Fundamentalism shines

I suppose losing only two nil to anyone is not a mean feat for the Maltese footy team, really. When Malta is vanquished by Italy, no less, the feat becomes a cause for celebration, though, perhaps, I will be forgiven for pointing out that imitating Punch when one loses is hardly the stuff of which heroic exploits are really made. We were beaten by a mediocre outfit and, yet, we hold our heads high, which is a tad strange.

But be that as it may be, even if, in truth, it is a fact that holding back mighty (mighty?) Italy to such an extent is actually quite a feather in our caps, the surrounding furore left a pretty nasty taste in my mouth.

I’ve long known that football, especially when Italy or Italian teams are involved, raises passions that gravitate towards the visceral. A couple of World Cups ago, I even got an anonymous phone call at my mum’s (where I haven’t lived for more than 30 years, mark you) warning me to shut up with the digs at the Azzurri.

If you look at Facebook when an Italian team is playing, particularly that bunch who play in black and white (sort of prison outfit), you can have the pleasure of seeing a bunch of grown men howling like little girls and in Italian, to boot, a phenomenon that always makes me shake my head in something approaching awe.

Getting back to that furore, apparently, some silly twerp who runs a restaurant in the Xemxija area, a gentleman of Italian extraction, thought it would be a good idea to cast aspersions on the Maltese team and on things Maltese in general.

The reaction was something to behold: he was called all manner of names, accused of being down on Malta and the Maltese and, generally speaking, it felt as if all of Malta and the Maltese had drawn themselves up to their magnificent and imposing height (of circa five foot and a bit) and got mightily offended at this racist slur on our manhood, our mothers and our apple pie.

It would appear that so proud are we of our nation that you can’t make any sort of comment, be it scurrilous or simply stupid, and hope to get away with it.

You will be boycotted, Facebook pages will be set up calling for your being cast into the outer darkness (I was put into one such and speedily left it) and your name will become mud.

I’m surprised, incidentally, Joseph Muscat and his little friends didn’t chip in and scramble onto this particular bandwagon, its colours matched their insular flag-wrapping perfectly.

I am not the only who finds this sort of jingoistic posturing pretty nauseating, especially bearing in mind that it comes from a country where racism and intolerance are pretty much staple portions of our make-up.

It’s not as if we are particularly gracious with foreigners and tolerant of their little foibles, after all, so where do we get off telling off someone who treats us the same way?

Instead of taking note of the way it feels when someone insults you simply because of where you’re from, and taking the moral high ground, the reaction was a veritable outpouring of insult and invective.

The fundamentalist outlook on life of which we had such an overdose when Dom Mintoff died and a few home truths about his true character were published, is the bedrock, it grieves me to say, of our national character.

How much better are we, one really should ask, than the fundamentalist thugs who kill and main in the name of Islam, simply because they perceive an insult to their religion?

Our religions seem to be Mintoff and warped inferiority complexes; perhaps they’re not unconnected.

I haven’t reported on places to nourish yourself lately, not for any particular reason, it just happened that we haven’t been anywhere new or anywhere worth telling you about – nowhere worth telling you about negatively, either for that matter. I must be mellowing.

Well, let me remedy this: on Saturday, we braved that disgraceful wasteland that borders the Mġarr yacht-marina and went to Porto Vecchio, an estimable outfit run by Chris and his son and really good staff.

The food was more than worth the off-road experience, though it really is a shame that they’ve been messing around for so long, and if you want a good meal, I suggest you book.

imbocca@gmail.com

www.timesofmalta.com/articles/author/20