude that he, or she, were eavesdropping on a bazaar conversation.
Dr Sant seemed to have arrived at the bizarre conclusion that once the financial package was stripped to its bare bones Malta would receive from the EU a million and a half Maltese liri a year. He saw the whole thing as a national humiliation, shameful to the nth degree. Once that lead was given, all else followed and will continue to follow. Expect nothing new.
It was therefore the considered opinion of Leo Brincat, shadow finance minister, that the whole thing was "the ultimate betrayal", "a sell-out", "a raw deal". And thank God for the Poles. Were it not for them the betrayal would somehow have been impossibly more ultimate, the deal rawer and the stab in the back more lethal.
It had been pointed out to him by a constituent, he wrote, "that while the government earned Lm20 million for partially selling off 20 per cent of Malta International Airport" (whatever that may mean), "it is now having to settle for Lm26 million per annum for selling the whole of the Maltese Islands". This is the language of paucity of mind. We are back to the days of the price of tuna, once an essential ingredient of any budget speech between 1971 and 1987.
The past 33 months, in short, have been a waste of time. Malta kow-towed to the European Union and got what it ill-deserved. The mountain groaned and out popped a mouse. The Lm80 million was a fraud and the embezzlers were Brussels, Valletta the victim. And thereby hangs a tale - and a warning.
The Prime Minister, government spokesmen, public opinion-formers who agree with Malta's membership of the Union, the entire PR campaign that has been formulated to persuade and convince (persuasion is only one half of the European coin) each and everyone must avoid the pitfall into which Dr Sant wishes them to plunge. The money side is only a part of the equation, a significant part, but by no means the sole reason for joining Europe. The argument in favour, like the EU's enlargement, is wider and deeper.
Unless this central point is understood, we risk becoming involved in an arid argument as to whether the financial package is substantial enough, when the points that need to be communicated must convince the electorate that there exists an unassailable reason for voting "yes' to Europe. The successfully negotiated financial package is merely a contributory factor, a vital one, it is true, but it formed part of a far greater whole. It tied it up smartly, but the core of the package lay within the bundle that made up the entire deal.
The reaction of most groups in commerce and industry, in tourism and finance, those employed in fisheries and agriculture, the self-employed and the Farmers' Association, the Malta Union of Teachers and the UHM, was positive to a remarkable degree. The general feeling at the end of Republic Day was that the outcome of negotiations had exceeded expectations. Sincere sceptics were considerably less sceptical. The deal was a good one. No other option, no other choice that Malta can possibly make will create a better one; and any other, let us not forget this, will lose us every single cent of that Lm80 million.
At the end of the day, however, it was not a case of There is No Alternative. That would be altogether too negative. Joining the European Union was, and is, an essentially logical, political, cultural, economic and constitutional development for an essentially European island. And if you wish to have what was negotiated at your fingertips, yesterday's edition of The Times published an excellent 200-point checklist of what the negotiations were all about.
The time for optimism is now
The fears of farmers were allayed; so were those of fishermen. Defenders of the Maltese language who see this as integral to our identity were delighted and overwhelmed that Maltese took its place in the language structures of the European Union. Dr Sant's forecast, and that of some senior defenders of the language, was that Maltese would receive a lethal blow. It did not.
The anxieties of those who saw Malta being overwhelmed by foreign workers were soothed, of those who saw Maltese property being swallowed up by same, calmed. The neutrality purists were not contaminated by impurity. They still go on as if they have been, but one day they will discover that our neutral integrity remains unblemished.
It has been the lot of Dr Sant and those who agree with him to see one seemingly unscalable problem after another, surmounted. This cannot be a morale-raiser for those who oppose membership on the grounds that all these factors could not be negotiated the way they eventually were.
Above all, we have a vision, a concept of a future in which we share our sovereignty with 460 million people. It is not a future without bumps, but it is a more secure one, the prospects brighter within than without.
Dr Sant, for reasons that, mathematically at least, defy logic, insists that EU membership is not for Malta because Malta is what it is, its circumstances are what they are; because Malta is a special case. But are not the circumstances of Cyprus peculiar to Cyprus, of Latvia particular to Latvia, of Slovenia pertinent to Slovenia, of Poland demonstrably those of Poland, of the Czech Republic appropriate to that republic, of Hungary applicable to Hungry, of Lithuania individual to Lithuania? Never mind the circumstances of the 15 who are already in? Can 460 million people be wrong and Dr Sant right?
Improbable as it may sound, mathematically impossible as it is, Dr Sant thinks this is indeed the case. Not for the first time he has squared the circle. Once it is on these improbabilities that Labour's campaign is based, the time for optimism (not smug self-satisfaction) is now. If Dr Sant really believes the deal was such a rotten one, he should let his people vote.
The time for leadership is now
Leadership required of Dr Fenech Adami the ability to steer Malta into Europe. That objective has been achieved. It remains for him, as he eloquently put it in Parliament, last week, to return the mandate entrusted to his Government by the electorate back to the electorate to decide whether Malta stays in or slams the door in its own face.
It has fallen to Dr Fenech Adami to lead Malta into Europe. He has done so, up to now, with a courage that comes from conviction, from a sense of what theologians call in a different context, the sacrament of the present moment. He could not see the mantle of history pass by without reaching out.
In Henry Kissinger's book, Does America Need a Foreign Policy? which has recently been republished, I came across this passage:
"Leadership is the art of bridging the gap between experience and vision. This is why most great statesmen were less distinguished by their detailed knowledge... than by their instinctive grasp of historical currents, by an ability to discern amidst the myriad of impressions that impinge on consciousness those most likely to shape the future. This caused that ultimate realist, Otto von Bismarck, to sum up his vision of statesmanship in a reverential statement: 'The best a statesman can do is listen to the footsteps of God, get hold of the hem of His cloak, and walk with Him a few steps of the way'."
Single-mindedly and in the knowledge that what he, along with his party, had decided was correct, Dr Fenech Adami dedicated himself to the achievement of the greatest national goal since independence: membership of the European Union.
There may be those who genuinely disagree with this. They are perfectly entitled to do so. What is asked of them, if their objections to membership are based on misgivings to do with the functioning of Malta's economy within the EU, is that they remain convinced of their position even in the light of the package thrashed out between Malta and Brussels. Many doubted it would be so skilfully negotiated. They will ignore Labour's current string of nonsenses, its absence of vision. If they are genuine, they will demonstrate this by going to the polling booth on Referendum Day and voting "no". Abstaining is not a vote against. It is a dereliction of civic duty. We cannot, as the European bishops recently reminded us, be mere spectators of these unfolding moments in history.
The time for leadership in Dr Sant's case is now. He has one, decent political option: to persuade the general conference of his party when it meets to recommend a "no" vote and for that "no" to be registered at the polls. This will help him honourably to end his opposition to the outcome of that poll if the "yes" vote wins the day; which it is expected to do. He needs to recognise that semantics and sophistries, for example that the financial agreement runs only to 2006, are just that.
Leadership requires of Dr Sant that he abandon his opposition to entry on grounds that dissolved beneath him in the course of negotiations; or at least that he recognise the success reached in Brussels and put that success to the ultimate, democratic test. He and his senior colleagues argue that a general election should be held first.
This ignores the simple fact that at the 1998 general election the electorate agreed that the government formed by the Nationalist Party would work for Malta's membership of the European Union. It also agreed with the party's manifesto that when the result of those negotiations became known, the same electorate would be called to accept or reject membership at a referendum called specifically for the purpose.
Leadership demands of Dr Sant that he recognise this to be the case.
Language, liturgy and courtesy
There is an interesting entry in the 1994 English edition of The Catechism of the Catholic Church:
"A better knowledge of the Jewish people's faith and religious life as professed and live even now can help our better understanding of certain aspects of Christian liturgy. For both Jews and Christians sacred Scripture is an essential part of their respective liturgies: in the proclamation of the Word of God, the response to this Word, prayer of praise and intercession for the living and the dead, invocation of God's mercy."
Liturgy is nothing if it is not a form of visual and aural salvific communication. Nobly observed and intelligently presented, it is when liturgical ceremonies are expressive and suitably celebratory that Christians best worship the Trinitarian life. This makes the burden on those responsible for the liturgical life of the Church and our participation in it an awesome one.
Too often, the burden proves to be too much and worshippers are left unsatiated by either the Bread or the Water of Life so dull is their proclamation; hence, one of a number of factors that have brought church attendance down and, who knows, disturbed genuine seekers of both that Bread and Water.
It is something about which much can be done, from the preparation of an edifying homily to the transmission of liturgical celebrations in a manner that is dignified, relevant and reflective of the occasion. The use of language is necessarily a vital element in the process.
I am, as I hope you can see, building up to a situation that often occurs in Malta and, perhaps, in other parts of the world.
I do not know what imposition on parish priests exists when it comes to celebrating a funeral Mass in Maltese or English. I know it seems to create difficulties but cannot understand why this should be the case. There are occasions when it is the expressed wish of the family to have the Mass celebrated in English, or Italian, because either of these languages is seen to be more relevant to the congregation than Maltese.
Often, an untidy compromise is reached, with parts of the ceremony conducted in Maltese, others in English, the homily in one or the other. Sometimes, the use of English is disallowed altogether. This difficulty to please the bereaved strikes one as discourteous.
At the centre of my argument is the unassailable fact that liturgy and language are, necessarily, complementary components of any liturgical celebration. You cannot have one without the other. If a person speaking on his, or her behalf, and on that of the congregation gathered to say its last prayers and pay its final respect for a departed soul, conveys a desire for the Eucharistic celebration to be conducted in English, is there anything substantive that should deny such a request? I hardly think there is and liturgically, which is what matters, there most certainly is not.
The Word is not the arbitrary possession of the Maltese language. It can be, and is, spoken, in English, which happens to be an official language in Malta. It should, therefore, be proclaimed in English if that is the wish of those who seek the Eucharistic service on specific occasions. This already happens in the case of weddings, an occasion of joy. Why not, then, at funerals, occasions of sorrow made more meaningful to the bereaved for so being said and for their friends and relatives? No truth is jeopardised. No article of faith is disturbed.
Happy Christmas.