BECAUSE IT'S YOU

Any use of physical violence - or even moral violence - is reprehensible and should be condemned out of hand, obviously. I know this remark will leave me open to the Lil'Elves, who will come over all smug and prattle about how this blog and my column on Saturday is nothing more than moral violence directed towards Labour supporters. They think this is a fine debating point, in the face of which I will slink off, crying to mommy. The recently-resurrected Jo (girl's name, I keep saying) Said was particularly eager to use this imagined spark of intelligence, as were a number of other fine exemplars of the art of Elfin Erudition.

I've even been called racist by them because of my writing, so you can see where they're coming from. All I can say to this is, if you think that way, it's your problem, not mine.

The fact remains that violence is to be condemned, without reservation. It can sometimes be understood, if there are circumstances that constitute provocation, for instance, or if the defence of ideas or the vulnerable is involved, but very often, the provocation excuse is nothing more than that: a banal excuse, often resorted to by those who have a very poor grasp of the rights and wrongs of a given situation.

So it is without reservation that I condemn the people who thought that a few good thumps was a proper way to solve the problem they seem to have had with Mr and Mrs Charlon Gouder in a club on Friday night. I don't know the ins and outs of the situation, of course, other than that reported in the paper, though it seems that a political tinge was given to the affair.

This was because one or both of the blokes who did the thumping (or who had their fists assaulted by Mr Gouder's head, as no doubt their defence counsel will eventually be tempted to plead) thought they should accompany their physical intervention with a verbal one, calling all manner of imprecations down on Mr Gouder, using that which he holds dear, the Labour Party, as a condiment to add flavour to the insults.

In other circumstances, maternal ancestry or female siblings might have been invoked, but this time it was the Labour Party and Mr Gouder's fealty thereto.

This all led to a bit of a stir within the commenting classes, many of whom seem to have been somewhat annoyed that the Nationalist Party didn't immediately issue a statement of condemnation or something like that.

Why should it have? Were the circumstances of the attack overtly political? The fact that Mr Gouder is a High Panjandrum within the Labour hierarchy doesn't make everything that happens to him a political issue, for all that the assault was condemnable. He wasn't assaulted in the carrying out of his political duties, or while voting or something, was he? If the Nationalists had come out with a statement condemning this incident, they would have had to come out with one every time there's a bar-fight in Paceville or every time someone succumbs to road-rage.

Which would strain the party's already meagre resources somewhat, would it not?

It's understandable that Labour's commenting machine should get on its collective high horse, of course: the incident at Zejtun during voting, for all that they played it down, was an overtly political incident, though it was merely a blip in the otherwise impeccable recent record of the Labour Party (although for those of us of a certain age, memories were evoked that we would have rather left dormant) By getting all hot under the collar about Gouder's incident, the Lil'Elves betrayed their own disquiet at the Zejtun one, though, which is a whole ‘nother story.

All I can say is, I hope the cops prosecute the yobs who whacked Gouder with the full vigour of the law, just as I hope they do the same to any git who thinks he (and it's usually a he) can let fly whenever he likes. But let's have less sanctimony just because the poor victim was part of a political machine, as he has every right to be.

Similarly, I confess to something of an ambivalence over the fuss being made about the Bahrija affair, in which a PN High Panjandrum, this time, is involved.

To be clear: if the permit was issued abusively or in breach of the applicable regulations or whatever, then let it be cancelled immediately if not sooner and if anyone messed up, there should be consequences and no mistake.

But, on the other hand, if the thing went through as it should and if some of the environmental activists (who seem to have been looking elsewhere when the public consultation process took place) are now turning up the heat just because the applicant is a Big Beast in the PN menagerie, then that's wrong too. Victor Scerri has rights, just like any other citizen, and that includes the right to benefit legitimately from the way the system works.