Nothing to write home about

It has been just over a year since the Nationalist Party was voted into Parliament by a whisker. In this year we have soul-searched and deliberated, argued and debated, hurled invective and maligned and, yet, it seems neither the parties themselves nor their supporters are at all clear in their minds why this happened or what it means.

The epitome of this totally ostrich-like attitude was last week's Bondiplus. Talk about manipulation! The programme's agenda was supposed to have been an assessment of a year of PN administration. Instead, it degenerated into a free for all. I was utterly disgusted.

When will our politicos realise that tejatrini do not impress anyone but their most brainless followers? Snide remarks and bitchy comments peppered what was supposed to have been a civilised and important assessment of a year in harness by what has turned out to be a very lacklustre government indeed. By trying to destroy the Labour Party (PL) while it is trying its damndest to renew itself is puerile. I will remind you all that outgoing President Eddie Fenech Adami, on reassuming power in 1998, declared quite plainly that a weak opposition was a dangerous disservice to democracy. That the PL took a decade to heed this advice is a tragedy that led to a comedy of errors that is encapsulated in a programme like last week's Bondiplus.

I find the power of spin so fascinating. How the PN apologists have glossed over the victory of common sense with regard to the St John's Foundation bunker debacle is such a perfect example of effective whitewashing that one wonders what else has been and is being cooked up in the secret enclaves of our political parties. The rejection of the subterranean museum was nobody else's victory but ours: the people's.

That the PL had to politicise it was neither here nor there, however, one might say that both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition played the game in such a way that a parliamentary showdown was inevitable. With a mini revolution on his hands, the Prime Minister backed down along with the Archbishop, declaring that the issue was splitting the country, which it wasn't unless you are under the impression that the handful of PN Brahmins are as powerful and as numerically strong as the huge anti-hole lobby that was whipped up quite spontaneously as soon as the project was announced.

In the last 12 months since Lawrence Gonzi walked the streets of Valletta to the strains of Handel's See The Conquering Hero Comes, the furore and the upbeat mood that followed the long overdue dropping of the PL pilot dissipated in a haze of riħ isfel.

The recession we are now told has been affecting us adversely since mid-2008 did not help and the still unresolved squabble about the utility bills has not done much to restore confidence and a sense of well-being that we so desperately need to move forward. Add the immigration issue, which cannot be resolved unless the EU waggles its finger severely at Col. Muammar Gaddafi, which it won't, and the sense of ennui is exacerbated with every boatload that is drawn in. Put the environment as the cherry on the cake and neither I nor you would like to be in Dr Gonzi's shoes for all the couscous in Libya.

The Bondiplus episode proved once again that we must find some alternative way of living our political reality. Here we are, a minuscule, vulnerable republic marooned in a vast sea, thinking that we are the centre of the universe. With a population that is less than a fifth of Manchester's 2.5 million, we have managed to bamboozle ourselves that we are the bee's knees of Europe and the cat's whiskers of the world! Manchester is run by a mayor... Need I say more? Instead of playing to the mostly unimpressed and disillusioned gallery and trying to whitewash what can never be condoned, I would ask both parties, especially the PN, to respect our intelligence and to listen to what the people have to say, especially those who have no special adherence or binding loyalties to either party.

Does it have to be spelled out that these people are loyal only to Malta?

There has been a deafening silence since the scrapping of both excavation projects. We have heard nothing about Parliament, the opera house or anything else connected to the rehabilitation, restoration and beautification of our capital, and, as I predicted, the pundits are now on their high horse in a sulk. Renzo Piano is nowhere to be seen or heard.

I hate to think what would happen should this inertia persist when Malta and Valletta are designated as the Cultural Centre and Cultural Capital of Europe in 2018. Culture is so low on the government's list of priorities that Dolores Cristina does not even have a parliamentary secretary for it while she does have Clyde Puli to look after youth and sport! That, my friends, speaks volumes.

kzt@onvol.net