I was going to start off this week’s column with a bit of a rant about callow youths and their misguided belief that they have what it takes when it comes to running the country. This came about partly by the continuing ennui brought on by that Debono fellow’s persistent and tedious rants on how he knows it all when it is clear that there is little that he does know.
I was also prompted by a particularly silly Facebook post by Labour’s Golden Youth, Owen Bonnici, who had a whine about the state of Strait Street, within which he betrayed a penchant for rewriting history, ignoring the present and hankering after the past that makes it clear why he’s prime Labour stock. Strait Street, my young friend, was not a romantic place of music and friendly hookers, it was the pits. And in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s being refurbished.
As to the primary reason to worry about (relative) youths wanting to run the country, Joseph Muscat, I think I need hardly add to the oeuvre that is extant already, scary as it is.
But I’ll not have that rant after all, because I came across the interview given by paediatric surgeon Chris Fearne, who endorsed Dr Muscat to become Labour leader, to Christian Peregin.
Mr Fearne is no youth. He’s 49, which means he graduated, give or take, in 1988 or thereabouts, which means he lived through the Eighties as a sentient being, and a bit of the Seventies, too.
Asked why he chose to stand for election, he said he is unhappy with the way things are going. People are not better off than they were five years ago. He’s also unhappy that in many cases it is not a question of what you know, but who you know.
For a teenager, five years is a goodly chunk of a lifetime, but for an almost 50-year old, is a mere tenth of his lifespan enough to plump for the unknown? And should a successful professional really go about casting doubts on his own success that way?
I doubt Mr Fearne made it to Dr and then back to Mr (I’m using the conventional ‘Mr’ for a surgeon) just because he knew someone, so why does he assume many have?
Asked what he can contribute, he flashed back with a great sound bite, all thunder: “The time of arrogant politicians is over. Banging on tables and calling people names is no longer valid.” Yes, fine, but hardly an answer to the question, is this Labour’s message, nice words, but content-free?
On having it pointed out that there have been some great leaps forward since Malta joined the EU, Mr Fearne riposted that the statistics show that Malta is officially in a recession but conceded that you cannot blame the PN’s problems on Lehman Brothers.
What is actually a bit worrying is that Mr Fearne seems to want us to believe that he believes that “Dr Muscat has managed to get a team of successful people together with some valid others already in the Labour Party. Together they have a vision for the future.” Seriously? They might be having visions, but isn’t it time they stopped having them and gave us something concrete?
The good doctor then had a fine little skate around the matter of whether he voted for the EU or not (I suspect not but can’t understand why he’s so coy about it, he had every right to vote against) and then tried to spin out of it by resurrecting that venerable and exhausted old canard about the way the PM voted in the House on a free vote about divorce, the introduction of which was not on any party’s manifesto and which we have now come to see as a self-serving exercise indeed.
We were then told Mr Fearne is quite a liberal person, thinking that the government should not intrude too much in people’s lives.
Here I am as one with him, having been forced to learn this lesson in eras when governments run by Dom Mintoff and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici intruded more than too much in our lives, and then some.
The question arises, then, as to why I am ever so slightly sceptical that a Labour government within the year will be as a gentle rain from Heaven onto a liberal meadow, while Mr Fearne seems prepared to turn a blind eye to the fact that many people (still) within Labour’s ranks, to say nothing of their brash youths, will want things to be done their way or no way.
I’ve no doubt that the commenting classes will come down on me like a ton of the proverbial, charging me with selecting only the juicy bits and twisting the words of the medicine man to fit my heinous agenda. Oh well, such is life, he did much the same, after all, though I don’t add heinousness to his agenda, merely a desire to get elected.
imbocca@gmail.com
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/author/20