The Abolish Spring Hunting referendum is not mainly about hunting or not hunting birds for a limited period during the year. It is about many other things besides that. It is about the state of Malta today.
This is the second referendum in four years, after the divorce referendum held in 2011. There are several differences between the hunting and the divorce referendum. One was prepositive but this is abrogative. There are, though, also some important similarities.
One of the arguments that galvanised the pro-divorce vote reflected an ever-growing characteristic of our islands. Many people declared: I am against divorce and will never resort to it but if someone else wants it, then who am I to say ‘no’ given that it will not affect me.
The core of that argument does not try to discover whether divorce is beneficial or not for the common good but whether someone else’s divorce will have a bad effect on me. If it does not, then it is alright by my book.
This argument speaks volumes about our evolving (sic!) society. We have moved away from the vision of society where solidarity is based on the sharing of a common human nature and the pursuit of the common good.
These were two of the most important values. We are now moving away from the belief that we are tightly knit together and that there is hardly any social action of importance done by an individual or a group which will not have an impact on the whole of society.
The newer (but not shinier) vision of society views individuals almost as free-standing beings whose main concern is not the common good but the individual or sectorial good.
This is a kind of society which preaches tolerance to obfuscate the espousing of an ethics built on the ‘I’, which is no longer intrinsically united with the ‘other’ in pursuit of the common good.
The ‘I’ and the ‘other’ do not look at the pursuits of things good in themselves but at ad hoc arrangements mostly based on utilitarian precepts.
Using popular jargon, one can describe this state of mind and being in the oft-quoted dictum: ‘Don’t interfere with my life and I will not interfere with yours. Live and let live.’
This argument is now being employed by many people but with a different spin.
“I am against hunting and will never resort to it but if someone else wants to do it, who am I to say ‘no’, given that it will not affect me?”
The anti-spring hunting group will resort to this argument in a similar way as the anti-divorce legislation group did. They will use common good arguments including those affecting the rights of future generations.
The environment lobby got the wrong side of the stick after the election
In one case it was the defence of the institution of marriage based on a permanent union between a man and a woman. In the latter case it is the conservation of species. But if such an argument did not wash in the case of divorce, will it make a difference if used against hunting?
Ironically, many of those who used the above argument to prop up their pro-divorce stance are protesting now that it is used to support sprint hunting. Will they be hoisted by their own petard? If such a thing happens, it would be a pity because they would hoist with them all of us who are against spring hunting for one reason or another.
This way of thinking leads us to one of the ways of doing politics in contemporary societies: the systematic emergence and institutionalisation of lobbies which by definition are the promoters of sectorial interests.
Certainly, lobbies are not intrinsically wrong; they can even do a lot of good in some cases. But when lobbyists put aside the common good, they can easily degenerate into the glorification of ethical egoism preached by the darling of the American capitalism, Ayn Rand.
Hers is the moral doctrine that everyone ought to act to promote his own interests exclusively, even egoistically; and when these self-interests coincide with those of others, then it is an added bonus.
Notice the difference between the coalition or movement of different lobbies that characterised the general elections of 2003 and the motley coalition of lobbies that won the election of 2013.
In the first case, different lobbies coalesced around a common vision for the good of the country: Malta’s accession to the EU. In the 2013 election different lobbies were just interested in their own sectorial gain, many a time, as we are continually realising, guaranteed through backroom deals.
While the 2003 coalition was based on principle, the 2013 coalition was based on convenience and cynicism. It is true that the adage ‘scratch my back and I scratch yours’ shows that cynicism also existed in the political system. However, today it has been elevated to the core of current local politics.
Each lobby now clamours for more. The plum of the developers’ lobby is the morphing of Mepa into a friendly eunuch, the Dubai-isation (to coin a word) of good swathes of the island and the legalisation of illegal buildings.
The monti lobby’s iced bun takes the form of the shameful ‘monti-fication’ of the Piano project (to borrow a phrase from Herman Grech). The gay lobby was rewarded by the introduction of gay marriage and gay adoption.
It will soon be also possible for a 14-year-old boy to decide by a simple declaration to become a girl and further down the line to return back to being a man. The ‘I-demand-a-job’ lobby were awarded with trumped-up jobs galore. An 80-year-old man became a policeman and €20,000 annually is being paid to a singer to find a garage for bands.
If all the other lobbies reaped their plums, do you blame the hunting lobby for demanding that they should continue to enjoy a pleasurable pastime whose legitimacy was also sanctioned by the European Court of Justice? Their only consolation is, perhaps, that the environment lobby got the wrong side of the stick after the election.
Welcome to Cynic Malta.
joseph.borg@um.edu.mt