Roamer’s column

I came across a local newspaper cutting recently, a letter from a Norwegian, Bjorn Ole Austad,. In it he made a number of points on the subject of divorce, the incidence of which had risen from 19 per cent in his country in 1960 to almost 50 per cent in the mid-90s.

I was struck by a remark he made that “the divorce of people close to us may pose an indirect threat to our own marriage. Imagine yourself part of a circle of friends where two or three couples are getting divorced.

Would that not make you inclined to take the same direction if you are, at that time or later, passing through a marital crisis yourself”? He could not have known how prescient his observation was. Thirteen years later, a new study has drawn the conclusion that “divorce is contagious”.

The study, carried out by three universities in the United States (California, San Diego, Harvard) showed that people are 75 per cent more likely to be divorced if someone they are directly connected to is divorced – dropping to 33 per cent if a friend of a friend gets divorced.

James Fowler (California) is reported to have told CNN: “We think of a regular contagion like flu. You get a virus and you’re more likely to spread the symptoms to someone else. This is not just true for a virus. This is true for a lot of social behaviours”.

Hence, as we have seen, the creation of ASBOs in the UK.

Here in Malta, the divorce issue has been pronounced over by a number of its proponents; indeed, some display surprise that so much fuss is being made of it. Their conscience is clear, they declare, and nobody, but nobody, is about to muddy its clarity be it the Church, the Archbishop, the Prime Minister or, for that matter, Uncle Tom Cobbleigh. I tend to see in this attitude, unimpeachable evidence of a closed mind.

Nor am I uplifted by the anti-divorce, pro-divorce figures being bandied about. I am curious about the latter in the sense of wanting to learn the basis on which those in favour have formed their informed and conscientious conclusion. Is it merely an exercise in personal autonomy – I think divorce is right, therefore it is right?

This is a perilous journey to take. Is their decision based on the certainty that society will benefit from it? On what grounds is that certainty based? Certainly not on the evidence from abroad. Is it because the Church teaches it and the Church is bigoted, wrong, antedeluvian? Or is it – I am addressing believers – because when Christ raised marriage to the level of a covenant He made an error of judgment?

Are those in favour of divorce willing to see how the consequences of divorce, where it has been introduced (everywhere except Malta and the Philippines) have nibbled away at the social structure? Or are they in favour precisely because Malta and the Philippines are the only two countries that have not introduced it, therefore there must be something batty about Malta.

We have to be immensely careful here, because if this singularity of ours affects our decision it will, sooner than expected, be an argument brought forward against pro-life. And, by no means lastly, but it will do for today, should those who proclaim themselves in favour not make some effort to see how other countries are trying to pick up the broken pieces – not least because the secular argument had within it, its own particular deceit, its roots in a once paradisiacal Garden. Here, try this and you will be like to God?

As for those in favour, as for our priests and our Church leaders, should we and they not be promoting marriage and family, strengthening both with far more energy and directness? Should bishops and clergy not pledge themselves, as the Conference of Bishops did in the United States, “to be a marriage-building Church… using creatively the gifts and resources entrusted to us”? Should they not heed Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI who emphasised the need for pastoral ministry in the service of marriage and family life as an urgent priority for the Church? Should they not all, all, be singing from the same hymn book?

Should we not all, in humility, try to discourage friends going through a crisis in their marriage from breaking up, instead of hurrying them along in that direction?

The fall and fall of a president

It is a sliver over 10 weeks away from autumn, known to Americans as the fall, when, many observers are saying US President Barack Obama’s Democrat party will face the American electorate on everything from Obamacare to Obamamosque, Obamagulf, Obamiran, the $850 billion plus stimulus bill, unemployment, government spending and come a cropper.

Will today’s poll indications prevail on November 2? Obamacare (55 per cent favour repeal, 60 per cent according to another poll), his performance (53 per cent disapprove) opposition to Ground Zero mosque (68 per cent disagree with him). This is not the track record on which the Democrat party hoped to fight the mid-term elections.

Nile Gardiner writes a pretty hard-hitting blog in The Daily Telegraph. No admirer of the President, this is not a good enough reason to ignore his opinion; discounting which has become a hallmark of the administration. Recall the White House Press secretary’s reference to critics as “crazy” and their need to be “drug-tested”.

Earlier this month Gardiner described the Obama presidency as being “in meltdown... out of touch with the American people” – witness the way he backed the Ground Zero mosque one day and backed away from it the next, his “lacklustre handling” of the Gulf oil spill. Swimming in Florida before hot-footing it to Martha’s Vineyard hardly qualifies as... anything.

This is not good news; after all, we are talking about a leader who, only 18 months ago, had the world in thrall; much of that world is no longer enthralled. Will it, then, be a diminished president who travels to Lisbon after the mid-terms? Unless he can miraculously regain the confidence of American voters between now and November 2, and this is possible but not probable, the answer must be in the affirmative.

And there is his pussy-footing over Iran and North Korea, his abandonment of Iraq – by a mutual agreement with that country signed in 2008, it is true, but the deadline was the end of 2011 (August 2010, it will not be lost on anybody, comes before November 2).

Listen to Tariq Aziz. Tariq Aziz! – ex-Saddam Hussein’s ex-foreign minister, accusing the Americans of “leaving Iraq to the wolves”. It seems to have passed Obama by, that if Iraq’s brave attempt, aided so magnificently by the United States, to become a democratic state were to fail, the world faces an Iran only too willing to destabilise the entire region. He can no longer claim this is above his pay grade.

The things some Prime Ministers say

One thing about summer is that the local scene tends to go into slumber mode. The Prime Minister takes a holiday, as well he should. I trust, the Leader of the Opposition will follow suit. Some politicians soldier on – Chris Said, for example; Mario de Marco, once he has come to terms with his grieving; Jason Azzopardi always seems to have something sensible to do, as do George Pullicino and Edwin Vassallo. Their shadows, and I do not say this in a spirit of meanness, sensibly take to the shade.

I meant to kick off with a query as to why an electorate normally entrusts the keys of its earthly kingdom to a leader whose grasp of foreign affairs is not normally a factor with voters. There’s a foreign minister and staff packed with Ph.Ds in international affairs to deal with those. It is amazing, however, how swiftly some PMs tuck swathes of foreign affairs into their prime ministerial briefcase and rush to the airport and the international circuit.

Britain’s David Cameron has given a startling example of this; look at his lamentable performance in India and Turkey. It must have given William Hague cause to wonder whether Cameron’s tirade in Pakistan, made to sound even more crude and insensitive as nature took its cruel toll of that country, had not ushered in the death of diplomacy.

There is more to international relations than Cameron’s defence of his “tell-it-as-it-is” argument; and even if there were less, was it not verging on the uncouth to blast Pakistan on Indian soil, of all soil? And so soon after promising nuclear technology to India?

For centuries, diplomacy has struggled not to tell it as it is, if for no other reason than the realisation that that way cans of worms may open when these are better left with their Crosse and Blackwell lids firmly closed; never mind the not-so-minor question of good manners. Did Cameron’s speech in Turkey receive Obama’s nod? If it did, it will not be long before we hear the Obama-poodle echo of the Bush-poodle barb aimed at Blair’s direction. Announcing a troop pull-out from Afghanistan next year provides another echo.

But to return to that tell-it-as-it-is gaffe, it was all the more surprising that Pakistan’s president kept his rendezvous with the British prime minister. Asif Ali Zardari not only flew to London. He did so when his country was barely, literally, keeping itself above water. His opponents will charge him, correctly, with a lamentable lack of judgment. I suspect he may not be long in the job.

In the meantime, Hague, demand your portfolio back.