The idea that a person can have an opinion that is not dictated by the agenda of a political party is unfathomable on this island. Whenever one states an opinion, everyone rushes to decipher the true colour – red or blue – of the opinion as they frantically try to uncover the secret agenda behind your comment which must have been stated to gratify one or the other political party.
If they can’t put you in one of their easy-to-understand boxes, they will either create one for you, or condemn you as a lost soul who doesn’t have a home or an opportunist who goes wherever lies most benefit.
For how can someone in Malta, full as it is with such great and inspiring leaders to choose from, choose not to align with one of these god-like, all-powerful, never-erring, as-squeaky-clean-as-my-friend’s-kitchen-top, men?? Something must be seriously wrong with you if you think you know better than them.
If you’re a woman with an opinion, it’s even worse. Did your father not include the political party alliance gene of his choice when he conceived you?!? Does your husband wear the skirt in the house if he isn’t even able to discipline you enough to toe the party line and not move past what is expected of you?
Pick a side, you unruly woman! Are you labour? Are you nationalist? Oh god hopefully not PD? None of those? You must be Occupy Justice then. And probably pro-abortion too. One of those who want to take the illegal migrants on the boats to your home to keep them safe. And sexually frustrated or a closet lesbian, most likely. There, we have you pegged now.
Obviously this partisan and narrow-minded assessment is not reserved for women. Free-thinking men suffer criticism too, though not as harsh. It is free-thinking women who scare the bejeezus out of pompous men and their sycophantic followers the most.
Free thinking women think freely, and if this is allowed, they might get ideas and who knows what those ideas might spark? They might upset the status quo of the you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch-yours fraternity which has been standing strong for centuries. Perhaps because these women very likely are used to scratching their own backs, independently of these same control-freaks excuse of men who aim only to dominate women.
The unfortunate – even sad – fact is that the strongest attacks against women who stand strong and proud in their against-the-grain ideology come from other women. Something is triggered inside certain women when one of them dares rise above the group, or stray away.
Something almost primal. And then the witch-hunt starts, a ritual as old as time in one form or another. Let’s attack her intellect, her looks, her sexuality, her motherhood. If none of those stick then we’ll just attack the irrelevant fact that she can’t stand up straight behind a table in the glorified company of such admirable men (because pompous politicians in their stiff suits holding their pre-prepared agendas are too rigid to just relax).
If nothing works, there’s always the good old timeless classic “qaħba minn strada stretta” – the last stop of the intellectually deprived.
Now it’s your turn. Go ahead and prove me right with your comments.