So now we know. The Catholic Church in Malta was not ready for its first woman bishop. I’ve lost count of the number of references to Mgr Paul Cremona’s ‘ħlewwa’ in this past week of post-mortem sugaring. ‘Ħlewwa’ translates as ‘sweetness’. It is not necessarily a very nice thing to say about a man. It is certainly not a nice thing to say about a leader, especially not in a macho culture.

Take Dom Mintoff. Jeremy Boissevain once wrote a little anthropological divertissement on the man and his way of doing politics. According to Boissevain, Mintoff’s charisma was down in large measure to the way he banished in public any vestiges of sweetness he may have had in private.

Add to that the accoutrements of winter swimming, horse-riding, manic nights, belt buckles that would have amazed Brunel, and such. If it didn’t sound odd I suppose I’d have to say Mintoff was the ultimate man’s man.

Macho societies tend to feminise men, and especially leaders, who are seen as meek and docile. Duly, the Maltese language has two words for such men. One is very rude, the other borrowed from the greasy regions of local cuisine. In this sense both refer to the female anatomy.

I wouldn’t in a million years dream of using these words to describe Monsignor Cremona. On the contrary, I am entirely sympathetic. One of the reasons why his leadership faltered is that it fell foul of a despicable sexist culture that makes heroes of blokey men who ride roughshod and foul-mouthed over others, and relegates those who don’t to the girly sweet shop.

Which leaves local leaders, and therefore the institutions they lead, in a bit of a fix. On the one hand they find themselves having to play the macho game. (They often turn out to be naturals, irrespective of their gender.) On the other, they are faced with the growing phenomenon of open dissent from within their ranks.

Lawrence Gonzi will know what I mean only too well. Cremona had his wayward trio, probably the tip of the iceberg. It’s early days yet for the Prime Minister but already there are rumblings on the back bench that suggest that jellyfish are considerably more threatening than party sanctions.

There is, of course, nothing new about this. The history of politics (including Church politics) crawls with instances of people who broke ranks. Certainly in Malta, the classical outcome was for one of the sides to back down, or be annihilated the macho way. In the case of the Church that included bonfires and, more recently, trips to the Montebello national park in Mexico.

There’s at least one reason why that was a pity. Franco Debono’s tantrums aside, dissent is more likely to be useful when it comes from within the patch. That’s partly because in-house critics tend, first, to try to limit the damage and, second, to think carefully before they speak out. Personal grudges make for an exception to that rule.

One of the reasons why Cremona’s leadership faltered is that it fell foul of a despicable sexist culture that makes heroes of blokey men who ride roughshod and foul-mouthed over others, and relegates those who don’t to the girly sweet shop

It would be foolish to suggest that Maltese public affairs were ever or in any way totalitarian. It’s just that the fault lines were a tad too neatly drawn, too predictable. The challenge is now on for local leaders to somehow practise a truly pluralistic type of politics. By that I mean a kind of pluralism that it intra- as well as inter-party.

Joseph Muscat is probably well placed to take it up. First, the scale of his victory puts him in what must be the strongest position ever for a Maltese party leader. Second, he seems to favour what some like to call ‘politics without enemies’. I’m not sure that equates with true pluralism. But never mind, the point is that he can afford and may well choose to embrace dissent.

Simon Busuttil’s situation is rather less merry. Many people, including many Nationalists, seem to find him a bit of a softy. If that means (as I think it does) that he is not given to macho histrionics, I find it an admirable characteristic. The risk is that he will over-compensate at the first hurdle.

As for the Church, the question now is about the sort of qualities that would make a good new bishop. Ħlewwa, I take it, is out. I’ve heard things like ‘the ability to communicate’, ‘openness’, and so on. If the Apostolic Nuncio phoned to ask me what I thought (not likely to happen), I’d tell him the new bishop ought to be someone who was able to accommodate open dissent.

That quality would not make him, or Busuttil, or Muscat, a pastizz. It is only the macho culture that upholds such silly associations. By contrast, more up-to-date and saner readings measure a leader’s strength by their ability to thrive in a truly pluralistic setting where people were free to disagree, without the consequences.

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