A backlash of people in rural and small-town areas, reacting against the dominant liberal values and multi-culturalism of the cities, has been linked to the Trump victory in the US. To a lesser extent, this has also been part of the Brexit story.
The majority of voters in rural and small-town areas voted for Trump, while voters based in big cities preferred Hillary Clinton’s vision and values. Similarly, a chunk of the rural vote in Britain voted for Brexit, while the cities voted for remain.
Such divisions between urban or rural life cannot apply to tiny, over-populated Malta. There may have been a clear difference between country and urban dwellers in the time of the Knights of St John, but that distinction is long gone.
Still there are definitely sections of the Maltese population which hold more liberal values, and those who are more conservative. If we cannot easily distinguish them by region, can they perhaps be identified by age group? Or by social group?
On the weekends, political party leaders regularly tour different towns and villages to deliver their ‘Sunday sermons’. Their audiences generally consist of faithful supporters. I may be quite wrong, but I would not readily associate the ‘liberal-values’ type with the typical die-hard party supporters who regularly spend their free time at the activities of the political club or każin in the village square.
In my experience, these kind of supporters often ‘back a side’ quite like a football club. Many have little interest in politics as the management of public affairs. They feel passionately about achieving victory for their side, winning against the competing teams. Political clubs, football clubs and waterpolo clubs all tour the streets banging on the sides of noisy trucks with loud music, streamers and horns, and frankly I can hardly tell the difference.
From the heights of Castille, the Maltese population is constantly regaled with a barrage of low-level misogynist and homophobic insults
This is a pretty one-dimensional political agenda – we win and you lose, or vice versa. The views of Washington or the UK Guardian on Malta’s civil liberties legislation are not really a hot topic in this scenario, let’s face it.
Yet last weekend the Prime Minister used one of these ‘Sunday sermon’ occasions to focus on just that. He spoke about gender equality, preaching to the political flock about the success story of a gay male couple who have adopted a child with disability. He reminded them that this was possible thanks to the introduction of civil unions with the right to adopt. Muscat also referred to the recent criminalisation of gay conversion therapy and described Malta as a trailblazer on the international scene.
Now that is all fine as far as I am concerned, and good luck to this couple and child. Yet it would be fascinating to know what Muscat’s audience thought of the topic, if nothing else just to gauge the pace of social change taking place in Maltese society. In reality, these type of speeches may play more to the cameras than to the supporters on the seats in the room.
True, Muscat then briefly switched to more mundane matters such as the price of diesel, but the bulk of his message was focused on the need for radical social change, and how Malta is a world leader in this area.
Just curious, but I also wonder how those same audiences feel about the government’s intention to prevent Church schools from choosing teachers who share the same religious values. Or how they view the fact that many toilets in government buildings are now gender-neutral, specifically so that all genders may feel comfortable (or uncomfortable, as it may be).
Minister Helena Dalli is having a field day, pushing forward civil liberties and equality legislation like there is no tomorrow. Soon her new Commission will be able to fine people who do not fall in line with this mission. That does not sound particularly liberal to me, but there you are. Dalli’s gender police will be watching over us.
I have no real issue with this, but I don’t like reading a label and then opening the tin and finding something else inside. The underbelly of the government, as evidenced in the daily blog managed by staff at the Office of the Prime Minister, shows quite a different picture. Sadly, it is an indicator of the mindset of those holding the reins of power.
From the heights of Castille, the Maltese population is constantly regaled with a barrage of low-level misogynist and homophobic insults. Women are torn apart for their looks and men are sniggered at for being overweight or gay. The Archbishop is ridiculed on a regular basis. The private lives of government critics are grist to the mill.
This blog, fronted by Labour Party candidate and close friend of the Prime Minister Glenn Bedingfield, is like opening a box to reveal the workings inside. It is quite shocking that this is what emerges from one of the highest institutions of the country. Forget liberal values, this is just the opposite. If you want to lift the lid on the political machine at Castille, you have it right there.
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