It makes you wonder if the President would have said what she said in her Republic Day speech, had she looked out of her Palace balcony. If she did, she may have caught a distant whiff of Christmas carol music playing in Republic Street, heralding one of the greatest Christian feasts – Christmas. That may have made her think. Instead she told the nation:
“The Catholic religion is no longer central to cultural activity because of the vast changes happening in our society. On such an important day [Republic Day, not Christmas Day] we should be questioning what is secular process and religious diversity, and how to act in this context.”
This cannot be my president.
If by cultural activity she is referring to government-sponsored events, anniversary celebrations of no purpose at all other than to fulfil the egos of superstar wannabes who are zilch beyond our shores, then yes, President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca is right.
But that is not culture; that is indulgence at taxpayer expense.
The beauty of culture is that it is free. Try to control it, as they do in despotic countries our government feels so comfortable rubbing shoulders with, and it will metamorphose into something else.
Try to put a stopper on it, and it will seep out at the sides.
Our culture is rooted in Christian tradition and values, those very same values that have created the free, and yes, secular, Europe we know today. What the President calls a “secular process and religious diversity” does not make us any less Christian.
On the contrary, we are all the more culturally Christian because we embrace that very plurality.
Diversity does not come at the expense of our Christian heritage. If anything, it strengthens it. The alternative is amorality.
The Labour government is trying to sell us just that, a deformed liberalism, telling us that this is Europe. It is not. It is just degenerate thinking and it results in immensely irresponsible policies.
Labour’s populist liberalism has only votes in mind, and the power that comes with it. There are no political values attached, because it is relativism of the worst kind, where everything can be compromised in exchange for votes.
Our President belonged to that government until a few months ago.
With her strong socialist views, one would have expected better of her now that the shackles are gone.
In this brave new non-Christian Labour world, there’s no stopping Maltese culture dominating a department store hall in China
Instead, she tells her people that Christianity is no longer central to their cultural activities. And she adds: “Elsewhere [the President does not say where], the same process that we are experiencing today has provoked extreme reactions from fundamentalists who felt threatened, and at the same time, close enough to power to impose their values.”
There is no country in Europe where Christian fundamentalists have imposed their values.
The only case that readily comes to mind where religious values have been imposed on a people is the Ayatollah of Iran. The result of that is a repressive regime. That is not a Christian heritage.
“I believe instead,” our President says, “that any positive purpose, whatever its origins, should be given space in the public sphere.”
No, a million times wrong. There was many a ‘positive purpose’ about Adolf Hitler. He restored national dignity, wiped out unemployment in the wake of the Great Depression, and built highways we still use to this present day. But the ‘origin’ was evil and the result was evil.
Relativism, for anyone who upholds values, is unacceptable. To equate relativism to pluralism is perverse and offensive to intelligence, even if it comes from a head of State.
What is fascinating about the President’s speech on Republic Day is her constant references to the needy, most especially the poor.
Here is the list of issues she wants to see tackled: “Diverse relationships of people within the natural and built environment, poverty, including in-work poverty, unemployment, precarious employment, early school-leaving, vulnerability of social strata and cultural minorities, social exclusion, gender inequality, disorientation of people who are marginalised by society, prejudices and bullying in children and young people.”
According to our President, these are just a few of the social challenges that are “disintegrating the fabric holding the Republic united”. No they are not. They are undermining society. The republic is just the State she represents.
Ironically, the solution to the ills listed by the President lies with the very Christian heritage she claims to no longer be central. It is Christian values that fill up the coffers of the Community Chest Fund run by her presidency.
Values are what make a people strong and generous, not exigency. For a presidency to attend a fund-raising event at a place riddled by enforcement notices – the Montekristo Estates – is to negate the very values that keep her coffers full.
The end does not justify the means. That is the biggest problem with Labour, because they have no values and think everything is game, including flirting with dictatorial countries like Azerbaijan.
The President should never have gone to Montekristo, because her presence offended all law-abiding citizens of this country. That is why she is so wrong when she speaks of “any positive purpose, whatever its origins”.
While telling her people that the Catholic religion is no longer central to their culture, our President found time to attend a concert inside the St Lawrence church in Vittoriosa, a bedrock of Christianity in Malta, if there ever was one.
Playing at the Epiphany Concert (now that sounds really secular doesn’t it?) was the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra.
Their repertoire included the likes of Strauss, Rossini and Brahms, but thrown in between, like it was the most natural thing in the world, was the Spring Festival Overture by Li Huan Zhi.
That Overture is a famous piece, but Li has a much vaster repertoire of works, and they include the likes of March to Victory, Guard Our Motherland and, yes, Socialism is Good.
Hello China. Mintoff days are back again.
Our government-financed Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, it should be known, is soon to be off on a tour of China.
This is, of course, the result of a cultural agreement between Malta and China, and has nothing to do with the fact that the Labour government is selling a chunk of Enemalta to enable some Chinese communist company to sell its solar panels in Europe.
Now they don’t exactly celebrate Christmas in China, the government there being atheist. However, our Foreign Affairs Ministry tells us that our ambassador to China (no, not the Energy Minister’s wife) has “kicked off the season” with a reading of Anton Buttigieg’s poem Il-kebbies tal-fanal on some online poetry platform called ‘The Poem for You’. Talk about a damp squib.
What a poem on some chap called Majsi lighting up street lamps has to do with Christmas (or is it just a season now?) just leaves you baffled, but let us not get stuck on details.
After all, in China, like in Malta according to the President, Christianity takes the back burner.
Still, the Foreign Ministry tells us, the visit by our philharmonic orchestra shall be “the largest cultural event ever from Malta, and marks an important milestone in cultural exchanges with China”.
Also, artist Austin Camilleri will be taking a month-long “artistic residency in Beijing” as part of the Maltese embassy’s cultural diplomacy initiative.
We can all suppose what artistic residency translates into: we’re probably paying the hotel bills.
And, the ministry tells us, his visit will be capped by a “dynamic exhibition” titled Ghost Trip, which shall be inaugurated on January 15 in a “large indoor space at a busy Beijing department store”.
Wow, now that’s what we can call Maltese culture hitting the international scene.
The President may be right, after all. Catholic religion is no longer central to our government-financed cultural activities.
But boy, in this brave new non-Christian Labour world, there’s no stopping Maltese culture dominating a department store hall in China. What a cultural quality leap.
“Halleluljah!” our Prime Minister would say.