So far, Labour stands for nothing
Two years after losing the sixth of seven general elections since 1976, the Labour Party remains a policy desert.
Joseph Muscat has been party leader for 19 months and we still don’t know what he stands for.
The party he leads remains a milk-jelly morass of meaningless buzzwords that are completely at odds with the thinking of its core voters.
In his attempt at making the party all things for all men, he risks making it nothing and for no one.
The party emblem has been banished but no new one has replaced it.
The party name has been wiped clean from all public events, conferences and demonstrations, and the words ‘moviment gdid’ used instead.
The party flag has been buried, so that when the Labour leader manifests himself for the press or a television audience, he speaks beneath the national flag and that of the EU.
In his attempt at stripping Labour of its old identity, Muscat has left it with no identity at all. So far, Labour stands for nothing.
Given that the momentum of change at the start of a person’s leadership is an indicator of what is to follow, it is likely that the next three years will be more of the same.
The gulf between Muscat’s words and his actions is now enormous and getting wider every day. He talks a lot of rot about fighting conservatism and making Malta more liberal, yet he is the first to cower at the prospect of making waves.
Talk is cheap, or as they say round my neck of the woods, bullsh*t walks.
There he was kissing the archbishop’s ring on New Year’s Day with the best of them.
Here he is now, failing to take a stand on the criminal prosecution of a 21-year-old student for publishing a dirty story in a university newspaper.
There he was then, keeping his lips sealed when a play that was staged all over the free world was banned from performance in Malta, though nobody can stop you reading it.
His position on the European Court of Human Rights ruling on crucifixes in Italian state schools was a shoddy piece of equivocation – trying to run with the hare, hunt with the hounds and have a glass of sherry with the huntsmen afterward.
Muscat doesn’t even have the guts to put his money where his mouth is on the issue of divorce.
“I am for divorce,” he tells us. “When I am prime minister I will put forward a divorce bill and withdraw the party whip so that all my MPs can vote as they please. I hope the opposition party will do the same.”
If he doesn’t get off that fence soon, a post is going to wedge itself so far up his butt that it will have to be surgically removed.
A prime minister who means to legislate for divorce, rather than just bullsh*tting about it, does not withdraw the party whip. He uses it for a vote in favour.
A prime minister who hopes for the votes of opposition MPs to get his own divorce bill through, so that he doesn’t have to crack the whip with his own MPs, deserves to have a real whip used to drive him off his fence-post.
I can’t have been the only one who noticed that Muscat makes a point of specifying that it is he – and not the Labour Party – who favours divorce.
This, coupled with his repeated insistence that he will not use the party whip for a divorce bill, puts a rocket under the misplaced assumption of many that divorce will form part of Labour’s electoral programme for 2013.
When an item is included in a party’s electoral programme, the members of that party must vote with the whip on that particular issue.
MPs stand for election on the party ticket and in representation of the party’s electoral programme. They cannot vote against divorce if they were elected on a pro-divorce programme.
Labour is not going to include divorce in its electoral manifesto for 2013.
There is the same level of religious fundamentalism and anti-divorce sentiment among Labour politicians as there is among Nationalist politicians. I would say that there is probably more of it in the Labour Party than there is in the Nationalist Party.
Over the last 25 years, Labour’s defining factor has been fear of change and dogged opposition to it, while over the very same period the Nationalist Party’s defining factor has been the wholehearted seeking and embracing of change.
Those who have made the mistake of imagining that divorce is in Labour’s policy programme already – what policy programme? – fail to understand that the one thing which holds the Nationalist Party back from putting divorce into its electoral programme, now that the party is no longer led by Eddie Fenech Adami who had personal objections to the matter, is the very same thing which makes Joseph Muscat draw a distinction between his personal position on divorce and that of the party he leads.
The big obstacle standing between the political parties and divorce is – you guessed it – fear of a haemorrhage of votes and of a battle royal waged for the consciences of the people, if not by the Catholic Church in its official capacity, then certainly by individual priests and monsignors.
Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but as Malta becomes more and more secular, religious fundamentalism has increased. It is not a contradiction in terms.
The Nationalist Party’s fear of what priests and prayer-groups can do to wreak electoral havoc has been interpreted as obsequiousness and obedience to religious leaders.
Muscat spent his first months as leader accusing government politicians of being conservative – but when it came to the crunch, his bullsh*t walked.
He has taken a personal position in favour of divorce but his party has not and will not, which means that his ‘I am in favour of divorce’ stance means sweet FA.
People don’t want a pro-divorce party leader. They want divorce legislation. The two are different, and only fools believe that a pro-divorce leader means divorce legislation when divorce is not in a party’s electoral programme and the pro-divorce party leader has committed himself to withdrawing the parliamentary whip.
It’s the same with the matter of gay rights.
The rights that gay people want – the ones that they do not have already by dint of being human and holding a European passport – all derive from marriage or its legal equivalent.
So the only way that Labour is going to be able to deliver these rights when in government is by putting civil partnership for same-sex couples (so-called ‘gay marriage’, though marriage is most often anything but gay) into its electoral programme, allowing people to vote for it – or not.
Labour is not going to do that for precisely the same reasons that it won’t be putting divorce into its electoral programme either. It knows that listing same-sex marriage in its manifesto for 2013 will unleash all of hell’s furies among its supporters, who are among the most conservative people in the country.
Labour’s supporters even voted against EU membership because of the changes they feared it would bring. Are they going to rush out and vote for divorce and gay marriage? Hardly.
Contrary to popular perception, if Labour includes divorce and gay marriage in its electoral programme, it will not meet with mocking and flame-fanning from the Nationalist Party, for roughly equal but opposite reasons: any such behaviour will provoke an extremely negative reaction from its own supporters, many of whom are neither politically nor religiously conservative (those who imagine that I am atypical in my views are way off the mark).
The Labour Party faffs around with the setting-up of a Gay Section – which only serves to underscore its belief that gay people are different to the rest and must be segregated.
There is no Gay Section in the Nationalist Party not because it is homophobic, but because homosexuality is quite simply not an issue. It has certainly not been a barrier to progress right through the party hierarchy, for example.
Only conservatives think of homosexual people as The Other, who must be sectioned off and defined by their sexuality. Setting up a political ghetto for gays is not a liberal move, but a ‘conservative-trying-hard-to-be-seen-as-liberal’ one.
Instead of reading in our newspapers that the Labour Party has taken up an official position in favour of gay marriage, and that it has committed itself to legislating for same-sex civil partnerships, without removing the party whip, we have to content ourselves with sappy interviews written by those whose tongues are longer than their minds are incisive.
In First magazine last month, we were treated to “The Leader of the Opposition and Mrs Michelle Muscat invite us to their home in Burmarrad” and – hey ho – coincidentally the doorbell rings while the interviewer is sitting on the “comfortable sofa” and eating “Michelle’s home-made gingerbread Christmas trees”.
And no, it isn’t Father Christmas at the door (they would probably call him Christmas Fader, but anyway, let’s not bitch about the details, however telling they may be).
It’s Joseph and Michelle’s friends, The Token Gays, who have been wheeled out for the occasion.
“The doorbell rings and a couple of their friends join us. Michelle speaks to them in French which goes over my head, while Joseph introduces them to me in more sedate French which I manage to understand. Laurent is a lecturer in history at the Sorbonne and his partner Michel is a make-up artist.”
The word ‘cliché’ appears to be in neither Muscat’s vocabulary nor that of his interviewer.
Next time, it will be the entire cast of The Village People, and one of them will be wearing a black leather peaked cap and a large moustache, accompanied by his partner, a hairdresser, and his partner’s partner, the fantasy fireman.
The man who works in IT and leaves the house wearing a fleece and trackie-pants, and his partner the builder who looks like he has a wife and kids and goes to mass every Sunday, would have been dismissed out of hand as token gays who drop in by chance while an interviewer is eating Michelle’s gingerbread trees.
What do you know, the interviewer might miss the fact that they’re in a shagging relationship, thinking instead that the word ‘partner’ means they share a ledger rather than a bed, and causing Muscat to forget his manners (for a change…) and force the issue.
But let’s get on with the interview. “ ‘So your speaking about civil partnership rights for gays is not just a way for you to look cool and progressive?’ I somewhat cheekily ask Joseph. I also remind him that it was the Labour Party that decriminalised homosexuality in 1973 and that the Nationalist Party had voted against this. I was only a very young boy back then and the Leader of the Opposition not yet born. He grins, his eyes smiling mischievously and remarks casually: ‘Being progressive is looking towards the future and 1973 is a very long time ago. Let’s let bygones be bygones’.”
Ah, but he didn’t answer the question.
If the interviewer were not one of those gay men who probably believe that a vote for Joseph Muscat means a wedding-ring on their finger, he might have rephrased his question to be more specific: “Will the Labour Party put gay marriage in its electoral programme for 2013?”
Then watch him squirm out of that one, straight into Michel the Make-Up Artist’s lap.
This article is published in The Malta Independent on Sunday today.
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Looks like Muscat and Miriam Dalli read your column this morning:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100110/local/decision-to-charge-obscene-story-editor-anachronistic-joseph-muscat
Or maybe Micallef Leyson did …
The story in question is not “about sexual violence”, but about sex. Trying to cover their arses before the trial even starts. “Ghax qed jinkoraggixxi r-rejp, x’wahda din.”
And that interviewer’s tongue is so far up Muscat’s arse it’s scraping the paint off the fence-post.
I admit I’m biased but I can’t help thinking how shallow and improvised Joseph Muscat’s positions are. From timesofmalta.com, reporting Muscat’s comments:
“…the authorities were threatening to throw a student in prison for publishing an opinion.”
“The Labour leader said that even if one did not agree with the students’ opinion, they should not be threatened with imprisonment for making this known.”
Am I being too pedantic if I point out that Mark Camilleri is not being prosecuted for expressing an opinion but for publishing a short story? How can Joseph Muscat be “ready to defend” the Realta editor if he doesn’t even know what he’s being accused of?
The MLP/PL will be holding a General Conference spread over 10 days to re-write from scratch its manifesto so as to appeal to the whole political spectrum as if you can please everybody all the time; wonder what the old MLP grassroots think about this whole jamboree.
Did you see the coverage for the do held by the MLP/PL for the media. La Leyson was like a wallflower with everybody – both hosts and guests – avoiding her as if she was a carrier for the H1N1 virus; veru miskina!
[Daphne – I’m sure she can cope. She has to. That’s one hell of a bridge she’s burned.]
If there is a term which is is subjective this must be religious fundamentalism. Is its opposite atheist fundamentalism?
Are all those who oppose divorce, even for non-religious reasons, religious fundamentalists? And are those who favour divorce, without considering the negative effects of divorce on society, atheistic fundamentalists?
I’m not sure what your point about atheist fundamentalism is, nor exactly how you define it. Fundamentalism generally means taking things back to their roots, for instance their founding texts, which in the case of religion, or more specifically Christianity, would be the bible.
Its a little more difficult to have such a thing as fundamentalism in atheist thought because atheism is based on the evaluation of evidence and the scientific method, and is therefore perfectly willing to change a position if valid evidence is produced. So the term “fundamentalist atheist” is actually an oxymoron. There is no founding text, except the guiding principle which is to eschew blind faith in favour of evidence, critical thought, logic and reason.
The Christian founding text is rather more ambiguous and open to misinterpretation and abuse because it sends mixed messages by including both:
“love thy neighbor”
and
“Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the female children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”
The part of the founding text which is pertinent to this discussion is:
“Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.”
This last one is from Luke’s version of the rulebook, but Mark and Matthew have slightly different takes, effectively ranging from no separation (“putting away”) or remarriage, through separation but no remarriage, up to separation and remarriage but only if adultery is involved.
I seem to understand that what you are trying to say in an oblique kind of way is that there is a significant, reasoned, secular, non-religious (for religion, read specifically Christianity) argument against the introduction of divorce legislation in the only two countries which still don’t provide for it. (Malta and the Philippines).
I suppose one could ask you to expand on this argument and then analyze it and challenge the individual components of it. Or one could take the shorter empirical approach and ask why 99% of the world’s governments have legislated for divorce and it is only two fundamentalist catholic ones haven’t? Or why one of those two countries which has a substantial Muslim majority allows its Muslim citizens to divorce but not its catholic ones? Or why the last countries to introduce it are also catholic (Chile 2004, Ireland 1997, Italy 1974)
Surely if the principle arguments against divorce were not religious, or specifically the catholic strain of Christianity, the trend would be different?
Markie. This rambling, meandering drivel indicates you should have gone to bed an hour earlier.
@harry purdle Excuse me?
How exactly are atheists fundamentalist if all they are asking for is freedom of choice? David, if you are a Catholic you can choose to live by the teachings of the Catholic Church. However, do not force others to do so.
Ahh Daphne, this again boils down to math, in the sense that “Nothing” can be considered as “Something”. The argument is still alive and kicking. Some argue that null is a set other say that is pure baloney.
Since he has no clue how to address Malta’s problems maybe he set his eyes to finding progressive solutions to this long standing argument. After all, he has a PhD!
Did you read today’s The Times? Muscat defines class by whether you go out to eat a pizza or a steak, with pizza being lower class.
One wonders where ‘BERGERS’ fit in?
Burgers are the new caviar.
Just out of curiosity: is Joseph Muscat’s wife related to Rachel of Tista’ Tkun Int?
No way. I know Rachel.
There’s a slight difference: one is in awe of her elf, the other is full of herself. The end result, however, is the same – Plain insipid.
‘The Nationalist Party’s fear of what priests and prayer-groups can do to wreak electoral havoc has been interpreted as obsequiousness and obedience to religious leaders.’
Isn’t it? If, as you say, ‘people want divorce legislation’, isn’t it rather unwise of the PN to appear so afraid of the hardline priests, monsignors and their acolytes and thus be afraid to give people what they want?
[Daphne – No, because an analysis of the situation would have been made: divorce legislation in the electoral programme at this point will alienate more voters than it attracts. On the other hand, no divorce legislation will alienate relatively fewer voters. Visit timesofmalta.com and read through the interview with Fr Joe Borg in yesterday’s edition, where he speaks about the inevitability of divorce and how the numbers have changed in 11 years.]
It certainly looks like obsequiousness to me. Stop beating about the bush. Tell us how do you interpret it. I expect you will say that the PN believes the issue is too finely balanced to make a commitment, but with the PN that’s political genius, whilst with the PL it’s fence sitting.
[Daphne – Fence-sitting is saying that you are in favour of divorce but then not committing yourself to putting it in the party manifesto, saying that you will give a free vote instead. You will notice that the current prime minister avoids the issue of divorce legislation, precisely because of this: when you are party leader, there is no such thing as a personal opinion on divorce. Even Alfred Sant knew this, which is why he became hysterical and put pressure on the owners of the newspaper for which I work to have the editor sacked when he published something that was in the public domain already: the public record of his civil marriage annulment, in which he stated categorically that he doesn’t believe in marriage. The Nationalist Party – and you have its track record to go by – will not faff around like that. If it decides that it is going to legislate for divorce, then it will put this into its electoral manifesto – which is the correct way to go about it, rather than springing a surprise on voters – and then use the whip for a vote in favour. It will not wheel out its leader to talk crap in interviews about how he is in favour of divorce, purely to appear liberal, and then do nothing concrete about it.]
It’s true that Joseph Muscat saying he’s in favour of divorce doesn’t amount to much, but it’s more than Gonzi’s willing to go, it seems.
[Daphne – Bullshit walks, Tim. I like people who do, not people who talk. I remain convinced that when divorce legislation finally gets here, it will be a Nationalist government that does it, not Labour. It will not be this government, because it wasn’t in the 2008 electoral programme. It won’t be the Labour government of 2013, because divorce is not going to be in that electoral programme either. The Nationalist Party is either going to have to screw Labour over by putting divorce into its 2013 programme, or Malta is going to have to wait until post-2018.]
I think you should ask our MPs, who are there because WE, the people, put them there to govern wisely and in our interest, to stand up and be counted on this and state, clearly and unequivocally whether they are for or against divorce being introduced (by which I mean being made available to all married persons) in Malta.
At least Joseph Muscat and Marlene Pullicino (and a couple of others, I believe) have done so.
If Gonzi had real cojones and if he is aware that, as you say, MLP supporters are more conservative than PN ones, he should be the one to introduce divorce.
[Daphne – He can’t do it now, Tim. It wasn’t in the electoral programme. Divorce is a major issue, not a minor thing you can spring as a surprise on people who didn’t vote for it. That would be undemocratic. You can’t respect democracy only when it suits you. I know lots of people who voted PN in 2008 who wouldn’t have done so if the electoral programme had included divorce legislation.]
Expecting the PN to legislate in favour of divorce is akin to expecting Norman Lowell to embrace multiculturalism.
[Daphne – Not at all. Norman Lowell has a single platform: racism. The Nationalist Party has no position on divorce.]
“The big obstacle standing between the political parties and divorce is – you guessed it – fear of a haemorrhage of votes and of a battle royal waged for the consciences of the people, if not by the Catholic Church in its official capacity, then certainly by individual priests and monsignors.”
While I can appreciate that the PN would be afraid of “individual priests and monsignors” because the PN has a history of toadying up to the local church, I find it hard to believe that you actually believe that the Labour Party that took on Michael Gonzi and the local church at the height of its power in the 50s, 60s and 70s is afraid of taking on a few isolated priests and pampered monsinjuri 50 years after the MLP engaged in a fully fledged battle (that it won) with the hierarchy?
[Daphne – You’re a little confused. There is the world of difference between fearing that priests and monsignors will stick a spanner in your works and fearing them for religious reasons. The first is concerned with strategy, the second with ‘heaven’. As for the Labour Party, if you think that it is what it was in the 1960s, you’re not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Joseph Muscat take on the Catholic Church? Come on, get up to speed with reality.]
If I was putting money on which party is more likely to take on the divorce issue and the fossilized hierarchy leading the local Catholic Church I would put my money on the MLP.
[Daphne – There is no such thing as ‘the local Catholic Church’. The Catholic Church is one. Even I know that. You would lose your bet. The Labour Party will not introduce divorce within the next three years because it is not in government, and it will not introduce divorce in the five years after that because to do so it would have to put the matter into its electoral programme within these three years. It won’t do that because, at this point, its core vote is far more ‘religiously’ conservative than the Nationalist Party’s core vote. It is a strategic decision and a correct one. The mistake it makes is to allow its leader to make half-assed statements about free votes, when anyone with half a brain knows that you can’t get divorce legislation through parliament with a free vote. It puts individual MPs under too much pressure – all matter-of-conscience choices do that – and too many of them will capitulate to emotional blackmail from wives, parents, the parish priest, the local prayer group and so on. The use of the whip gives them the excuse they need to fight this pressure: “My hands are tied….”]
PN has done nothing except toady up to the hierarchy throughout its history. That’s the proven reality. Muscat has come out as being personally in favor of divorce. Where does Archbishop Gonzi’s great nephew stand on the issue, if you know?
[Daphne – You’re very silly, you know. People are not to blame for their great-uncles. Are you going to assume that any future great-nephews Noel Arrigo may have, for instance, are going to be prone to taking bribes from drug-dealers? Hardly. The Nationalist Party toadying to the Catholic Church is one of those ‘if we repeat it enough they’ll believe it’ pieces of propaganda put about by Mintoff and his party. The Nationalist Party and the Catholic Church had a common enemy: Dom Mintoff. That’s all. The very idea of George Borg Olivier, who had a very public adulterous affair with a British actress called Dawn Adams while his wife had an equally public adulterous affair with a priest to whom she bore a child – while her husband was prime minister – toadying to the archbishop is ludicrous. Get a grip on yourself.]
And Mintoff with Charlotte Rampling……………………….?
[Daphne – Kien jasalha saz-zokra. Mhux ta’ b’xejn baqa fuq dak iz-ziemel.]
It was Vanessa Redgrave, not Charlotte Rampling. Unless he was doing them both. Which sort of weakens your assertion, Daphne, that women only look for a man who cares, can keep them amused, and showers every day.
[Daphne – It was Charlotte Rampling. She was on location in Malta and he invited her to ride with him. I doubt that she actually did him. She probably thought it best to humour the ugly midget.]
Then that makes at least two, because he was also bonking Vanessa Redgrave. Probably fancied himself as a sort of Socialist Kissinger.
[Daphne – Well, they can’t have done it standing up, that’s for sure – not unless he used a foot-stool.]
Given the state he’s reduced to today, I doubt he showered every month, let alone every day.
You still haven’t answered my question, as silly as you say I am: Where does Lawrence Gonzi stand on the divorce issue, if you know?
[Daphne – I don’t know. Nor would anyone else be privy to that information other than his closest aides. Only fools talk when they don’t mean to act. But if I were to hazard a guess, it would be this: he doesn’t like divorce, has strong personal reservations against it, but at the same time acknowledges that the no-divorce situation is untenable and that divorce legislation is inevitable, but putting it into the party’s electoral programme for 2013 would be a risky gamble at this stage. When he thinks that the time is strategically right, then he’ll do it in such a way as to ensure it gets done.]
And since you bring up the issue, can you mention one important public policy position that the PN took in which it was at odds with the local church?
[Daphne – At the risk of repeating myself, there is no such thing as the local church, unless you mean your local church up the road, the actual building, that is. I cannot mention one important public policy position that the PN took in which it was at odds with the Catholic Church for the very simple and obvious reason that the Catholic Church is not in the business of taking up important public policy positions or being at odds with those taken by political parties, unless they actually relate to religious issues – like divorce and abortion. On the contrary, the representatives of the Catholic Church in Malta take great care to stay out of political issues. I don’t remember the Curia issuing instructions on how to vote in the EU membership referendum, for instance. Now that was one hell of a public policy issue. On the other hand, if the Catholic Church and Malta’s current prime minister occasionally sing from the same hymn-sheet, as on the matter of treating immigrants with dignity, compassion, humanity and respect, it is not something to which I’m going to object.]
And by local church I mean the local hierarchy and everyone reading this blog knows there is a difference between the boys at the Curia and the boys at HQ in Rome which is why Mintoff always insisted on running off to Rome to conduct his negotiations over the heads of the local honchos whenever he got into one of his “battles” with Gonzi’s great uncle.
[Daphne – You’re quite wrong there, my dear. The Catholic Church will extend its power wherever it can, and it does that through Head Office and not through the unilateral decisions of autonomous outposts. It throws its weight around in Malta because it is possible to throw its weight around in Malta – not because the government allows it to do so, but because The People tolerate and even encourage it. If it were possible for the Catholic Church to throw its weight around in Britain then it would do that too, but it’s not possible. Malta’s bishops do not behave as they please. They take orders from Rome.]
If that is Gonzi’s personal position then it is worthy of respect in the same way one would respect Machiavelli. Muscat’s opinion is worthy of more respect because it is an opinion that is sure to displease some of the ultra-conservative voters in his party which means that the man has personal convictions that are important enough to him that he is willing to be unpopular with some -even lose some votes in the process.
[Daphne – It would be surprising if Muscat did NOT have an opinion on divorce. What is he – a cabbage? It would also be surprising if, at 35 years old, he was AGAINST divorce. At 35, his opinion in favour of divorce is not brave, courageous or different. It is mainstream. He would be brave, courageous and different if he were a 35-year-old political party leader speaking against divorce and not in favour of it. That would really get him booed, mocked and despised. The personal opinion of a party leader means jack shit unless he also translates that personal opinion into party policy, as Fenech Adami did (against divorce). Unless that happens, the personal opinion of Joseph Muscat is just like the personal opinion of anyone else: it means nothing. Something else: if you were a good judge of character you would have noticed by now that Joseph Muscat is incapable of meaningful personal convictions, and that there is no conviction so important to him that he will not change it should this become expedient. Look at him go with EU membership, for instance. One minute he’s screaming for partnership and Svizzera fil-Mediterran and telling us to vote No, and the next he’s a born again Europhile. You think he’s willing to be unpopular with some? Forget it: his aim is to be as popular as he can with as many people as possible, which is why he is currently unable to write policy and is instead wedged on that fence with a post up his ass.]
While the subsidiary takes general instructions from HQ, it does have a lot of leeway mainly because it is a small subsidiary on the periphery. Do you think that Gonzi’s great uncle got the go ahead from Rome before he announced his interdett against the local socialists at the same time that HQ was reaching out to the Italian communists?
[Daphne – Yes, he would have had to. Like all successful organisations (“HSBC – your local bank”), the Catholic Church tailormakes its strategy to the situation. It may have considered it expedient to reach out to the communists at its gate while excommunicating the socialists in Malta. The thing that has always puzzled me about the reactions of people like you is the inherent paradox: you quite patently dislike the Catholic Church and fear its control, but then you become hysterical at the thought of Labour voters being rejected by that same Catholic Church in the 1960s. The Catholic Church can reject only those who belong to it already, and if one belongs to it, then why would one fear it? More to the point, why would one insist on being accepted by something which one fears, hates and whose control one wishes to diminish? If you don’t like what the Catholic Church is doing, just stay out. Then it can’t throw you out.]
Quote “The thing that has always puzzled me about the reactions of people like you is the inherent paradox: you quite patently dislike the Catholic Church and fear its control, but then you become hysterical at the thought of Labour voters being rejected by that same Catholic Church in the 1960s. The Catholic Church can reject only those who belong to it already, and if one belongs to it, then why would one fear it? More to the point, why would one insist on being accepted by something which one fears, hates and whose control one wishes to diminish? If you don’t like what the Catholic Church is doing, just stay out. Then it can’t throw you out.”
So I am not the only one who thinks this way and who has been puzzled by the same matter ever since I have been interested in recent Maltese history.
I have no illusions that Joseph Muscat is first and foremost a politician who’s party is in opposition and is willing to speak out of all sides of his mouth to get elected. Nevertheless his “personal” stance on divorce is to be applauded because at least he has taken a stance and a stance that has risks.
Your opinion is that many Labour supporters are very socially conservative and against divorce so by taking a “personal” stance in favor of divorce he will theoretically alienate this core group and make them more likely to stay at home or vote for one of the opposition parties on election day. Muscat is therefore risking losing support from MLP core supporters in the hope of garnering the support of liberal floating voters/disillusioned PN voters to whom divorce is personally an important issue. That is risky.
[Daphne – No. There is no risk involved at all. Muscat does not take risks. He goes with certainty. Labour’s core vote is not going to be bothered by a party leader who speaks in favour of divorce when it wasn’t bothered by his atheist predecessor who had his brief civil marriage annulled on the grounds that he doesn’t believe in marriage. Labour’s core vote wouldn’t even be bothered if Muscat were to be divorced, let alone merely talking about it. Promising them divorce legislation is another matter altogether: that would force them into a debate with their conscience and generate doubt and guilt as to the possible social disruption. Conclusion: talking about divorce is OK; we’ll vote for the man who talks about divorce; but legislating for divorce? No. We won’t vote for that. This is how Muscat would have analysed the situation (and correctly so): talking about divorce without promising to legislate for it will not scare off the Labour core vote, but it might bring in people who haven’t voted Labour before and who confuse the meaning of ‘doing’ and ‘saying’. I say ‘might’, because if they don’t find it in his electoral programme, they are likely to get angry at being misled.]
Gonzi on the other hand, per your conjecture, has thought the matter through and is also taking a risk by sitting on his hands. He is hoping that there are more PN voters who would not vote for the PN if he backed divorce than there are PN/floating voters for whom divorce is so personally important that they would risk voting MLP because the MLP is more likely to make good on the divorce issue and alleviate their own personal situation. That also is a risky strategy especially where your party will have been in power for 15 years by the next elections. It will be interesting to see who wins this particular crap shoot.
I believe I read in either Mizzi or de Marco’s autobiography that Archbishop Gonzi went out on a lark of his own when he decided to issue his interdett just as John XXIII was lifting the Vatican’s “interdett” on the Italian Communist Party. I believe the story is that the Vatican dispatched some high ranking prelate to Malta to find out what Gonzi was up to.
[Daphne – I assume that you, like me, were brought up a Catholic and so you should know that there is no such thing as an ‘interdett’. There is only excommunication which prevents you from receiving any sacrament and from being given a Christian burial. Excommunication comes direct from head office. When Catholics are refused burial by the Catholic rite it is not because they have been ‘interdicted’ (that’s what happened to Noel Arrigo). It’s because they have been excommunicated. Do you remember the infamous Piergiorgio Welby case in Italy a few years back? Catholic politicians all over the world are regularly threatened with excommunication, for example, if they vote in favour of abortion. But strangely enough, nobody ever uses the word excommunication for what happened in Malta in the 1960s. I wonder why. Also, nobody points out that it is perfectly routine and ordinary for the Vatican to use the threat of excommunication on politicians whose stance radically undermines the fundamental tenets of Catholicism. The difference is that Malta was 100% Catholic in the 1960s, and so this stance was seen as an assault on Laburisti, rather than as the Vatican doing what it always does. If the Malta Labour Party had just a few Catholic politicians, it wouldn’t have been seen as an attack on the party, but as an organised religion dealing as it should with a couple of its more recalcitrant members. The current US ambassador to Malta, I believe, was similarly threatened with punishment for his stance on abortion.]
As for my personal relationship with the Catholic Church, it is ambivalent which is why I distinguish between the politically conservative hierarchy and the good guys out in the field who in my opinion do a great job by trying to bring about social justice and are nearly always at odds with the boys in Rome.
[Daphne – I think you will find that the good guys out in the field see themselves as very much part of the Catholic Church. If they didn’t feel that way, they would do what they do without being part of an organised religion. It’s perfectly possible, and thousands do it. You don’t have to be part of the Catholic Church to do good ‘out in the field’. The good they do, they do in the name of the Catholic Church, so don’t try to hive it off and instead give credit where it is due.]
Read about Jesuit run-ins with hierarchy in recent history, liberation theologists and most recently the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the United States who are standing up to a Vatican investigation (read witch hunt) instigated by conservatives intent on rolling back Vatican II and making these plucky women put their wimples back on and essentially just shut up and defer to the boys in Rome. Read the National Catholic Reporter for more information.
[Daphne – I couldn’t be bothered. I have no patience for people who insist on being part of a club that they don’t like and want to change. Why be there in the first place? Why not just bugger off and go someplace else that’s more to your liking? I can’t stand ‘Catholicism a la carte’ agitators.]
@Chris II. I tried to explain my feelings in my last posting but for some reason Daphne has not yet moderated posting.
[Daphne – Anthony, I do not spend the entire day glued to my laptop, and I have no intention of moderating comments via a Blackberry when I am away from my desk.]
Essentially I see a difference between the church hierarchy which in many cases is composed of types that could easily be (and some would say are) running a corporation and the rank and file who are really trying to work for social justice. If you look at the church as the hierarchy you turn your back on it. If you look on the church as the rank and file, lay and religious working to do justice and peace and bring about “the kingdom” then there is much to admire.
Anthony Falzon, you are doing your best to suggest that Joseph Muscat has political acumen and morality, in this case using the debate about divorce.The reality is that he is as alien to politics as divorce should be to a Roman Catholic fundamentalist.
His brief and petty political history says it all – the only instances when he was asked to take a stand on significant issues, that is the EU and Eurozone, he was either wrong or refused to take a position, all in context of his opportunistic plans.
When the time comes to commit himself and his party on divorce he will do the same.
Early days yet, Joseph, to come to definite conclusions – the script on divorce has still got to be written. We are dealing with politicians here who all smile, strategize, weigh the pros and cons, sit on the fence and put their finger in the air to see which way the wind in blowing and talk out of every corner of their mouths – Muscat and Gonzi – are no different in that respect.
(1) If my memory serves me correctly Sant took prompt action to set up a Committee to report on possible divorce legislation for Malta during his 22 month term of office. I assume that signalled action to possibly legislate to all and sundry. Why should Muscat do any less 15 years later? Contrast to current PN government which first set up committee to look at divorce issue and then dropped the matter quietly.
[Daphne – I see no contrast. Alfred Sant wouldn’t have legislated for divorce even if he hadn’t sunk his own ship because he hadn’t the stamina to keep going. Something like that has to be in an electoral programme because it’s a big deal. Also, Sant was (and no doubt still is) acutely conscious of the fact that divorce battles are best fought in the public eye by those whose own marriage is sound. That’s why he never pronounced himself publicly about divorce: his personal opinion would have been perceived as having been shaped by his personal experience, even though it was actually the reverse. Muscat has an advantage over him here.]
(2) You are right – Kmiec was refused the sacraments and I believe was also turned down by Vatican as possible U.S. Ambassador to Holy See before he was offered Ambassadorship to Malta. Ted Kennedy, Kerry, Pelosi and I believe VP Biden have also been refused sacraments because of their pro-choice stand. I don’t know enough to say if that amounts to a formal excommunication or not.
(3) Please note that when I refer to the Roman Catholic Church, the hierarchy etc I used the third person. My observations could have been made re hierarchy of practically any other mainstream denomination but would have little value in Maltese context. Nowhere do I speak about whether I am a member (active or otherwise) or not so you are jumping to conclusions.
[Daphne – I wasn’t referring to you as such. I used the pronoun ‘you’ as an alternative to ‘one’ or ‘they’. So to make myself clearer: I can’t understand why people who resent the Catholic Church and who object to what it does at the same time insist/ed on being considered part of it and protest/ed when they are/were kicked out.]
(4) As to last comment, I appreciate you have a life. My comment to Chris II was content neutral – “for some reason”.
Have a nice day!