Calleja, Cocciante, Rod Stewart... never has the air been easier on the ear at the Granaries. It’s easy to forget this was the place where 30-odd years ago thousands of people chanted ‘Xogħol, Ġustizzja, Libertà!’ in a terse staccato that seemed to underscore the urgency of the moment.
A rather grandiose political project, at face value. In practice it meant two things. First, an end to the turbulence and vicious polarisation that poisoned the country at the time. Second, a style of government that would let people be, that wouldn’t really care which brand of pasta they bought, how much cash they had in their pockets when they went on holiday, which school they sent their children to. Whatever the expansive schemes of the PN ideologues, it was really those two dreams that kept the crowds chanting.
And the thought of chocolate and toothpaste, which became the powerful symbols of a collective desire to join Western consumer culture and enjoy a freedom of choice in the broadest sense.
Subsequent PN governments delivered all of this in generous helpings. Thuggery and fear became a thing of the past, not least through the cooperation and civilised attitudes of Alfred Sant’s opposition. The chocolate and toothpaste – plus the University courses, the market opportunities, and the freedom to pursue enterprise of various sorts – just kept coming.
Looking back, it was all very laissez-faire. Ideologies and social blueprints were ditched for a type of government that basically let people get on with their lives. It was refreshing, and it has kept the PN in government for a quarter of a century. (Never mind the slim majorities, fact is that one election after another Labour has never really managed to seduce enough new voters.)
Politicians, however, live by visionary rhetoric. As it happened there was at least one ideological straw the PN could clutch to. That was ‘values’. Never mind the rat race, we were told, this was the party of true and solid values. Values that couldn’t and would never change, because they were rooted in something much greater than ourselves.
It was all very convenient, simply because no one took it seriously. For one, we were never quite told what those values were. You would ask what sort of ‘family values’ they had in mind, and politicians would change the subject and talk about St Paul. It was all waffle, hot air, inconsequential, and as many descriptors as one might find to mean ‘vacant’.
Besides, people were too busy unwrapping their Mars bars. They knew that all the values talk would never really affect their lives, and they didn’t bother.
It was miles apart from the 1970s and 80s, when Labour governments tried to streamline their values with those of the Church and ended up in a colossal ruck with schools and hospitals. The new formula worked swimmingly.
Until now. It seems to me the values ether has taken rather too many incarnations of late. Banned plays, prosecuted student editors, outlandish statements by the Parliamentary Social Affairs Committee, and now the Prime Minister’s ‘not on my watch’ tacit stand on divorce. Mostly trivial things some might say, but then so were chocolate and toothpaste.
How does Lawrence Gonzi figure in all this? Rather prominently I’d say. The ‘Gonzipn’ strategy cuts both ways. Given the man’s trustworthy image, it probably had a lot to do with the 2008 majority. But it also feeds the fiction (to which many Maltese are particularly prone – we talk of government in the third person singular, for example) that he is personally responsible for whatever happens to make the news.
There’s more. First, Gonzi’s squeaky-clean image makes him look like someone who won’t rock the boat. That’s fine – indeed I have said it’s what kept the PN in government – as long as he doesn’t undertake to prevent us from doing so. The cardinal rule with the values babble was: Never make others practise what you preach.
Second, he has a bit of a genealogical disadvantage, so to say. Archbishop Michael Gonzi is now too distant for people younger than 60 or so to feel any real disrespect. However, his name conjures up social memories of fuddy-duddy and anachronistic meddling. Which means it’s going to be easy for us to think, ‘Here’s another Gonzi’. There are already murmurs in that direction. I don’t expect the opposition to formally stir it but it’s a tricky current nonetheless.
That’s why this whole divorce business is so important. I have said elsewhere I find the ‘debate’ sickening and silly. I’d rather listen to the cicadas than follow, let alone ‘contribute’ to it. Fact remains it has become a type of latter-day chocolate and toothpaste, a symbol of style and direction of government.
The delicate contract which the PN drew up in the 1990s (another ‘patt mal-poplu’ minus the notary and the Phoenicia ballroom) is now seriously in question. Put simply, the values babble may be getting too close for comfort. It’s beginning to affect our lives whether we’re in a difficult marriage, directing plays, or editing newspapers on campus. When all we want really is our Mars bars.
Does Gonzi then have to grow dreadlocks, convert his nose and ears into an ironmongery, and advocate free love? Of course not. He will still talk of true values and refer to St Paul. He will still go for dark suits and mild manners. And he will also be personally against divorce legislation, just like his predecessor.
It’s when his actions threaten actually to turn us into a Grant Wood canvas that we begin to wonder.
mafalzon@hotmail.com