To say that next Tuesday is the third anniversary since Malta joined the European Union is true as far as it goes, but that does not go far enough. It implies that we sailed into the Union without any effort, which is not the case. There was, to start with, an enormous political struggle between the two political parties, one in favour, as it had been since its government signed an Association Agreement more than three decades ago, the other against. A quarter of a century later, in 1996, Malta's application to become a member was frozen by Dr Sant for 22 months, after which a new government formed by Dr Fenech Adami sparked the thing off again.
The government was opposed all the way by the Labour Party at a referendum in 2003 and at the general election the same year. A Cassandraesque Dr Sant spoke outside factory after factory predicting closures and lay-offs and all manner of gloom-doom if we joined. So, crossing the start line that saw us in Brussels, demanded and received from Dr Fenech Adami, then prime minister, grit and determination. The political will was there and so was the resourcefulness of our wealth creators in every sector except its textile component - in the case of the latter not for want of trying so much as the loss of our markets to lower-cost competitors.
There has since been a marriage between political determination and local and foreign investors. Foreign investment last year reached well over one billion euros (€1.34 billion, to be exact). None has been more impressive than the $300 million SmartCity project with its promise of 5,600 new jobs. This is mega-stuff for Malta. Still, it is fair to remember that last year an additional 80 to 90 new projects were also approved. These were on a humbler scale, but between them they created almost half the number of jobs SmartCity is expected to realise.
This last will place our tiny country in the big league of informatics. It would not have been remotely possible had Malta not joined the EU, nor if the island had lacked human resources in information technology. This is a cry so far as to be inaudible to some, that we need to remind ourselves of a bizarre fact. Twenty-one years ago, the very idea of information technology was anathema to Labour Party leader Dom Mintoff and his successor Dr Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici.
Not only will Malta's economy go up-market as a result of this investment. It will enter a new era and an abandoned area in the south of the island will be receiving an injection of funds the like of which neither it nor Malta has ever witnessed. Rather like joining Europe, this did not just happen. No magic wand was waved over Ricasoli by an indulgent fairy godmother, not least because, sadly, neither wand nor fairy exists.
Point is, membership has acted as a spur to our economy. According to our National Statistics Office, our manufacturing industry sold over one billion Maltese liris' worth of goods. That reminds me. Dr Sant and his like-minded coterie have called off their unjust war on the NSO and its works. I wonder why. On reflection it is just as well. The President of the European Court of Auditors, Hubert Weber, is flying out next month to address a conference that is being organised to mark the 10th anniversary of the NSO. As he is expected to give the NSO a clean bill of health, or at least some indication that the office is not a nest of intrigue, it would look silly if Dr Sant were saying the sort of things he was uttering towards the end of last year. I wonder why Gordon Cordina, who headed the organisation at the time, has not returned to his desk.
Three years into the EU, there is a lot to be pleased with, not least, of course, the funds that are helping us, however slowly, to get our roads right, keep most of our farmers happy, upgrade the economy, the labour market, our health, education, finance and tourism services and to maintain the fiscal discipline required for Malta to form part of the Eurozone next January.
Much remains to be done, of course; more discipline, loads more in our construction industry, stricter supervision, far stricter, of our building sites, more innovation in our transport system (we have bus numbers at bus stages but not a clue as to where these numbers will take us; nor the time of arrival at each stage of this or that bus), law enforcement to cut down on specific areas of lawlessness, better access to rock beaches, not only access but comfort on them once we get there and-so-on-and-so-forth.
The devil has always been in the detail. It may be a back-handed compliment that during the past two or three months, apart from SmartCity, more column inches, some of them absurd, have been written up dealing with spring bird hunting than any other activity.
For little mercies, thank you
Has our country reached a critical moment in its foreign affairs and its conduct thereof? That seems to be the opinion of the Leader of the Opposition, Dr Alfred Sant. He pledged his support for Dr Michael Frendo's nomination as Commonwealth Secretary-General, which some people could not believe. There must be, they thought, a caveat attached. It was not long in coming. He gave his fiat and then, characteristically, went on to say that the man could not continue in his position as Malta's foreign minister as his nomination would affect his focus at a critical time for the country.
Dr Sant acknowledged that Dr Frendo was possessed of the necessary know-how and Labour would use its contacts to promote his candidature, but hey, how could he possibly focus "on the issues we are dealing with in connection with the EU, infringement procedures and whatnot" (I loved that) "besides other issues which are beyond European relations...You need to lobby, speak to people" (naturally) "and get them to vote for you".
He was then reported as saying that if the government wished to have a Maltese in the top Commonwealth job, it should have been somebody other than the foreign minister. So, Dr Frendo is not OK after all. He is, you see, too busy with "infringement procedures and whatnot", among other things. Unless he unbusies himself by resigning, Government should choose somebody else. So, again, if Dr Frendo declines Dr Sant's invitation to step down, it may become the case that he will not receive Labour's backing, after all. This is vintage tortuousness.
But is Dr Sant correct in thinking that a candidate without a portfolio is a better choice than a candidate with one? Prima facie, and any number of facies you may care to think of, this is arrant nonsense. By virtue of the way Malta handled CHOGM and by virtue of his office, Dr Frendo already commands respect in Commonwealth circles. He has already established his contacts. He is, so to speak, a known horse and, if I may stretch the metaphor, he is already in canter mode. Bringing in a newcomer for the inspection of the various Commonwealth leaders is not merely unreasonable. It is daft for the same reason that lobbying for an outsider always is. More often than not an outsider remains just that.
Think again, Fred. (But he won't. Expect infringement procedures and whatnot to feature high on his list of no-noes after his yes-yes.)
Get yourself a life, Rebecca
This would be an infinitely better idea than taking away the lives of others - to which macabre activity Rebecca Gomperts has committed herself with a grisly dedication that is not short of being maniacal. She does not call abortion by its name, preferring the euphemism "women's choice".
Apparently she has set sail again in her boat-abortion clinic, the bad ship Women on Waves. The choice of name is as bizarre as Gomperts' mission to give women choice and to administer murder on unborn children. There are some philosophers in Malta who may wish to disagree with the choice of the last two words in the previous sentence. Let them. They are my choice.
Our heroine of the sea will, of course, not be allowed to sell her deadly wares and services. Becalmed outside Malta she could, conceivably, contemplate her navel and, more productively, dwell upon the recent news in the UK that more and more doctors and nurses in the UK, especially the younger members of these breeds, are refusing to have anything to do with termination of pregnancies. They are opting out of abortion modules during their training. Technology in the form of ultrasound is showing them and us more and more vividly just what there is in the woman's womb that they are being asked to destroy.
I was reading the other day just how far leaders of the pro-choice movement have pushed the frontiers of meaninglessness. Abortion provision has been described by no less than the director (female) of the British Pregnancy Advisory Services, as a "rewarding" job. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists are experiencing at first hand that a growing number of its members do not find this to be the case.
Another, Anne Quesney, a director of Abortion Rights, has been quoted as saying, and I italicise, "If you can't trust a woman to make this very personal decision, how can you trust her with a child?" Read that twice.
On the 40th anniversary of the passage in Britain of the Abortion Act, that country can look back, with horror, one hopes, on more than six million abortions. The six million women, in Quesney's barbaric opinion, were demonstrating with the abortionist's scalpel, that they could be trusted with a child. And six million abortionists, having scraped their way through a "rewarding" experience were chuckling all the way to the bank with an even more rewarding cheque. Did anyone say blood money?
Stay away, Rebecca. Try Mandalay.
From unsolicited senders, protect me
I assume you have the same problem with e-mails that flow into your machine, many of them like thieves in the night. You switch on at some time a.m. and there are dozens of messages from people you do not know and wish not ever to know. Like Angela Park, who instructed me to Look into the Mirror and enjoy seeing the New You. As if I needed Angela to tell me. Delete. Or Scotty Woody informing me that Doctors and Celebs endorse Anatrim, which I grant you was marginally better than being asked by Melanie Bonilla, in crusading mood, to Join the Anatrim Revolution. Delete, delete.
More mystifying was a sender who called her/himself (in these androgynous days you never know) Right Bra Attitude and offered me Sexy and Supportive Bras. Delete. Immediately below, Alvin Baulista suggested I Check the Wonders of Pounds Melting followed by Loretta Call, who opined that Getting Thinner can be Enjoyable. Delete. There was an enigmatic message from Richard Snyder - Wanna See This? - Vance calling on me to Discover why Water makes you Happy and some kill-joy pointing out that with the amount of fluoride in water I was killing myself drinking the stuff. Who to believe? Delete, delete, delete.
Some unmentionable moron found time to warn me, a hypochondriac, that Sleeper Germs were linked to Heart Attacks. That was all I needed to make my morning and ruin the evening as I imagined all those sleeper germs messing around with the performance of my ticker. DELETE. Plus 20 others; and this happens every day.
Quote...(A few Churchilliana)
Of Lord Charles Beresford: "He is one of those orators of whom it was aid, 'Before they get up they do not know what they are going to say; when they are peaking, they do not know what they are saying; and when they have ended they do not know what they have said'."
Of Stafford Cripps: "There but for the grace of God goes God".
"All the years that I have been in the House of Commons I have always said to myself one thing: 'Do not interrupt' and I have never been able to keep that resolution." (Sarah Churchill recalled a noisy family meal in which her father's voice rose above all others, roaring amid laughter, "Randolph, do stop interrupting me while I am interrupting you!")
During the North African campaign, the Eighth Army captured the Field Commander of the Afrika Korps. Montgomery invited his captive to dine in his GHQ trailer. This horrified many in Britain but the Prime Minister's reaction was rather more measured: "I sympathise with General von Thoma. Defeated, humiliated, in captivity, and... (long pause for dramatic effect) ...dinner with Montgomery."
On Charles de Gaulle: "He looks like a female llama who has just been surprised in her bath." (The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill; compiled by Dominque Enright)