Part one
The posturing that goes on in Parliament is a constant source of entertainment. Whatever subject you are interested in, politicians provide plenty of material. Take the use of language, for instance. Over the past few weeks, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have been trading remarks about the word ‘salesman’.
Taken literally, a salesman is a person who is selling something. At a stretch, this could encompass us all, as everyone sells some kind of service or goods to earn money. Commercial companies in particular concentrate on sales strategy and tactics.
Words are, obviously, not always used literally. Language is sophisticated, with nuances and connotations well beyond literal meanings.
Everyone immediately understood what former UK prime minister Gordon Brown meant, for example, when in 2008 he remarked that the UK leader of the Opposition was “a shallow salesman” who “never addresses the substance of the issue”.
Whether Brown was right about his political adversary is not the point. The word ‘salesman’ has developed negative connotations, so much so that today, companies often replace it with ‘sales representative’ or other titles in job descriptions.
The extreme form of the stereotype, perhaps unfairly, is a used-car salesman. Expected behaviour includes stretching the truth and being prepared to knowingly mislead a customer in order to clinch a sale. Expressions like selling one’s soul, or selling one’s own grandmother, mean being willing to do anything for profit or personal gain, putting morals aside.
Simon Busuttil’s jibe about Joseph Muscat being a salesman was not about the literal meaning of selling, but about a lack of substance and a cavalier attitude towards the truth and morality. He meant the same thing last week when he commented that Muscat’s Budget speech was “all bluff and no substance”.
In response, Muscat ignored the point, perhaps intentionally, by sticking to the literal meaning. He stated repeatedly that he is proud to be a salesman, selling his country overseas for the benefit of the nation, even giving it a patriotic twist. In this sense, being a salesman is apparently a good thing. Go figure.
Part two
Allow me to add my own experience of the current traffic. Unless I leave home at the crack of dawn, it can take me around 45 minutes to get from home to work by car, a distance of around two kilometres. Walking is a faster option, but not always possible for various reasons.
On Thursday I left Valletta at around 5pm, planning to go to Rabat. I quickly had to give up on the idea as the roads were gridlocked. Instead I went to Sliema, which anyway took around an hour.
It is now necessary to calculate twice the usual time to get anywhere
To be safe, it is now necessary to calculate twice the usual time to get anywhere. For a 30-minute route, you must plan one hour, and so on. Otherwise, my friends, you will be late.
It is not clear what has caused this mayhem, or how to tackle it. Road works are necessary, but some of the smaller projects seem interminable. There are roads around San Ġwann that have been blocked for ages, preventing cars from taking alternative routes.
Apparently an average of 40 new cars are put on the road each day, an unstoppable flood of traffic, but without Noah’s Ark to save us from the deluge.
Part three
The anti-Semitic online comments of family therapist Charlie Azzopardi, a government consultant, have already been harshly criticised by two prominent columnists, Mark Anthony Falzon and Daphne Caruana Galizia.
They are absolutely right. The comments are wholly unacceptable, especially for somebody actively influencing government policy. Falzon has even reported the matter to the National Commission for the Protection of Equality. According to this newspaper, Azzopardi also posted anti-Islamic comments online.
What concerns me here is the government’s reply, that everyone has the right to a personal opinion. Ironically, this came from Social Solidarity Minister Michael Farrugia, who appointed Azzopardi as his consultant on family issues. Social solidarity, indeed. This sounds more like solidarity with political mates.
Azzopardi was a Labour Party candidate in the general election, described as ‘liberal and progressive’ in his campaign video. How anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic views fit in with a liberal worldview is a good question.
Falzon may be next in line for one of Farrugia’s petty diatribes in the Parliament chamber, from where he snipes and takes pot shots at people, including those who write in the newspapers. Not to worry, I have been there already, and lived to tell the tale.
The government response to Azzopardi’s comments follows the approach to Joe Grima, former Labour Minister in the 1980s and now Malta’s representative at the World Tourism Organisation. Some months ago Grima had posted a series of online comments on migrants which were completely out of line, while referring to human rights NGO Aditus as ‘cultural rapists’. The Prime Minister defended Grima, saying the comments were made in his personal capacity.
This hands-off response from the government informs us that life can carry on as usual. It is now the order of the day that government consultants and representatives can go around publicly spewing contempt for different races and social groups, and no action will be taken.
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