Goodbye CPE

As a cat will not learn how to bark, a rightist government can never abandon its bad habits of believing that it knows best and that consultation of the people is just a futile democratic exercise. This has happened with the CPE (Contrat Première Embauche - First Job Contract) in France. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, as a typical man of the right, thought that being elected gives one the right to practise imposition. So he came out with his infamous blueprint for improved employment - which attempted to sweep away workers' rights as strengthened over generations by trade unions. Only street protests made him change his mind and probably sealed his uncertain political future. In Malta some "journalists" and politicians out of touch with Europe fog-horn their hypocritical opinion that street protests are old-fashioned. Positive results obtained by street protests in France prove these are indeed very modern and effective. Which makes the local fog-horns good wishful thinkers. But not thinkers.

Multiple strategies in tourism

A country manages to sell itself tourist-wise according to how much it is capable of identifying and selling talents and beauty spots which other countries do not possess. While rubbing hands in glee over cheerful pot-bellies watching dwindling tourist arrivals, we sometimes forget to calculate how much money was left in Malta's coffers.

The government was several times told that the witch-hunt against host families would produce no positive results. The people who warned that the witch-hunt would slash attempts at making this market flourish were called negative dreamers, if not false prophets. Host families have now drastically decreased in number, in spite of the fact that unemployment among family members has increased. But the incompetent, short-sighted strategies of those who swear they know best have made families declare they had no intention of slaving for peanuts. And the results of refusal by families to touch linguistic tourism accommodation are there for everyone to see.

Coffee-shop attractions

While on talents and beauty spots, we must recognise that many coffee shops in Malta participate in the selling of the country to tourists by their dual purpose of existence. Indeed many local coffee shops practise relationship enhancement through mutual observation. Let me explain.

Though coffee shops in most countries are places where one goes to sip a coffee and have a chat, many local ones observe the first purpose but completely revolutionise the second. Due to the loud music in the elegant café that would not attract intellectual exchanges between Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, patrons have to sit and simply observe each other without verbal communication. This is not as stupid as one may think and is even advocated by relationship experts. When spouses, couples more or less sitting more or less pretty and other types of partners are discouraged from verbal intercourse and forced to observe each other, newly-discovered mutual beauty marks may enhance their relationship. That sweet mole between the nostrils one has never cared to appreciate may do the trick of re-igniting long-lost passion and may even result in a rush towards home to discover and enjoy more of same. That crease on the left lobe is so exciting and it's such a pity that one has never perceived it before. But it doesn't matter; it's never too late and the noisy coffee shop that has done more than its duty to make you discover ignored physical characteristics, thus creating new romance of the hottest nature, must be regaled with a handsome tip - and a certificate of patriotism from administrative, lethargic, pot-bellied, tourist structures.

Congratulating the Greens?

Some local conservatives congratulated Arnold Cassola for his electoral results in Europe within the Green ideology. Green in Europe has an inevitable affinity with the Left. So let the Right congratulate the Left. It's a feather in the cap of political maturity.

Addio Berlusconi!

You may have gone voting with the dear mammina in conformity with conservative tradition of cosmetic respect for family life. But it did not work. You may have promised to administer the country like a successful business - which is a political obscenity. You may have attempted to use theatrics and loud laughter to impress with your dubious sense of humour. But loud laughter no longer impresses the mature voter. We have also learned this in Malta before you. Indeed we now know that he who laughs loud loses elections.

A parody of Voltaire

"With my life I will defend your right to freedom of expression." This Voltairian idealism may be bandied about by local conservatives, even if Voltaire is an obvious man of the left. At the same time, idealistic expression is often hypocritically ignored when it comes to convenient politics.

Reading the article by John Dalli in The Sunday Times of April 16 provides ample food for thought. The author laments that "the direct transmission which Net TV was making of the proceedings was cut when I took the podium" and asks "Was this by coincidence or by design?" Very worrying complaints, when we are used to hearing patronising boasting about defending freedom of expression "with one's life".

Mr Dalli's very analytical and thought-provoking article starts with a description of "loyal courtiers" who shout "diatribes on how nice the naked emperor looked". It proceeds to criticise developments in internal party conflicts: "When the king does not adhere to his part of the feudal contract, rebellion against him would be legal". Mr Dalli then shoots down adoring loyalty: "The hysterical rendition of one of the officers of the party about his concept of loyalty". Then he lambastes intimidation: "This abject performance was an attempt at intimidating the free thinkers of the party and continue with the purge". An eye-opener concludes the argument: "The party cannot be drawn in the vortex of the vicious circle that the more negative results become, the more threatened the monoliths feel and the more self-protective they become".

It seems to me that many Nationalists are now thinking along the above lines and that Mr Dalli's constructive attitude is stemming a haemorrhage of members who hope in better times for their party without a naked emperor.

A defence mechanism

A good friend, whose immediate surroundings no longer provide him with reasons for the enjoyment of exciting aesthetics, decided to put in his half penny worth of advice regarding current debate on art in Malta. He insisted with me that all real art should be bereft of any reference to human sexuality. I was thus left with two options. Either burn all my literature books and avoid all art museums, churches and exhibitions. Or else advise the good man to read Aesop in the morning, La Fontaine in the afternoon and Freud in the evening. When told that the poor fellow even attempts to teach literature, my heart wept for Maltese youth.

Dr Licari teaches psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and geolinguistics at the Department of French of the University of Malta.