Some time ago, I took the mickey gently out of my young friend the Hon. Owen Bonnici for his crack about how it would be a good idea for young couples to take each other out for a trial run before tying the knot.
I might have been a tad unfair on the lad, though my tongue was quite firmly in my cheek when I put my thoughts into the ether, a fact that escaped most of the Lil’Elves who wrote to call me names. Dr Bonnici himself, of course, took it all in the spirit in which it was intended, demonstrating that there’s hope for the younger generation yet.
As a true politician, he also appreciates that even mildly annoying publicity such as like what I dish out, generally when the recipient is a Labour politician, is better than no publicity at all.
It seems, forsooth, that Dr Bonnici is getting quite in the hang of things and has found ways and means of getting his name into the media – more power to him, since he’s very much the acceptable face of Labour (arrogant swine, ain’t I?)
His latest little escapade was to have a jolly old moan about how he was forced to give a speech in English because Maltese interpreters were not available. Young Owen, rather than storming off in a high dudgeon, delivered his stuff in English but made it known that he was less than amused by the whole thing.
And, verily, he was right and anyone who says different is a twerp and a knave. Once the EU, in its almost infinite wisdom, accepted (as it should have, after all) Maltese as an official language, it is up to the EU, in between draining wine lakes, melting butter mountains and legislating about the precise angle at which the banana bends, to provide interpreters and there’s no two ways about it.
From a purely utilitarian point of view, I would – were I to have had my ‘druthers – have given thought to selling the notion of allowing English to be considered as our official language to the EU, against a handsome price. This would have had the advantage of getting us some filthy lucre and respecting the reality of things, quite apart from ensuring that the slippage we’re suffering in a proper command of the language being reversed.
On the other hand, all those opportunities for the youth of our nation to work in the field of translation would have been lost, so it’s swings and roundabouts, really and on balance, it’s our language and I, for one, am proud of it.
Now all that’s left is for it to be taught and examined in a way that makes people want to learn it, but that’s another story altogether.
So, Owen Bonnici was right to make a fuss, politely as he did and all the people who commented negatively about this are wrong, completely, utterly and profoundly and I don’t care who says otherwise. I’m all for practicality and being realistic, but what’s good for the Germans, the French, the Italians and anyone else whose language is used in the EU (there’s no way I’m going to mention the less obvious ones, given that if push were to come to shove, I wouldn’t have a clue whether Outer Croatia is in the EU or not) is good for us.
The most inane comment I saw, and the commenter can write in and contradict me all he likes, was the one that poked fun at Dr Bonnici for justifying his cushy job in Brussels. What “cushy job in Brussels”, may I ask? Bonnici is a Maltese MP and a lawyer plying his trade here – he was in Boring Europolis representing all of us, directly or indirectly and if this is a “cushy job in Brussels”, than Brad Pitt is my body double.