With L-Istrina annual telethon only a couple of days away, I suspect most readers are bracing themselves for (or against) the event widely considered an icon of national generosity, and somewhat less widely denounced for the "impure", self-interested donations it solicits by awarding so, so many delectable prizes to people who phone in. But it is not that debate that piques my interest: It is the cultural peculiarities.

Like, say, the Italian yuletide telethon, L-Istrina is a televised charity collection with a massive organisation behind it. Social and political leaders and celebrities are impressed as telephone receptionists to receive pledges of money from members of the public. The distinguished guests take their turns in hymning the praise of solidarity, while the celebrities "donate" performances.

The Maltese version also has a dizzying amount of valuable prizes given away by lottery, while the Italian version does not. It is an important difference, of course, but not the only striking one.

When Susanna Agnelli (or any other Italian politician) turns up on the Italian programme, she speaks and acts as a politician. But when Maltese politicians turn up for the Maltese programme, we are not too surprised if they engage in clowning or "dares" for the sake of raising the money. Even ministers are sometimes involved: A few years ago, still Minister for Social Policy, Lawrence Gonzi had his legs waxed in return for money pledged.

Or take the celebrities. The author-singer Antonelli Venditti turns up for the Italian programme and sings - you guessed - one of his own songs. But when (say) Ludwig shows up for L-Istrina, he does not perform the song that took him (and Julie) to the Eurovision Song contest: Rather, he puts on a wig and (deliberately) hams his way through a Chiara song.

The fact that he did not bother to learn Chiara's song very well is actually taken as a sign of his full participation in the spirit of the programme: for, make no mistake, the performers who turn up for L-Istrina do not "donate" a professionalised performance, rather, they clown, or at best perform in an artistic discipline that is not their own. And that is what is expected of them.

What is going on? There is something here that has less to do with the spirit of Christmas and more with carnival. But whereas during carnival it is ordinary people who dress up in ways that subvert social distinctions, reversing hierarchies and taunting the powerful, during L-Istrina the powerful and the celebrated "dress down" (even when they dress "up"): they show that really they are ordinary, fun-loving folk; they do not reverse social hierarchy, they dissolve it; they perform the elimination of distinction.

There is also some resemblance to Tista' Tkun Int (TTI). But that show gives fabulous prizes to the people with a problem; whereas L-Istrina collects money for charitable causes but gives prizes to ordinary people. Besides, the problems treated by TTI usually have to do with people that have a flair, if not outright genius, for one of the seven deadly sins: The superstar of Gluttony (who has repented of his extra 30 kilos), the marathon athlete of Anger (still running with it after 20 years of refusing to talk to her sister), the trapeze artist of Lust (who somersaulted out of his children's life with the blonde in the front row all those years ago, leaving them hanging)...

The operations of the seven deadly sins we can somehow understand but L-Istrina addresses something much more difficult to explain: the occurrence of catastrophic illness and debilitating physical conditions. The seemingly random distribution suggests a universe that operates like a genetic lottery.

L-Istrina has so far embraced this image. Its rhetoric emphasises that anyone of us watching the programme might in the future be in need of the money collected. And the lottery of prizes is also used to make a point of poetic justice: The people who win, Peppi Azzopardi was always fond of triumphantly pointing out, are those who have never won anything before. In the moral universe of L-Istrina, the last shall be first.

The random nature of the lottery has been deployed as a picture of morality, or amorality, by some distinguished modern atheist thinkers. The writer Jorge Luis Borges used it to suggest the limits of our analytical powers: it was cosmic roulette that made Judas the traitor, and Jesus the saviour.

For the biologist Jacques Monod, the pervasive intertwining of chance with necessity in nature showed up the limits of moral insight. The heroic atheist responds to the indifference of the universe with an unflinching indifference in return; but the participants of L-Istrina, just as modern in embracing the lottery image, respond differently.

Although the puritan critics of the event say the giving is tainted with self-interest and calculation, there is plenty of evidence that denies this. Do we really need to think people calling think they have anything other than a slim chance to win, despite the better-than-usual odds?

Do we need to disbelieve those winners who, having won, say they are going to phone again the moment they hang up? The logic of L-Istrina is the insistent denial of calculation.

Several prizes are irrational - given their value or their quantities - in marketing terms. The politicians and celebrities behave the way they do in an ostentatious display that, for a good cause, they uncalculatingly place their professional selves at risk of ridicule. Everyone responds to the mad randomness of the universe with one's own "mad" spontaneity.

Like many rituals that anthropologists study, L-Istrina aspires to transform the world. The randomly indifferent universe is projected as capable of being turned, with human hands, into a universe without scarcity that somehow gives meaning to inexplicable events and suffering.

L-Istrina even has something subliminal to say about the Fall and the problem of Evil - that is, the Maltese version. With L-Istrina, the cliché goes, the Maltese show what they truly are when they overcome partisan and other social differences: how generous and collaborative they are at heart when the going gets tough. What appears to be an individual accident of biology - freak, disorderly and chaotic - ostensibly reveals the order underlying a collective destiny.

So criticising L-Istrina for how it toys with moral intention may be beside the point. The programme is a part and image of a moral universe that is barely part of our official discourse about Maltese morality. Just how it fits with everyday life, I do not know. I cannot even as yet fully explain the symbolic logic of the programme. But I cannot wait for this year's edition to have another go.

ranierfsadni@europe.com