Deadlines help you organise your time and set your priorities, writer Harvey Mackay used to say. It even forces you to exclude or include topics.
My Thursday night deadline explains why I have not commented on Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation The Joy of Love. It is a gem of a document that offers inspiration to married couples, hope to those experiencing difficulties and a new pastoral tool to us priests who really want to minster to these people. As always, some say it does not go far enough while for others it proclaims heresy.
I once more give it a pass, for now at least. More urgent matters press me in a different direction.
The Thursday deadline made me miss out as well on the opinion piece penned by President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca (April 8) and the follow-up statement by the bishops. Since then, more evidence of the antics of Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri is hitting the fan.
These revelations finally instigated the stalwarts of the Labour Party to publicly ask for their resignation, while others did so privately. Their vote tomorrow in favour of the government does not deduct one iota from the seriousness of the situation. It just sweeps the dust under the carpet.
The President’s opinion piece was heartfelt and she should be thanked for it.
But like many such appeals it was unfortunately stronger on rhetoric than on the identification of concretely contextualised problems and proposed remedies. Perhaps one should not expect more from the President of the Republic, or perhaps one should.
Saying more or saying less opens the President to the accusation of taking sides; and that is something the President should and does not do. But throwing everyone in the same basket by stating that “it takes two to tango” will not necessarily help her to be perceived as super partes. She is perhaps caught in an unfortunate Catch- 22 situation: damned if she is concrete; damned if she just enunciates high-flying and general principles.
Coleiro Preca effectively played the emotional card. “Our children” and “future generations” featured six times in the commentary. They deserve “to enjoy this unique country” and “we have a duty to ensure [them] a better life”.
Unity can only succeed if there is a strong infrastructure on which it can be built
She appealed to unity five times. “Unity is vital” and “unity is not a convenience but a must”. The President used an unfortunate metaphor when she stated that “Unity is not attained off-the-shelf”. Just consider: most of the mayhem about the Panama Papers international mega-scandal is because of companies that were bought off-the-shelf!
The President urged political leaders to search for long-term goals instead of short term gains; to rise above party political pique; to refrain from opening old wounds; to abstain from escalating tempers so as not to let our democracy be diluted, but not to keep back from constructive criticism.
All this is very well and good. But since it is not well contextualised the danger is that most would say ‘yes’ and point to some other side as the culprit.
Placing responsibility on the political class is right and fitting but it does not go far enough. It was unfortunate, for example, that the President did not appeal to the State institutions to do their duty. So many are behaving like the three proverbial monkeys that one tends to lose hope.
Besides, in the opinion piece there is no reference to what many believe is the source of the scandal: the circles within circles of politics and business and unholy alliances. Almost all scandals that rocked the nation in the last three years (undoubtedly there were shady dealings in previous administrations but we live in the here and now) were all the result of this sordid bed-sharing. The fact that the Panama Papers show that this is not just a local problem is of little consolation.
It is now also becoming clear why George Abela lost the election for the leadership of the Labour Party: he had no business crutches to prop him up and propel him forward. It seems that money both talks and walks!
The President quite rightly refers to the abuse of language as a way of exacerbating the current problems. “Unfortunately, we are already experiencing exchanges of insults and unbecoming discourse between family members and friends, particularly on social media.” But there is another more serious abuse of language: the institutionalisation of spin.
Though things are getting hot, one cannot but note with a degree of satisfaction that during the two concurrent but opposing and totally unnecessary protests in front of our courts while the Jason Azzopardi case was being heard, no one was even scratched. This would not have happened had we reached the high temperature of the 1960s and 1980s.
The bishops released a three-sentence statement on April 9. After stating their support for the President’s message they concluded with a very strong sentence: “More than anything else we pray that our country will be characterised by unity, compassion, freedom, truth and justice.” This sentence speaks volumes and, if added to the President’s opinion piece, would help it to be more relevant to the present situation.
Unity is not achieved by saying that we all wish to be united. Unity is not a cheap way of papering over the cracks. It can only succeed if there is a strong infrastructure on which it can be built. The bishops propose such an infrastructure when they appeal for a country built on compassion, freedom, truth and justice. It is only when such values are strongly embedded that we can speak of true unity.
Take the national anthem as a case study. It prays for unity not in its very first sentence but in its very last, indicating that unity is the conclusion of the journey, not its beginning. The anthem’s way toward unity is not built on fluffy sentiment but on the ‘wisdom’ of those who govern; the ‘mercy’ of the employers and the ‘strength’ of the workers. The first attribute is currently in scarce provision.
A long way to go if the anthem’s ideal is what we really want to work towards: “Seddaq il-għaqda fil-Maltin u s-sliem.”
joseph.borg@um.edu.mt