On two occasions last week, I found myself missing football.  The first had to do with the aftermath of the Aquarius matter. It is not, I suppose, unreasonable to expect a major incident that concerns the lives of over 600 people, and that involves a set of political decisions, to take place to some sort of political debate. As it happened, there was none.

The Opposition, for example, was quick to put up a spectacle of support for the government. There was one cheeky MEP who murmured something along the lines of ‘a sad battle of populists’, but she was swiftly muffled by her party. The Leader of the Opposition declared that the national interest was what mattered, and that was that. Interviewed on TV a few days after the events, the Foreign Minister and his shadow were a picture of fraternal unity.

The second occasion may seem a small matter by comparison, but I found it relevant. Last Tuesday, the TVM news bulletin ran a story about a woman whose serious mobility issues made her a prisoner in her own second-floor social housing flat. She had asked for a swap with a ground-floor flat, quite unsuccessfully.

What struck me was that the story was presented as a ‘storja umana’ (literally a ‘human story’, whatever that means) and reported by Maria Muscat, who moonlights as a tuneless singer by the stage name ‘La Barokka’. Apt, because no one does schmaltz like Muscat. Her reports, usually set to sentimental music, tend to spell death by saccharine to even the most straightforward of news stories.

But that’s aside. The point here is that the way the story was reported effectively stripped it of its political content. We don’t need journalists to know that some people’s lives are very hard indeed, and that there is suffering (cue: sad music) in the world.

We do, however, need them to raise questions about the failure of the social housing system to properly house. Last time I checked, social housing was classified under political matters.

To discuss migration politically, and to disagree over ways of dealing with it, is not to make it a political football

Still, I don’t think TVM’s gloss was intentional. I rather saw it as an example of the dreaded ‘ballun politiku’ (‘political football’) argument. The idea is that certain kinds of discussion should not become a political football. Rather, they should serve to unite us in some or other chorus of apolitical agreement.

Now I do understand that partisan bickering does exist, often on matters that have little to do with politics. It is also generally unproductive. But that is exactly why serious aspects of public life could do with some more football.

Take migration. The decision by Sudanese and Bangladeshi people to leave their homes to seek asylum may have little to do with politics in Malta. (And even that is debatable in an age that calls itself global.) What happens to them once they find themselves in our Search and Rescue (SAR) area, however, does.

There can be no one absolutely right way to deal with such a problem. That makes the matter profoundly political. To discuss migration politically, and to disagree over ways of dealing with it, is not to make it a political football, nor is it to do it a disservice. On the contrary, it is to do it justice.

This is where the national interest steps in. We are expected to believe – indeed, we were told so by the Leader of the Opposition – that the national interest must prevail over politics.

The problem is in the definition. When it suits them, politicians take refuge in a notion of national interest that consists in a kind of atavistic substance – a sort of national storja umana.

Strange, because if there’s anything that’s fundamentally political in nature, it is precisely the national interest. I should think that when politicians debate taxes, or the cost of living, or corruption, they do so in the national interest. In such cases, they seem to have no trouble being political.

It may be that the Leader of the Opposition had Italy in mind. In other words, that where relations with foreign countries are concerned, we ought to reach out for the proverbial hymnbook. To do otherwise is to betray the national interest.

Equally bizarre, because our dealings with Italy are an instance of international relations (foreign affairs). I don’t see why we should debate a minister’s bank accounts, or embryo freezing, but not international relations. If international relations were non-political, politicians would rightly step down in favour of technocrats. They don’t, and rightly so.

I said earlier that some journalists have a habit of murdering stories. Likewise, many politicians are prone to leading political matters up the cul-de-sac of national interest, and quietly murdering them. That they do so for reasons of political expediency, makes things truly baffling.

mafalzon@hotmail.com

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