Toxic tribalism is poisoning our public life, stifling constructive debate and spreading hateful stereotypes. In a society that has hate speech laws about religion, race and sexuality, we compensate by resenting marginal differences in political views which are often simply the result of tribal brainwashing from birth.
Poisonous politics are magnified by social media. Public discourse gets nastier by the day. Think “Ashamed to be Maltese”, “Thieving Maltese”, threats to Marlene Farrugia and the Occupy Justice women, and others.
Mean-spiritedness is not exclusive to the Maltese, but we do rather specialise. Hysterical tweeters and bloggers say voting Labour makes you a ħamallu, makes you something unspeakable, opens you up to people jeering at their clothes and plebeian occupations. And continuing to vote Nationalist also makes you something equally unspeakable, somebody who feels entitled by birth to rule over “these ħamalli”, to look down on them. So many here say they could never be friends with a person of another party. No taste is too irrelevant to criticise.
Mutual mockery demeans Maltese politics. Nationalist and Labour have divided us simplistically into two tribes, each reduced to stereotypes, each a target for all the things their opponents despise. What hateful stereotypes they have become, made all the more hateful because each tribe assumes (indeed is told) that those they oppose despise them. The more people feel maligned, the greater the urge to cling to their home tribe.
Worse, in order to justify the decision to support Nationalist or Labour, they start to listen selectively to the facts, only hearing those which will reaffirm that they were right. Being in a tribe avoids the bother of original thought. The script is written for you. Nuanced opinions recede. Group-think and the group opinion becomes paramount. Shades of grey must be simplified to black and white.
The recent general election and the post-Caruana Galizia hysteria have aggravated the tendency to mutual dislike in Malta, and even fractured friendships. Not on sober intellectual grounds, but often on base, tribal grounds alone.
What is it that leads to such a disunited country? Ever since the Maltese have enjoyed a measure of self-government, politics has divided the country. Since 1947, it has consisted of an acrimonious scramble for position and domination between various parties ofthe left and right. In the last 53 years, Maltese politics has been marked by deep polarisation.
If there were one wish above everything else for Malta in 2018, it would be for us as a people to discover the quality of tolerance
But not since the violence of the mid-1980s has Maltese politics been conducted in such a hostile, bilious, hyper-partisan and poisonous manner. It has been the worrying return to the vitriolic divisions over three decades ago that has set the alarm bells ringing today.
What makes Malta’s politics an aberration is its confrontational nature. Sheer physical proximity caused by our microscopic size, combined with the direct impact on individuals and families of the inevitable clientelism that dominates and pervades every aspect of local politics, leads to polarisation and mistrust.
Given therefore that it is more discordant and factional than most, are we tilting at the wrong target when we talk about the need to embrace the impossible dream of national unity? Given the rivalry of Maltese politics, and that the battle for the spoils will never change, should we instead not be directing our efforts at what can be done to make the conduct of politics less disruptive, less confrontational, more civilised and grown-up?
There are two key factors that exacerbate the partisan nature of our politics. The first is constitutional. I have written several times about the need for more effective checks and balances in our Constitution and the concomitant improvements to the fair operation of our institutions. It is a hole at the heart of our democracy as old as the Independence Constitution. Getting these fundamental aspects of governance right holds the answer to many of our political tensions.
In the last election especially, there was an arms race of rage between the two parties. Escalated by social media – with vituperative bloggers to the fore – the political poison leached into every aspect of Maltese life. There was no attempt to say “Let us agree to disagree”. It was a dialogue of the deaf. The aim was to vaporise those with whom they disagreed. Even formerly sensible, thoughtful friends acquired a livid, abrasive discourse. They simply could not see the opposite view. It was distastefully alarming and impeded any search for truth.
Malta has had a terrible, inflammatory and traumatic two years of politics. If there were one wish above everything else for Malta in 2018, it would be for us as a people to discover the quality of tolerance – an acceptance of different views of other people, for example on religious or political matters. There appears to be a national intolerance of tolerance.
For long-term solutions, we should start from the premise that there is a moral obligation to tolerate other people’s viewpoints: to permit, recognise and respect others’ beliefs without necessarily sharing them. And to be prepared to put up with someone of a different political colour while respecting the person in the process. It is a step that starts – like so much else that is deficient in Malta – with our educational system. It is about learning civility and showing respect: the freedom to express one’s ideas without fear of reprisal.
Political maturity means we need to become tolerant enough of one another’s views to reach across the tribal divide, to achieve consensus where possible and to declare that the kind of inflammatory abuse we have heard used in the last few months is wrong and unacceptable. That demeaning and factious political imagery is toxic to democracy.
Our tribalism is tedious in the extreme. A dead end described as debate. By all means let us celebrate our vibrant political diversity, but let us do it in a grown-up, civilised and tolerant manner. Intolerance is alarming, divisive and impedes any search for truth. We need to spend time trying to understand other people’s views.
Because when two tribes go to war, what is forgotten is that the vast majority on either side simply want what is best for our country.