I.M. Beck - quote unquote

I am told that Mr Norman Lowell saw fit to dedicate some of his ranting and raving at Safi last Saturday to me. Of course, the newspapers of note, viz and to wit the Sunday This and The Malta Independent on Sunday made cursory reference to the fact that Mr Lowell had done some screaming about the media in general. Il-Mument and KullHadd, as far as I could make out, didn't even refer to Mr Lowell's gathering of a few like-minded (poor them) souls.

Incidentally, I'd like to think the lack of publicity given to Mr Lowell by the two party papers reflects a high minded decision on their part not to give the deluded one (deluded as in someone who has delusions of grandeur and/or who has deluded himself that anyone other than a few of the even more terminally confused than usual takes him seriously) publicity. Sadly, I suspect that it is these two papers' obsession with partisan politics that kept Mr Lowell off their pages.

So, getting back to the point, it was left to It-Torca, Malta Today and a friendly media mogul to give me some more information about what Mr Lowell was ranting about when he was taking my name in vain.

I give not a stuff about what he said, of course. It would be like being offended by the squeals of an incoherent toddler or the bellows of an enraged mother hippo when her offspring is perceived to be threatened. If he was threatening or libellous, I am sure the Commissioner of Police will take whatever steps the law requires, given that there were a number of the Commissioner's lads there.

What I do give a stuff about, on the other hand, is what Malta Today understood by my column last week. I did not, to be completely accurate, say that the armed forces may very well have been right in what they did. If what they did was to use unreasonable force, they were not right even if they were provoked, because they are trained not to react to provocation.

Or they should be. These people are the people on whom this country relies when push comes to shove and we just do not need any lapses from the high standards they set for themselves.

If, on the other hand, they used only reasonable force, then to be sure, they were right, but then they don't need me to justify their actions.

What seems to have been missed, then, is my central point, which was - and remains - that in matters of such sensitivity it is important not to fly off the handle and pass judgment from on high at the drop of a hat. Let's wait and see what really happened, instead of shooting our mouths off from Toronto or Adelaide or wherever about being ashamed to be Maltese.

This is not to say that judgment should not be passed on Mr Lowell's vile doctrines. He has gone beyond the pale in proselytising his theories and he and his ilk have to be prevented from further defiling our democracy and there's an end to it. I have debated with myself whether even this simple condemnation is more publicity than this person deserves but, on balance, the benefits inherent in reminding the right thinking among you that there is a cancer at work on our society outweigh the down-side of giving Mr Lowell the dubious frisson of pleasure of seeing his name in print.

While on the subject of Mr Lowell, I agree with him on one thing, you might be surprised to learn: at this time, Brigadier Carmel Vassallo need not resign. Whether he chooses to do this little thing after the publication of Judge Franco Depasquale's report is entirely up to him and depends on what the report contains.

However, Brigadier Vassallo will have to resign if it comes to pass that soldiers under his command continue to be permitted, by inaction or whatever, to attend Mr Lowell's pseudo-political public gatherings and thereby give him some tacit, if ultra-limited, support from the army.

We have an army that is steeped in the finest traditions of non-partisan service to the country. Such traditions include looking on people like Mr Lowell and his philosophies with disdain and not even hinting at supporting them.

If any member of the armed forces feels that he should stand up and be counted among the ranks, depleted and motley as they are, of Mr Lowell's sympathisers, then such member is unfit to wear the uniform and has to be cashiered in disgrace. And his superiors have a duty to ensure that this happens.

It's as simple as that.

Oh please

Doctor Alfred Sant, who had been being quite a good boy of late, as witnessed by my not laying into him at the drop of a hat, has put his size nine-and-a-halfs into it and no mistake.

First he came out with an allegation that was breathtaking in its stark opportunism. According to the luminary of political thought, the Nationalist Party has commercial interests vested in the mismanagement of the country.

Precisely what he meant by this gem is buried, truth be told, in the murky depths of his moral convictions but from what I could figure out the friends of friends of cousins of nephews of friends of friends' friends have some sort of commercial interest in things being done wrong.

Presumably this interest lies in being able to provide fixing services, no doubt for a handsome fee when the whatsit hits the whosit.

Challenged to substantiate or withdraw, Doctor Alfred Sant, you will not be surprised to hear, failed to do either, rendering him open to being called all sorts of things, most of which will not be let through by my editor, so I won't even bother trying.

Having devalued his political credibility to the level to which he suggested the lira should descend, Doctor Alfred Sant went on to destroy such vestiges of his technical credibility as remained clinging to the wreckage of his political career.

Jumping on the opportunistic bandwagon with vim and vigour matched only by Chelsea's strikers when they spot the opposing goal (even if the goal is occupied by custodians of the dire standards of the current Arsenal and Man. U crop of keepers) Doctor Alfred Sant came out with a brilliant suggestion.

He, the guy with the enormous brain and multiple degrees, suggested that waste recycling plants of the ilk of the one that is situated in Marsascala should be sited away from centres of population.

Brilliant. Not in anyone's backyard was the piece of wizardry out with which Doctor Alfred Sant came.

The thing is, sadly for his wonderful theory, there is nowhere much in Malta which is at any real distance from any centre of population. Doctor Alfred Sant seems to have forgotten that our little rock is only a few miles long and even fewer wide, and inhabited by a goodly number of citizens.

A bit of arrogance in the night

Last Wednesday, four British citizens were released from the custody of the Metropolitan Police without charge, having been held for just under 24 hours on suspicion of terrorism.

Not much of a story, you might say, but the real story lies in the fact that prior to their release, these guys had been held for three years by the Yanks at Guantanamo Bay, also without charge.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 obscenity, I was perfectly happy with the general hoovering up of assorted thugs and suspected thugs.

But that was three years ago, for Pete's sake and, quite frankly, if the US was unable to put together solid evidence within a few months, it wasn't about to be getting its act together two or three years on, so these people, and the others who are still in custody, should have been charged or released long ago.

It might be useful for the guys Stateside to remember that they are supposed to be doing what they are doing in order to uphold the rule of law. Not to break it.

Unless they want to become the spiritual home of Mr Norman Lowell and his bewildered acolytes, that is.

And while on the subject, can I just say that I am truly honoured to have been mentioned in the same putrid breath that Mr Lowell used to insult the Hon. Dolores Cristina, Fr Grech Marguerat and Mr Karl Stagno Navarra?

Good company indeed.

Moving pictures

Last Monday, a bloke with a technical bent dropped by and installed Melita Cable's Digital thingy. I've got a whole load of new channels, decent sound and a slew of radio and music only channels to boot. It's all in trial phase at the moment but first impressions are pretty good.

Plenty of cricket in the summer, if you would be so kind, and I'll be a happy bunny.

Yes, I know, I'm an Anglophile git, but hey, everyone else's weird tastes are catered for, so why not mine? I mean to say, Man. U Channel and Milan Channel, for Heaven's sake!

What is she on about?

A young lady going by the name of Lorna Vassallo penned a little contribution to this estimable rag last Thursday. Her opening paragraph read, and I quote, "As our black-clad Prime Minister, his unbending white collar painfully stopping body blood-flow at neck level and separating his 'Frankenstein' face from his funereal wear, walked up the aisle to his seat in the House last November an outburst of for-long-expired Nationalist audacity triggered the necessary energy wherefrom a Mozart's unfinished requiem was sung", I unquote.

Leaving aside the little point that if the young lady had written in such a personally insulting way about, say, Doctor Alfred Sant and his cosmetic foibles, the sky would have fallen in, what, in Heaven's name, is she on about? The rest of her column - from which you might expect to glean some glimmer of understanding - goes on in much the same way, imitating the gibbering of mildly excitable infant with a precocious grasp of the sound of words and phrases but not their meaning.

The sad thing is that New Labour probably see her as one of their shining youths.

Get outta here

A reader has pointed out that I, like Homer, have nodded. It was not Al Pacino who said the above but James Cann, while teaching Hugh Grant to talk like a mobster.

I humbly beg forgiveness and promise not to do it again. At least, not until next time.

bocca@waldonet.net.mt