Calling the shots

As with mounting horror I watched that vicious black carpet of water and debris devour the Japanese flatlands last week dragging houses, boats, cars and people in its wake, my octogenarian mother asked me what is happening to the world insofar as the apparent escalation of natural disasters is concerned. Nothing strange or new, in fact. I don’t blame her or anyone else for that matter for it really seems as if there is a maelstrom of calamities both natural and man-made happening at once. It is because today we can see everything on screen, whether TV, PC or phone, as soon as they happen.

A landslide in the Abruzzi, a flood in Mexico, a tsunami in Japan and yet another suicide bomber dragging hundreds of innocent bystanders to heaven or wherever along with him is standard fare on our screens as we switch and zap, with an addictive curiosity that verges on the morbid, from CNN to Al Jazeera to CNBC to BBC and from France 24 to Euronews to name but half a dozen news channels that supersede our national channels. These transmit astringently watered down newsreels at fixed times and are more interested in news lauding the bravura of some politician or the opening of a playground than what is to be the determining facts in our future lives: things like the Libyan self-combusting disaster, the Bahrain debacle or the exploding nuclear reactors, all of which play second fiddle to the local parochial humdrum of our insular existence.

My mother was a young girl during the last war and, unlike today, had little or no idea about what really went on during the Nazi occupation of Europe apart from an insignificant snippet in The Times of Malta. Our unsplendid isolation was then a fact in a world without TV, without mobile phones or PCs. A couple of decades ago, the Japanese tsunami would have merited a short snippet on The Times by courtesy of Reuters and little more. To the young today that is as incomprehensible as a world without toothpaste, deodorant and, most importantly, sliced bread.

I sometimes fear that because of the barrage of information people are becoming emotionally detached from this reality that slaps us in the face every single day. Fact now appears to be much stranger and far more gripping than fiction. So fast is fact-finding that one feels that reading a novel in today’s world is a form of self-indulgent escapism, which is why the book prizes are awarded to those novels that reflect true present-day situations like the two by the exiled Libyan novelist Hisham Matar, The Anatomy Of A Disappearance and In the Country Of Men.

Therefore, against this darkening and apocalyptical tapestry of human tragedy of unprecedented proportions I could not help but view the local divorce-related shenanigans with the most jaundiced of eyes. Being pro or anti divorce pales into insignificance when compared to the results of the time it took the UN to finally impose a no-fly zone in Libya, where the rebel forces fighting for democracy were being pulverised with weaponry sold to Muammar Gaddafi by ourselves. Oh yes, money does not only talk but makes the world go around and is such an overriding concern that many are those who would not only beg, steal or borrow to have it but sell their grandmothers too.

As time goes on, I am all the more convinced that the lack of logic in the divorce debates must be related to some big money spin somewhere along the line. The argument of “what God has joined together, let no man put asunder” makes no sense whatsoever in the light of civil marriage. Even if and when divorce legislation becomes part of our codex, one would, if one is a convinced and practising Catholic, apply for an annulment.

What I could not understand in the voting last week was why if both parties gave a free vote, Karl Gouder, who was publicly in favour of divorce, did not vote with the opposition like Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and Jesmond Mugliett and why openly anti-divorce Adrian Vassallo and Marie Louise Coleiro Preca did not vote against.

I was also impressed by the adroit whitewashing of what was ostensibly a drubbing of monumental proportions by the Prime Minister after the voting. He really must try to be less obviously glib. In this day and age, not everyone swallows whatever a politician says without question. At least, he was honest enough to admit how disappointed he was with the result but I find it hard to believe that a seasoned politician of his calibre ever expected otherwise. Frankly, I find the whole issue is ridiculous and wastefully unnecessary and still insist that the referendum is a waste of time and, above all, money besides being an abrogation of parliamentary responsibility despite the flimsy “lack of mandate” arguments.

Malta, thankfully, has evolved from the terrible days when half the island was interdicted. The anguish and suffering of the mostly uncomprehending people could not have been more poignantly described than in Mario Azzopardi’s recently produced play Xbihat at the Manoel Theatre. Never again must we succumb to the slightest religious pressure where our civil rights and liberties are concerned for if one but scratches the surface one will surely discover that the considerations have absolutely nothing to do with religious faith or spirituality but are all about who wields power and influence and how.

kzt@onvol.net