Now that the euro has been launched amidst much pomp and ceremony and the profusion of golden and copper coins are still shiny and new, the next earth-shattering event on the national agenda, should, by rights, be the general election. At the moment, like the Third Secret of Fatima, the date of the election is being kept in the heart and mind of one person: the Prime Minister, who, to date, has refuted all prognostications. The date of the general election will hold no dramatic surprises or exciting developments but will merely put us Maltese in a position to organise their lives once again. As we are a nation of politicos, taking more than just a cursory interest as to who will govern us for yet another term, an election can be a disruptive experience. Not knowing which way the cat is going to jump is nail-bitingly enervating and not knowing when the election will take place is now simply frustrating.
Most people in Malta wish to simply get on with their lives and earn their living, to have a modicum of recreation to sugar the pill of having to follow a routine and make enough money to allow for that little extra, that midwinter trip with the family to get away and breathe fresher air somewhere else. With elections around the corner this is impossible. Nobody can plan anything. No trips, no treats, no plans can be made as the average Maltese is so politically minded that he or she would rather die than not vote. Even the people who keep insisting that they will not vote still want to be here to make a political statement by staying away from the polling booths. The speculation has gone on long enough and Malta will soon grind to a complete halt if the date is not announced soon.
It is being said that the PN has something "big" up its sleeve which it will produce very soon like the proverbial rabbit out of a hat; something that will sway the outcome of the election in the incumbent's favour. Apart from being the chosen location for the wedding or honeymoon of the French President and Carla Bruni Tedeschi, which would bring the world media streaming to Malta, I cannot imagine what the surprise could be. Mater Dei Hospital is up and running and the Regional Road bridge seems to be progressing nicely if slowly. It is still too early to see SmartCity in actual terms. Therefore, people are racking their brains trying to guess what the great jackrabbit could be. This reminds me of what my mother always said about annual exams; study moderately during the year and try to pay attention in class to avoid last-minute cramming which may get you through by the skin of your teeth but which will not make you an educated and cultured individual.
Elections should by rights be won by the most deserving party. The governmental incumbents should be re-elected because of their outstanding performance and similarly the opposition should be elected because they offer a viable alternative. Our past experiences have shown that this is not the case at all and that, most times, governments are given the mandate to govern by default and not because they merit it.
I hope that by the time this appears in print Malta and his wife will know when the great event is scheduled for and will be able to plan out their 2008 properly. A few New Year resolutions will not be amiss even at this late stage!
We can thank our lucky stars and the good sense of our local politicians past and present that in 1987 the will of the majority and Dom Mintoff prevailed and that we came to a crucial turning point in our history that brought us to the stage wherein we are happily spending our euros with abandon! I have not read Evarist Saliba's memoirs yet wherein he reveals that there was more to the last few elections than met the eye.
Rumours always abound during election time especially when the issues were as red hot as they were in 1987 or 1998. In both those elections the maverick of Maltese politics, Mr Mintoff, played a vital part by refusing to toe the party line and doing his own thing.
In 1987 I would say that he did the right thing, however in 1998 the issue was not so clear. I still feel that, with a modicum of good sense and a sincere wish to compromise, the irreversible clash between the MLP leader and the former one could have been averted. Be that as it may the outcome meant that, thankfully, our membership of and not partnership with the EU was once again on the cards.
Stubbornness gets one nowhere. Again, had Alfred Sant opted to join the EU before and during the referendum and the subsequent election and not presented the nation with all the gobbledygook and pies in the sky about partnership, for which he had absolutely no plans, he would probably have been PM today.
Look to poor Kenya. A country torn by electoral strife in which people have been killed and to which no viable solution can be found other than holding the elections again. If not, the bloodbath will continue and to a country that relies heavily on tourism like us it would spell economic disaster.
Apparently Mr Saliba's memoirs indicate that Malta was sailing rather too close to the anarchical wind and that if people were not as levelheaded as they are, a Kenyan situation may have ensued. God forbid.
I have seen the film The Golden Compass; the first to be issued in the Philip Pullman trilogy His Dark Materials, which I read a couple of years ago. Like the Da Vinci Code, this interesting iconoclastic vision of another world within other worlds raised no hackles when it was published in book form and was avidly read by millions of children all over the world. It was only when a cinematic substitute to Harry Potter needed to be found that the hoi polloi realised that there was something not quite cricket about Pullman's beliefs and theories about Creation and God.
While I devoured the books there were times when I felt extremely uncomfortable about what I was reading. I was way out of my comfort zone but that is what great literature is all about, isn't it? I am totally out of my comfort zone with every other book I read but that does not imply that I am incapable of drawing my own conclusions after having survived existence on this earth for two score and 11 years! What I can say is that the film is a very watered down version of the book and I see no grave dangers as long as it is taken at face value which, for someone who has not read the book, is a foregone conclusion.
Like in the Da Vinci case there are many clamouring for a boycott of the film which, of course, has the Mary Whitehouse effect of making it a blockbuster. That would, of course, be a form of censorship; something which in the Western world has been thrown out of the window long ago. People must be allowed to think for themselves, judge for themselves and make decisions for themselves and not have others do it for them. Only recently the Pope had to cancel his visit to La Sapienza University because of protests against his visit. Instead, students went to the Vatican to meet the Pope. They were free to do so; however, the Pope himself was not given freedom of movement to address the students in their alma mater, which is a form of inverted censorship, is it not?
We are far from perfect; our very imperfections and contradictions which make us endearingly human have been and will remain the subject of myth and legend as long as there is life on planet earth. Without them we would be so excruciatingly clone-like and humdrum that I would imagine that we would have become extinct out of sheer boredom.
kzt@onvol.net