Sunday, 30th August 2009
OY, COUSINS
When it is politically expedient so to do, Italian politicians generally treat us like long-lost brothers, Say when a vote is needed to bolster some position they have taken or when they need their soft underbelly protected a bit.
On the other hand, when it becomes politically expedient to change tack, they do so with neck-wrenching speed, even more so when their own inadequacies are being protected.
Currently, the latter situation seems to be prevailing. Berlusconi, who is rapidly becoming even more of a joke than his own football team because of his inability to conduct himself as a decent human being, much less a statesman, and his minions Bossini and Frattini, seem to have taken into their heads that the human problem of north-bound immigration is something that can be solved by acting as if the rights of a sovereign nation (that’s us, folks) mean nothing and, even worse, as if a respect for truth and integrity is not a necessary component of international relations.
Of course, when you take into consideration the way Berlusconi acts in his private and public life (and one wonders if he sees a difference between the two) you’re hardly going to be surprised that he is allowing his juniors to mess around with truth and integrity in this way.
I have no problem with the way most Italian citizens of my acquaintance act: after all, they’ve been blithely ignoring the fools that make up their governments for so many years that it would be unfair to tar them with the brush that their so-called leaders use to coat themselves in effluent. It’s not surprising that the Italians ignore their governments, after all, they change so often that it’s impossible to keep track of who is on top and who is underneath.
A bit like trying to keep track of Berlusconi’s private life, that, I suppose, when you think about it.
So when the present Italian government starts taking ludicrous positions about the size of Malta’s SAR and trying to imply that we’re not competent to administer it and to do our humanitarian duty, it would be nice if they did this without falling over themselves to give the impression that they don’t really mind if out-and-out fabrications are resorted to.
It would be nice, too, if they took stock of their own respect for humanitarian considerations and tried to refrain from embarrassing themselves even more than they have already in the Mediterranean. Can anyone forget the tragedy of that woman who died at sea, so close to Lampedusa but so far from being treated as a human being by the Italians, who had no difficulty in hiding behind their position that the case was taking place within Malta’s SAR?
What a pity that a country that has so much going for it, such spectacular beauty, such excellent food and wine, such culture and such a multitude of fine people, is so often flawed by the way it is mis-governed. You will notice that I have left out any reference to football here, this is a serious(ish) discussion we’re having and it would be inappropriate to introduce the single element, apart from their inane government, that mars the landscape.
I think it was Mr S Fornacari who had sung a song with a refrain that is particularly apposite to the current circumstances. It involves an invocation for someone to go and make a hole somewhere or something like that, my knowledge of Italian is not quite up to the task of rendering an accurate translation.
However, Mr Berlusconi, media and celebrity junky that he is, no doubt is familiar with the song and he and his buddies would do well to act the way Zucchero advises.
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Comments
Thanks for the info.
@ Joseph Buttigieg Attard
How SAR came into being was not the issue. Read again!
Those who veer from a topic know even less.
Spoon-feeding those who play knows all, I find very odd!!
You may be right, but then, when Libya sent its gunboats to scare away a Maltese oil rig a number of years ago, was Malta drilling illegally, outside the territorial waters or was it drilling in the SAR area with legitimate rights to do so?
If the SAR area is only a liability to Malta because of obligatory rescue operations and surveillance, why hang on to such a vast area?
Maybe someone more competent in these matters should enlighten us all!
There seems to be some misunderstanding of international law here. Dr Borg Cardona will correct me if I'm wrong but an SAR zone has nothing to do with territorial waters and does not give any title of possession. If oil is struck somewhere within Malta's (or Italy's) SAR zone it would not belong to us just because of that.
Italy is no exception and sees an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. News no longer takes eons to reach beyond boundaries and one can see that the pieces of the puzzle are neatly falling in place.
Oil deals are in the offing with whoever, whenever and wherever they can be put together. Countries which consume more than they produce are bending backwards and breaking the norm of decency to make unscrupulous deals irrespective of the consequences to other less powerful countries.
It is therefore no surprise that Italy is eyeing Malta's SAR with the ultimate goal of grabbing substantial areas which may contain rich deposits of oil under the seabed. The multi billion Italy-Libya deal which Joseph read about when in Libya was just a precursor of what was to come later. It is not what the 'official' text revealed, but the tet-a-tet discussions held privately and which go unreported, that count.
I would not be the least surprised that the Italian-Libyan treaty and the release of al Megrahi on 'compassionate grounds' are indeed connected.
Oil for Italy, oil for Britain - at all costs!