Agendas: Hidden or otherwise

Consider the following assertion: "After almost 20 years in government, this administration is displaying all the signs of hubris". On reading this statement, you can only conclude that this is a bit of MLP propaganda in the run-up to the next general election.

Or consider this other statement about a Cabinet minister: "I can testify that while he is not simple as he looks, neither is he as clever as he thinks". You would probably think that this is some Union Print columnist waging a personal attack on a minister and being too clever by half in the process.

Astoundingly these statements are quoted verbatim from an article written by Martin Scicluna, vice president of Din l-Art Helwa in the October issue of Vigilo, the organisation's magazine. This article is an extended version of Mr Scicluna's previously published article - A Second World Country (The Times, August 4) - but the two quoted statements did not appear in the first article. The Cabinet minister, by the way, is George Pullicino.

By now we have become used to the fact that everything Mr Scicluna says about Malta is negative. In the last decade or so since he came to live among us, he has seen no progress, he has never had a word of praise for anything Maltese. He thinks the Cabinet is a ship of fools because ministers do not heed his warnings while lamenting that Malta is a second world country and our politics is full of chicanery. In another contribution to The Times (Tourism And The Environment - September 7) he insisted that Malta needs "a radical reversal of attitude and approach", a point of view that fits beautifully in Alfred Sant's electoral strategy. Coincidence?

Incidentally, Mr Scicluna insists that Malta is a "second world" country by quoting Alesina & Spolare's classic study The Size Of Nations and asserting that "effective and fair government in Second World countries can be paralysed by minority, vote-turning, single issues agenda, and their governments subverted into pandering to such groups to win their votes". I doubt whether there is any single democratic government that does not pander to win votes from diverse groups, the environment lobby being one of them. In Malta, the problem is compounded by the small size of the population. Malta does not fit in with the theoretical "optimal size" of a nation and unkind allegations and accusations will not alter Malta's size. In any case, it is only in dictatorial states that governments do not bother to pander to citizen's votes.

Recently, Minister Pullicino was criticised because he said there were some environmentalists who had a hidden political agenda. Mr Pullicino was referring to individuals and not to NGOs, as a Labour-inspired spin tried to make it out. In the case of Mr Scicluna, I wonder whether his agenda is really "hidden", considering his statements in different articles.

As a believer in democracy, I support Mr Scicluna's right to have his own political opinion and beliefs, whatever they are. When democracy was threatened in Malta, I stuck my neck out and helped in the struggle that avoided the loss of the democratic rights of the Maltese people. I even felt I had to openly oppose the then party in government.

Yes, Mr Scicluna has a right for his political agenda, and I respect that right. But I would respect him much more if he comes out and plays the game straight.