Passing the buck back to the electorate
“I feel that the privilege of deciding on something important and vital to our society – the family – should not be taken by 69 MPs but by the electorate.” – the prime minister, last Wednesday
We elect MPs to take decisions on our behalf, not to chicken out of taking them and pass the buck back to us.
An amendment to the Civil Code – which is what divorce simply is – does not require or justify a referendum vote. And that is quite apart from the fact that a referendum is a democratic tool and should not be used – cynically – to hinder democratic development.
We are not talking EU membership here.
We are not talking integration with Britain.
We are talking about amending the Civil Code to allow for the de jure termination of a contract of marriage when that marriage is de facto well and truly over.
Divorce cannot possibly affect further a family unit that has broken down already – not negatively, anyway.
It is very strange that the prime minister should seek to create such special status and significance around divorce when no divorce law can ever change the nature, shape, function and administration of the Maltese family unit as fundamentally – and permanently – as did that piece of legislation known as ‘Shab Indaqs fiz-Zwieg’.
I saw no fuss being made there, even though the legislation changed the structure of the family and of marriage completely, removing the husband as head of the household and elevating the wife from her former status of disenfranchised child to that of equal status with her husband.
I would say that this was a major cause of much of the marital breakdown we have seen since. But it had to be done, even if it meant that people who married under one legal regime suddenly found themselves married under a completely different one.
Nobody in the Nationalist Party spoke about a referendum then. Sticking it in the electoral programme (where nobody noticed it) was enough.
And it shouldn’t even have been a voting matter, should it? Imagine voting on whether to end the subjugation and disenfranchisement of women in marriage. The very idea is as shocking as voting on whether people might be allowed to terminate their marriage contracts when their marriage has long since broken down.
47 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
The PN should put divorce legislation in its electoral programme. The Labour leader has ruled out having divorce in his party’s programme.
The PN could promise a referendum to endorse or reject a proposed form of law – like the EU referendum was called after the negotiations had been concluded.
In any event, the government can now gauge the sentiment of the public on the subject, hoping that people will be reading JPO’s bill under their beach umbrella this summer.
I am a bit in the dark as to whether this conversation is about civil marriage or is it also about a marriage in church? Sorry for my ignorance!
You could also mention the 1993 agreement with the Vatican which gave the workings and decisions of ecclesiastical courts the upper hand over those of the civil courts.
At the time, that fundamental change (of dubious constitutionality, I should add) was not thought worth of a referendum even though it did not feature in the 1992 Nationalist electoral programme.
All that was conceded was a free vote to government MPs which was probably given for no other reason that Fenech-Adami, at his Jesuitical best, wanted to ensure that MPs dissenting in private would ultimately vote for ratification.
Seeing how the leaders of the two major political parties have already taken opposing stands on the issue, the country will soon be practically divided over whether divorce should be introduced or otherwise.
Therefore, sticking it in the electoral programme will inevitably lead to the results of the next general election being determined by the most popular stand – taken by the two major political parties – on the sole issue of divorce.
That, I believe, is undesirable and wholly undermines the whole purpose of a general election. A referendum, on the other hand, is a mechanism which is, sui generis, intended to determine one sole issue and, given the local scenario relative to the issue, I believe is ideal, from a political perspective, to determine whether divorce should be introduced or otherwise.
Government has no mandate to legislate for divorce. Divorce is not simply a decision by individuals to terminate contractual arrangements between spouses: it has far-reaching effects on society.
[Daphne – The effects of divorce on society are NOT far-reaching. The effects of marital breakdown are. Divorce is the termination of a contract. It is not the breakdown of a marriage. You cannot have laws to stop marital breakdown. And that’s why Maltese marriages are breaking down in their thousands – with far-reaching effects on society. I hate to break this to you 200 years + after the Age of Enlightenment, but the individual is no longer seen as a cog in the wheel of society, to be sacrificed for the greater good.]
Members of the community should have the right to decide whether a measure of this magnitude, affecting the lives of those who would have nothing to do with, it should be introduced.
A referendum might not be the best way to go about it, but the proposal should form part of the electoral manifesto of those parties which believe it should form part of our legal system.
”The effects of marital breakdown are. Divorce is the termination of a contract. It is not the breakdown of a marriage”
It could be argued that there could only be an increase in marital breakdown with the introduction of divorce as people would get married more rashly (and possibly have kids in the process), knowing divorce is an easy way out when the going gets tough.
[Daphne – Read my comment again. Divorce is not marital breakdown. It is what comes AFTER marital breakdown. In other words, the marriage breaks down and THEN you get a divorce. So in what way, and how, can divorce be ‘an easy way out when the going gets tough’? An easy way out of what? ]
” And that’s why Maltese marriages are breaking down in their thousands – with far-reaching effects on society” .
How does that make sense? Not having divorce legislation should not increase marital breakdown. What it could hinder, is the setting up of new families through re-marriage, but the benefit of that is arguable.
[Daphne – Please read my comment again. I did not say that the absence of divorce legislation increases marital breakdown. I said that marriages break down irrespective of whether or not we have divorce legislation, because divorce is not marital breakdown but the termination of a contract. Nor does the absence of divorce hinder the setting up of new families – look around you, and you’ll see that.]
‘‘I hate to break this to you 200 years + after the Age of Enlightenment, but the individual is no longer seen as a cog in the wheel of society, to be sacrificed for the greater good”
That is where the Catholic Church differs and why ultimately all rational arguments it puts forward will be shot down. Whilst the Church sees society as a whole in these cases, Liberalists and alike put individual freedom (and rights if you will) above all else.
[Daphne – Obviously so. That’s why we’re so lucky to be living in Europe, where theocracies are not possible. A country governed by the Catholic Church would be the equivalent of Iran, but without the hanging-from-cranes, public whipping and stoning. The Catholic Church can put forward no rational arguments, for the simple reason that religious belief is fundamentally irrational. It’s a matter of faith, remember? If it weren’t for your ‘Liberalists’ and the Enlightenment you scorn, we would still be living in the terrible, frightening and horrendously stressful European religious regimes that were the precise equivalent of present-day Iran. ]
If you start off from two different premises no side of the argument is right or wrong, and ultimately the situation would boil down to relativism.
[Daphne – Oh, go on. Honestly. Saudi Arabia versus Sweden. Which is best place for a woman to live?]
Relativism! Horror of horrors!
And haven’t you realized that the only reason why a good number of Catholic Church officials wail and gnash their teeth at “relativism” is because the Church has lost its control over people? That people can no longer be frightened with fire in the afterlife and excommunication?
Funny, it looks as though these pious crusaders would rather continue to live in a country of adulterers bent on colouring their love-lives as much as possible, than in a normal European country where people are allowed to divorce quietly and with dignity.
‘religious belief is fundamentally irrational.’ What a howler! So some of the very best minds in the history of humanity were irrational, because they embraced religious belief?
An Aquinas, a Pascal, a Francis Collins were and are irrational because they were and are believers?
‘ It’s a matter of faith, remember?’ on the complementarity of faith and reason, have a look at John Paul II’s Fides and Ratio.
[Daphne – Yes, it is perfectly possible to be rational in everything except religious belief. In our own time and place, Peter Serracino Inglott is one such example. Religious belief is irrational by definition, because it depends on faith/belief rather than logic, facts and commonsense. Believing in transubstantiation, virgin birth, assumption into heaven and the rest is obviously irrational. You believe because you want to believe, and not because you have reasoned it out.]
Italy is the answer!
—
Ironically, Daphne, it seems that Europe is marching toward the post-Enlightenment.
PSI gave us a hint of this a couple of Sundays back, without telling us the consequences. I do not believe he does not know them: scholars have been writing about them for decades now…
Daphne, do you think you can browbeat your interlocutors with a farrago of logical contradictions and unfounded statements?
‘The effects of divorce on society are NOT far-reaching.’ Prove it. Is this why in broken Britain they are tightening the legal conditions of divorce?
[Daphne – Oh, really, are they? I hadn’t noticed. And do you honestly think the situation in Britain is any different to the situation in Malta, where one in every three babies is now born out of wedlock? Wake up. The only thing that’s different in Malta is that the place is so small that children don’t lose touch with their father or his parents, as they would in Britain, because it’s larger. Apart from that, Maltese society is a perfect microcosm of British society. It’s why we find it so easy to relate to the goings-on in Eastenders.]
‘Divorce is not the breakdown of a marriage’.
Prove that a widespread divorcist mentality has not led to more breakdown in marriage, or that, as statistics clearly show, divorced couples are more liable to break up their second marriage than those who haven’t divorced.
[Daphne – You know, I have a lot of patience, but sometimes it wears really thin. Your thinking and reasoning are extremely clouded. A second marriage can break down precisely because it exists in the first place. We have almost no breakdown of second marriages here in Malta because there are hardly any second marriages. However, if you were to study the breakdown rate of second RELATIONSHIPS post the first marriage, you will find that it is quite astonishingly high. I know rather a lot of people whose marriages have broken down (I am in that age group). All of them have had relationships with other people since. Very few have stayed together. But you know what? It’s none of your business, or anyone else’s. You don’t ban divorce because people are naughty and refuse to settle down again – and my god, to break up one marriage is bad but to break up two means you’re grounded for life. Second relationships in the post-children years are obviously going to be harder because they are essentially pointless. At a biological level, pairing up is mating, and mating is for breeding. Remove that from the equation and every day you’re questioning exactly why you’re with this person. In a first marriage, you start on the adventure of setting up home, filling it with stuff, having babies, raising them, and generally growing up. In a second relationship, you have none of that purpose and no such distractions, so your mate has to be REALLY amusing or he or she has had it.]
‘And that’s why Maltese marriages are breaking down in their thousands’
Show us how a law on divorce will stop that, once you claimed that ‘You cannot have laws to stop marital breakdown.’
[Daphne – You’re not thinking straight. Divorce is not there to stop marital breakdown. It is there to sort out the legal messes that come afterward, when and if new relationships are formed. With a cohabitation law and no divorce, what we’re going to have is a form of legalised bigamy. But better that than divorce, eh?]
About your vaunted Enlightenment, before you go on singing uncriitically its praises, I suggest you do some scholarly reading, starting with Adorno and Horkheimer and going on to Zigmunt Bauman.
[Daphne – Here we go: the war of the intellect. When all else fails, let fly with the name-dropping. It doesn’t work like that, I’m sorry. Whether or not you wish to divorce is between you and your spouse alone, and nobody else has the right to interfere. This is fundamental. The extension of your argument that people should not be allowed to divorce is that they should not be allowed to leave each other and form new unions. If they are allowed to leave each other and form new unions, then the logical extension of that fact is that they should be permitted to de jure terminate a contract that de facto is no longer in force. Marriage is not spiritual, but a matter of civil law, and all matters of civil law can be sorted out by agreement between the parties involved. If they wish to terminate any other contract, they can. Marriage should be no different. Of course, if you see marriage as spiritual, then you are coming at the matter from a totally different standpoint and your arguments have no place in a secular forum.]
You couldn’t have possibly read Adorno, Horkheimer and Bauman and understood them. You seem to reason and follow an argument like an eight-year-old. Simply understanding how you got from Daphne’s arguments to your conclusions takes quite a bit of imagination.
Anyway, you can argue all you want. Objectively, there is simply no reason for the government to deny its citizens divorce. If Gonzi wants to “strengthen” the family, we will all appreciate it, but using the law to complicate the lives of people in unhappy marriages is simply unacceptable in this day and age.
Charles, and how many countries did these three wise man convince to legislate against divorce? None. Bully for their convincing arguments. Get out of your shell and take a good look around you.
Why are you afraid of the democratic tool of referendum? If divorce is a civil right why don’t you fight it out in court in Malta and Europe.
At no point in the above submission did I catch a whiff of fear or anything of the sort.
If anything past comments by Daphne and others here have highlighted the perils of trusting the rights of the few in the hands of many.
Hiding behind the uncultured mob and calling it democracy in reality shows an intellectually bankrupt position.
Hear hear!!
Daphne at her best, especially in The Malta Independent on Sunday article on the same subject: objective, non-partisan, factual, well-informed, full of gumption.
I read the Independent article twice and could find absolutely no fault with it apart from, perhaps, that the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority for amendment.
Actually it is only entrenched articles that require this qualified majority. But this is a minor detail which in no way affects her well-reasoned arguments. Congratulations.
It is an egregious breach of equality that persons residing in Malta have no access to divorce, while at the same time Malta recognizes, on a faith and credit basis, any divorce that is granted by a foreign court.
Matters of civil or human rights should NEVER be determined by way of a referendum.
Mela you are watching the final of World Cup? Ftakar ftit fina ta’ please, ghax ahna hawn nistennew inkunu.
[Daphne – Le, x’ World Cup, xi dwejjaq. I hate sports. I’ve just spent two and a half hours watering the garden.]
Watersports?
OK, I take that back.
U iva, mil-ewwel indunajt li wasalt umbaghad. A very good evening to you. Hate all sports too. Ahjar hawn nara biex hierga int.
J Busuttil, how many times must it be repeated to you and those who think like you that civil rights are not the subject of referenda? A right remains a right even if nobody wants it.
A right is something which needs not to be proved – it is self-evident.
Your understanding of democracy is also fallacious. Democracy is not always what the majority wants. Would the election of a Hitler by the majority result in a democracy?
The American declaration of Independence states:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Notice that it says “to secure these rights”, which means the rights already exist (because they are self-evident) and it is the duty of governments to secure them, to guarantee them, and not to give them away as a concession. This is how you should understand the meaning of a right.
It is hard not to despair in this country. Look at this gem published in today’s The Times. Mr. Duca is suggesting that citizens should be treated like children by a patronizing State:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100712/letters/the-many-facets-of-the-divorce-debate-1
With wise counsellors like this one, I think a referendum is the last thing we need.
I’m sorry, your reasoning is muddled.
Democracy IS the rule of the majority, and if the majority elect Hitler then it IS a democratic decision.
That does not mean that a democracy will always arrive at the correct decision. It is just a decision that encapsulates the will of the majority of voters at that particular moment in time.
[Daphne – That is the narrow meaning of democracy: majority rule. Real democracy is concerned with justice, freedom and the rights of the individual. By definition, electing a fascist to bring in oppression and mass murder of minorities cannot be democratic. “(Socrates) offered us a way out of two powerful delusions: that we should always or never listen to the dictates of public opinion. To follow his example, we will best be rewarded if we strive instead to listen always to the dictates of reason.” – Alain de Botton, The Consolations of Philosophy]
It’s really quite simple. Lawrence Gonzi is afraid he’ll burn in hell for all eternity if divorce is introduced in Malta on his watch. This may sound facetious, but in my opinion it all boils down to that.
Gonzi, Fenech Adami and Abela feel like they’re the bulwark keeping Malta within the Catholic fold… they have a sacrosanct duty to impose the Vatican’s will on Malta’s citizens.
The divorce issue is showing us especially those of us who had any doubts that they do not work in the interest of the people all the time and probably they rarely do. If the people of these islands were up to it, they would strongly turn against these rubbish politicians.
Daphne: you are right. Parliament can and should discuss.
But only if the people gives it a mandate to discuss it.
A referendum on divorce itself would be probably short-sighted.
But a referendum (at this stage) or an inclusion of divorce in a party’s manifesto is sine qua non to start the discussion.
Let us not throw the baby with the water out of the political window!
Correct prodecure:
1. Mandate
2. Parliamentary debate
No mandate, no debate.
Bondi put it nicely in yesterday’s Times:
“This silliness about a parliamentary debate on a Private Member’s motion on divorce in this legislature should cease. Both parties need to go back to their respective tents and not emerge before they have hammered out a coherent position. Then they should put that position in their electoral manifesto. And let the people decide.”
[Daphne – I don’t agree with Lou at all. Nor with you. The people should never be permitted to decide on divorce – just as they were not permitted to decide whether women should remain disenfranchised and powerless within their marriages. As I recall, Lou comes from a totally different standpoint: that the state has no business regulating and licensing relationships.]
I also entirely disagree with Lou Bondi’s insistence on mandates. It seems to me that people, incorrectly, commonly are applying the logic of “mandate by party manifesto” to the 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which limits the powers of the federal government to only those specifically granted by the constitution – which makes sense in a federal republic. Malta is not a federal republic; but that is not the issue.
More specifically, since when is the constitutional function of a parliament according to its responsibilities governed by a “party manifesto” as if such manifestos were periodic (at election time) amendments to the Constitution of Malta?
Parliament should go back to the constitution and go about their proper business of legislating whatever needs to be legislated for. In this case the obvious need is a good divorce law.
Of course, as opposed to a bad divorce law.
However, mandates are the basis of parliamentary democracy. This is basic political and constitutional theory.
Bondì is wrong on all counts. Electoral manifestos are about ideological policies, not civil rights like divorce. But really. This is 2010 and the political parties are shitting themselves at the mention of the Forbidden Word. Vision 2015? Daqs dan.
Beg to differ!
Baxxter is saying the same thing as Daphne but more openly: “Electoral manifestos are about ideological policies, not civil rights like divorce.”
The inherent contradiction in this position is that civil rights are independent of political ideology. This is incorrect.
Civil rights are completely dependent on political ideology.
Let us take the US as an example. The Republicans consider the right to bear arms as a civil right; the Democrats don’t (or so it seems). Etc etc etc
Civil rights do not exist aprioristically; they are the result of direct political action.
It is fundamental human rights which exist independently of the political will of the sovereign state.
Il-qahba xi dwejjaq. How about “normality” instead of “civil rights”. Does that satisfy you?
You don’t think there’s anything remotely wrong in being the only country, bar that screwed-up place called the Philippines, that doesn’t have divorce legislation. Right. Way to go.
I suppose you’re one of those space cadets full of “fiducja” who believe in making Malta a centre of excellence, raising the GDP per capita, providing good, highly-paid jobs, building the best infrastructure and attracting foreign direct investment, making Malta an ICT hub, and to top it all off, marketing us as a centre for creative thinking. Without divorce.
And the “inherent contradiction” in all this VisionSpeak completely escapes you.
As it does Gonzi and his cabinet. Who get lectures from Joe Woods on thinking outside the box, and then promptly chuck it all away to cling to their provincial 19th-century Sicilian shyte-vision.
I despair. All in the name of what? “Insahhu l-familja”? “Keeping up our reputation as the straitjacketed unpopular nerds of the world”, more like.
AFAIK, the right to bear arms is already in the US constitution. In this case some Democrats (those not corrupted by the gun lobby) would like to revoke it. Some states and cities had effectively bypassed this and already instituted gun control laws. The supreme court has just decided that those laws are unconstitutional.
To recap, Democrats need a majority in House and Senate to add an amendment to the constitution in favour of gun control. A similar situation happened with the 18th amendment that made access to liquor very difficult, almost illegal. In contrast, Nixon, when he wanted to repeat this but on drugs didn’t go through all that and simply commissioned a doctored report and started his war on drugs that to this day is a testament to government waste and has become a modern day Jim Crow law…
— from an avid follower but alas no expert in the field, so shoot at will
@ Baxxter
No, Baxxter, I am not full of fiducja etc.
But there are procedures to be followed. That is my point. Actually, so far I have not profferred a single argument for or against divorce.
I am only insisting on the rule of law.
No mandate, no law.
Popular mandate, then yes Parliament can legislate.
All I’m saying is: let us protect democracy.
Don’t we see eye to eye on this?
Democracy is protected with an open government, free media and free and fair elections. If we had to have a referendum for everything you might not agree with we’ll have a useless parliament.
California is a good example of a stalled government because of the onerous requirement of approving changes to laws through referenda.
Too much of a good thing, Borg. Moderation is better.
I am not saying there should be a referendum for everything! Where did you get this notion from?
All I am saying is that civil rights should be introduced by a referendum.
“All I am saying is that civil rights should be introduced by a referendum.”
You can say what you want, but you have to back it up with some cogent arguments, preferably backed by some real world examples.
@ Joe Borg
I think I have been making cogent arguments for the past three days. If you haven’t following, it’s not my fault, man!
Since you ask for them (and cannot look them up for yourself), here are some examples from the real world (as opposed to what? comics?):
1. Divorce introduced without referendum: England (Henry VIII) more than hundred years before 1688; Henry VIII beheaded two of his wives… but perhaps that’s just a morbid detail and has nothing to do with the attitude toward divorce…
2. Divorce introduced upon referendum: Ireland and Italy, in the 1970s.
Divorce with no referendum = early modern. Divorce with referendum = exquisitely modern.
Do you need more real world examples?
[Daphne – Go back to one of my earlier posts. ITALY DID NOT HOLD A REFERENDUM BEFORE LEGISLATING FOR DIVORCE. IRELAND ONLY HELD A REFERENDUM BECAUSE IT HAD TO: THE BAN ON DIVORCE WAS ‘ENTRENCHED’ IN THE CONSTITUTION AND THE IRISH CONSTITUTION CAN BE AMENDED ONLY BY REFERENDUM VOTE. THE REFERENDUM WAS HELD TO REMOVE THE BAN. NO CONSTITUTIONAL BAN, NO REFERENDUM. HENRY VIII DID NOT ‘INTRODUCE’ DIVORCE. HE CUT HIMSELF OFF FROM THE AUTHORITY OF ROME BUT CONTINUED TO THINK OF HIMSELF AS A CATHOLIC. THE BAN ON DIVORCE WAS AND STILL IS IMPOSED BY ROME. NOT BEING TIED TO THE AUTHORITY OF ROME, HE COULD DIVORCE. BRITAIN HAD DIVORCE MUCH EARLIER THAN HENRY VIII. IT WAS THE BAN ON DIVORCE WHICH WAS ‘NEW’ TO BRITAIN, AND NOT THE OTHER WAY ROUND. BRITAIN HAD DIVORCE BECAUSE ROME HAD DIVORCE, AND IT FOUND ITSELF WITH A BAN ON DIVORCE FOR THE SAME REASON. ALSO, DIVORCE IN THOSE TIMES HAD RELEVANCE ONLY FOR THOSE WHO MADE STRATEGIC, DYNASTIC OR ECONOMICALLY ADVANTAGEOUS MARRIAGES. THE VAST MASS OF THE POPULATION DIDN’T EVEN BOTHER WITH A RELIGIOUS MARRIAGE RITE. PURELY BY LIVING TOGETHER THEY WERE CONSIDERED ‘MARRIED’. THEY COULD GO AND COME AS THEY PLEASED, BUT THEY TENDED NOT TO DO SO BECAUSE PEOPLE MARRIED FOR PRAGMATIC REASONS AND CALCULATED THEIR ODDS. Incidentally, that’s not shouting; it’s spelling it out.]
This is why I like you: “Incidentally, that’s not shouting; it’s spelling it out.”
“I feel that the privilege of deciding on something important and vital to our society – the family – should not be taken by 69 MPs but by the electorate.” – the prime minister, last Wednesday
PONTIUS PILOTESQUE – let the mob decide. We all know what happened that time.
The privilege of deciding something important and vital to a family resides within the family. Not with the 69 MPs or the electorate at large.
[Daphne – The family doesn’t legislate, does it.]
Is he suggesting “one vote per family” in a referendum? Right. OK. Deep breath.
What I meant was: Gonzi wants to delegate this important decision to Joe Public, so then why not let the individual partners decide their own case?
My comment was ludicrously complicated. Let’s stop it here.
Malta is bipolar in almost everything. And beyond that, mention human rights to anyone in the street and you’d be lucky to get a shrug and a vacant look.
Reading the comments on timesofmalta.com, and sometimes even the news stories, I often find myself saying: ‘and this person has a vote which s/he exercises?’
A referendum on divorce – I don’t think so.
Why do I get the feeling that in Malta, right across the social strata, people are being blackmailed, pressurised into living as they don’t want to live, do what they don’t want to do, a kind of pervasive fear that hangs in the air?
Passing the buck is symptomatic of this and it hits one in the face like a London smog (although we’ve cleaned up our act quite well for a city this size).
[Daphne – The pervasive fear and sense of blackmail that you pick up is pretty accurate. It’s what comes from being watched all the time and never having any privacy or freedom.]
Daphne, thanks for your comment. I’ve lived in London, the ‘evil’ city, for near to fifty years. There are Catholics of course, the odd evangelising columnist in the popular press, but other than that, people here seem to live their religious life personally and privately. The Italians are like that too.
In Malta religion is in your face too much. No doubt because of its size. Is it still the case of people being watched, never having privacy or freedom?
[Daphne – Yes, it’s terrible. Everyone knows your business, gossip is vile, endless tut-tutting and inventing of rumours, speculation, invention of ‘facts’ when there are no real ones to suit, spying, reporting of movements. It’s one of the reasons people here are under so much stress, without even really understanding why.]
All these are characteristics of small communities so it is inevitable. With church and state playing cat and mouse almost, with parliamentarians and the electorate often being held over a barrel.
We want Malta to be some kind of perfect model of Roman Catholicism.
I find it interesting that Spain allows gay marriages. And yet God won them the coveted World Cup (I hate football) instead of smiting them. When did the divine hand last reward Malta for its sanctity?
Daphne, I feel for my people because, apart from being shackled by a belief system that’s visible (and heard) all over the place – meaning expressing any dissent is difficult because of blah, blah…they are also hindered by a serious lack of adequate vocabulary to express their feelings. I can imagine the pent up feelings, the knee-jerk outpourings, the lashing out at the least nothing……..it cannot go on!
I was travelling on the London underground this morning. I saw, at the end of the carriage, a very blond man’s head. Can it be? I thought. So I deftly manoeuvred myself up the carriage, avoiding people’s legs and copies of Metro, and came near the man. Eye-contact, how are you? I said.
Fine, he said with a deep cheeky dimple, and he shook my hand. Have a good day he said. Have a good London, Mr. Mayor.
He had a woman with him, probably a secretary/personal assistant. And once outside White City, they headed towards the BBC Studio complex. I went to my dentist. It fairly made my day.
I cannot imagine this divorce debate in the UK and Boris Johnson being against it. He is known to travel on public transport with no minders. Amazing!