Archive for September 2008

Patriot no more

By | Published Monday, September 29, 2008



patriot, n. and adj.

A person who loves his or her country, esp. one who is ready to support its freedoms and rights and to defend it against enemies or detractors.

nationalism, n.

Advocacy of or support for the interests of one's own nation, esp. to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations. Also: advocacy of or support for national independence or self-determination

fascism, n.

A social and political ideology with the primary guiding principle that the state or nation is the highest priority, rather than personal or individual freedoms.


I used to be a patriot. The epic tales of courageous victory over foreign aggressors; the blood that was spilled by my ancestors in the name of love and freedom; the unlikely powers of courage, loyalty and compassion in all their simplicity being far stronger than a menacing foe; the rise of the mother tongue no longer being considered vulgar or lowly but the official language pertaining to society in its entirety.


Now...what was once noble about patriotism seems to have dissipated. For if patriotism means unconditional love for one's country to the detriment of other human beings; declaring oneself as supreme and looking down upon others because they are not white and Catholic; extreme fear of and physical/verbal resistance to a culture that is not your own; being forced to believe in one righteous creed alone; and worst of all, when the hunted but brave victor becomes the ruthless hunter then I must solemnly declare that I am patriot no more.


This is what patriotism has come to mean today and I deplore it.

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Digital Christ

By | Published Sunday, September 28, 2008

"Let he who is without sin press the first key," so (sort of) said the Archdiocese of Malta. In a concerted effort to respond to what the Church perceives as continuous attacks against it on the internet there shall now cometh the 'digital face of Christ'. Is there anything wrong in this? Absolutely not. Indeed the Church has realized that perhaps the most prominent form of media and communications today is the internet. Well, it is where those nasty liberal bloggers of the world unite...and take the Church to task.


But I think the ultimate mission the Church should undertake is in asking itself: why? Why are there growing voices of dissent? Why are people talking so openly about issues such as cohabitation, divorce and today even abortion? Most importantly, why does the Church perceive such issues as a threat to the collective good of society?


I guess that the answer to these questions which the Church has come up with was that its public voice (which includes church sermons, a radio station, a newspaper -including great sympathy from other independent newspapers-, magazines and/or leaflets, church schools, catechism, TV programs and interviews and a vast array of other things) was not effective. A lacuna exists, this being the internet, where public discussion is in full swing on a multitude of issues, wherein the Digital Christ must now penetrate.


To this day I cannot understand why the Church has to embark upon this crusade. Why it has to reinforce its hegemony, its dominant status, its will on what should be a free society. Why it is given Constitutional powers to teach society what is right and what is wrong and why it keeps treating us all like infants that need to be kept in place. The Church says that it is obliged to spread the Christian message. There is nothing wrong with that at all. But I also believe that it has a lot to do with political power which the Church has enjoyed for hundreds of years but is suddenly waning. It seems that religion for the Church is not primarily a personal endeavor which people choose to live by out of choice but a dominating social institution endowed with great political power. And that is where all the conflict begins, where the dissent grows and where the voice of freedom turns from whispers to loud reverberations.


People have every right to believe in a Creator. They have every right to believe that they were born in sin. They have every right to seek guidance and ask for forgiveness from such divine authority. Likewise. a collective body known as the Church has every right to exist, to teach and to council and to participate in society.


But people also have a right to believe they are born free, that they are free to shape their own morality and rules with which to live by and that the rules of today should not be imposed upon their children and their children's children.


My message to the Digital Christ is this: If you refuse to accept this and persists in believing that anybody who believes so is attacking it and destroying society then there is bound to be conflict. A secular society is not a threat to religion and the Church in any way. Because religion shouldn't be about political power but a personal way of living. On the other hand I can only envision a society based upon respect for one another irrespective of different beliefs or the lack of. A society whose people are truly liberated.


I'm not really one for cheesy romantic ideals but I think there is a lot of sense in stating that if you truly love something - you set it free.

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Setting the record straight on the Constitution

By | Published Wednesday, September 17, 2008

I remember it like it was yesterday. During my first lectures in constitutional law I was constantly brain-washed with the following mantra:

The Constitution of a state is the basic system of laws, customs and conventions which define (build) the composition and powers of organs of the state, and regulate the relations of the various state organs to one another and to the private citizen
 Yes, the Constitution is also that legal document in which the most basic fundamental human rights and freedoms are made law. The Constitution is not, however, a mere complaint report in which to file a grievance which may or may not happen in the future. Neither is it a green card in which fundamentalists can legalize their moralistic obsessions at will. This is what a certain radical group of anti-abortionists are setting out to do in a bid to ban abortion permanently through the Constitution. That abortion is a criminal offence, punishable by up to three years imprisonment is not enough.

Abortion is for the greater part, a moral issue. You either believe that the embryo is a human being biologically, morally and legally or that it is simply a mass of cells. But this issue has got nothing to do with being pro-life or pro-choice. That is but an an unending philosophical debate. The issue here is that it would set a dangerous precedent to impose one's purely personal moral beliefs into the Constitution and forever bind future generations due to the Constitution's rigidity. On the other side of the coin, it is equally idiotic, in my opinion to give women the right to terminate their pregnancy through the Constitution. The Constitution is not the place for this.


But isn't this an illogical statement given the fact that most fundamental rights, such as the right to life and the right to a fair trial can be called moral issues? I think not. I believe that certain rights are inherently, logically and objectively necessary in order to sustain a democracy. The right to life, i.e. the right of living persons to literally continue living without interference by the State unless by Court sentence (although capital punishment is outlawed in Malta) is absolutely necessary for democracy. I do not see how banning abortions is absolutely necessary for democracy to function. And that is what the Constitution really is. It is a legal framework which sets up the most basic political status of the state, its organs, their functions and how they relate to one another and the private citizen.

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Rainbow Coalition

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As I have stated before and shall state I again I believe that a coalition in the strict political sense between socialists (MLP) and greens (AD) should not take place now - it is still to early. In this regard I am in full agreement with Arnold Cassola's comments on today's (17/09/2008) issue of maltatoday midweek.


However, I am somewhat incensed by Carmel Cacopardo's comments on the same article. Possibly, for the first time you had a particular politician, being Evarist Bartolo, who by forsaking political partisanship, proposed something unique for this island. Cacopardo maintains that "it's only now that Labour is talking on issues that for years were AD's exclusive political agenda" - does he mean to say that progressive issues should be at the sole discretion of AD? He further states that "Labour never said a word, fearing it would lose votes" (I agree with him on this point) but what I deem to be questionable or rather close-minded is his belief that this call for an alliance is "a matter of pure political convenience."


To me this instills a sense of hopelessness and a morbid sense of joy in destroying this discussion before it even properly begins. Yes, for too long Labour has been mum on issues of social liberties, civil rights, greater political freedoms and the environment. For too long have they hid behind the facade of mainstream party populism at times even politically straying towards the center-right.


I would like to mince two phrases, not my own, to make a point - you may say I'm a dreamer but I believe in the audacity of hope. I believe that things can change. Ultimately I believe that Labour can change and is changing regardless of recent internal blunders. I would not be progressive if I do not believe in change and that change can happen. The conservative/populist forces in the MLP may have the upper hand but believe me when I say it's not all doom and gloom. Not everyone in the MLP is a political dinosaur. Thus I completely disagree that Labour should be entirely stripped of this hope and I cannot fathom how such an open-minded party such as AD, for which I have great respect, can come up with such close-minded remarks.


I would like to say that Evarist Bartolo's voice is not alone and that he should continue believing in such an alliance which in my opinion should also stretch to other progressive/leftist organizations who share the same ideals.


See: Unite the Clans!

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