Norman Lowell has appealed the judgment of the Magistrates' Court that found him guilty of incitement to racial hatred and disrespecting the Presidency. This is, of course, his right and I would be the first to stand up and protest if anyone dared to defy the rule of law and deny him it. All are entitled to dine at the table of due process of the criminal law.

This does not mean however that everybody is entitled to sit at the table of human rights. Many have been the voices, with due respect generally belonging to those uninstructed in the sphere of fundamental rights and freedoms, that have piped up, somewhat like a Greek chorus, bemoaning the breach of Mr Lowell's rights constituted by the judgement from which he has appealed. According to these people, it was a sad day indeed when Mr Lowell was found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment and fined, the former of these two strands of society's punishment being suspended for a period of four years.

The laments went on, with darker shades of our history being evoked, with recollections of when Archbishop Michael Gonzi contrived to make it a mortal sin to have sympathies for the Malta Labour Party. Malta has been equated with China as two of the few countries in the world where people are sent to jail for what they write on the 'net.

Not to put too fine a point on it, though, this is all tripe. You can't go around preaching racist venom and suggesting that people be kept out of the country with the business end of a gun and then, when you are asked by society to account for yourself and - failing so to do - suffer the consequences of your criminal behaviour, hold up the shield of your own human rights. The rights of others to be treated with dignity, to be allowed to seek a life, are way more important than the "right" of people like Mr Lowell to spew their thoughts and it is an accepted tenet of human rights law that you are not allowed to expect to be protected if you don't accept the rights of others to be protected.

So, while Mr Lowell and his learned counsel are perfectly entitled to enter his appeal, though the extent to which His Honour in the Court of Criminal Appeal will be amused by a 64-page appeal application is debatable at best, Mr Lowell's apologists are not, in my humble opinion, entitled to mouth off about his human rights without exposing themselves to people like me gainsaying them.

I was struck, I have to say, by the closing line in Gaetano Micallef's rather good report of the filing of the appeal in l-orizzont. Mr Micallef quoted Dr Emanuel (Emmy) D. Bezzina, Mr Lowell's counsel, as saying that one of the strands of the appeal was in the sense that you shouldn't judge someone if you can't understand him.

This line of reasoning demands analysis. Is Dr Bezzina alleging that the presiding magistrate failed to understand Mr Lowell's geo-political philosophy and his manner of expounding it or is he saying that Mr Lowell can't be understood by mere mortals, in a more general sense? I would say that it must be the second case since, in her judgement, the magistrate made it pretty darn clear that she understood what Mr Lowell was saying perfectly.

If it is being pleaded that mere mortals can't understand Mr Lowell, what does this mean? Does it mean that he is incomprehensible to the rest of us? That he is inspired by voices, figuratively speaking, that the rest of us can't hear? That he is the only one that is in step? That he is marching to a different drummer to the rest of humanity?

Don't ask me, ask his lawyer, he's the one who said it.

Another race

The MLP are going on with their incessant shrilling about corruption here, corruption there, corruption everywhere, one of the latest episodes to be "exposed" being one concerning the Minister for Gozo, and this while she was Acting PM, to boot.

I'm not going to debate the ins and outs of the latest allegation, because I'm pretty sure that you are as bored as I am by all this. Minister Debono is perfectly capable of taking care of herself and, anyway, given the size of the pack of wolves Labour has been crying for the last 20 years or so, what's the betting that this is more of the same?

This is not to say that if there is corruption (anywhere, not in this case particularly) this is something with which we should be pleased or anything like that. The electorate clearly believed the PM when he said he would take action and I, for one, am satisfied to let him do the job. The electorate, while we're about it, has also told anyone who will listen (obviously this does not include the MLP, which hasn't learnt the lesson) that corruption is not uppermost in its collective mind.

What did inspire me to put some words into the ether in this context, though, was a comment by one of Labour's keenest scribes, one Charles J. Buttigieg from Mellieħa. This gentleman saw fit, while commenting on this paper's web portal, to write "The Gozitanos (sic) voted against a new beginning therefore Giovanna has a right to give them more of the same. Yes minister, keep hitting them and they will love you more for it".

Is it only me, or do you also detect a racist undertone to what Mr Buttigieg wrote?

The use of the pejorative sounding "Gozitanos", for instance, smacks mightily of the condescending way lower-class Brits used to refer to us as "Maltesers". When you take add into the mix what seems to be Mr Buttigieg's characterisation of the Gozitans as a masochistic bunch who were too stupid to see the light, thus deserving to be punished by their minister, you really have to come to the conclusion that this is a superior being laying down the law, at least in his own estimation.

My stand

You might have noticed a letter by one David Xriha taking me to task for daring to oppose hunting and expounding on the reason why I take this stance. I've answered him in the comments section and in a letter, so I'll not debate that aspect of the matter any further.

I was struck, though, by David Borg Cardona's defence of Mr Xriha's defence of Carmel (aka Lino?) Farrugia's earlier attack on me, though I'd not realy call it an attack, being as it was akin to being mauled by a dead sheep. Mr Borg Cardona, who, I believe, is related but only distantly (not distantly enough, I'd be tempted to say were it not for the BC Solidarity Imperative) wrote that Mr Xriha has, whether I and people like me like it or not, "grounds to stand on" unlike the regular columnists of The Times (he put in two exclamation marks, which I don't use, as they are signs of weak writing).

It seems that this particular Mr Borg Cardona believes that to be allowed to write an opinion one has to have "grounds" rather than having an opinion and the rudimentary skills to express it. What he means by that, unfortunately, he neglected to say.

Lapsus

I must tender my apologies to all of my many followers for sending you on something of a wild-goose chase in Mġarr last week.

I had, you will recall, let it be known that a good meal could be had at Porto Antico.

The only problem with this was that said good meal is actually to be had at Porto Vecchio. The meaning of the two words is not precisely the same, though I'd have to request the intervention of psycho-linguists to elucidate on the distinction.

Anyhow, the meal was worth having, and there you have it, Beck's memory isn't what it used to be. So very sorry.

imbocca@gmail.com, www.timesofmalta.com/blogs