Roamer’s column

Budget 2012’s feel-good is-good factor has been generally accepted. Now that the Leader of the Opposition has had his say on the budgetary estimates and the Prime Minister his, two days later, we can get back to a world where good news has come in from Malta’s national airline.

Well to remember that national airlines larger than ours were forced to bite the tarmac

In parallel with the favourable wind the government has received as a result of its financial nation-keeping, a further gust was provided last week by the decision of 92 per cent of Air Malta employee-registered members of the General Workers’ Union to accept the restructuring programme proposed by the airline; pilots and cabin crews have already acknowledged thesituation.

A statement issued by the GWU pointed out that the workers had voted “under pressure” and had been “repeatedly threatened” by the Prime Minister, the Finance Minister and the airline management.

Decide against and there would be forced redundancies. The pressure, of course, was not provided by the Prime Minister but by the reality of the bankruptcy faced by Air Malta unless the overmanning factor was solved. Looks like we are close to a solution.

It is never easy to come to terms with redundancy and it would be crass to adopt an attitude of unconcern for those who are faced with it – probably 500 of the 1,300 workers currently on the airline’s payroll.

So, social justice demands that these receive the financial wherewithal to provide them with enough cushion to resettle elsewhere in the labour market. For this purposeprovision is being made by generous early retirement or voluntaryredundancy schemes.

Fact is that Air Malta was starting to follow in the footsteps of the fund-consuming dockyard, into which hundreds of millions of euros were sunk without trace.

Such a profligate spend had to go, and did; millions of euros of recurrent expenditure, previously wasted money, are now fed into whatever sphere of the economy these can profitably be invested.

Redundancy and re-employment

Unlike the dockyard, which could no longer attract enough work to make the enterpise remotely viable and in truth never did, Air Malta has a lot going for it as long as it is lean enough to carry out its important task of boosting tourism, a vital pillar of the country’s economy, and helping with the transport of our merchandise.

An over-manned airline is no use to anybody; it only milks the government’s finances, our taxes, with horrifyng efficiency. A profitable airline is something else again, not least a contributor to the country’s wealth. As we strive to bring this about, hats off to Air Malta chairman Louis Farrugia who took on this poisoned chalice, to his CEO and the employees for tackling an alarming situaton so responsibly.

We are not yet out of the woods; there are important steps still to be taken, not least a wise selection of profitable destinations and a coherent marketing system. Well to remember that national airlines larger than ours were forced to bite the tarmac. We have avoided that calamitous consequence and this is a feather in the cap of the airline,its board, management and employees. In the halcyon days of the 70s and early 80s, Labour’s reaction to massive unemployment – I am talking 10,000 plus – was to create an unlikely Pioneer Corps and other disastrous clones to absorb workers on the dole. This policy reached its manic apogee when the socialist Prime Minister of the day placed 8,000 unemployed with parastatal companies and added to their bankruptcy, or with an already swollen public sector.

A decision taken by Eddie Fenech Adami’s 1987 Government was to set up a training and education organisation to teach skills to unemployed men and women and to place these in gainful jobs.

The ETC, not often selected for praise, has become a flagship of the government’s training and re-skilling policy and developed into a first-class job-training and job-placement enterprise placing thousands of workers into new jobs.

It is in great part due to the corporation’s unflagging commitment to its objectives that thousands of workers made redundant for one good reason or another have been able to find employment or helped to set up their own enterprise. The island owes much to this well-run, well-organised body.

‘There’s no business...

...like show business, like no business I know...’ The ditty came to mind the other day when I was reflecting that there is no more spectacular election in theworld than the one that raises an American to the Presidency of the US – except another American presidential election.

Drama a-plenty, knife-sharpening and backstabbing to make Macbeth read like a childrens’ story,rhetoric like no other, scores ofmillions of dollars for campaign funding (Obama’s is near to a billion) and so on...

2012, unless the end of the world as we know it pre-empts the process, should provide Americans with a bruising campaign.

In the camp of the Republicans, the candidate of choice has still to emerge. In the land of the Democrats, Barack Obama will be unopposed. Or will he?

So far received wisdom has it that Obama’s favoured weapon of mass destruction is the Republican party; he would be well advised to listen to what is being said by his own admirers, be they high-powered Democratic pollsters or – heavens forbid! –

Chris Matthews, who once worshipped at the feet of Obama the candidate and has been quoted as saying, famoulsy, that the man from Chicago sent a thrill up his legs; which may or may not say something about Matthews.

Alas, those feet turned to clay or, as one American commentator, no admirer of the President, I grant you, put it, Obama the President has revealed himself as “all hat and no cattle”.

Worryingly for the President, his erstwhile worshipper Matthews may have been be speaking for a swathe of liberals when he complained that “the day he was inaugurated, with the Mall filled with people, African-Americans and everyone else, he sent us all home and said, ‘Thank you. Now watch how smart I am.’ That’s the worst kind of presidency”.

Worse was to follow. Matthews went on air recently and asked, “Why does he want a second term? What’s he going to do with a second term? More of this? Is this it? Is this as good as it gets?”

As bad, the President was heckled last Tuesday in New Hampshire, by members of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which Obama has been mischievously backing. A former White House Chief of Staff was asked by Newsmax magazine whether the President’s “increasing rhetoric” reflected his views.

“I think this is who he is”, said Kenneth Duberstein, “and it has a political tone to it because he sees that as his only way to have a shot at re-election... is to divide and demonise rather than get peopleto get together and be able tocompromise... the last two years... he has made compromise a four-letter word in Washington.”

And worse still, the two pollsters who worked for Carter and Clinton, wrote as ‘patriots and Democrats’ to express their concern “about the fate of our party and, most of all, our country”. They pointed to Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson who both stepped down when they realised “they could not effectively govern the nation if they sought re-election”.

Obama, they point out, “is facing a similar reality – and he must reach the same conclusion”. Their suggestion? Call in Hillary Cinton. Will W.J. now advise her to stand, after all?

Assuming Ms Clinton declines her husband’s advances – and why shouldn’t she? – there is the alarming possibility that unless the Republicans get their act together, and they have until January to do so, the highly articulate and even more highly inefficient incumbent stands a chance of returning to the White House.

Atheists and atheists

A paucity of intellect, not to say its complete absence, characterised the contents of letters sent in by a couple of atheists to The Times last week. Concentrating more on their disbelief than on their beliefs they advanced their cause not a millimetre. Castigating Christianity is for dummies. May I suggest that they peer into the minds of atheists of calibre - which rules out the preposterous Hawkins – into those of Jurgen Habermas or Marcello Pera, who both found it civilised and civilising to exchange their thoughts with Pope Benedict XVI.

The outcome of both encounters have been published – The Dialectics of Secularization – On Reason and Thought Habermas/Ratzinger; and Without Roots – The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam (Ratzinger/Pera). Both are a fine read and available at Preca Library in Ħamrun, where you can find some excellent titles and lots of GK Chesterton.

The point about a cultured atheist is that he is – cultured, that is, ready to discuss, to agree, to disagree and still maintain a respectful intellectual relationship with whom he disagrees.

Pera’s intriguingly titled book, Why we should call ourselves Christians: The Religious Roots of Free Societies has just been published and reviewed in the December issue of Standpoint magazine.

In Pera’s assessment, wrote his reviewer, “As the history of liberalism and modernity shows, the Christian choice to give oneself to God, or to act velut si Deus duretur, as if God existed, has yielded the best results.” And for good measure, he reproduces Pera’s last sentence in the book: “To conclude, we should, we must call ourselves Christian.”