In a recent issue of L’Express, it was reported that a French diplomat in Malta was the subject of some unkind expressions from a French politician. I believe the same criticism could have been made in a different sort of language. For it is generally not true that diplomatic, persuasive language is ignored while aggressive language brings immediate, positive results. This is not to say that aggressive political language is never justified.

More recently in Malta, the Prime Minister expressed a desire for less aggressive and more mature language in political debate. I agree with this appeal as there is a tendency to escalation of aggressiveness in political language. However, what seems to produce little concrete results in generically lamented aggressive language is lack of specificity. Indeed, blanket condemnation of all that is bad in socio-political life simply obtains some generic approval.

I have seen debates where persons in the audience actually laughed at the mention of illness and nobody stopped them. I have heard people appeal for maturity while hugging friends who shoot venom. Perhaps the discouragement of such behaviour is a good start to credibility in hurt political morality.

Many politicians give a good example of political maturity in their expression. Others can be influenced by this. And the emphasis is on example. I cannot be aggressive with you and accuse you of being aggressive with me at the same time. Or, rather, I can but only if I don’t care about credibility.

Beyond a desire for calm political language there is also the fear of a possibility that linguistic aggressiveness can become more concrete – God forbid. And two years before the next election are quite enough for linguistic aggressiveness to take on more physical forms.

Last May, at the College of Communication and Business in Budapest, I read a paper about conflict at the workplace and it will be included in a publication by West Virginia University in 2011. In this paper, I made reference to linguistic conflict also in the political arena – which is the workplace of politicians to start with but also the workplace of all of us.

Some elements of provocation which could turn linguistic conflict into more solid violence can be identified. These include excessive euphoria about one’s exciting triumphs (which sounds like tipsy hollering during some band marches), taunting about one’s perceived failures in adversaries, sadistic references to the physical attributes of adversaries, childish teasing about the social life of adversaries and, above all, that most hateful expression of hatred in political writers who involve spouses, children, relatives and friends in immature political criticism.

I believe that Unicef (which does not always provide feedback to information seekers) and children’s commissioners in Malta should include in their repertoire condemnation of the involvement of politicians’ children in political criticism.

Some time ago, while speaking to journalists, MEP Simon Busuttil openly expressed energetic disagreement with political writers who involve relatives of politicians in their writings. I do not think Dr Busuttil practises euphoric emotionality in his expression but I believe he knows a few people who do. Of course, emotion cannot be eliminated from politics as this has an element of art (and what’s art without emotion?) but art stimulated to a level of hysterics controls the artist who stops being creative due to the excessive control he becomes victim to.

Cartoon maturity

I have seen some very good political cartoons which rebuke political expression and action. And this is the way it should be in a democracy. Some cartoonists abuse democracy by using it as a camouflage for an obsessive political emotion. Some works of psychological analysis of emotional political drawing are interesting to read. Please type “psychological analysis of cartoons” in your Google and you will find plenty of informative material about subconscious interference with objective artistic expression.

Rationality in religious language

I believe Christ was preaching rationality when referring to the separation of Church and state. But I see no rationality in Church leaders speaking “in the name of Maltese society” as is sometimes done when addressing students, politicians, the judiciary etc. An organisation has every right to practise election by nomination instead of by democratic voting but then this must be taken into consideration in expression.

So where do we go from here? So far no real, serious attempts have been made to reduce the possibility of escalation of linguistic, political aggressiveness into more tangible violence. This will, of course, be done when things start getting difficult to control.

The Speaker of the House has appealed for a more vibrant Parliament. If, for example, a settlement had to be found in the PAC “smoke and fire” issue – using the Franco Debono solution – wouldn’t this lead to more vibrant harmony?

Dr Licari is a researcher in multiculturalism.