When former Labour Party treasurer Joe Sammut was arraigned in court last week, the book he was carrying got into the news. It was conjectured that he might want to draw attention to its title, as a sleazy, veiled threat of some sort.
Perhaps he meant nothing by it, but just thoughtlessly carried his summer reading with him into the courtroom. It is to be expected that he was preoccupied, and the title of his book may well have been the last thing on his mind.
Not so with books destined for the beach-bags of political leaders, when they identify their holiday reading choices. This is very different to you or me grabbing a book to pop down to the beach for a swim. If they do reveal their reading list at all, it is carefully thought out, intended to be appropriate for their position and to impart a message about their current interests, values and priorities.
This year, US President Barack Obama’s books for his holiday at Martha’s Vineyard included Between the World and Me by African-American author Ta-Nehisi Coates, highlighting contemporary race issues in America. With recent spates of violence there, this was both topical and clearly relevant to Obama’s status as America’s first president with African lineage. Besides some fiction, he also chose Elizabeth’s Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: an Unnatural History, suggesting that he is concerned about scarce natural resources, global warming and future generations. A politically correct and sober selection.
UK Chancellor George Osborne made two discerning choices. First, a biography of Henry Kissinger by Niall Ferguson, who is a Harvard professor of history and a first-rate author. His choice sparked comments about similarities between Osborne’s political savvy and intellect, and that of Kissinger. His second book was Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. No need for me to unpack the political significance of that, and the values implied by the book title alone.
The book choices of leading politicians are not random. They may be personal and genuine, but in our world of sound bites they are also symbolic. They are fodder for the media and support the leader’s image.
It is fair to assume that these are the books that they want to be seen reading. A delicate balance has to be struck between not seeming either too intellectual, or too fluffy, and some certainly make more appropriate choices than others.
What does reading a book about ‘how to be a winner’ suggest? Does Muscat want to imply that he is a winner?
Joseph Muscat’s book this summer, presumably for his holiday in crowded Gozo with the Tourism Minister (do the Muscats ever go anywhere alone?), is Winners: and How They Succeed by former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell. The book is promoted as “a blue print for winning that we can all follow”.
Muscat is not frequently associated with books. The first thought that comes to mind is Cyrus Engerer’s biography of him, but that is another story. The second is his wife holding the erotic Fifty Shades of Grey on a family trip (again with the Tourism Minister) last year, but I won’t venture there either. Muscat’s website lists Tracy Chevalier, author of The Girl with a Pearl Earring, as a favourite author. Nothing wrong with that, naturally, but it strikes me as slightly odd.
As a former media man, Muscat must have had his image in mind as he announced his summer read. Andy Burnham, the UK Labour leadership contender, also quoted Campbell’s Winners as his holiday book but a political aide noted that this was “tongue-in-cheek”. Muscat’s choice does not appear to be humorous, so let’s try to work out the underlying message.
The focus on winning or losing is different to the usual leadership manuals, and imagines life as an eternal competition. What does reading a book about ‘how to be a winner’ suggest? Does Muscat want to imply that he is a winner? Or that he wants to win? Or that winning is what matters most to him? Or does he simply want us to associate him with ‘positive’ thoughts of winning?
Rather than boning up on current affairs, history or social issues, or even taking a break with some fiction, Muscat’s reading focused inwards.
Campbell’s book sheds light on his own way of thinking and his aspirations, perhaps more than on anything else. Today he and his former boss Tony Blair have been vilified, mainly due to the Iraq war. However, Campbell did help Labour win three consecutive UK elections. Perhaps this is the attraction for Muscat – how to win elections and keep on winning.
Campbell promotes a model for success which he calls ‘OST’ – objectives, strategy, tactics. It would be interesting to know whether Muscat is following this model on our behalf. If so, in our energy sector, the roadmap might be the objective, the gas power station is the strategy, while hiding the contract and giving a state guarantee for a €360 million private loan are the tactics.
Joking apart, the government is now running a National Literacy Strategy, which sounds like a positive initiative. Ira Losco, Xandru Grech and some others have been appointed ‘reading ambassadors’.
It is great that the number of Maltese authors is constantly growing, but overall the Maltese are not known to be avid readers. Or at least, not yet.
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