The heading of this commentary is inspired by the title of a great book by Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, although it harbours no ambition of greatness. But allow me to use the title of this beautiful novel as a foil to my heartfelt diatribe about the ugly state of public discourse in our country which has reached the levels of unbearable shambles.
Just under two years ago in the heat of the electoral campaign, I wrote about Screwtape, a very experienced retired devil, who, according to its creator, C.S. Lewis, instructed his nephew Wormwood, a Junior Tempter, in the various weapons at the disposal of all tempters. Lust, anger, avarice, passion are common tools used by devils but the mother of all weapons, according to Screwtape, is the corruption of the human language.
The infernal Screwtape counsels the ambiguous use of words, never allowing a clear and definitive meaning so that one can shift their meaning according to circumstances. According to Screwtape, the aim very clearly is to create confusion.
Today it is very clear, even to the intellectually challenged, that the creation of confusion was the name of the game. Back then, in answer to a question by Lou Bondi, about whether there is a place for truth in politics, Joseph Muscat answered that sometimes one has to tell the truth in politics. The state of public discourse at the moment is akin to a game where one is expected to discover the ‘sometimes’ when truth is told and the other times (perhaps most times?) when it is not being told. As soon as one scratches the surface, a different reality comes to light.
But public discourse is not the realm of politicians alone.
The commercialisation of the media, particularly television, has reduced everything to entertainment. Serious discourse has been relegated to repartee and short sound bites, punchy in form if hollow in content. Banal videos about tongue twisters or a photo of the tattooed English instructor of the wife of the Prime Minister go viral.
Thousands devour them and have opinions about them, which they happily post on social networks and news portals. However, the near bankruptcy of Socar (a key player in the government’s policy about the energy) and the reluctance of Siemens to invest in the project of the sometime-to-be power station even though months have elapsed since the contract was signed (or was it?) go almost unnoticed.
People cooled off during the summer months by throwing ice buckets over their heads, but has anyone seriously discussed the letter to the Prime Minister by six presidents of Din l-Art Ħelwa deploring the degradation of our environment thanks to the policy decisions of a government that allied itself to speculators?
Slave labour of hundreds in a textile factory in Malta is given far less importance than the alleged criminal sexual behaviour of one priest. People are more interested to pore over Renée Zellweger’s new face than the contracts secretly signed on our behalf with the Chinese government, Chinese companies and Electrogas, which can affect our long-term future.
The social networks have been infested by self-opinionated dilettantes who pontificate about everything and know nothing. The bloggers, Twitterati and Facebookers of today have taken over with a vengeance the nauseating repeat callers to phone-in programmes on the radio in the 1990s.
I invite you to read the comments posted on Facebook and under most news stories online and you are tempted to question the quality of our mandatory education, for starters. We have migrated from the correct belief that everyone has a right to have an opinion to the absurd assumption that all opinions are equally valid. They are not.
And why is it that editors of printed newspapers try their best to avoid printing rubbish while editors of news websites seem to conspire with the public and let them run amok on their portals with bile, stupidity, sheer ignorance, crass prejudice, lies, misinformation and the appalling use of language?
Public discourse should aim for something higher than the lows it has been dragged to. Aspiring to something higher carries the high price paid by those who decide to swim against the current. But this is a price worth paying.
• A lot has been said about allegations of criminal sexual behaviour by a Dominican friar. The public outcry following reporting of yet another story of this kind is understandable. What is not understandable is how the Dominican Order – while fully respecting his presumption of innocence – only deemed fit to relieve him of his duties only because now the allegations have become public.
Why is it that editors of news websites seem to conspire with the public and let them run amok on their portals with bile, stupidity, sheer ignorance, crass prejudice and lies?
One of the two response teams of the Church has been investigating such allegations for the past eight years. This is totally unacceptable, nay it is simply scandalous. Such protraction by the response team is unfair to the accused, to the alleged victim and to the Church. The response team responsible for such delays is perpetrating great injustice to all concerned.
This attitude now been going on for too long so much so that in 2011 I wrote that procrastination was one of this particular response team’s hallmarks throughout the years. The authorities know about it, and have known about it for years but did nothing. Why are the needs of whoever leads this particular team more important than the suffering of the alleged victims and perpetrators? Why is this rampant disregard for human beings still being tolerated?
In April 2010, after Pope Benedict XVI privately met with a number of abused men, I had commented:
“It was reported that the Pope and the bishops cried during the meeting. Had the response team of the Church done its work properly and efficiently, the Pope and the bishops would have been spared these painful moments and closure could have been arrived at years ago.”
Last month Church authorities of the highest level held meetings with the clergy about the reform of the response teams. But their efforts are undermined by the procrastination of this response team. My sincere hope is that this debacle will hasten the reform of these structures where the appalling dereliction of duty is a source of scandal to all, starting with the resignation of the person responsible for this needless procrastination.
We sometimes grumble about the viciousness hurled at the Church. But whose fault is it when the Church is repeatedly sabotaging the higher standard it is held to?
It’s time to clean the house. Yesterday.
joseph.borg@um.edu.mt