America 1960, Malta 2008
Evarist ‘Maria il-Maws’ Bartolo’s newpaper pieces are usually as boring as a night out on the town with somebody else’s aged aunt. That’s what happens when you don’t say what you mean or mean what you say, and instead whisper minn wara l-kwinti like Maria the mouse. You assume that he must have a point somewhere, but he’s letting you guess what it is to make your Sunday more thrilling. But today he quotes an important speech by John F. Kennedy in his Malta Today column, about the only useful purpose it serves (who gives a flying wotsit whether he plans to vote in favour of divorce?), so I’m going to repeat it here and bring it to a wider audience.
“I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me. Whatever issue may come before me as president, if I should be elected, on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject, I will make my decision in accordance with these views – in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be in the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressure or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment would cause me to decide otherwise.”
“But if the time should ever come – and I do not concede any conflict to be remotely possible – when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do likewise……”
“…I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the president – should he be Catholic – how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote….I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.”
– John F. Kennedy, Houston, 12 September 1960
Lucky for Ev he had Kennedy to write his column for him. Coming up with the goods every Sunday can get to be a bit of a drag. Kennedy was campaigning for election at the time, and seeking to persuade electors that even though he came from a renowned family of Irish-American Catholics, he would not be a Catholic president. Catholics are feared and mistrusted by some members of other Christian denominations because of the perceived (or real) fundamentalist adherence to dogma. The way some Catholics regard Muslims, other Christians regard Catholics.
Kennedy gave that speech almost half a century ago, yet it is relevant in Malta today.
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We could have had a new Kennedy in Obama if he stood by his former ideals. Go to Youtube to view his “Call to Renewal” speech. Unfortunately he seems to have left those secular ideas behind him to cater for religious pressure.
May I also add that America 1960 was vastly more secular than America today. Had Obama or McCain made a statement like the above whey would have lost a great portion of their electorate. Saying that, there is a great secular movement which is finally getting momentum, but still far from where it should be.
[Daphne – You’re right there, Pat. The Bible-bashers have taken control of the US, and that kind of American-inspired fundamentalism is spreading to Malta, where thousands of people now think it’s impossible to be a devout person without sobbing, clapping and confessing in AA-style religious meetings.]
I have a question after having just read the Malta Independent: who the hell is Robert P. Cachia?
[Daphne – He’s an architect.]
While the “bible-bashers” are a political force in American politics; McCain’s pick of Palin for VP is intended to solidify the evangelical-emotional base of the Republican party. On the other hand, the Obama-Biden ticket of the Democrats represents a rationalist-secular stance, with Christian-faith based Obama and Catholic Joe Biden, both of whom would stand by John F. Kennedy’s statement on the separation of church and state. They have an interesting election campaign over there in Americaland. I’m rooting for the Democrats, for all of the issues I see as relevant too in 1968, when Robert Kennedy was my choice. The battle for the American soul continues where it has been for the last fifty years.
@ Marku : x’dirsa qalet minghand il-perit!
[Daphne – I wouldn’t take it too seriously. He fell out with me some months ago after I edited an article he had written for one of my magazines. Apparently, he knew better than the editor and both his use of English and his style of writing are better than mine. That taught me to avoid dealing with people whose egos are a lot bigger than their abilities.]
Am listening to an old jazz song on the internet, it could be the sound track to the separation of church-state debate. It goes “that what a preacha may teach ya, ain’t necessarily so” and “go with what the scriptures say, but take it with a pinch of salt”. And this from a song from the ’40s!
The women Robert P Cachia quoted are not tal pepe.
If they were, they would speak proper English and not
use literal translations. They may think they are, but
that’s a different matter. Living in Sliema today
doesn’t make a person tal pepe.
[Daphne – I haven’t read his article, but one of my sons read out some bits to me, and he made exactly the same point – that there is no way anyone, let alone a tal-pepe person, would have used the expressions he quotes, and that they sound like urban legends or stuff he must have invented. I love the way that people who are not even remotely tal-pepe try to describe the way we speak and get it all wrong. Tal-pepe people speak perfect or near-perfect English, and my parents’ generation also speak perfect Maltese, far more perfect and idiomatic than that of the self-appointed experts from lower-middle-class or working-class backgrounds. I hate to sound like a classist snob, but people like that really ask for it. The Maltese spoken by working-class people is the equivalent of the English spoken by working-class Britons.]
One thing that really irritates me is people being interviewed, or in discussion programmes, on radio and tv who are speaking Maltese and then break into bad English.
Especially when they give an English proverb or saying as
an example and get it wrong!! I’ve heard some real howlers.
One thing I’ll never forgive the nuns who taught me for
doing is not making the teaching of Maltese compulsory
till 1964, the year I left school. I’ve taught myself to
read but my writing is riddled with spelling mistakes.
Although I lived abroad for 23 years, I’m told I
speak Maltese well. I still would never take part in any
programme on radio or tv for fear of not finding the right
word and breaking into English.
Cikki – “Living in Sliema today
doesn’t make a person tal pepe.” – Well said!
Neither did it make a person “tal-pepe” simply because they lived or were born/bred in Sliema 30/40 years ago. I have always said to people who make reference to “tal-pepe” that they show that they have never heard of or seen “lazy corner” or many of the other side roads …
The Sliema of 30 years ago has changed, thanks to the people who despised “tal-pepe” and yet, at the same time, wanted to emulate them.
My parents’ road is full of blocks of flats inhabited by many such people. Only two days ago one such woman was hanging out her clothes (in the balcony overlooking the street, almost at street level, if you please), and called out to her daughter in the road below “Ghandhek il-black dress. Trida?” Rest assured that the “black dress” bit was for my ears. Why talk like that?
I simply can’t stand these people who are oh-so-obviously more comfortable speaking Maltese, and who yet insist on throwing in the odd English word or phrase to give the impression that they are like the people they hate so much.
I absolutely hate it when I hear people saying, for example, “Ejja ha’ mmorru school” or “Ghamilla bye il-girl”.
What these people fail to realise is that “tal-pepe” people would either speak proper English or proper Maltese, but would rarely intermingle the two, except, for example, when using common expressions like “u ejja”.
@Daphne
“American-inspired fundamentalism is spreading to Malta, where thousands of people now think it’s impossible to be a devout person without sobbing, clapping and confessing in AA-style religious meetings.”
Well sometimes (too often) religion becomes addictive and then like any addiction it becomes dangerous!
It is one of the reasons I refuse point blank to send my children to “tal-muzew” when they are old enough to go. I remember having refused to go and was finally dragged there (literally – to St Dorothy’s in Sliema) by the parish priest and my mum for the last couple of weeks before my confirmation – which today I see as useless as at NINE YEARS OLD I didn’t have a clue what it was about.
I passed through my atheist (completely) years in my teens and early twenties but was drawn back to the fold since I didn’t have anything rammed down my throat.
Today you probably consider me a conservative religious old fogey :)
[Daphne – And so many of these prayer-group types are poor ambassadors for their faith. On Saturday morning I met an elderly Dutch lady who has been in Malta for many years (I have known her for the last 20 years or so). She explained that she had been confined to her home for most of the summer because of illness, and all her shopping and errands were done by those of her alley neighbours ‘who don’t speak English’ and who drafted in their English-speaking daughter to interpret. She was overcome with gratitude. Her English-speaking (Maltese) neighbours, on the other hand, who belong to one of the ‘smart’ prayer groups (because there are smart ones and beyond-the-pale ones, apparently)never once dropped by to check whether she was still alive/needed anything. The only time she ever saw them was when they rushed past her window like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, muttering “Must rush. I’m late for mass” (they go to church morning and evening, seven days a week).]
@Amanda,
What about – “Ejja nmorru nghamlu sleep” or “Mur ghamel sit”
“What these people fail to realise is that “tal-pepe” people would either speak proper English or proper Maltese, but would rarely intermingle the two, except, for example, when using common expressions like “u ejja”.
Agreed, 100%, and as a Sliema born and bred person I was often laughed at when speaking English OR Maltese (not that I gave two hoots)
Kind of like a person speaking cockney laughing at a person speaking queen’s English!
What really pissed them off was in fact (and I hate to say it) envy!
@Daphne
“And so many of these prayer-group types are poor ambassadors for their faith”
Oh yes, absolutely, and quite frankly they give me the creeps! More often than not they do not even interpret their faith correctly, just like Muslim extremists like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Most of these “Catholic fundamentalists” are little better even though thankfully they don’t kill (and this is because of circumstance as the inquisition, not to mention the Millgram experiment aptly proved).
Actually some anti-abortion extremists even do kill especially in the U.S. and some claim to do so in the name of their faith!
Like I said these so called Catholics, of which Malta is choc-a-block, don’t even understand their own faith. I meet countless people (my family included) who still believe papal infallibility means whatever the pope says is infallible for example (It doesn’t). I still meet countless people who believe Limbo is actually a place (it’s not). Amongst these countless people one even finds nuns and priests by the way!
These people do a great disservice to their faith. Genuine Christian charity is also a value so sorely lacking in many of these so called Catholics – they will openly donate to people in Africa, as long as they stay in Africa. They forget the Christian message “I was hungry and you fed me, I was homeless and you took me in”
For an example of Catholic extremism I strongly recommend the film “The Magdalene Sisters”
Well, my father IS from the lazy corner, yet he speaks perfect Maltese and English. Both me and my brother were brought up speaking Maltese as our mother-tongue, but we are fluent in both languages. We can both thank some excellent teachers as well as Father’s insistence on our reading, when we were both still young. I speak to Maltese speakers in Maltese, and to English speakers in English, out of courtesy, by following the other’s language preference.
Cikki / Marku – I’ve just bothered reading Robert Cachia’s bit ( http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=74598 ).
What people like him fail to realise is that people who would talk like that, traslating literally from Maltese (if the cases quoted are at all true, that is) are certainly not, as he would put it, “tal-pepe”.
To the contrary, it is actually people who feel they have to speak in English when in Sliema or around people they themselves consider “tal-pepe” who would often talk more-or-less in that way, thinking in Maltese and translating into English.
Oh, and by the way – there are no stationers along the front, unless he meant the newsagent’s (not stationer) at the Snoopy’s end of Tower Road…