Cyrus Engerer
The ongoing kerfuffle is the subject of my column in tomorrow’s The Malta Independent on Sunday, so I won’t anticipate it here.
I just have one word of advice for Mr Engerer today: remember that in a relatively unsophisticated society like this one, where women and homosexual men are seen as alternatives to heterosexual men rather than as viable occupiers of key roles in their own right, whatever you do or say is perceived in the context of your entire group.
In other words, you are not just Cyrus Engerer, as you would be in a more sophisticated society, but you are an ambassador for homosexual men, a position you have chosen to take up yourself with declarations which were very well received.
When you were the most well-mannered, most well-turned-out and most well-spoken guest on recent television shows, you changed perception among the prejudiced, even if you don’t know it. You also held out hope to those who are still afraid of how their homosexuality will be perceived, and whose only public role models of gay men so far have been very camp hairdressers talking about make-up on morning shows and wearing flamboyant clothes.
I hope you realise this. I’m sure you do.
Don’t do anything that will make you seem erratic, attention-seeking and unreliable. Your message so far has been consistent. Don’t muddle that perception with inconsistent behaviour. Resign from the PN by all means – to be honest about it, it’s exactly what the prime minister should have done if he felt so strongly about the divorce bill, rather than vote No.
But switching to the Labour Party is not just dishonourable, as some have said. Worse than that, it makes you look shallow and unthinking. Political parties are not band clubs or football teams. They represent an entire political philosophy and outlook.
Just as we instinctively mistrust the intellectual capacity and integrity of a devout Catholic who suddenly decides to become a Muslim or Hindu (or the other way round) – and wonder what is wrong with him, rather than what is wrong with Catholicism – so we doubt the depth of thought and strength of character, to say nothing of the sincerity, of somebody who becomes active in the Nationalist Party after having been active in Labour all his life, or the other way round.
I’m not talking about voting here. It’s perfectly reasonable for somebody to vote Labour in one general election and then prefer the electoral programme of the Nationalist Party in the election after that. But being an active politician is something else again.
I speak to you as a member of yet another ‘minority group’, albeit one which is not a minority at all. The more accurate word with African immigrants, homosexuals and women until recently is not ‘minority’ but ‘repressed’ or ‘oppressed’, although with homosexuals the oppression and repression come largely from fear of self rather than fear of others.
When I entered public life as a newspaper columnist 21 years ago, I was the only woman on the scene, and worse still – which is how many saw it – I was only 25. The Sunday Times, for which I then wrote, did not even employ women in the newsroom. It had no women journalists. Its policy was to employ only men.
In the perception of the time – and we forget how the past 20 years have changed things dramatically – women were silly, unthinking, ‘mhux kapaci’, and incapable of forming thoughts let alone putting them into words. Women were supposed to communicate in all situations by flirting and being pleasing to men, or if they were past that point to be silent and submissive. It was an Islamic society without the veils (and no wonder the situation exploded beyond control, going from one extreme to the other after years of repression).
I was determined to confound that expectation of what women should be like, and I did. Of course, the net result was that the ‘progressives’ in our midst – the ones you plan to join – spread the propaganda that I am really a man in disguise or a witch (you know, like in pre-Enlightenment days) but let them do it.
The main thing is that I know I’ve confounded prejudiced expectations of what women should be and are like, and given hope to other women who, locked up in their households, had actually begun to believe the received wisdom that they are not worthy of anything but mopping floors and wiping bottoms.
Think clearly, Cyrus. You don’t only represent yourself. This is unfortunate, but it is a present fact of life which will change only with time. Homosexual men are, in Malta today, where women were two decades ago.
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http://www.maltastar.com/pages/r1/ms10dart.asp?a=16106
He is now proving that he never was a bright chap anyway. You don’t switch sides and talk about how bad it was.
Also, you wouldn’t want to take advice from Nikita Alamango, would you?
Having said that, I think this is one of the worst jolts the PN has to suck up I’m afraid. But Lawrence Gonzi is showing he’s not particularly bright as well for allowing Paul Borg Olivier to enter the election for secretary-general, when there was a real risk he would win, and he did. Both must go, and now. There should be an instant wipe-out of the old guard and let others within the PN do the job.
The Eddie Fenech Adami-Joe Saliba mechanism was so sleek compared to this one.
Daphne is right. This proves it.
http://www.maltastar.com/pages/r1/ms10dart.asp?a=16129
As you clearly realise, Daphne, a new reality is evolving.
The Labour Party, in spite of its leadership, is attracting the best politicians around.
[Daphne – Who are these ‘best politicians’, Adrian, because all I see is Cyrus. And why I might agree with his views, and I certainly do, his day to night switch to Labour shows the absence of political skill and nous, not the other way round. Look at the Labour line-up and tell me exactly who is such a great politician among them. It’s a struggle even to see a decent person, let alone a good politician.]
Should it win the next general elections, and present ministers or Parliamentary Secretaries like Deborah Schembri, Cyrus Engerer, Chris Fearne and Owen Bonnici to name but a few, it will have a most liberal outlook that will keep it popular with the disillusioned liberals in Malta.
[Daphne – Adrian, I have lived and breathed Maltese politics long enough to be able to explain to you that, when dinosaurs like Anglu Farrugia and Karmenu Vella have been gagging for power and straining at the leash in frustration since 1987 (bar that 22-month blip) there is no way on earth that they are going to cede a cabinet position or even a parliamentary secretary’s post to a newcomer. They will be mired in the mess in which the Nationalist Party is mired now, precisely because votes and clout, not skill and forward-looking attitudes, are traded for cabinet positions.]
I don’t know to what point the leadership will be an obstacle but if Joe Muscat has any sense in him, and I believe that this is a fault which we can’t blame on him, he will behave like a Californian director I recently employed to direct a play for me.
His policy to actors was “bring what you can to the production. If it is good, I will get credit for it.” If Joe Muscat sits back and allows these liberal minds do their work, he will be credited for it. And I think he is wise enough to see that.
Also, the inclusion of people like Cyrus Engerer in the Labour fold finally makes the party a viable alternative as policy-making will no longer depend on the whims of Adrian Vasallo and other dinosaurs of his ilk.
In conclusion, I think that the inolvement of people like Deborah Schembri and Cyrus Engerer with the Labour Party is a positive thing as it helps in making the LP viable.
[Daphne – I agree that it is a positive thing for Labour, but Deborah and Cyrus will rapidly discover that it is not a positive thing for them, just as the rest of us discover that token blacks do not make for a racially diverse political party, nor have any bearing on how the party monolith actually functions.]
If Labour does not give the newcomers credible posts of responsibility, then it is its fault that it will be returned to the Opposition benches in the following elections. It is as simple as that.
At the moment, Labour is attracting the best liberal politicians around, see Deborah Schembri and Cyrus Engerer.
[Daphne – Adrian, liberal politics are not defined by a position on divorce or gay rights. It is quite possible to be left wing, right wing, socialist or conservative and still be in favour of divorce and same-sex marriage. To see whether the politics of a person or political party are liberal, you have to assess their stance on immigration, the economy, education, freedom of movement, the European Union, and so very many other issues. On this basis, the Nationalist Party is liberal and the Labour Party is anything but.]
For all the faults of the dinosaurs with in the party, there are other good and able politicians within the party as well in the form of Owen Bonnici, Gavin Gulia, George Abela’s son and Chris Fearne. Carmelo Abela is not bad himself when not speaking about divorce but at least he had the foresight to acknowledge the will of the people and change his stance. Dinosaurs like Marie Louise Coleiro Preca (even if she’s back, God help us) and Adrian Vassallo are not feeling comfortable in the party anymore.
So I feel that Labour has a golden opportunity here to rise from the mire and create a future for itself by trusting the new faces. If, as you say, it will not, then its undoing will be completely of its doing.
I repeat, the best thing Joseph Muscat can do is trust the new crop of Labour politicians and reap the benefits and praise of their work. Maybe this is wishful thinking, but hey, shoot me for being a dreamer.
And sadly, the best thing to happen to the Nationalist Party is to regroup in opposition and clean itself from its own dinosaurs. People like Tonio Borg, Tonio Fenech and Austin Gatt are just as bad as Anglu Farrugia, Karmenu Vella and those of their ilk.
[Daphne – That last line is an absolute heresy and slanderous.]
Daphne you seem to forget that 21 years ago we had a female President, don’t say she was a he because that is what the PN used to say. Whatever she was she was the first female Minister and the one and only female President.
[Daphne – My point exactly, Grace: the only role models that women had then were butch dykes (excuse the expression) in ‘serious’ public life and idiotic flirtatious fools in entertainment, like singers and actresses, who in those days did not have a ‘serious’ side to them. I upset people’s expectations precisely because I was young, attractive, not butch or masculine, married with three children who I looked after full-time, and STILL I COULD THINK CLEARLY AND WRITE ABOUT WHAT I THOUGHT. And then had to put up with irritating fools asking me whether my father or my husband ‘helped me with my write-ups’. Thank God I’m polite under stress most times, because the Sliema seafront would have been littered with dead bodies in the early 1990s.]
Susan Malvaney was also a journalist at the freedom press over 30 years ago.
[Daphne – Yes, writing about etiquette and how to lay a table, consolidating the stereotypes. Please.]
So you see if whoever said you are a man in disguise or a witch said that for other reasons and not the one you mentioned.
[Daphne – Yes, no doubt because I really am a witch and a man in disguise. Grow up, Grace. You’ve just illustrated my point and you don’t even realise it. You’ve spent an hour digging around for examples of women in public life in Malta in the 1980s and all you could come up with was, precisely, somebody who would have had a sex change were she young today, and at the other extreme, a softly-spoken, timid-sounding Miss Prissy who made a radio career out of explaining to housewives what they had best wear to weddings. ]
Daphne, and Susan used to “dish out” recipes specifically targeted to the “mara tad-dar” which at the time was just about the only “career” a woman could pursue after leaving school, usually before the age of 16.
I think Cyrus had no choice but to join Labour. He could not remain in the PN so he left.
However, in the politically obsessed Maltese society the idea of being independent of any party means you are voiceless (i.e. discounted by the media) and not worth more than a tree growing in a roundabout.
It is no different than being outside the Catholic Church in ultra-Catholic Malta of the 1950s and earlier. Cyrus had to join Labour in order to have a voice to promote his views and not because he agrees with Labour. I suppose the same goes for Dr Deborah Schembri. The problem is the politically-controlled media, and of course Lawrence Gonzi’s recent stance.
[Daphne – I have a voice and I promote my views, and I am not active in any political party, still less a politician seeking election or elected already. The real trouble with this society is the belief that you have to join a political party to bring about change or say what you think in an intelligible manner. I think I have brought about more change and had more influence on the way people think than very many MPs who have sat in the house for years, and whose name people don’t even know because they never say or do anything beyond work in their constituency to collect ‘number ones’. Cyrus has a high profile already. He doesn’t need to become an MP to make himself heard. His value in the Nationalist Party would not have been as an MP per se but as somebody who could help bring about change from within.]
The prime minister has become Malta’s Shakespearean Macbeth who believed with all his conscience that he was charmed in life and could persist in his ways, undisturbed by the fact that his allies and his people were all deserting him. Birnam Wood is now just outside Castille, waiting….
Cyrus, don’t rush. You are no fool. Only fools rush in.
I guess he is one, after all. He had us all fooled.
According to Malta Today, Cyrus wrote “Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi no longer represents the Maltese people.”
Why does he say so? At most, the PM voted against the will of the majority in a referendum.
Well, does Joseph Muscat represent anyone, other than Joseph Cuschieri who gave him his seat? And we all know what Joseph Cuschieri got in return.
“At most, the PM voted against the will of the majority in a referendum.”
Which means that he isn’t representing the Maltese people….
I fail to see this point, and no matter how much explanation, I believe I will not be convinced otherwise, sorry.
Firstly, the PM represents the people on so many issues and you cannot judge his representation on one single issue – he cannot be in agreement with everything that represents a majority in society.
This would exclude that we can ever have a gay or a Muslim prime minister, for instance, because the gay and Muslim communitis are minorities.
Secondly, since the PM campaigned against, and Joseph campaigned for divorce, and since we have known the result from the end of May, then, does that mean that, since the end of May, Joseph Muscat has been representing the Maltese people, and he became the new Prime Minister, solely because he was on the winning side in the referendum on divorce?
Are not those who stayed at home or abstained part of the Maltese people?
Let the PM represent my NO vote. Was I the only person who voted no? 2/3 of voters did not vote yes… have they no right to be represented in our Parliament?
[Daphne – No, because there was a referendum. Had there been no referendum, then the answer would be yes. You are represented by your MP ONLY WHEN YOU ARE UNABLE TO VOTE YOURSELF.]
Liberalism stops where Daphne says. OK Bob?
[Daphne – No, actually liberalism is well-defined. I just happen to know what it is while apparently others here think it’s all about divorce, abortion and same-sex marriages.]
Am I not liberal when I say that the Prime Minister should vote as he feels as long it is for the country?
No. Most definitely not. “Liberal” means preferring individual liberty over state control. Yours would be the perfect definition of dictatorship: The leader votes according to his whim, not the people’s decision.
Baxx, stupid me, I always thought that dictators don’t vote.
It’s good to know that my prime minister can be liberal enough to represent my vote on a private member’s bill, and not the country’s, while the will of the majority is respected.
What he’s saying is that even though he disapproves of the divorce law he still bows to the will of the majority and does not oppose it tooth and nail.
Tooth and nail would have been bringing out the police – who haven’t changed one bit since Tal-Barrani* – and the army.
No matter how you look at it, he still vomited in the face of Smiling Fortune and Good Fate. The Yes win was the best result PN could have dreamed of. Yet they chuck it all away. All because of the Holy Virgin’s tears.
So you casuists are happy then, I suppose. Conscience saved, and election lost. Hooray!
*Baxxter had a scrape with a gorilla in uniform last week. Gorilla? Make that Mukhabarat. The brute was dying to beat me to a pulp with a good old baton. I could see it in his eyes.
The election would be lost by the PN if the divorce bill does not pass because of the PM’s vote.
I consider the PM in parliament as another ‘private’ member when he votes on another MP’s bill.The consultative referendum needs to be interpreted at the committee stage and all MPs in the house have a free vote on it ; ie they should vote according to their personal opinion or conscience , call it what you like.
ciccio2011, stop making excuses for Gonzipn. They/he are in a mess of their/his own making whilst the PL is a mess. If we had a less blinkered way of looking at our local politics we might have different members of parliament in their respective camps resulting in healthier political choices come election day .
Going against a referendum in a democracy is political suicide. Not even God will save Gonzi now.
Why, is political suicide a sin?
I am told that you looked gorgeous at the US party yesterday. This is to balance a comment I posted a few months ago when I poked fun at your sheep like jacket:-)
I am also told that you and Consuelo were chatting to the same people.
[Daphne – I wouldn’t know about that. It’s not as though I even knew she was there. As for the rest, that will teach you to believe the propaganda of my enemies. No credit to me, though, because my parents looked like a couple of 1960s film-stars and I’m really not into hair and make-up.]
I did not and do not believe the propaganda of your ‘enemies’, whomever you perceive them to be. My comment about your sheepskin coat months ago was just a flippant note I wrote after seeing your photo on timesofmalta.com.
The Labour Party has just “won” itself a token gay representative. All it needs now is a token black. And I say this without meaning to sound anti-gay or racist, for I am neither.
Cyrus Engerer is quite obviously being used, even if he doesn’t realise it.
He has also proven himself to be untrustworthy. Try asking anyone who voted for him in the last Local Council elections – who did so to represent them under the Nationalist Party ticket.
No amount of him trying to convince anyone that he will remain on the Sliema Council as an independent candidate will be swallowed, especially if he has quite clearly made the switch to Labour.
In fact, the PN had better start vetting its candidates properly, especially with there being no viable alternative party.
His Facebook profile already says that he is in the Labour Party.
Come on Grezz, you don’t actually believe PL needed Cyrus Engerer to have a token gay representative? If you watch closely or not so closely One TV you will get more than one token gay.
Those are on ONE TV, and are either chefs or rather cooks, seamstresses, hair stylists (more like hairdressers) , actors and entertainers.
The only PL gay MP is still in the closet.
[Daphne – Correction: he thinks he’s in the closet. While I believe that sexuality should not be discussed and that these things are nobody’s business and people shouldn’t ‘come out’ because it’s so very naff and vulgar, at the same time this does not mean that I back hiding, pretending and false fronts. The correct and civilised approach, I think, is ‘say nothing but don’t lie or pretend’.]
On second thoughts I can understand why you pointed at ONE TV personalities, after all ONE TV is the party.
At this point, what the PN has to do to win back the gays from Labour is to engage Pastor ‘GayNoMore’ Manche and to offer him the Dar Centrali for his rituals.
Grezz, Labour will not want a “token black” – without meaning to sound racist, either.
That would scare off their more important recent acquisition – Norman Lowell. He got 3,559 votes, or just over 1% of votes cast in the 2009 EP elections (would that have made him Malta’s 7th MEP, I wonder?). Compare that to Mr. Engerer’s 1000+ votes in the irrelevant local council elections…
This is exactly what I have been afraid of, and trying(in vain) to explain.
The liberal and progressive sections of the P.N. are made to feel unwelcome in the party (and this irrespective of what we read in the P.N. media). They feel lost and don’t know where to go and what to do. They will start looking for a rallying figure. This they will eventually find, and than comes the split.
[Daphne – The rise of religious ‘village thinking’ to the fore of the PN is a very recent thing. It is not that liberals are made to feel unwelcome in the PN, but that they are now feeling alienated, which is different. Eddie Fenech Adami was (is) as religious as they come, but he surrounded himself with people who were (are) not, in his cabinet and his secretariat, and so got a properly balanced perspective. Religion or no religion, politically sound decisions were always given a priority. Look back and you will see that. When Dr Fenech Adami was removed from that context, where his religious instincts were controlled and balanced out by his advisers and some of his ministers, his decisions actually became more unsound than Dr Gonzi’s – hence his advice to his successor to turn divorce legislation into a general election issue despite the referendum result.]
The only solution (as I humbly see it) is for Gonzi to go and to take with him his inner circle, who are the ones who are doing damage to the party.
I know for a fact that most of them are honourable people, and they would see that the only way to save their beloved party is to call it a day and make way for others, and I hope women, of whom, I am certain, there are many, given the chance.
Spot on, Daphne – you put in words my exact feelings which I was not totally aware of myself. I have always voted PN, albeit many times reluctantly due to the excessive social conservatism. However I cannot imagine myself ever voting for this bunch. I still shudder recalling Tonio Fenech’s infamous article in The Malta Independent: petrol, diesel, manuals, sad Madonnas ….
When I heard the news I was taken aback and disillusioned. I don’t know you, Mr. Engerer, but in continuation to Daphne’s article I think you were – maybe still are – in a position, with other like-minded members in the PN, to induce the necessary changes in the party from within.
All in all, I still think the PL is far from being the ideal party to govern Malta in the near future.
If Mr. Engerer felt he had to resign his PN party membership, so be it; but joining the PL was uncalled for especially when I recall a home visit before the last council elections when he inpressed me by his intelligence and deep-rooted convistions in the Nationalist Party. Dear Cyrus you should resign immediately fromr the Sliema council since you no longer represent the Nationalist vote.
I agree with you. He is a intelligent young man and any party will welcome him with open arms.
The P.N. (as usual) did the opposite, and literally scared him away. You ask why? Simple, he was getting too much attention and was seen as too much competition to the other established candidates in his district.
Have we already forgotten the Sliema ex mayor, Dimech?
You can have 11 good football players but they will never make a good TEAM if they all see just their personal interest,and not of the team.
I don’t agree that he should resign. Unlike the general elections, he was not voted in because he was representing a party, but because the Sliema people believed he was the right person to do some good for their localitty.
If Cyrus decides to contest the next election on th P.L. platform, I wish him luck because after all, what this country needs is capable people on both sides of parliament.
It is with sadness that I have to admit that we seem destined to lose all our good ones and have to content ourselves with the ……..you say it.
All he is good at is knowing what you want to hear and telling it to you… a very important thing if you want to get by in the MLP.
Everyone I spoke to is in shock about Cyrus. The common consensus is that it is just not normal for a person to switch loyalties in the span of a few hours. Very odd.
Meanwhile, Daphne, will you allow me to use your forum to ask for some help re a home help? Can somebody tell me how to find a reliable woman, or man, to do the house, preferably when I am not there?
I had one woman sent by the parish priest for a while but I think she did not like what she heard about me so she stopped coming. I am very tempted to employ an African refugee but I am afraid that some do-gooder will report me/her as a black person washing one’s windows is very noticeable.
[Daphne – You can employ a refugee perfectly legally. Refugee status comes with permission to work and earn money. Just go to Dar L-Emigrant and they will put you in touch with somebody. You have no reason to fear being reported unless you are abusing the person by not giving proper payment.]
As if I would not give proper payment! On a few occasions when going to the open centres to give them things such as heaters for the winter etc some man would ask me if I wanted some job done.
A couple of times I asked them to wash my car there and then. I paid them double what the car wash charges because they are so enthusiastic for work and there is not a lazy bone in their bodies.
What did she hear about you? That way we can avoid the same situation. As for employing African refugees, be careful as they do not understand or appreciate the value of certain commodities and furnishings and you will soon end up noticing chips and scratches on your property.
[Daphne – Oh, don’t be ridiculous. You sound like a Tennessee housewife talking about the nigger servants in 1920.]
Bob, I’d prefer a few chips and scratches rather than putting up with some Maltese woman who insists on telling me about the sexual misdemeanors of her other clients, complains that I am untidy or refuses to work if my dog has an ‘accident’ inside.
Meanwhile, an Austrian friend who lives in Malta was as exasperated as I am with the level of home help one gets here. She told me about this one woman who machine-washed her husband’s (the Austrian woman’s) suits when she was asked to have them cleaned.
Now she tells me that she has found that the man she used to employ as a gardener is very good as a home helper and she is trying to convince me that men are better at this job than women.
I have already heard the comment about him – “insomma, trid tkun P***a” to which I honestly answered “U int trid tkun imbecilli”.
But there you are, the caveman thinking amongst us has had the fire stoked no end by Cyrus.
The Labour Party simply seems to be more accepting of gay people. Joseph Muscat was at the Maltese Gay Pride. Gonzi would never go to that in a million years. Since we’re living in a 19th-century country I guess we’ll have to take what we can get.
[Daphne – I wouldn’t go to a Gay Pride parade in a million years either. That doesn’t mean I am not ‘accepting of gay people’. It just means I am indifferent to whether somebody is gay or not, and it also means that I think Gay Pride parades undermine the attempts of gay people to be treated just like everyone else. You don’t claim to want to be treated like everyone else and then in the same breath set yourself apart. I feel the same way about ‘women’, which is why I never join women’s groups or women’s networks.]
It’s a big reason why Labour seems to be the best choice for me. I got bible thumpers on one side and Labour on the other.
Is this Malta Today’s own Matthew Vella? The one from Sliema or St Julian’s or wherever?
No no, I’m another Matthew Vella.
Oh please. Even in America, straight American senators are often at gay rallies. Its simply a message of support.
[Daphne – Support for what, exactly? If there is one place on earth where homosexuals do not suffer any discrimination at all, it’s the United States. I have no patience for this kind of rubbish. Suffice it to say that when British women were marching through the streets against discrimination in the 1960s, Margaret Thatcher was getting on with the business of becoming Conservative Party leader and then prime minister a few brief years later. She didn’t stand about with a placard whining.]
A gay parade isn’t about setting yourself apart. Discriminatory laws set people apart.
[Daphne – You don’t change laws wearing pink feathers and dancing in the street, Matthew. If you want to convey that a situation is serious, you get serious. Women didn’t get the vote by doing a maypole dance in their underwear. They got the vote by assiduous campaigning and lobbying, and when they demonstrated, it was by throwing themselves under horses at the races or chaining themselves to public buildings. The trouble with protesting homosexuals is that they’re mainly men, and hence don’t know they’re born. Mhur ara jekk kienu xi mara qabel 1993.]
Not allowing gay people to get married is setting them apart. Gay prides are about acceptance.
[Daphne – Gay people are allowed to get married and many do so in Malta, which is why the incidence of homosexuality appears to be higher here than elsewhere, and also why you have what appears to be a disproportionately high incidence of siblings/cousins/uncles/etc who are homosexual. Like everything else, it’s genetic – but in the normal course of events homosexual men don’t have their own biological children and in Malta they marry and do so and have done so for generations for a variety of reasons. What you mean to say is that nobody – gay or straight – is allowed to marry somebody of the same gender. I trust you understand – which is why it is crucial to be specific in use of language – that ‘same sex’ marriage is not ‘gay marriage’. A law which allows a man to marry another man, or a woman to marry another woman, will not enter into the merits of whether they are homosexual or not. In other words, you are not obliged to undergo a ‘homosexuality test’. So if straight old Mr Zammit next door wakes up one morning and decides to marry another man for kicks, nobody will stop him.]
Joseph Muscat has made the effort. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kQUz6-6VDY
It’s not going to make a huge difference but it’s still much much better than what Gonzi has done about gay awareness i.e. nothing. You cannot honestly say that the Nationalists are a better option for gay people when they were too Catholic for divorce!
[Daphne – I feel embarrassed on your behalf, the way you are so pathetically grovellingly grateful for a crumb from Joseph Muscat’s table. Have some self-respect, for crying out loud. Know this: respect is taken, not given. Mur ghid lili, whining around politicians’ feet and begging for rights and respect, with or without feathers and spangles. Instead of dancing around Republic Street and moaning in private, how about if you get out there and start working on public opinion, with a media presence and lobbying? I have yet to read a single well-argued newspaper article by a homosexual man or woman laying out the case.]
Daphne, on these issues you take the Thatcherite position: ‘I am proof that there is no need for positive discrimination. Look at me! I am successful through hard work and sheer character’
Using exceptions as examples to why things shouldn’t change really works against your argument.
[Daphne – That was NOT my point, Joseph. My point is one to which I have held all my adult life and, when I think about it, even before that: ghettos ghettoise. To bring about change, for yourself or in general, you have to stay in the mainstream. I used Margaret Thatcher as an example of this, and not as an illustration of how there was no discrimination. Margaret Thatcher did not march about with placards calling for change. She made herself prime minister and boss of all change. That’s what gay politicians should do: instead of marching about in gay pride parades they should work at making themselves boss of change.]
I assume you followed “Mad Men”. That stroll along Madison Avenue in the 60s. It’s quite different to the 90s Will and Grace.
[Daphne – Mad Men is about life in Malta in 2011, give or take a bit here and there.]
The repeal of don’t ask don’t tell in the US military has put a public face to the still influential WASPs feeling threatened by their loss of control over the wheels of power. The Republican Party and the American Family Association are making fools of themselves on this issue and many others.
[Daphne – ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ is not a recipe for repression but for civilised behaviour. I never ask people what they do for sex and I’d rather they didn’t tell me either. People who hold court on the sofa paralysing an entire party with details of their sex life are ill-mannered and crass, and this holds for heterosexual people too.]
Woah gay prides are NOT about pink feathers and dancing around in your underwear. They are definitely part of it but its about voicing your opinion, being a present part of society.
[Daphne – The best way to do that is through lobbying, writing and presenting your views through the media. It’s not through pink feathers and a dance down the street. In fact, the minute you put on your pink feathers and spangles, you’ve undermined your cause. This applies also to straight women campaigning to be taken seriously.]
I can”t believe you think its all about dancing.
[Daphne – That’s exactly what I’ve said, Matthew. Equal rights are not about dancing, so it is a bad idea to build on that perception by…..dancing.]
All over the world powerful men and women and politicians often take part in them.
[Daphne – They take part in demonstrations to save the whale, too.]
I just went to the London Gay Pride. Obviously there was the fun stuff, but it ended with a prominent human rights activist delivering an important message.
[Daphne – More fool he. When children are chained to quarries and looms in Africa, China and India, the last thing a prominent human rights activist should be doing is equating those gross violations and acts of inhumanity with the inability of men or women to marry others of the same gender. It makes a mockery of human rights. Some people are so shallow and frivolous that it is beyond belief.]
And while I understand what you mean you’re just playing semantics. I obviously meant same sex marriage. But at any rate you’re right about that one.
“I have yet to read a single well-argued newspaper article by a homosexual man or woman laying out the case.” – I 100% agree with you on that! We need more prominent gay men and women discussing the issues seriously.
But that’s really not the point.
[Daphne – Yes, it is entirely the point. If homosexuals in Malta (or elsewhere) insist on communicating only through pride parades and LGBT pressure groups, then the perception others pick up is that they are not capable of communicating by the more difficult means of presenting their arguments in well-argued pieces for newspapers, televison or radio. Everyone can put on a feather boa and prance through the streets (if they want to), but it is not just anyone who can lay out an argument soundly and convincingly in writing or speech.]
The point is that a party which is too Catholic for divorce is obviously too Catholic for gay rights!
[Daphne – Look, I am really tired of this. What gay rights? There is nothing that gay people can do that straight people can’t do, and that includes marrying somebody of the same gender. I’m not gay and I can’t marry somebody of the same gender either. And please don’t tell me that I wouldn’t want to. That is irrelevant. Rest assured that wherever same-sex marriages have been written into law, there are people of the same sex who are not gay but who are marrying each other all the same for reasons of inheritance, money, property or even the right to residence and citizenship.]
Yes, you have to give and take. I will voice my opinion, encourage discussion on gay rights, and yes favour a party which is more inviting, or at least less religiously prejudiced.
[Daphne – Use your intelligence. A political party made up of people who supported and perpetrated gross intolerance over two generations cannot possibly metamorphose overnight into a party of tolerant liberals. A pig wearing lipstick is a pig wearing lipstick, not Marilyn Monroe.]
“ If there is one place on earth where homosexuals do not suffer any discrimination at all, it’s the United States”
That is not entirely accurate. The US is in many ways as religious as Malta, in some ways more so. People in the US stand around in the streets waving signs saying “God hates Fags”. Some of them actually make it a point to go out and do that every day, as a family outing in some cases. Same-sex marriage is only allowed in a few states, and even then politicians in that country are constantly claiming to take it away. Denmark on the other hand is the most accepting of same-sex marriage, along with all other northern countries in Europe.
“Gay people are allowed to get married and many do so in Malta”
That is something only someone who isn’t gay would say. Being in such an arrangement causes psychological problems for the homosexual partner and is hardly in the whole spirit of marriage. And before we start claiming that marriage is only about having children and regulating who inherits what etc let s not forget that somewhere in those vows you promise to love the person. Loving someone just as a friend/out of respect and loving someone as a husband or wife is clearly different. No, gay people are not allowed to get married because they are not allowed to be with the person they love. And yes, that is the point of marriage. I’m sure when people go for their Cana Course, somewhere along the line the councilors would like to know that love is actually present in the relationship.
The problem with this point is:
1) It makes out that sexuality is a choice. That the best choice is heterosexuality and that choosing anything else is morally inferior.
2) It claims that other people have the right to veto one’s sexuality because they think it is a choice, and bully homosexuals into living a life that will cause more harm than good not just to themselves, but also to their spouses and people around them just so that the conservatives can live in a world where everyone is straight and they won’t have to worry about this “hidden agenda” they all think gay men and women have.
“So if straight old Mr Zammit next door wakes up one morning and decides to marry another man for kicks, nobody will stop him”
.No straight man is going to do that. It wouldn’t even cross their mind. Only gay people would want to marry someone of the same gender. The same way only straight people want to marry someone of the opposite gender.
Don’t ask Don’t tell is all about discrimination. It means that gay men and women in the army have to censor what they say when talking about their lives.Their lives, not their sexual conduct. In other words, they aren’t allowed to talk about their partners, or introduce their partners to their friends. Why? Because the institution they are part of doesn’t want to know. It is about silencing people. Don’t let anyone know you are gay or you’ll get fired- how is that not discrimination?
–
I have no faith in Dr Muscat. I almost did but that died long ago. I think jumping on the band wagon of his pseudo liberal party is a mistake since at no point have they actually put into action what they say, especially when the opportunity slaps them in the face. I don’t know what Cyrus Engerer has in mind, but he’d better have a good plan. I fear they might just keep him busy doing things he thinks are making a difference when all the while they are just trying to keep him away from actually going ahead with anything.
–
Gay Pride doesn’t work in Malta for a number of reasons. Malta has never had the same sexual revolution the rest of the world had in the past. It is not about out-gaying each other. It’s not really my cup of tea either. The only reason why I go to London Pride is to see the parade. No, it doesn’t consist of men in pink feathers. The people in the parade are all those who are gay and working in TFL, St John’s Ambulance, the fire brigade and emergency services, the army, navy and air force, etc. Each have their own float, or march in their group in the parade, showing the world that gay people exist in every job, even in those jobs one stereotypically does not expect. That is what gay pride should be about. And it is done because not everyone is indifferent to other people’s sexuality.
–
Why anyone would trust Dr Muscat with making these changes is beyond me. He seems to just be taking advantage of the current situation where Liberals are looking for a leader. Sorry guys, Muscat isn’t one. I find him very manipulative and unreliable. But I guess only time will tell.
Oh good lord. If you want to be childish about it go ahead.
A gay couple does not have the same rights as a straight one. Please do not insult me by implying that you have the same rights I do. My committed long term relationships are not given the same value your relationships are. Obviously I have the right to marry a woman. Much thanks.
[Daphne – I’m not being childish, Matthew, but pointing out that lack of logic when presenting a case has never got anyone anywhere. When homosexual couples present their case for civil unions, they must do so by arguing that there is NO CASE AGAINST IT, rather than by crying discrimination, because discrimination does not enter the equation in comparing ‘homosexual couples’ to ‘heterosexual couples’. The comparison that the law makes, when considering discrimination, is whether heterosexual people are allowed to marry those of the same gender (they are not) while homosexuals are not. The point I make is that homosexuals are presenting entirely the wrong case, which is why they have had no luck and will have no luck if they persist in using the same erroneous arguments. Where civil unions between same-sex couples have been made law, it is because the point was repeatedly driven home that there is no case against it. In the words, campaigners argued ‘why not’ rather than ‘why’. I’m giving you some sound campaigning advice here, so don’t be so ready to sneer at it.]
I was not equating the obscene things that happen in “Africa, China and India” to gay people not being allowed to get married. I never said it, never implied it. Just because someone is discussing certain human rights doesn’t mean that ALL human rights issues are on the same level. No idea where you got that one from.
[Daphne – Simple: same-sex couples can enter into civil unions in Britain now, so exactly what is there left to protest about? Nothing. That’s why London pride is a festival and not an angry march, and that’s why the human rights campaigner debased himself and his causes by being there. Not by being at gay pride as such, I hasten to add, but by being where he clearly isn’t needed any more.]
And I guess we might as well stop. You don’t want to read what I’m writing. Like I said gay prides are NOT about dancing. You obviously have never been to one.
[Daphne – I don’t need to, Matthew. There’s television and the internet nowadays, and that’s quite apart from the fact that two of my sons live in the heart of Soho and the parade you mention passes beneath their windows, so I got the pictures in real time.]
There is plenty of dancing but there is ALSO plenty of civilized public discussion, information on support groups, lobby groups, prominent public figures….
And my god, how could an educated woman like you say that ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ was about civilized behavior. I’m not getting into that discussion but you obviously need to read up on it. It was NOT about servicemen not being allowed to discuss their sex lives.
[Daphne – Don’t ask, don’t tell? I’m not talking about that, Matthew, but about something long since forgotten, apparently: good manners. It is lousy manners to ask somebody whether he or she is gay, and even lousier manners to announce it. This falls into the same category of bad manners as asking people whether they are separated, divorced, living with somebody, why they have no children, whether they are having an affair, etc and also talking in detail about your personal life in mixed company or at lunch, dinner, etc or to somebody you barely know. It’s crass, vulgar and irritating. So is making a big positive deal of things. My friend has just told me how he mentioned his boyfriend to some women he knows only at the gym. “Oh wow, so you’re gay?” one of them exclaimed, like he’d just said he’s a gadzillionaire and would whisk her off to the Seychelles for a month. “That’s fantastic! Wow!” And he said that now everytime she sees him, she mentions somebody who is gay and asks him whether he knows him – you know, on the basis that they’re both gay. “I feel like opening a phone-book, pointing to a random woman’s name, and asking her whether she knows her, on the basis that they’re both heterosexual women,” he said. But that’s why we’re friends – we think about this the same way.]
I am VERY well aware of the the fact that Labour isn’t made up of tolerant liberals. But it’s also pretty clear that the Nationalists are even more intolerant and even more staunchly Catholic.
[Daphne – It all depends on what you mean by Nationalists. I think you’ll find that most people like me vote PN not Labour, while the vast majority of the narrow-minded who think in terms of pufti and think of women as chattels vote Labour.]
I’m pretty sure we’re both tired of going back and forth, so this is my last post.
The human rights campaigner did NOT debase himself and his causes by being there. Civil unions in Britain exist but they don’t not offer the same rights and privileges that marriage do. Not by a long short. Not to mention the fact that the word marriages itself is also important. It may sound petty to some but it is not (though obviously the rights themselves are the most imp). Again he isn’t saying that other HR issues aren’t important, but he is simply highlighting the inequalities between the way same sex couples and traditional couples are treated.
On the fact that you’re “giving me some sound campaigning advice here”. I don’t really disagree with anything you’ve said regarding the method. I think you just don’t realize that Pride does help (and the fact that your sons live in Soho, fab as it is, only means that they live in the part of london everyone goes to to get drunk afterwards, you can’t only judge by that).
About don’t ask, don’t tell. NO ONE is EVER asked if they are gay or not. It is simply something they are forced to keep hidden. There is a difference between not mentioning or not discussing something and hiding it. If a soldier does not say he is gay, never mentions it, but somehow someone finds out he would have been booted out.
And the last thing which is what annoys me the most. Your image of labour. My family is mixed but my dad is a staunch labour supporter. He is also a successful business man, who does NOT think in terms of pufti or whatever you said. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be thought of as a labor voter either, i definitely don’t fit the profile you seem to have created. The people who are more polite but also significantly more prejudice tend to be the ever so holy nationalists.
My wife and I, together with our three daughters (my son would not even contemplate the thought) went to the Gay Pride parade in Paris some years back.
It was an unforgettable experience. We all learned a lot.
What, may I ask, could your three daughters have learnt from attending a gay parade?
That people who insist on setting themselves apart at the same time expect not to be set apart by others?
About gimps?
Exactly! I went to the London one! It’s fun and part of it is silly, but it’s an important event with regards to gay rights and awareness.
@silvio
“What, may I ask, could your three daughters have learnt from attending a gay parade?”
The colours of the rainbow, maybe…
(I really do not wish to be cruel).
Daphne, can you elaborate on why you think Gay Pride parades undermine attempts of gay people to be treated like everyone else?
[Daphne – I have done so already, several times.]
Women have achieved equal legislative status to men only as a result of countless demonstrations started by Suffragettes in the late 19th, early 20th century, which, had you been around then, I’m fairly certain you would have attended.
[Daphne – Yes, serious demonstrations that were equal to the seriousness of the situation. None of them involved bikinis or spangles or dance music. That is my point: the minute you involve spangles, feathers, smiles, dancing and music, you have created a carnival atmosphere which says that there really is nothing serious to worry about, and that’s why you’re laughing rather than getting angry.]
The objective of today’s Gay Pride Marches are similarly political and attended by gay people and their supporters who have had enough of being discriminated against in law.
[Daphne – Gay people are NOT disciminated against. I am thoroughly fed up of hearing this. There is nothing in any law which excludes people specifically on grounds of sexuality. That is precisely why no gay person is able to take Malta to the ECHR on any grounds whatsoever, including same-sex marriages so far. The reason gay people can’t marry somebody of the same gender is the same reason no one else can – hence no discrimination. This is a legal nicety some people prefer to deliberately misunderstand, just as they pretend not to understand that laws which allow same-sex marriage will not be there only for gay people but will also allow heterosexual people to enter into contractual unions with members of the same sex if for some reason they might want to do so.]
It would be great to get to a point when it doesn’t matter what anyone’s sexuality is, but that can only begin to happen once the law starts treating gay people just like everyone else.
[Daphne – It does. If I am missing something, please cite chapter and verse of the laws of Malta, to set me straight.]
Political strategy has much in common with the game of chess. As in chess foresight is crucial. In the game there are poor moves from which one can recover, others from which checkmate immediately follows and yet other moves which only the astute player can understand.
I voted no in the referendum primarily because I am against the type of divorce proposed, but if I weren’t, I would have also voted no because I would have not wanted to support a very serious precedent that has now been implanted in the referendum tool, namely that what is offered will not necessarily be delivered. I am not surprised that those in favour of divorce discount this very serious precedent because if they didn’t they would find it very hard to use the argument that MPs should respect the demand of the majority. When the divorce bill will become law one such demand will not be respected because it simply cannot.
I also hoped that the Prime Minister would not change his mind. After all whether he does or doesn’t is irrelevant for the outcome, given that he himself said that the will of the majority will be respected. Irrelevant because it is not the prime minister who wanted the misleading referendum but parliament and it is not the prime minister who will legislate for divorce but parliament.
Back to the chess game. I believe that the PM has made an astute move whilst Mr. Engerer has just self-inflicted a check mate. The only hope Mr Engerer has is that his hitherto opponent is of the mediocre kind – he might as well be lucky given that the best his opponent can do on a chess board is play checkers.
My thoughts exactly – I totally agree with your opinion.
Can’t let the chess analogy stand. In chess you can’t be a moron, make bad moves, then count on your friends to take care of your opponent when you lose. It works in figure skating, not chess.
If he is to have some credibility, then he should resign his seat in the Sliema local council.
It is rich, to say the least, of someone who expects the Prime Minister to resign (because the PM, he says, ‘no longer represents the Maltese people’), but then insists he should keep his own seat in the local council, representing 590 PN voters from the Labour Party HQ.
.
I agree that he should resign his seat in the council, but I believe that lacks clarity of thought right now.
Since he now signed up to become an active Labour Party member, he has no other honourable way out.
It is him who changed the set of principles to which he would like to adhere, not, say the party (in the case of the party from which he resigned) or the mayor. to whom he is the deputy in the council.
Those who voted for him voted for PN principles and policies, not for Labour’s.
10/10 ciccio2011
Very valid point. If Engerer wants to be true to his democratic credentials, the same ones which induced him to abandon the PN, he should do the right thing and resign his seat from the Sliema council.
He was voted in as a PN candidate. Staying on, as anything other than a PN councillor, is undemocratic to say the least.
If we had a system of three times elected then out, then maybe the chaff would be blown away. Until then any young spark is doomed to be a flicker.
<>
Look on the bright side. If you can’t get rid of them, why not have them taken over?
You’ll be voting PL yourself one day.
Couldn’t force myself to read further, sorry. Off to the real news now, known to you sleepwalkers as ‘Kooktown news’.
“But switching to the Labour Party is not just dishonourable, as some have said. Worse than that, it makes you look shallow and unthinking.”
Look on the bright side. If you can’t get rid of them, why not have them taken over?
You’ll be voting PL yourself one day.
[Daphne – That will be the day. Don’t wait up.]
Couldn’t force myself to read further, sorry. Off to the real news now, known to you sleepwalkers as ‘Kooktown news’.
I get the feeling that Mr. Engerer’s wasn’t a knee-jerk decision; more like something that had been brewing for months and finally came to a head.
And to be fair to our PM, I think Lawrence Gonzi is too nice a person for the job. You do need that streak of ruthlessness his predecessor had.
Can someone here please decipher this for me:
“I’ve kept my principles and ideology. I’ve only changed my party” ?
(from: http://www.maltastar.com/pages/r1/ms10dart.asp?a=16106)
If it makes any sense, it could at worst mean that his principles and ideology are not the same as those of the Labour Party which he just joined…
Are there only two ideologies possible, ciccio? The parties are vehicles with which politicians and party members can bring about change. At least the term socialist is losing its derogatory connotations and starting to represent what it truly means in the public’s psyche.
The Right in Malta seems to be using it less often to pummel dissenters.
I like the Maltese system where party members are sort of subordinate to party policy but if it stifles dissent too much then I’d go for the US system where party affiliation is nominal and free.
Look at Lieberman, a Democrat on the ballot paper who consistently votes along Republican Party lines and promoting Republican presidential candidates.
I don’t see anybody frowning at rich influential ‘magnates’ who contribute to both parties or whichever has the odds to win, but that’s business.
Let’s not always choose the safe old options simply because we’re afraid of change.
We have to choose what has a chance of moving us forward. The election is still far away, the parties are making the opening moves. At this point Labour is leading the game and PN is fumbling for a rimonta.
Labour seems to have a good, well organised plan this time.
Elections however are still far away and things can change drastically. The US Presidential election has already started with the offing of bin Laden and the grinding down of Murdoch’s influence. 2012 is looking to be a great year for pundits and fools like me.
@Joseph A Borg:
“Are there only two ideologies possible, ciccio? ”
Why, did I mention any numbers?
“At least the term socialist is losing its derogatory connotations and starting to represent what it truly means in the public’s psyche. ”
Not to me. Socialism is socialism. According to Winston Churchill, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” That is what he said several decades ago. That’s how I know socialism today and how I’ve known it and experienced it all my life.
“Labour seems to have a good, well organised plan this time.”
Please do tell us more about it. Let me know what’s in it for you and me – because that is what really matters. What is their plan for the country? My only hope is that Cyrus will now get his part of the deal with Joseph Muscat and gets him to disclose his plans for Malta now, if he has any, not a few weeks before the elections, when the public will have no time or desire to digest the implications.
@Joseph A Borg:
This is another precise example of what Socialism is all about – fresh from today’s papers.
Read them in this order:
http://www.leobrincat.com/articles.asp?id=531
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/labour-files-police-report-on-illegal-waste-oil-dumping-in-marsa
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110720/local/It-stinks-court-says-of-Marsa-smell-saga.376367
Leo brincat called it an “apparent cover up” (see second article above).
I believe it can be called a “frame up.”
Are there only two ideologies possible, ciccio? ”
“Why, did I mention any numbers?”
Why yes! You implied it’s a zero sum game where one either wins or loses; where one is either right or wrong where one is either far left or far right…
“Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
As opposed to what? The virtue of greed? May I remind you that Churchill got booted out of office at the end of the war. He’d have fought the natives from leaving the empire with whatever ugly stratagem he could. He’s not very credible as an economist… you must be desperate to bring him back from the cold.
“Please do tell us more about it. Let me know what’s in it for you and me – because that is what really matters. What is their plan for the country.”
I was referring to the election. As for post-election plans I’d expect them to be made clear in the run-up with the electoral manifesto. Do you per chance expect a football manager to tell all before the game?
Regarding the smell saga: you are cosy in your interpretation but for those who feel alienated by the PN this story smells fishy.
@ Joseph A Borg:
I had said “If it makes any sense, it could at worst mean that his principles and ideology are not the same as those of the Labour Party which he just joined…”
Honestly, when I wrote that, I thought that I was also implying that alternatively, the opposite could also be true, that is, “at best, his principles and ideology were not the same as those of the PN from which he had just defected.”
I find your understanding, or interpretation, of my statement way off what I had in mind, sorry.
@ ciccio: thanks for the elucidation. The resulting conversation was still interesting though … thanks
From the same interview:
“Dr. Spiteri came to the seminar and did not say that maybe people like me should be granted certain rights and be considered equal in society.”
Here I think Mr Engerer shows defective logic.
Let me arouse your ire (?) by putting forward this analogy:
I am equal to my daughter, but I do not have the right to marry my daughter.
Similarly, Mr Engerer is equal to all other members of society, but he does not have the right to marry another man.
I can’t imagine what life in the PN was like for him. But who knows if it will be any better in the PL. Perhaps he could sort out those posers at LGBT Labour.
I don’t know the guy from Adam, nor have I ever seen him or heard him speak but it seems to me that this is a cowardly and perhaps spiteful move.
It seems that it was a short and simple step for him to go from praising his party and the PM to stabbing them in the back.
One hopes that this was a result of the impetuosity of youth and not an act of conviction.
In the cold light of dawn he might come to realise what a mistake he’s made in throwing in his lot with a party which fought EU membership tooth and nail, which has always fought against freedom (viz. the infamous MLP Foreign Interference Act) and which was always against democracy – (viz. 1981 and the EU referendum).
What will he do then, I wonder?
Does anyone remember Daphne’s post about a Maltastar report ‘No to immature Cyrus’?
daphnecaruanagalizia.com/…/maltastar-tables-a-motion-in-cyrus-en
http://www.maltastar.com/pages/r1/ms10dart.asp?a=11847
Three Labour councillors had signed the motion. Has Cyrus Engerer matured enough for the PL since September 2010? Partit tal-Opportunisti, that is what the PL has become.
And what will happen to his better half? Will he remain in the Sanctum Sanctorum of the PN?
Let us remember that when in the ’90s, Francis Zammit Dimech’s brother John was a PL candidate, he was ousted from that Party because they were afraid he would grass on the other Labourites by smuggling sensitive information to his brother.
Now are we going to see Mr Engerer obtain sensitive information from his better half and pass it on to the PL?
(As far as I know, despite the many tribulations, Mr Engerer and his better half are still together … I stand to be corrected, though.)
Is he still a consultant at the Ministry for Resources and Rural Affairs?
“parties are not like football teams”: actually, people dont change football teams like that.
I sense opportunism, not principles.
I really don’t agree with Cyrus. Switching parties on divorce because the prime minister voted against?
Does Cyrus knows that Muscat made it public that he’s against gay marriages? What will Cyrus do than? Switch parties again? Support for a political party goes beyond divorce.
I prefere a no divorce country under PN that a yes for divorce under Muscat.
How can no one see the real reasoning in this guy’s mind? He is just opportunistic, seeking attention, whenever he can’t reach a goal he just wants to destroy it.
Good riddance from the PN, at last. Everyone who is clapping hands at him joining the PL, should wait and see. The guy is so unreliable.
Cyrus Engerer is a fool. From being in a position able to promote change within the Nationalist Party, he turned himself into Joseph Muscat’s pawn, who’ll use him and then shrug him off at his own leisure. It seems Engerer doesn’t see anything wrong with the way Muscat treated Jason Micallef and Joseph Cuschieri.
It is really getting depressing reading, day in day out, that the P.N.is bound to suffer a defeat come next election.
If we get our act together, we will not lose, but we have to do something. It is the executive of the party that must press for the necessary changes. Time is limited so we must act now.
We must push and pester any member of the executive we know, they must press for changes.
If Gonzi is not ready to call it a day he must be made to understand that it is imperative to have a GOOD cabinet reshuffle, cut the old, dead branches. He has ministers who the majority do not trust anymore. He has ministers who are only looking after their own interest, and they are doing it unashamedly because even they think they won’t be there next time.
Put some new young blood in your cabinet. The party is full of promising young people.
Forget Cyrus. He can be easily replaced.
Go out and meet the people, not to talk but you have to learn how to listen.
I have to close as this is sounding like a sermon but it’s coming from the heart of one who does not want to see his country go to the dogs.
And get some new advisers.
I had the impression that in Pieta’, the responsibility for growth and evolution of the party and its style lies squarely with the secretary general. I think a parallelism between the people who filled that role and the results obtained can be made.
Or better, the party was at a peak when the secretary general was an able intrepreter of all currents, ensuring a result greater than the sum of its parts.
I insist that the Nationalists have one mission: to govern this country, the introduction of divorce being an essential chapter.
What do we get instead? A party at odds with its duty, preferring to interpret policy making as a compromise, a clear sign of entrenched positions.
This from the party who had mastered politics as the art of the possible.
After all, if the legislation of divorce is inevitable, as seems to be the party’s stand, It is their duty, if Christians, to see that a just law corresponding to the needs of this country be enacted.
There is such a difference between laicita’ and laicismo.
It is much better than insisting on doing a Pontius Pilate.
Maybe that is what Cyrus is feeling, which is what Franco went through(albeit in more dramatic fashion).
Will Paul notice?
To sum it up:
They get Cyrus Engerer, we keep Musumeci.
In this debate about divorce, not enough attention has been devoted to some positions taken by the Labour leader.
1. He said that his group had a free vote, but then he had stated, or implied, that the vote was to be a Yes or an abstention, but a No vote was not acceptable.
This is strange, since he had originally suggested that when he becomes a PM in 2013, he will bring forward a private member’s bill and give a free vote. Would he have imposed the same condition to his MPs then? Isn’t a free vote a free vote?
2. After the Parliamentary vote on the second reading, Mr. Muscat stated that Mr. Adrian Vassallo’s No vote will entail consequences. Is it not cheeky for the leader of the opposition who did not earn his seat in Parliament to “indirectly threaten” an MP who was elected by his constituents on a party mandate that did not include the subject of divorce?
In my view, this is more evidence on the sort of PM we will have in 2013.
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/%E2%80%98i-took-it-as-an-indirect-threat%E2%80%99-%E2%80%93-adrian-vassallo
This is all unadulterated hogwash. Hokum across the pond.
Like Engerer, some commenters here and on other sites are over-dramatising their indignation and casting exaggerated judgements on the government and on the PM in particular.
Let us therefore establish one basic fact: the PN is not conservative. Yes, they did take an anti-divorce stand and, yes, most MPs, including the PM, did vote against the divorce bill but, in all other areas, the party and the government are essentially liberal. Education, health, social policy, civil rights and, especially, the economy are but some of the fields where the government is innovative and forward-looking.
By the same token, being in favour of divorce does not, by itself, turn Joseph Muscat into a liberal. As a matter of fact, many of the PL’s policies (such as they are) are not only conservative but reactionary. Consider, for example, how Labour supporters greatly admire the Lega Nord and how the PL is, in turn, admired by Lowell. How’s that for liberal credentials?
Antoine, you forgot to mention that Labour did not take a position about divorce, so they cannot claim they came out in favour of it.
Until of course they had the referendum result in hand. Then, lo and behold, they were all in favour – and all on the right side of history. With the right dosage of threats, perhaps? Or is it another case of Hindsight politics?
http://cyrusengerer.com/elections-2/
…. a true reflection of his principles. He got that one right.
So you want Malta’s gay men (and lesbians) to wait another two decades until the PN reforms itself! Forget it!
[Daphne – It’s not everyone who wants to emigrate to Australia and keep bitching and interfering from half a world away, Joseph Carmel. Labour is the party of people who think of homosexual men as pufti and of homosexual women as nisa-rgiel. The Nationalist Party, on the other hand, tends to ignore sexuality, which I much prefer as that is the way it should be. There’s no point saying you want to be treated like everyone else and then behaving like a screaming queen and a total bitch, as you do. You’re the worst possible ambassador for your cause: a nasty, spiteful old queen who doesn’t even have the redeeming feature of being witty and amusing.]
Why is this guy not using his time to pressure Australia’s Labour PM Julia Gillard to pass gay marriage laws in Australia in the first place, rather than busily interfering with Maltese politics and posting messages on Cyrus’s Facebook yesterday?
Apparently Ms. Gillard opposes gay marriages, and she agrees with the Howard government’s controversial legal amendment that a “marriage is between a man and a woman.”
Because I am Maltese with a Maltese passport that’s why I am interested in Malta … and because I am interested in human rights unlike most PN supporters of this page who claim to be orientation-blind for no other reason than to defend the pathetic record of their party led by a man who makes Borg Olivier look like a politician of robust initiative.
[Daphne – Oh very Maltese and interested in Malta, given that you have lived in Australia for the whole of your adult life and have been collecting a pension for years (where from – Australia?). Exactly what was the point of going to live halfway across the world if you weren’t going to bother throwing yourself into your new life? Typically small-minded Maltese, and then you have the nerve to accuse me of being parochial. Had I gone to live in Australia for good, I’d have become Australian and not spent a lifetime thinking about my rahal.]
How parochial and how pathetic! You are indeed staring at the jaws of a massive defeat come the next election. By the way I’ll make sure I’ll check my spellling in case an extra letter slips in. Ooooo … three llls. Go for it, Daphne!
[Daphne – I can’t believe you’re my parents’ age. You’re a really bad ambassador for homosexuality. Believe it or not, there are actually people about who, because of your behaviour, will think that all homosexual men are necessarily spiteful bitches whose emotional and intellectual development was arrested somewhere around the age of 16.]
And you are such an ambassador to womanhood! Where on earth do you dip up such nonsense? Who says I get a pension from Malta? I never received a pension from any country and unlikely to receive one in the future. I shall be a self-funded retiree. Your are delusional. I know a good priest clinical psychologist who can help with your LP-phobia and anger management. You are mad!
Daphne, sadly you keep behaving like the stereotypical hysterical woman. Why do you keep providing proof of your intollerance and prejudice against gay men? You are as accepting of gay men as Hitler was of the Jews.
[Daphne – Oh my goodness, Joseph Carmel. All these years in Australia and you still spell intolerance with two Ls like a Labour internet ‘elve’? As I have said repeatedly, I am completely indifferent to people’s sexuality, but I am also completely intolerant of t**sers, whatever their choice of bed partner might be. I find you intolerable because you’re a complete t**ser, not because you’re homosexual. Your comment here shows just how cut off you are, but perhaps it will serve the unintended purpose of giving my work partner (a gay man) a much-needed laugh this morning.]
Joseph Carmel – I am very much for the gay cause but I don’t think that you put across the right message. Even when I saw you on Xarabank some years ago (or maybe it was some other programme) you made me cringe because you are so negative.
Stereotypically hysterical.
[Daphne – No, Joseph Carmel. Just fed up of you and your constant screaming and nagging all the way from Australia (God bless the internet because before it was ‘letters to The Times) and, precisely because I am not stereotypical, I’m not at all embarrassed to tell you so. At your great and considerable age, you should have shed your chips a long time ago. You’re a really bad case of arrested psychological and emotional development. Your problems have nothing to do with your homosexuality and everything to do with your very unpleasant personality.]
Joseph Carmel Chetcuti has become an embarassment for the ‘gay cause’.
Joseph Carmel is the proof, if anyone needed it, that Daphne’s blog is read all around the globe. Daphne, you should adopt that old British Empire maxim “The sun never sets on Daphne’s blog.”
Oh that’s rich. “The Nationalist Party tends to ignore sexuality”. So in your opinion for most Nationalists sexuality is simply a non-issue? Seriously?
[Daphne – Sexuality should always be a non-issue, Matthew. The fact that for the Nationalist Party, sexuality is a non-issue is a good thing and not a bad thing. I don’t think you’re reasoning straight: you can’t fight and argue because homosexuality is an issue with certain sectors of the population and in some workplaces, and then criticise the Nationalist Party (and me) because sexuality is seen as a non-issue and an irrelevance. There are several homosexual men and women in key roles in the Nationalist Party. The fact that they don’t Vaseline their eyebrows and wear tight pants or do strange things with their hair like the people at Super One does not mean they are in the closet. It just means that that sort of thing is not for them. You might find this hard to believe, but the vast majority of people, whether heterosexual or homosexual, prefer to keep their private life and their preferences just that – private. That’s the best way to win respect and to be taken seriously, incidentally, whether you hetero or not. How do you imagine women might hope to be taken seriously by holding a ‘women’s pride’ parade and prancing about the streets wearing hardly any clothes? Same difference. I once worked at an advertising agency with a man my age (we were both in our early 20s) who, after several warnings about his personal presentation, was finally asked to leave after he turned up for a pitch to bank executives, wearing a silver net vest on bare skin and ripped jeans. He protested ‘discrimination’, that he was fired because he’s gay. “No”, I said, “you were fired because – after many warnings – you turned up for a pitch wearing what you wore. I would have been fired too had I worn the same things. If you think you should be able to wear camp clothes for pitches just because being gay gives you poetic licence, while the rest of us have to wear dark suits because we’re not gay, then that would be discrimination.”]
For staunch Catholics (which is what you have to be to be against divorce) homosexuality is simply not acceptable.
[Daphne – I know several people who are not staunch Catholics or even Catholic and who voted No in the referendum. I also know several people who are all for divorce legislation but who would pass out if told their son or daughter is homosexual. I also know several people who have no difficulty with homosexuality but who are against divorce legislation. I even know one or two homosexual people who voted No to divorce. I know of a few men who are extremely conservative and who treat their wives like chattels, not allowing them to do anything or have access to money, and yet who voted for divorce. I think you generalise too much, and that’s risky. I’m not being critical. I was the same in my 20s. I discovered a lot of things the hard way, and sometimes it was a real shock and surprise.]
It’s not even something worth discussing. Which is why of course it’s not discussed at all. Thats not that same as being a non-issue which you are implying it is.
[Daphne – There is literally nothing to discuss, Matthew, beyond same-sex marriages. Everything else has long since been sorted and, as I have had to point out many times on this blog, homosexual men – by dint of their gender – have always been at the top of the food chain along with all other men, while women – whatever their sexuality – have been at the bottom. Gay men prior to 1995 had rights married women could only dream of.]
Don’t get me wrong, I hardly think that Labour is incredibly gay friendly, but it is significantly more so than what the Nationalists act like.
[Daphne – That is where you are wrong. Liberalism means acceptance, and not making an issue of those who are considered different while making a big meal of their perceived difference. The true liberal is indifferent to a person’s colour, gender, religion or sexuality. When you make an issue of a type of person, as Labour does with homosexuals, it is hiving homosexuals off as ‘different’. That is the illiberal stance. I would never dream of joining a political party that talks about ‘women’ as though we are a separate species.]
“Daphne – I wouldn’t go to a Gay Pride parade in a million years either. That doesn’t mean I am not ‘accepting of gay people’. It just means I am indifferent to whether somebody is gay or not, and it also means that I think Gay Pride parades undermine the attempts of gay people to be treated just like everyone else.”
Pride events are as much about ‘being treated like everyone else’ as a way for LGBT people to express their frustration, anger or outrage at mainstream society. Organisers usually state that they will end when LGBT individuals and couples have achieved full legal equality, not before. And even then, they might continue just for the fun factor. I know plenty of straight people who join in these events even though, like you, they are also indifferent to whether someone is gay or straight.
[Daphne – They must be pretty desperate for a good time.]
You often use this position as a ‘woman who has been/still is opressed by a misogynist/chauvinst/paternalistic culture’ to argue against LGBT people actively seeking equality (part of which ‘could’ include temporary positive discrimination – like in the UK). I’m starting to think that what you are actually ‘indifferent’ to is the issue of equal rights being entrenched in systems and in law.
Just like the NP.
[Daphne – Not at all. Have you ever heard the maxim ‘dress for the job you want and not the job you have’? The same principle applies here. If you don’t want to be set apart as a homosexual, then don’t set yourself apart as a homosexual yourself. In other words, don’t wear feathers and spangles and bounce your arse at a gay pride parade, because if you do, people will assume – correctly – that you want to be treated differently and actually enjoy it. Similarly, don’t even wear a dull suit and tie and go to a gay pride parade or join any gay networks – if you want to be part of the mainstream, join the mainstream and leave the ghettos to people who enjoy feeling hard done by and victimised. That’s the reason I never joined any women’s group, go to women’s networking thingies or do anything ‘for women by women’. I shudder at the very thought.]
” I know of plenty of straight people who join in these events”
Yes sure, but just for a good laugh.
A crossover from PN to Labour is quite rare especially while the PN is in power. Usually people like this would have defected to Alternattiva. It’s looking as if the Alternattiva vote has shifted to Labour. Cyrus is representing Sliema PN voters and should do the decent thing and resign his seat.
Cyrus, your political career is over. You’ve lost it.
Well, his political career was not much to write home about. He only just made it to Deputy Mayor in a Local Council. Not that he got that far with the help of Labour.
See this article.
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/edward-cuschieri/cuschieri-withdraws-signature-from-anti-cyrus-engerer-motion-following-%E2%80%98expuls
This article contains one sentence which is very interesting:
“In an interview with MaltaToday, he had said he would consider voting for Labour if the party would put full marriage equality in its manifesto, saying gay marriage “makes a big difference to me.””
Is this what Joseph Muscat has promised to Cyrus so that he crosses the party line?
Would it not be in the interest of the public if this were the case?
Be rest assured Cyrus’ political career is anything but over. Hold on tight. How you will soon be squirming!
[Daphne – Hardly, Joseph Carmel. This is my pitch, not yours. I’ll leave Australian politics to you. You leave Maltese politics to me.]
From the looks of it, Joseph Carmel Chetcuti must be working on Queer Mediterranean Memories II.
There goes my respect for this guy. Pity
I can’t see him going far. Betrayed his people. It took years to build trust and in a few minutes he destroyed it.
He would never work for me. I take an employee with half his brain but loyal any time.
Untrustworthy. Both MLP and PN will not trust him any more. Stumbled in his own success.
So the PL got Deborah Schembri and now Mr Engerer. It has already attracted other bright people. It may be becoming the best we could have after this confessional and unliberal government. Well, we are thinking.
[Daphne – You must be joking. The two swallows that have made your summer…]
Deborah Schembri is not just another swallow like Mr Engerer.
She is a feather in the PL cap. The problem is that the PL cap is still tattered, smelly and dirtier than the PN’s.
Daphne, may I invite you to discuss the implications of Joseph Muscat’s warning to Adrian Vassallo: there will be consequences.
What do those words mean, in your opinion?
Crossing over from PN to LP doesn’t make any sense.
The people who voted for you in Sliema should be respected.
The Labour Party does not represent a liberal movement but a concoction of disgruntled individuals wiith the sole aim of regaining power.
Cyrus, you have lived only in Sliema and do not remember the bad old days like me as I live and have lived and work in Zejtun and thereabouts in the South. I am “incazzato nero” with the PM and the divorce issue, but on balance I now live in peace.
With the same people in the MLP (can’t get myself to say the new name) still in place, the future is not bright for Malta if Muscat becomes prime minister.
It is difficult for some to forget the bad old days when the old labour ministers of the day have been dragged out again to form a prominent and very active role in Joe Muscat’s so called New Labour.
I hope Cyrus Engerer will realise that some of the people he will now be hob-nobbing with are the very same ones who looked the other way when Nationalists were used for target practice by labour bullies at places like Tal Barrani and Rabat when he was not even a twinkle in his father’s eyes.
Cyrus Engerer has just made it twice as difficult for any gay man or woman to be seen as effective, serious or trustworthy in any political party. A pity.
He could have achieved much more for the gay community within the governing party to get the best deal possible for gays out of the cohabitation bill that’s due in Parliament in a few months.
Labour won’t introduce gay marriage and has repeatedly said so.
Muscat’s strategy for divorce would NOT have seen divorce introduced (with a private member’s bill and a free vote after the next general election if Labour won).
Despite the Prime Minister’s personal beliefs and vote in Parliament, Malta will have introduced divorce in a week’s time under a Nationalist Prime Minister’s watch and mostly due to his granting a (genuine) free vote to PN MPs which they have exercised.
In just one legislature since 2008, a Nationalist government led by Lawrence Gonzi would have seen divorce and gay civil unions introduced in Malta. How’s that for some liberal substance?
For all his talk, Cyrus Engerer would have been much more effective within the Nationalist Party than he can ever be within Labour.
.
You are giving this guy too much exposure. It is what he wants.
[Daphne – Your attitude reminds me of life in the school playground. We’re grown-ups now, remember.]
…’parties are not like football team’…. well parties SHOULD not be like football teams… in Malta PN and PL are…
Dan huwa kollu hruq tal-labour zammejna tajjeb ghal din il-krizi ekonomika,.
Nahseb li kull minuta li Cyrus Engerer jaghmel fil Kunsill b’hala kunsillier indipendenti, jiena (u nahseb hafna ohrajn) narha li tfisser qerq, tradiment u serq tal-voti ta’ dawk li ivvutawlu bhala kandidat ghall-kunsil f’isem partit politiku li ghazel hu, u naturalment dawk li ivvutawlu.